For the Love of Paper and Critters

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are well and you had a great weekend! We celebrated Mother's Day by getting together and welcoming Adam home from college for the summer. The twins immediately pick up where they left off months ago and it's a joy to be around them.

Today the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar features D for Dies.

Onefer

I  have had this moth die from The Greetery for (say it with me) cough years. I love the versatility of it. You can make the moth with either one or both sets of the wings and it comes with a stencil, so you can stencil on a pattern! I have fun ahead of me using all the options!

I chose this moth when I saw Linda's sketch at the current Freshly Made Sketches and built the sketch from there. BTW, this pp is from Craft Consortium and it has a lovely shine or sheen. Or glow or glimmer. Or ... hmmm, why do we have so many cinnamons for words in the English language?

But I digest. In my BOB, I found a small piece of leftover inked paper from a smooching session in the dark ages. I thought the moth might fight with the smooched paper, but they married well together.

And then, all due credit to little Stanley, we went with the score lines for that portion of the sketch (see below), rather than using paper or an image and I just love how it turned out.

I am also linking to Critter Crazy May Challenge and Simon Stays Stamp Monday challenge, which is "Things With Wings."

Twofer

A bloggie friend of mine recently lost her beloved dog and I made this card to send her some hugs. The hearts embossing folder is vintage; it came free with my Gemini Jr., but the die-cut paw is NBUS from Waffle Flower. The sediment is NBUS from Honey Bee Stamp's "Anemones" set.

Once again I used textured and patterned paper for the paw and the card mat and Hammy made me tear up when he tucked a few clear hearts in the paw. 

Little Nellie wanted to offer a sweet hug, too:

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: D = Dies

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using your dies! Your card may help motivate others out of their creative schlumps or give someone a step-off for their own design! 

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! 

Thank you so much to everyone who shared their designs last week! Mwah!

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!

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Seasonal II

Hello Stamplings!

How are you doing? I hope you've had a great week. Thank you for your good wishes regarding my dental work. I'm happy to say it all went well, thanks to nitrous oxide!😁 It was my first time and I love that stuff! 

I have been up and down with emotions this week. Thankfully, I can always withdraw to my happy place with my three cuddlers ~ not counting my main cuddler. For week two of November's I.D.E.A.S., we had a good time getting jiggy with the Gemini!

Onefer ~ Fall, Thanksgiving

This fall blessings card is like a prequel to a layered Thanksgiving turkey sandwich. (Sorry if that started you drooling.) I began with a white bread card base and building upwards, I added a piece of finely textured beige pp. On top of that I spread a layer of NBUS Sugar Peas Leaf Cover Plate. 

For color and flavor, I added a layer of Poppystamps Feather Tree Frame, cut from pretty patterned paper (ppp). I topped it all with a double dollop layer of Blessings from Hero Arts, cut from shiny copper. Very filling, just as a Thanksgiving sanditch should be!

Linking to: Cardz 4 Galz: Showcase Your PP; Poppystamps: Leaves Are Falling ...; Cut It Up: Grateful and/or Thankful; SSS Monday: Thanks/Thanksgiving

Twofer ~ Winter, Christmas

In a quest for QACAS Christmas designs this late in the year, and in an effort to use up more of my ppp, I made this using a hammered card panel and an old-timey ornament die from Spellbinders Nestabilities called 2011 Heirloom Ornaments. To bring out the gold in the ornament paper, I gold heat-embossed the sediment from SSS called, "Holiday Greetings Mix 1."

This ppp comes in different colors and Hammy and Stanley found great matching papers to use for matting. All I had to do was get on with the batch making. It all went well until the idea of batches made me stop and make a few batches of Amish Sugar Cookies. Someone told me they freeze well. Oh, hahahaha, as if there were any around to freeze!!

Linking to Addicted to Stamps and More: Die Cuts and Stencils; Allsorts: Christmas; and Die Cut Divas: Christmas.

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

Thank you to the families of all the service men and women who have died for our country and to those who are currently serving.🙏

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!

Thoughts

I haven't mentioned politics here because this is a card blog. These are just my thoughts about one thing in particular. Please don't read this if you aren't interested and please don't feel like you need to comment.

I'm an Independent and more of a long-range thinker in terms of the effects politics has on society and our beleaguered earth. We are at a definite crossroads when it comes to the established system of checks and balances we rely on in order to preserve democracy, but as a democratic nation, we accept the results of our elections, wish the new president well, and move on. 

For his part, I hope that President-Elect Trump begins to build a bridge over the deep divide that exists in America ~ a divide stoked by fear and anger. I wish him success with that because, honestly, I'm exhausted by the last four years, sick of the nastiness, and appalled at the media hyping the negativity nonstop. It is a relief to finally see for ourselves that the 2020 election was not stolen or rigged. Common sense tells us that if it had been, then the deep state Democrats would have rigged this election, too, in order to make sure Harris won. Not only that, but if you think about it, they surely would have rigged the 2016 election, too. It's too bad we had to deal with the terrible fall-out from this lie for four very long years, but now we know the truth firsthand. And now the new leadership can concentrate on healing the nation with words that unite us rather than divide us. I pray.

I realize that there are Bible verses for every situation, no matter your viewpoint. I'd like to share this one, which I hope will become a hallmark going forward:

1 Peter 2:1: So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, all hypocrisy, jealousy, and unkind speech.

Amen.🫂🙏 

Surprise Party Guest for Seize the Birthday!

Hello Stamplings!

I was delighted and honored to have been one of the winners of a recent fruit challenge at Seize the Birthday, which makes me delighted and honored to be one of today's Surprise Party Guests for their new challenge where the brief is one of my favorites ~ "Cute Critters!"

Another of my favorite things is placing images from different stamp companies together so that they look like they were meant to be that way! For this card, I used a NBUS Anita Jeram (Colorado Craft) adorable dog with a birthday cupcake martini from Impression Obsession and a sediment from WPlus 9. I'm hoping this makes you smile and inspires you to look at your images in a new way. Especially if you can make your design a QACAS OLC!

I stamped the images with black ink and then heat-embossed them in clear e/p. I used my Ziggies for the minimal coloring. (I hope the very talented Ms. Jeram doesn't mind that I made her cute dog a little furrier!) 

We would love to see your cute critters over at Seize the Birthday ~ or you can link up with your Anything Goes birthday card!

Thank you again, ladies! This really meant a lot to me because I've been playing in this challenge with my cards since Lesley started the challenge on December 17, 2012. I'm sure many of you have done the same and agree that all the talented design team inspiration over the years has been very much appreciated!❤

Twofer

I'm trying to make a few Christmas cards each week and I wanted to play in Nanc's other challenge, Color Hues, where the colors are pink and brown. 

After making the layerpalooza cards in my last post, I enjoyed making the STB card a one-layer design. So for my Twofer, I made another OLC. This cute image and sediment set are from Stampingbella called, "Oddball Boy Elf." Like the first card, the images were stamped in black ink and then heat-embossed in clear.

I colored the elf with my Ziggies and then let Hammy and Stanley loose with daubers on their paws to color in the snowy circle stencil using pale pink and pale brown ink for a little extra colorpawzazz.

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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! We are seeing the grandtwins tomorrow for lunch before they start out (separately) on their second year of college. Hard to believe summer is almost over already 😎 ... but I do look forward to cooler weather!

*Life is too short!

Challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and More: Any Occasion

SSS Monday: Happy 14th Birthday!

Simply Clean & Simple Anything Goes

Earth Day!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you're having a good and plenty kind of day! Who remembers Good & Plenty licorice candy? I still love them and have loved them since my childhood in the 1890s. You'd think they would be stale, but no.

Onefer

Today is Earth Day ~ Yay! Last week Serena Dipity came by to visit the Playhouse and together we made a card to celebrate her. Mother Earth, not Serena.

It all started when I was flipping through my binder of die-cut shapes. No, wait a sec. It all started a coupla weeks ago when I noticed on the calendar that Earth Day was coming up on the 22nd, so that was in my subterranean conscience. So then Serena showed up just as I turned the page in my binder and right before my eyes was the above circle die cut from an old session of dribbling alcoholic inks onto Yupo paper. I looked over at Serena, she smiled knowingly, we both looked at Hammy and Stanley and together we all yelled, "Globe!"

Then, if you can believe it, the littl'n ran over to Mt. NBUS and nosed out the arms die from Alexandra Renke. I recently got it on super sale, wondering at the time when I might ever use it. (But, you know, super sale!) Then, not to be out-done, Hammy dove into my stash of sediments and found the perfect one.

So we had the bits, now we just needed a background and that was quickly sorted when I remembered I had some ancient pieces of cloudy blue sky vellum which I embossed with a ... ta-da ... cloud e/f!

You gotta love when Serena Dipity shows up!

Twofer

Here's another nature theme with a blue green color scheme. I made this card (cough) ago, but I can't find that I ever posted it. The background was made using the dirty pour technique during one of the fun Canadian crafty sessions I attended. The beautiful seahorse is from Katzelkraft and the Lavinia ocean flora stamp was a gift from a sweet friend. Hello friend.

I.D.E.A.S.

Both of these cards (and any of yours this week!) will fit the A = Anything Goes brief of I.D.E.A.S. I'm looking forward to playing with you and 📌ing your creations!

And to close ...

With the rain we've been getting, we are seeing bulbs come up for the first time in years. First the smattering of white irises and then as they were fading, we were treated with just one regal purple bloom! Thank you, Mother Earth! Every day should be your day!

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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! 

*Life is too short!
Challenges:
Onefer: Inspiration Station (photo of globe inspired me); Can You Handle the Pressure? (a/g); SSS Monday (It's up in the air).
Twofer: Addicted to Stamps and More (make your mark); Double D (water related).

Go7: Masked Stenciling

Hello Stamplings!

Me, again! It's the 28th of the month and time to share our Group of Seven Cardmakers technique, which this month is Masked Stenciling. I'm delighted that my friend Pat from Colourful Card Creations is our Guest Designer! To see Pat's beautiful card and the results of the rest of the Group of Seven, please click over to the Go7 blog.

Here is the design I came up with:

The technique is as simple as it sounds and there are lots of possibilities! You mask a portion of your card panel or an image and then stencil over the mask. I started by first going through my stencils for ideas. 

When I came to this NBUS stencil, the "Aha!" phase was done!

To make my mask, I traced the flamingo through the stencil onto an adhesive sheet and fussy-cut it. Yup, that's right, I fussy-cut those legs and that neck! Of course, after wards, I needed a sip of wodka and a brief lie-down. 

Upon rising, I placed the flamingo on my card front and blended ink through the tropical leaves portion of the stencil using CP inks and brushes. I just noticed that my flamingo is shy and somehow managed to duck her head into the leaves! 

And because that was easy and fun, I made a second card:

For this card, I used the watering can you saw on my previous post and the Floral Mask stencil from Memory Box. The result you see made me cock my head and had Hammy and the little guy laughing out loud.

So here's a little tip: If you are masking an image, rather than an edge, take a minute to visualize the finished card and how the image and the stencil will work together. For example, will part of the image (say, a watering can handle) disappear into the stencil?! Oops. I saved the card by covering the can with a die-cut, but I wanted to share my learning moment.

Springification!

We have a sunny break in the rain and it's enough to bring a riot of color to the yard!

Enjoy the rest of 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! Just a reminder, if you try out the Masked Stencil technique, we'd love to see you link your creation to the inspiration gallery at Group of Seven Cardmakers.

*Life is too short!

Linking my card to Allsorts Challenge (things that fly), Shopping Our Stash (it's not easy being green), SSS Monday (fur or feathers), Stencil Fun (a/g), and The Paper Funday Challenge.