Happy Pencil (Stencil) Day! Happy April Fool's Day! Happy Easter! Phew!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are feeling your oats, cheerios, or bran flakes, because as you can tell from the title, we have busy days ahead of us this week! You might think Happy Pencil Day is a joke because of April Fool's Day, but it snot. It's truly a day to celebrate the pencil. Which we know, sadly, is becoming obsolete.

I've made a card for the occasion and for S = Stencil on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar on this rare fifth Monday of the month. 

Onefer

I used a NBUS stripe stencil from Honey Bee Stamps for the notepaper background, inked in navy blue ink. Next, I sponged ink around the edges to draw your eyes to the hocus pocus sweet child in the center holding her mysteriously humongous pencil. 

The image is "tiny townie Penelope has a pencil" from Stampingbella. That sentence is a Double Alliterative, in case you wondered. I would have gone for a Triple by adding ... "poised pointedly."

I colored the image using my Ziggies and Hammy topped it off with his winker. I cut the image using a stitched oval die from MFT. The text panel is from my pp stash and the wee sediment is part of the stamp set. (Please ignore the splotch in the lower right. Sometimes hamsters have to sneeze.)

Playing in: AAA Colourful (Navy and Gold); Addicted to CAS (Stripes); Freshly Made Sketches (Sketch by Amy).

Twofer

I used a new set of ink pads which I received from The Mister yesterday for no specific reason. What a sweetie!♥️The image is dynamic and, as you can see, very emotionally evocative. I colored it with ... wait. What?! Oh, that man! He got me with an April Fool's Day prank ~ clearly the ink pads were filled with invisible ink!!

Threefer

This pretty NBUS stencil from Pinkfresh Studio is inked over its partner NBUS coverplate die called, "Petal Mosaic." The three inks I used are from Catherine Pooler and the sediment is an ancient PTI favorite. Bun E. Frogman came out for his annual hello to you!

Playing in: Just Us Girls (Stencil Week); Try it on Tuesday (Spring); and Pinkfresh Studio (March 2026 Challenge).

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Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! 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! 

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and Happy Spring to all! Enjoy this time with your family if you are fortunate to be together!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!

Happy Make-More-Cards Week!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well as we whoosh around to the last Monday of February! I'm pickled tink that I managed to post every Monday this month and I so appreciate of all of you visiting and commenting!

I have to admit I "stretched" the title of the post a bit. It should say, "Play More Cards Day" and it was yesterday and only for the day and they don't mean handmade cards, but in the pocket of my tan jacket in the back of the closet you'll find a creative license under the name Art Blanch which allows me libations.

So, hurrazah, let's make more cards this week! It is also the fourth week of the month on my I.D.E.A.S. calendar, so woohoo, A = Anything Goes!

Onefer

Goodness, I'll wait while you get your sunglasses! In fact, I'll grab mine, too! The sun turned my springy lime green into sassy Char Truz! I used a NBUS stencil from the "Rising Wildflowers" set from Pinkfresh Studio. The die was out of stock, but rather than tossing the stencil on Mt. NBUS, I went to work blending CP inks and then I went over parts of the flowers with my watercolor pencils for a little more dementia. 

The scalloped frame is from Pink & Main, the NBUS "birthday" die is from Poppystamps, and the tiny "happy" is ancient from WPlus9.

Challenges: Addicted to Stamps and More (Make Your Mark); Colorful Options (Pink/Purple); and Pinkfresh Studio (February).

Twofer

When I saw Lisa's Mood Board at Just Us Girls, this design quickly came to mind. When Hammy is over at Daphne's playing with Stanley (and Daphne's dwarf hamster Dwayne), she often gets out her tea set for make-believe. It all starts out well, but before oolong, the lads start scampering, sending everything arse over teacup ~ literally. Fortunately, Daph is a light-heated lass and their antics send her off into peals of laughter! 

I used a NBUS coffee mug die from Simon Says Stamp, cut from a snippet of pretty pp. The hamster stamps and dies are from Your Next Stamp and Your Next Die. The window die is from Poppystamps and I backed it with vellum patterned with silver leaves. It still needed a little sumpthin, so I added some silver baseboard as a ground and fern bits cut from silver using a NBUS "Dainty Ferns Die" from Waffle Flower. The NBUS sediments are from Pinkfresh Studio.

Additional Challenges: Alphabet (V for Volume); Inkspirational (Mug); Critter Crazy (Anything Goes); and Snippets Playground (Use Your Snippets ~ I remembered to take a photo!).

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! 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! I'm becited to see all your cards this week!♣️🎴

*Life is too short!

     

Happy Gal N. Tine's!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well or you soon will be! 

I made some cards! There are so many challenges celebrating Valentine's Day, or Galentine's Day, or Hearts-n'-Love-For-No-Reason-Day that it's hard not to be inspired! It's "D = Dies/Die Cuts" week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and I happen to have purchased a few things (cough) recently to help motivate me. 

Today's NBUS feature is the "Jar of Wishes" from Pinkfresh Studio. All the rest of the schtuffs I used today are BUS!

I cut the Jar of Wishes from a light gray cardstock and then again from vellum and used the matching stencil to add pink highlights. I cut the lid from a scrap of cork and then filled my Jar of Wishes with little pink and red heart flowers from Impression Obsession dies. The SWAK stands for "sealed with a kiss." Anyone remember writing those letters on the flap of envelopes back in the last century? SWAK is from Penny Black and it comes in a 3-pack with XOXO and I💗YOU.

For the background I used one of those O(ld)BUS narrow embossing folders, shown here with Ms. Val:

Just to be different, I alternated embossing and debossing down the length of the card front. Here's a close up of the card:

Playing with: Pinkfresh February Challenge and Little Red Wagon.

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Next I used a NBUS die that was a gift last Galentine's Day from my friend Ang, lovingly known to many of you across the pond as Mrs. Duck. Hammy calls it a quilt die because it has so many panels and there are so many designs you can make with it. My puzzle-lovin' heart had a ball!

Playing with: Color Hues.

Playing with: Just Us Girls.

Playing with: Addicted to Stamps and More and CAS on Friday

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

And enjoy the Olympics! It's impressive to see all the athletes so dedicated to their sport, but it's also emotional as they alternate between the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It was so sad that Lindsey Vonn broke her leg, but she sure gave it her all!

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and thank you so much for the warm welcome back to Blogland last week!

I'll leave with my annual crocus photo. They are sure to bring a smile, especially if you are still snowbound and frigid! I'm sorry, what?

*Life is too short!