A Tiny Cow or Tiny the Cow

Hello Stamplings!

How're you doing? Times are again a bit uncertain and the weather is again all over the place around the world and for the bazillioneth time, I'm grateful I have an escape. Otherwise, I don't know, I might have a drinking problem, or possibly be in jail for spousicide, or locked in a padded cell blowing bubbles through my nose. 

Who knew a few hundred thousand dollars worth of craft supplies would make such a difference in lives?! We did! It's our little secret.🙊

I just have one quick card for you today:

And here with her arm raised to toast you is our cow friend, Tiny. Tiny is from the Penny Black Vintage Collection. As you can see, the sun is starting to set and in Tiny's family (and ours) that means cocktails, especially during the holidays. You may remember that Hammy often takes a vaycay in early December after all the Christmas cards are mailed. He took this photo of Tiny a couple of years ago (pre-Covid) while visiting her in Baja. 

Tiny has since mooved into the Udderly Divine Bovine Retirement Village so in future she will have to hide Hammy in her Santa hat if there are any other cows around. Because you know ~ cows and rodents. (Great Chicago Fire of 1871.)

The photo of Tiny was too good not to frame and put on the mantle every year at Christmas time, so I used red glitter paper for the mat and for the sediment. I used a torn piece of paper to delineate the sand and ocean. I used a cloud stencil and blended CP ink for the sky and I used a colored pencil for the sand and sand dollar. The Flying Gulls are NBUS from Memory Box.

(If you're nautical by nature, you might notice that the ocean horizon is not level. It's because the little photographer had had a few cocktails himself and not because a Sue Nami was about to hit unsuspecting Tiny.)

Challenges

• Day of the Month Card Club: Cow Appreciation Day.
  
• Just Add Ink: Just add two: sky, sea, trees.
  
• Penny Black Saturday: A/G (optional monochrome).
  
• Rudolph Days: Anything Christmas goes.

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy and keep safe! LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! Please let me know you came by so I can be sure and return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling: Click CTL + Home. Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post. Click Page Down to reach the end of the post. Click Comments and a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)

When a Fern Becomes a Fir

Hello Stamplings,

How are you as you start the weekend? I hope you've had a great week and enjoyed some sunshine. It's been really perfect here with cool temps and I'm loving this time before it gets too hot for my delicate sensibilities.😂

Okay, let's begin our program for today. Our guest star is the stunning Fresh Fern from the Penny Black family! Please give her a warm welcome!

Fern is a NBUS stamp and today she is wearing an outfit of three shades of green, which she misted with water, before laying on the paper. Hammy chose simple faceted glass for her earrings and necklace and she has been photographed against a linen embossing folder, whose edges were lightly tinted all around with green.

Fern wanted to appear today to remind you about the current Twofer Card Challenge where "Leaves" is the prompt word. But is she the appropriate choice for such a reminder? Well, the Board of Directors of today's Art in the Park program had a spirited debate about whether Fern would be allowed to be a leaf model. After thorough research it was found that "the botanical world considers the frond to be a large divided leaf." 

Loud applause erupted from the park bleachers where Fern's many fronds were seated. Too bad this is a birthday card, or I would have channeled Michele and computer-generated a punny sediment like, "I'm grateful you're a frond of mine!"

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Birthday.
• NBUS: Anything new goes.
  
• Penny Black Saturday: Anything PB goes.
  
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Clean and simple.

 

Twofer

The more I looked at Fern's full glory on my first card, the more I began to see Christmas trees, so, tada, I made a second design using a fun pickup truck called "Big Delivery" from Taylored Expressions. I did the marker/spritz on the tree (fern) and used my Karin brushes to watercolor the truck. The diecut sediment was a gift from a friend. To finish the design, I hand-doodled a frame and Hammy winked the fiery truck.

Challenges

• Krafty Chicks: CAS.
• HLS April Christmas: Anything goes; option 'under the tree.'
  
• Holly and Ivy: Anything Christmas goes.
  
• Watercooler Wednesday: All things masculine.

~~~

I hope you will have time in this coming week to stretch your design skills and join in before April 24th. Remember you do not have to make one design an unconventional one; they can both be conventional. 

When you click over to the Twofer Card Challenge blog, you will see that our talented Designer Anita has created another incredible pair of leaf designs to remind and inspire you! You won't want to miss that, nor all the wonderful creations already in the gallery!

~~~

Coupla 😒 things:

• Subscribers to my blog: By now you have prolly heard that Blogger is discontinuing Feedburner email subscription service in July. That means if you are receiving email notifications in your inbox via Feedburner whenever I post on this blog, or on my NBUS or Twofer Card Challenge blogs, that will no longer be happening as of July. I think this will be a profound change for a lot of us. I know I subscribe to hundreds of you via Feedburner and I'm sad that I will no longer be notified when you publish a new post. Until I find out any more information, these are options for you:
• If you own a blog and you haven't already done so, you can click on the blue "Follow" button on the right side bar of my blogs. You will then be able to see when I publish new posts on your dashboard list or on your own side bar. For this blog, you also have the option of subscribing via Bloglovin by clicking that link to the right and Bloglovin will notify you when I publish a post. (bloglovin dot com)
• If you do not own a blog, please email me if you wish to continue receiving notice when I post and I will let you know via personal email. (darnell dot knauss at gmail dot com)
• Either way, you can save my blog URL in your bookmarks for easy reference. (djkardkreations dot com)
  
  
• Taking medical leave: As you may remember, since the beginning of the year I have been dealing off and on with a fractured T10 vertebrae in my back. It did get better for a while, but a few weeks ago I did something to reverse the healing and it has become very painful again. Sadly, the worst pain happens when I type, no matter which chair or position I use. Every day I have done less on the computer, but it isn't getting any better and it seems the only way it can heal fully is by complete rest. So ... except for a bit of housekeeping for Twofer and NBUS, Hammy and I are taking a long break from the computer. Thank you for your patience and good wishes! 
  
  

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy and keep safe! Life is too short! 

Mwah!💋 

Your Special Day and Christmas Rainbows!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Easter weekend, although by the time I get this posted, it will no doubt be mid-week. That seems to be my new normal now as I start something and then a warm breeze blows through my meager thoughts, scattering them like moths under the street lamp. Then I'm off to gather them up, or head off in an entirely new direction! 

Eventually I wend my way back to creating and sharing. It may take me longer, but I get there in the end and here are my latest makes.

Onefer

Most of you will prolly remember this stamp from the cute Penny Black set called "critter celebration." It was very popular, just as the fabulous Anita Jeram stamps are now, and eventually I succumbed to buying the set. And then it sat because by that time I thought the interwebs had been saturated with the sweet critters. Now, with Hammy gone, I went looking for another critter to play with so this NBUS set is finally getting some love.

Using some pretty pp from SU, I paper-pieced the flower, stem, and mouse. I think I've mentioned before that paper-piecing is one of my all-time favorite techniques. I think it's because it reminds me of playing with paper dolls. I remember having lots of fun making more clothes out of magazine pictures. The sediment might also be from Penny Black. Some matching mouse-colored schplattering and a wee butterfly finished the scene.

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Paper-piecing, stamping, fussy-cutting, and schplattering.
  
• Penny Black Saturday: A/G, optional "cute."
  
• Pixie's: Anything snippets goes. Happy 400th Challenge, Di!!
• Seize the Birthday: Anything birthday goes (w/o option).

Twofer

This is thinking outside the Christmas box of decorations, isn't it? It's like bleu cheese. You're either gonna like it or you're gonna hate it. Either way, this was a fun and QACAS OLC design that took only minutes to make. I used the "poinsettia row" stamp from STAMPlorations, colored with markers and spritzed. Hammy would love winking all those colors, so I left them for him to do when he gets back. (They are on the move again, so that's good!)

Challenges

• AAA Cards: Two quarters and option of rainbow.
  
• CAS Christmas: Rainbow.
  
• Christmas Craft Creations: Christmas flowers.
• Retro Rubber: Rainbow connection. The poinsettia row stamp came out in 2016.
  

~~~

A First

Normally, I put the laundry away right after folding, but the other day, I left it for a few minutes and when I came back into the room and glanced at the basket, I cocked my head to the side wondering when we acquired a sheep-skin rug.

Wait. What?

It was just the little diva, Nellie! You will notice that she, too, needs to be laundered and thankfully she sees the groomer tomorrow! 

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Keep safe!

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, especially since I've been slow with my return visits, and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! See on Saturday with April's Twofer Challenge!

*Life is too short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling: Click CTL + Home. Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post. Click Page Down to reach the end of the post. Click Comments and a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)

Add Schparkle at The Flower Challenge!

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome to August already! Whoosh!

August's full moon is the Full Sturgeon Moon.🐟 It's a wonderful month for star gazing and the month of the Perseid🌠Meteor🌠Shower, which peaks between August 11 and 13. This year, the falling stars peak right around the last quarter moon🌗, which means the moon shouldn't wash out too many of them!

August 1-7 is International Clown Week!🤡

And August 4-25 is the running of the internationally popular Flower Challenge! I happily have the honor of being the Guest Designer this month and the challenge prompt is perfect for me: "Add Sparkle!" 

Who doesn't love a little schparkle on a card?!

This pretty flower (which in itself is shaped like a schparkler!) is a Penny Black cling stamp called, "Together." Loll taught this technique at our last retreat. In brief, you stamp your image with Versamark ink, set it with sticky embossing powder, brush it with Pearl-Ex pigment powders, and then heat-set it again. Loll does a great job of explaining it here.

I was itching to add schplatter, but decided to keep it simple with just a lovely sediment and a pointed narrow Poppystamps frame to draw your eyes in. You know, to the flower, but not so far in that you're cross-eyed.

Here's a closeup:

I hope my card has inspired you to glitterize, glossify, wink, or otherwise add schparkle to your pretty flower design for this month's The Flower Challenge! I can't wait to see what you create!!👀

I. Hammy's Union Update

You might wonder if Hammy was upset that I used Pearl-Ex instead of letting him wink on the schparkle. He wasn't. I've given him some time off after several exhausting negotiating sessions with me about the advisability of joining/forming a union.

After my post about this, Hammy was very kindly invited to form an offshoot chapter of the Canadian Therapeutic Riding Horse's Union by his friend Susan. And then Mrs. A. (his friend from England) formed HAMAS (Hampster and Mice Appreciation Society) in Hammy's honor. Lastly, he discovered that there was an old unexpired Union licensing agreement available on Ebay in South America. 

But in the end, after a lot of defibrillation, he decided that I provide a pretty amazing environment for him and I meet his every little need. So we're all good for now, but I must hurry and finish this because he asked me for some peeled grapes ten minutes ago. 

II. Nellie Update

Nellie made it through her appointment at the vet where she had a great checkup and she got a passing grade on her teeth, except for her two teeny-tiny front teeth on the bottom which had to be pulled because of bad pockets of bacteria. Two days later, she was pampered at the groomers, so her needs have all been met now, too. 

Well, except for the ever constant . . .

Sugar-free from now on, little girlie!

~~~

Challenges

• Less Is More: Summer Flowers.
• Penny Black and More: Say It With Flowers.
• Penny Black Saturday Challenge: Anything Goes.

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Please take care and be well!

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! Please let me know you came by so I can be sure and return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling: Click CTL + Home. Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post. Click Page Down to reach the end of the post. Click Comments and a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)

I Think of You Each Day

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well and hanging in there. I mean that. It's hard. Like so many of you, my mojo is laying around like a 17-year-old dog in the sunshine. "Hey," you yell, "Hey, get up!" 

Nope. Not happening. The dog just shoots you the eyeball as if to say, "Go walk yourself." 

So what do we do? We turn to many of the wonderful challenges that are plugging along, coming up with brilliant ideas and inspirational designs to help us keep interested and active in this hobby we love.

A burrow around Blogland lead me to this:

Less Is More is looking for clean and simple border cards. Hammy and I put our heads together and discovered that we both thought of the definition of border that represents the horizon. Webster gives one of its definition as, "the edge or boundary of something, or the part near it." 

I have a small box of letterpress cards and envelopes that I purchased a few years ago. I'm not sure now what I was spose to do with them, but I grabbed one for this card. I used a piece of tape and blended both DIs and DOs in peeled paint, bundled sage, salty ocean, and wilted violet to make the border between the ground and the sky, representing a new day. The ink loved the letterpress paper and I'm happy to find a way to play with it. 

The NBUS sediment is from the "I Like Your Style" set which was sold as part of the Simon Says Stamp 2013 Card Kit! I chose it because I decided to send this card to Verna, getting lonelier every day in the small care home she's in. It's heartbreaking to think of how many men and women are alone around the world because of Covid.

Challenges

• AAA Cards: One layer ~ no option.
• Color Throwdown.
• Less Is More: Borders.
• STAMPlorations: June CAS Challenge. A/G.

 

Twofer

Next, I saw that the current Flower Challenge is looking for navy (plus one other color) flowers, so I grabbed my NBUS Penny Black slapstick "Fabulous" stamp and did my favorite direct-to-stamp technique using SU markers and a spritz bottle to create a watercolor look. I find all these PB slapstick stamps lend themselves so well to this technique. The Happy Day sediment is from GKW. Hammy added some winking and I finished it off with a trio of dew drops.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Holiday. (Happy 8th Birthday!!)
• The Flower Challenge: Navy and one other colour.
• ModSquad: Watercolor.
• NBUS. Never-before-used-schtuff.
• Penny Black Saturday Challenge: A/G ~ optional spots and/or stripes.

Nellie

The yard is ablaze with color from lantana, butterfly bush, two white oleander trees, and various potted plants (not shown). The Mister placed his beloved companion on the wall for a late afternoon portrait to share with you.

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Stay safe. Please.

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! Please let me know you came by so I can be sure and return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling: Click CTL + Home. Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post. Click Page Down to reach the end of the post. Click Comments and a pop-up box opens. Click "Jump to Comment Form" and wallah, no more car pool tunnel! Mwah! (p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!)