Septimus Alredius!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you feeling well!

Following last Monday's post, I did call in Scour and Reorg. The timing turned out to be good because the busyness helped take my mind off yet another senseless school shooting in this country which left two children dead, many injured, and anyone there mentally troubled for the rest of their lives. I want to rant on about it, but that's not why you're here. 

We've turned the calendar today for the ninth time in 2025! Happy Labor Day to those celebrating! There are only three more turns to go and the yuletide will be coming in! This week's I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is I = Ink/Color Medium. With the Playhouse turned topsy-turvy by my crew, not to mention my mental state, I consorted with B.O.B. and I found two inky panels previously made with Brusho powders. And, thus:

Onefer

Some of my bloggie friends made cards a coupla weeks ago using the Northern Lights technique. This isn't that, but a shoutout to them for the inspiration to see this panel as very Northern-Light-ish, so I simply used an old wooded SU silhouette tree stamp in the foreground. (I meant to say wooden stamp, but you have to love the English language because ha-ha, it's also wooded!)

This left me with turkoyce hills, so I covered them with snow using my NBUS Simon Hurley Astro Paste. It's crazy how impossible (especially in the sun) it is to photograph the stunning schparkle of this paste when it dries. In real life the whole bottom area is covered like in the lower left-hand corner. 

I'm playing in Jingle Belles where the brief is "Cardstock Christmas." I used black and watercolor cardstock only.

Twofer

For this design ... wait. Where's the rest of this Brusho panel? Wheeeel, what happened was, I went to CASE my friend Susan's card because her design reminded me that I have the same Santa and his sleigh silhouette stamp which I thought would be perfect for a Northern Lights sky. Using my MISTI, my first stamping of the sleigh in black with a heavy hand still wasn't enough coverage, so I reinked the stamp and stamped it a second time. When I lifted the lid of my MISTI, I saw that the Brusho panel had moved in spite of a grip pad and magnets. Wah. Wah.

My cursing made Stanley dive under his blankets, but Hammy calmly suggested that I just cut off Santa and his sleigh and use the partial panel on a card. B.O.B. provided the die-cut sediment and Pinkfresh Studio Washi butterfly which led to the Sizzix cloud e/f and, well, B.O.B.'s your uncle! And now I'm on Santa's naughty list. (Like I wasn't already!)

I'm playing in Addicted to Stamps and More where they are celebrating Challenge 500! Congratulations!! This time the brief is Die Cuts / Stencils. Also, Simon Says Stamp Wednesday where the brief is Anything Goes featuring Pinkfresh Studio.

Bonus!

After I stamped the trees for my Onefer above, I put a white folded card in my MISTI and stamped off the heavy black ink. Bonus! It gave me another perfectly useable card for my Christmas stash. I've always had a fondness for black and white evergreen trees and simple sediment for a Christmas card design. For this card, I used a sediment from SSS "Holiday Greetings Mix 1." I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to add a period to that sediment.

I'm playing again at ABC Christmas Challenge under Q is for Quick! It doesn't get much more QACAS than this!

Lesson

And then what happened was, bless my heart, I thought why not run it through my Gemini using an embossing plate to add falling snow for, you know, interest. Only I didn't ask my little rompers, so I grabbed my 3D snow when I should have grabbed my 1D snow and now here's a lesson for all of us on how sometimes cards don't need more interest!

That poor little bird is about to be knocked out of the sky by that snowfall those snowballs!😆

~~~

I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: I = Ink/Color Mediums

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your colorful/inky art! Your creation may help motivate someone out of their mojo schlump! 

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!

~~~

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse! Enjoy your day!

No, seriously, enjoy! Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Anything Goes!

Hello Stamplings!

Happy Monday! I hope this find you well! As you read this, I will be having fun in Las Vegas ~ or as some people call it, Lost Wages! I'm meeting a friend from my early work days in the 70s for some getaway girl time!🎰🍹

Before I left Nellie in charge of The Mister, the lads and I were inspired by a few challenges to create these designs.

Onefer

This week is A = Anything Goes on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, so there are no curt tails when it comes to designing! Just for fun, I went all out and stamped, inked, die cut, and stenciled! I also CASED my friend Linda, with an emphasis on "copy!" Thank you, Lin!

The blossoms are NBUS from Pinkfresh called "Delicate Floral Print," blended with lilac and aqua CP inks using the stencils. The embossing folder is v.o., but still NBUS, from the Paper Studio. The sediment is from PTI. The nice thing about this simple layout is you get two cards out of the deal! I used a shiny platinum piece of Washi Tape from Altenew to separate the panels and Hammy and Stanley winked the flowers.

Challenges

Addicted to Stamps and More: Make your mark.

Color Hues: Lilac and aqua.

Just Us Girls: Stencil week.

SSS Wednesday: Make it girly.

Twofer

This design is in the running for QACAS-iest design of 2025! I love it and what a great way to use pretty pp! If you like CAS (clean and simple) designs and you aren't familiar with Freshly Made Sketches, you should check them out. (They very kindly have a tab listing all their prior sketches!) 

At first, the textured aqua panel on the left had no design. I set it aside, but I kept looking back at it and my right leg started twitching. It stopped as soon as I lightly stenciled a leafy pattern. When you know, you know. 

Challenges

Alphabet Challenge: L is for leaves.

Freshly Made Sketches: A sketch by Jen T.

Seize the Birthday: Use a stencil.

Threefer

I like to play in the Rudolph Days Challenge when I can. It only runs at the end of each month from the 25th to the last day of the month. It's always Anything Goes as long as it is a Christmas design.

For this card I stamped the Pink Fresh wreath on mixed media paper with Versamark and heat-embossed it with gold. I then painted the poinsettia with my Ohuhu markers and sent it down the line to the winkers. (Pink Fresh has beautiful Washi Tape you can use for the wreath, but I was in the mood for painting.) 

I added a wee sediment and popped the wreath onto a black panel embossed with a NBUS e/f from SU called "Petals-a-Plenty." It's really a generic flower, but I thought they looked like little poinsettias. To add a little extra schparkle, I heat-embossed the rim all around in gold.

Other challenges

52 Christmas Card Throwdown: Embossing.

Christmas Kickstart: Positively poinsettias.

Jingle Belles: Color challenge. I used red, green, white, and black.

~~~

I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: A = Anything Goes

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations with no restrictions! 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! I may miss next week or be late depending on, you know, how much sleep I need to catch up on or if I'm off buying an island somewhere with the millions I'm just sure I'm going to win on the penny slots!

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (I.D.E.A.S. Calendar E = Embossing)

Hello Stamplings! ☘☘☘

I hope you're doing well as we celebrate the day Erin goes braghless! Wait. What? It's "Éire go brách" and it means "Ireland forever." The Mister is 50% Irish thanks to his sainted mother, so that makes me Irish by association, at least for one day a year. Plus leftovers.

This is week three on my I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, so it's E = Embossing (any which way).

Onefer

The embossing folder featured in this design is an ancient brick wall e/f by Tim Holtz, using the debossed side. It's been in my BOB for a long time because I originally used a very red (you might say a brick red) ink swiped over the whole thing. How to tone it down? I ended up swiping over it with my Dew Drop Brilliance "Platinum Planet" and I was really pickled at the pretty color and sheen that resulted.

I noticed that Just Us Girls (Word Week) wanted "Green" and so did Simon Says Stamp Wednesday, so I pondered through my various leafy choices. I didn't have any sham rocks, so I chose a NBUS die called, "Garden Tub Filler," by The Greetery, cut from a lovely very gated green pp. For the tub, I used The Greetery's "Pretty Pot" die and I managed to find a teeny-weeny Happy Birthday stamp for the sediment. (A good time to once again thank Iliana for the invention of the MISTI!)

After I finished my card with a marker line border, I saw that the Colorful Options challenge for March had a cute mood board called, "It's Not Easy Being Green," with Kermit and friends. The next thing I know, Hammy, who had been on my shoulder looking at the monitor, started jumping up and down and clapping! Any fool knows you can't do that without falling, so he rolled down my arm and into the bag of M&Ms on my lap. I have no idea how they got there, but, of course, they went flying and I had to grab Nellie because she'll eat anything. Phew! Never a dull moment!

Where was I? Oh, yes, I was sharing that Hammy got excited because he has been playing with my little collection of old froggie buttons for years, waiting for this moment to use them on a card! Stanley joined in and together we decided that the climbing frog buttons worked the best for this design. (But first I had to add little eyeballs to the poor little blind boogers with my white gel pen and fine black marker.) The end.

Twofer

This QACAS double-embossed delight was made to welcome the first day of spring on Thursday. A multi-leaf unmarked 1D e/f is layer one. It got squished a little by layer two, which is Simon Says 3D "Leaf Bundle." Coming in at layer three is a sprig of Pink Fresh Washi tape leafy greens and the cherry on top is a sediment tab from Memory Box.

You gotta love a 3-minute egg card! And a design that lets you use any two embossing folders and any type of topper! C'mon!👏👌

Stop the Schlump

You will find a linky tool below for this week's I.D.E.A.S. Calendar prompt. If you use any kind of embossing on your card, please link it below.

Thank you to everyone who linked last week to inspire others. I love visiting you, seeing what you create, and pinning your design! 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

The Group of Seven Get Glittery and Happy Halloween!

Hello Stamplings!

It's good to see you again! I hope everyone has been keeping well and enjoying some crafty time! 

Has the panic of Christmas card-making hit you square in the face yet? Me, too. It's such a shock every year, in spite of our wonderful all-year-round Christmas card challenges. Does that mean we're not the brightest ornaments in the box or are we eternal optimists, thinking somehow another month will be wedged in there to give us more time?

Fortunately this month's technique at Group of Seven Cardmakers lent itself to Christmas card designs for me and because this is the fourth week of the month, my I.D.E.A.S. schedule is "Anything Goes!" Woot!

Our technique this month is Glitter Painting on Acetate. Wait. Wait. Don't run screaming at the mere mention of the word herpes glitter. It is messy, sure, but what's the big deal if you go to the grocer's with glitter in your hair or down your shirt front? Even a schparkle or two over tonight's spaghetti and meatballs could be fun, right?!

Onefer

It is a bear trying to photograph glitter AND acetate! For both my cards, I reached for an old favorite stamp set from PTI called, "Botanical Blocks IV." After stamping the image with StazOn ink onto acetate, I painted the poinsettias with glue and glitter. Once dry, I backed the image with a watercolored pink pp from my stash, and finished with a stitched gray frame.

Twofer

For the holly, once the glitter was dry, I glued a small red panel behind the acetate to back the image. Then I glued that to a panel of SU emboss-resist pp. Finally, to bring the eye to the center, I glued a narrow dotted frame to the acetate. On the advice of my two whiskered helpers, no sediments were added to either card.

You might wonder why I only used white glitter on my cards. It's because when I moved everything out of the Playhouse for repainting and purging last December, I purged my collection of glitter. Fortunately, Hammy spoke up as I putting all my vials in a box and he reminded me that I should hang onto the white glitter for snow and such on Christmas cards. Thank you, Hammy!

If you still have lots of glitter in white or in colors and you want to paint with it on acetate (which is totally fun and very addictive), you will see lots of colorful examples on the Group of Seven Cardmakers website! And you'll also find a linky tool where we hope you will share any schparkly cards you make!

Happy Halloween!

A coupla weeks ago, I posted a wreath with a big black spider from a Memory Box die. I thought I would try using the negative spider as a stencil and it worked great! After stenciling with orange CP ink, I embossed the panel with a 3D Tim Holtz folder that looked a bit webby. Before running it through the Gemini, I used a gray ink pad to lightly ink the pointy bits.

Another Fun Visit

Last week my friend Bev visited me from Wisconsin and this week I visited my friend Brenda in Indiana! Brenda's blog is Inkspired to Stamp.

It's not the best photo, but we are novices when it comes to selfies! It had been five years since we were together and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit! And it was wonderful to meet Daisy, The Wonder Dog ...

... who was sad to see me go.😒I felt the same way, Daisy, but I'll be back!

~~~

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 hope your tricks and treats are lots of fun!

*Life is too short!

Challenges

Just Us Girls: Use a stencil.

Little Red Wagon: Embossing.

Rudolph Days: A/G Christmas.

SSS Wednesday: Christmas.

Embossing Week

Hello Stamplings!

And here we are again, having whooshed around to the start of a brand-new week! Every day you wake up is a gift, but Mondays somehow hold more promise. Unless you do shift work and then maybe Wednesdays are your Mondays.

Mondays since February have been more fun for me this year as I've managed to keep up with my I.D.E.A.S. posts. (I think I might have pulled my shoulder muscle a little bit there, patting myself on the back.)

This week is "E" for Embossing Powder/Folders.

Onefer

This design uses both powder and folder. I recently had fun crafting with my friends Colleen and Linda and Colleen loaned me a 3D embossing folder and stencil from an Altenew class she had taken. (As far as I know, it was only available as part of the class.) I used Catherine Pooler inks and a very small and narrow blending brush to apply colors through the stencil to the detailed embossed leaves. 

Hammy and Stanley added schplatters and I clear-embossed the PTI sediment after stamping it with green ink. The background cover plate from Pinkfresh was a thoughtful gift! Mwah! It's called "Floral Grid." It's versatile in that you can either die-cut the flowers as I did here, or use it as an embossed design.

Twofer 

This is the other half of the above leaf panel. (The e/f and stencil contain both branches on one sheet.) After the blending and schplattering was done, I decided to cut the panel in half to create a Twofer and show off that beautiful lightly textured chartreuse background paper I found in my stash. The hugs sediment is from Memory Box.

Postscript

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about this Cypress tree that has a mystery flowering vine trailing all around it hundreds of feet in the air. Several of you guessed the vine name. And then yesterday on our walk, from the other side of the block, I was able to zoom in and get a closer look at the flowers.

So I looked up all your guesses and I think TK guessed it correctly when she said it was a "trumpet vine." Below is a photo I found online of a trumpet vine and it looks the same to me: 

Good eye, TK! Thank you all for your audience participation! 👏 

~~~

And now I will leave you with a funny that you can't "unsee!"

There are some things that you never think about. Like what does Mt. Rushmore:

look like from the Canadian side?

~~~

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!

Challenges

Addicted to Stamps and More (Die Cuts and Stencils)

SSS Wednesday (Bright and Cheerful)

Stencil Fun (Just for Fun - Optional Birthday)

NBUS (Never-before-used-schtuff)