Anemones And Snow People

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you're doing well and keeping cool! The temps have dropped a little bit here and any wee drop is very welcome! I pray for those impacted by the heat and the horrible fires.

Let's start today with a bright summer design:

I'm pleased with myself for making a watercolor card with this NBUS stamp within a few days of getting it, she says, patting herself on the back. The stamp is from Honey Bee, called "Framed: Anemones." I used my KGT paints and other than that, the stamp does all the work for you because the wide frame is part of the stamp. (Thank you, Emily Midgett.) Handsome little Hammy added liberal winking. In real life, the colors are more vibrant, the shading more pronounced, and the schparkle more schparkly.

Challenges

• Seize the Birthday: Colors: Purple, Blue, and Green.
• Addicted to Stamps and More: Any Occasion.
• Cardz 4 Galz: Get Inky.
• Double D: Colors: Purple, Blue, and Green.
  

Twofer

And now to cool you off, here is a page from a photo album of the Snowfolks. I turned to my Christmas bits binder and found these guys already die cut. Score! I colored them with my Ziggies and made the album design using panels cut with an MFT die. The four panels were placed atop a piece of silver-embossed pp. Hammy went on a deep dive into Miss Elaine Yus's box of goodies and found this old glossy holly embellie which works perfectly in the bull's eye center!

Challenges

• Christmas Kickstart: Show us your Snowfolk.
  
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: AG using snippets (snowfolk and panels). Join us for a cocktail & recipe exchange by the paddling pool! Here's mine: Vodka Lemon Drop Cocktail
  
• Rudolph Days
  
• Shopping Our Stash: WTH Embellishments!

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Oh, Blogger! 😕 Oops, here come's another ant. I mean rant.

• I want to apologize if a bunch of my old posts suddenly popped up in your inbox last week. I didn't do it, honest. Blogger had some sort of mental breakdown again. And it didn't just impact my posts; a lot of your posts from months ago ended up in my inbox, too. No clue why. No explanation from Blogger.
  
  
• Not only that, but I just learned from a friend via the NBUS gallery that Blogger deleted two of her posts with a terse popup saying they violated child safety guidelines ~ which, of course, is totally ridiculous. Worse still, get this: The email said that if she wished to "request a review" of their findings, she could click on a link. When she clicked on the link (in both instances), the popup said this: "400. That's an error. The server cannot process the request because it is malformed. It should not be retried. That's all we know." Seriously? 

• Not only that, as I mentioned in a post in May, your friends comments might be in your Spam folder. It is located under Comments on your dashboard. At the top of the Comments is "All" with a drop-down arrow. There you will see All, Awaiting Moderation, Published, and Spam. Make sure you check all your folders occasionally. In addition to legit comments showing up in the Spam folder, unpublished comments are also still showing up in my list of "All (published)" comments on the dashboard of my blog.
  
  We always assume the comments in the All list are all published because they should be and, unfortunately, you can't tell by looking at the list of comment if some unpublished comments are lurking in there. So now every few days I have to scroll down the far right side of the list to make sure there aren't any checkmarks that appear as the mouse rolls down the column. If there are, I just click on the checkmark and a popup asks me if I'm sure I want the comment published. Duh! So frustrating.
  
  (This is so hard to explain. Please email me or call me if none of this makes any sense!) I managed to blog for over ten years without having this glitch with comments. Someone at Blogger caused it, so why has it been months without someone fixing it back to the way it was?  

Nothing can be done about these things, but I wanted to give you a head's up so that if it happens to you, at least you know you're not alone. Please share if you do know clues or answers to these things that are happening.  

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After all that, we need a laugh:

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, being a follower, and leaving me some love!

p.s. I'm happy to say my meds got sorted out Monday morning by the two parties involved without any further intervention from me! Imagine that! I appreciated your sharing your experiences and your comments of support. I'm sorry that so many of you have been in similar situations.💕

*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!)

Golden Threads and Rainbow Colors

Hello Stamplings,

I hope this finds you doing well and you aren't being blown away by the wind. I'm a very fortunate lady to have friends all around the world and talking about the fierceness of the wind is one thing (besides crafting) that has been consistent in our correspondence the last few years. Batten down your hatches! And if you don't have a hatch, have a drinkie-poo!

I had to jump in and play with Ina's Trend Week challenge at Just Us Girls where she wants us to use foil on our alcohol ink panels. Here's a portion of the panel Hammy and I created.

I decided to make an Easter card for those of you who celebrate, so I used a PTI oval to cut eggs from the panel to use on my card:

Very simples. The grass is a die from Poppystamps cut in three different colors for some dementia. Also playing in:

Double D: Easter.

Pixie's Snippets Playground: A/G, but must use snippets, which I did for pieces of Yupo and grass.

Poppystamps: Add texture.

Twofer

I made this simples card a while back using some of that gorgeous gold-outlined pp pad that I received from a dear friend. I was chuffed to find a piece of colored card that matched the beautiful shade of green in the pattern. The beautiful font sediment die is also from Poppystamps.

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Then This Happened

A botched visit to a plastic surgeon for lip fillers? Haha, no, thank you! This young woman is unnamed in an article I found on the interwebs about angioedema. I wanted you to see what the lips did and not be distracted by all the age spots and winkles I have. But my lips do look like that. I woke up that way this morning. Spider bite maybe? I hadn't eaten anything out of the ordinary.

I took a couple of Benadryl, but my upper lip did not diminish in size so we headed to the emergency room at noon. The doctor recognized it as a symptom of an Ace Inhibitor type of medication I take for heart disease and he took me off it immediately. Then he gave me a cocktail in my arm (what's the fun in that?) of all magical things that would make my lips return to normal size. Five hours later and nothing had happened so he sent me home.

Hopefully, it will just take another coupla days to get better and it won't get worse in terms of my tongue and throat swelling, too, which can happen. We don't want that. That would be very bad.

Gee, so far 2022 has blanked the blank and blank. But it will get better! It always does! Hold on and Happy Easter!

Mwah!

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!)

Krafty Chicks ~ Christmas

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you doing well. If not, hang in there! I have a coupla friends who don't like the expression "hang in there," so I try not to use it much, but sometimes, really, it's the best thing to say. I looked up some alternatives because you can Googlify anything and sure enough, here are some options:

Grin and bear it ~ seems harsher than hang in there. Snap out of it ~ definitely harsher. Soldier on, see it through, keep at it ~ that's all fine, if it's a marathon you're training for, or boxed furniture you are putting together, but when something is out of your control and you just need to be patient and hope for the best? Then we just have to hug ourselves and hang in there.

And, if we're lucky, get crafty!

Thank you to everyone who played in the Krafty Chicks "Stamp Act" challenge last week! It is the second Thursday of January and this week the theme is "Christmas." Here is my card to inspire you:

This beautiful forest is part of the exclusive Simon Says Stamptember 2021 set by Tim Holtz which my friend Harriet kindly let me borrow. It is one of those images which works beautifully using the direct-to-stamp technique for a wonderful loose watercolored look. The sediment is heat-embossed in platinum and the frame is from Pink & Main.

I look forward to seeing your stamped creations! You can find all the details and the linky tool on the Krafty Chicks blog. 

I'm also playing in these challenges:

• CAS Mix Up: Loose watercoloring.
  
• Four Seasons: Anything goes winter.
  
• Peace on Earth: Anything goes Christmas.

Twofer

The holly leaves are NBUS from the Simon Says set called "The Magic of Christmas." The NBUS sediment from Gerda Steiner's "Balancing Mouse" was heat-embossed in silver. Hammy had a field day with the schplatters. 

Well, with the gold schplatters anyway. We have a gold spray, but not a silver one, so Hammy thought we could make one out of water and Nuvo glitter drops. It was a clever idea until this happened:

Tip: If it seems like it just needs a little encouragement to come out, don't squeeze the life out of it or you'll squeeze the literal life out of it! Geezopeezo. Did it all land on the desk, you ask? No, of course not, silly. It went all over the floor and all over me ~ somehow missing the critters ~ but I'm now the proud owner of a glitter-schplattered navy sweatshirt, so score!

Challenges

• CAS Christmas: Silver and gold.
  
• Just Us Girls: Trend Week: Inked or sprayed backgrounds.
  
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use snippets. I've only used a snippet of vellum this time. Congratulations to Di for her darling new dedicated snippets blog!

🥂In other happy news, The Mister and I are celebrating our 51st wedding anniversary this weekend! We won't be going anywhere right now, but hopefully we can get away to celebrate 50 and 51 ... before 52 rolls around!🍾💕 But no matter, every day we are here and together with loved ones is a cause for celebration, especially in these trying times.

[🤫I now know the secret to those marriages that last over 50 years. After 50 years, one or both of you starts to instantly forget what the other one did to tick us off!🤣]

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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! 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!)

A Love Story

Hello Stamplings!

It's already November eekth, so you have to read this as if I'm talking in a very low voice. I don't want to startle your mojo as you are scrambling to get those Christmas cards done ~ and/or fall cards for birthdays or Thanksgiving.🍂

I've finished my fall cards and can concentrate on Christmas. This year I've separated my NBUS Christmas goodies from non-NBUS Christmas goodies and my goal is to only use the never-before-used-schtuff to make my cards. This is the first design and it ended up being one of those happy marriages between several different companies.

Let me introduce you to Paul:

Paul is a polar bear all plumped up on joy for Christmas, as one should be. He is from a NBUS stamp set called "Have An Ice Day," by Trinity Stamps. 

The cardbase is Neenah and the very shiny background silver paper with embossed snow is from Stampin' Up. The ice floe is from "Cool Day" by MFT Stamps. The sediment is NBUS from Altenew. I colored Paul using my Ziggies. 

I finished the card and set it up on the window sill, waiting for the sun to come out to take a photo. Then I heard from the peanut gallery. 

"Where's he heading to with his arms outstretched that way?" asked Hammy. "I don't know," I said, "I wondered the same thing."

After a minute staring at the card, Hammy jumped down and squeezed his furry behind into the third drawer of my far right rollie-cabinet under my desk. I opened it and there, among my acrylic blocks, was a NBUS "Mirror Blocks" stamp set from Paper Smooches. 

Mirror stamping is something I've wanted to do since the last half of the last century. Hammy's raised left eyebrow implied, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

I know better than to argue with the wee master, so I watched a coupla You Tube videos on the technique and created a lady polar bear friend for Paul.

Meet Noelle:

If you have not had success with mirror stamping in the days before the MISTI, you might want to try again. It made all the difference for me. Jennifer McGuire has a coupla You Tube videos that are great. Here is her updated link, which also includes creating mirror dies! Mirror Stamping & Die Cutting.

The NBUS sediment here is from "Heart Smile" by Concord & 9th.

Just to be clear, I only made one card. I put Noelle on the back of the same card so when you open it up, the two lovebears are skating toward each other! Here is a photo of the whole card: 

Aw. A love story. And won't that be a fun card for someone to get in the mail?

This was a kick to do and I can cross mirror-stamping off my 'To Try' bucket list now. BTW, if you include the ink pads, pop dots, and glue, I used a grand total of eleventeen companies to make this card! If only members of governments could play together that well, the world would be a better place.🐹

Challenges

• Pixie's Snippets Playground: A/G using your snippets. 
  
• Christmas Kickstart: Di (from Pixie's) is this month's Guest Designer. The prompt is, of course, snippets! I used loads of white snippets to make my card parts.
  
• CAS Christmas: Barb is the host and she wants to see Christmas critters. (Changed my mind b/c my card is not CAS, but I will leave the info up anyway.)

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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! 

*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!)

Dog and Cat Pals?!

Hello Stamplings!

How are you? I hope you enjoyed the weekend and that your week has started off on the right foot. And if you happen to be left-footed, I hope it starts off on the right left foot.

Because this month is the last and final challenge for my Twofer Card Challenge, I wanted to make another set of Dog/Cat designs to remind you. (The challenge closes at 11:55 p.m. on August 24th.)

For my reminder cards, I picked a fun stamp that has BOTH a dog and a cat! It's called "Picture Perfect" and it's from MFT.

Onefer

This card design uses one of the cute images in the set. I just love it and I thought the sediment from Tim Holtz was perfect for the dog's expression. I mean, he is so harassed, he doesn't even have whiskers! Hammy schparkled them with his winker, glossified their noses, and I stenciled paw prints on the background using a Simon Says stencil gifted from a friend. 

Twofer

I love that at first glance you don't even seen the white cat on this design. I stamped and then fussy-cut her to nestle her behind the tree ~ poised to jump out of her hiding place and scare someone, imp that she is! The tree is from Dee's Distinctively and I die-cut it twice so I could made the tree taller to accommodate little Ms. Abominable Snowcat!

I tried every way from Sunday to capture the schparkle on this card, but alas the sun wasn't cooperating. In real life the white heat-embossed snowfall is glistening and I love the shine from the SU Chrystal Effects which Hammy added to the hills, tree, and cat's eyes and nose. The snowflakes are an all-over "Brush Splatter Background" stamp from MFT.

Challenges

• Alphabet Challenge: J is for Just One Word.
• HLS Christmas Challenge: A/G, plus optional: Wonderland.
• Jingle Belles: Cardstock Christmas. (No DSP.)
  
• Just Us Girls: Trend week: Black and white.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: A/G as long as it's a snippet. My entry used up a good bit of my enormous pile of white snippets for everything white on my card!

Final Challenge and Prizes

I hope you are able to find some time to play along in the last Twofer Card Challenge! Design Team member Bonnie has another pair of awesome Twofer designs to inspire you over on the challenge blog!

And when you're over on the TCC blog, you'll see that I've added two prizes for two lucky winners! Check it out!

Thank you again for all your support the last four years and for all the warm comments you have left me.

 

PSA re Cutting Plates 

If you own any warped cutting plates for any brand of die-cutting machine, here is a link to a Jennifer McGuire video on Fixing & Avoiding Warped Plates. The supplies needed are what you have on hand, plus a couple hours of your time, depending on how many warped plates you have.

I followed her video and it worked a treat. I'm now set for life with flat cutting plates and I am so grateful Jennifer figured this out and took the time to make a video to share it with us ~ even while they were away at the lake! Thank you, Jennifer. 

It bears repeating that we are a wonderfully kind and sharing community!

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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!)