Round and Round

Hello Stamplings!

Happy weekend! Of course, if you're out playing because it is the weekend, I'll just say to you that I hope you had a great one! We are entertaining the grandtwins and granddogs this weekend and so far they are all getting acquainted with Nellie just fine. It's a houseful! A house full of joy since today is also the Mister's birthday!

I had some time to get a bit inky during the week and I went from a round daisy focus pocus to a round wreath focus pocus.

Onefer

This is pretty arty for me, eh? I made the background recently by scribbling shades of purple and blue Ziggies on my acrylic block, lightly spritzing the block, and then smooching my paper face down into the ink. It ended up being a meh (to me) background that I set aside to dry, wondering if I'd ever use it. 

Then along comes the CAS Stencil Challenge where Julia wants us to use a baby wipe to remove ink through a stencil and suddenly this little background came to life. You just never know! To finish, I added two sticker butterflies and a simple sediment framed to match the card base. You can faintly see Hammy's effusive efforts with winking all over the flower.

Challenges

• AAA Birthday: Use a stencil. Inside it says, "Happy Birthday."
• CAS Stencil: Baby wipes.
• The Flower Challenge: Anything goes.

Twofer 

This QACAS design consists of a black card panel run through a snowy e/f. Attached is a wreath from Concord & 9th's "Magnolia Wreath," simply and partially stamped in black on the white die cut. You can't tell, but it is stacked three-high. A simple circle sediment from GKW was added to the center. It's an unexpected color for a Christmas wreath card, but I like that about it.

Challenges

• CAS(E) This Sketch: See below.
• Simon Says Stamp: STAMPtember collaboration with Concord & 9th.
• TIME OUT: Photo inspiration. I was going to add the sediment in a pop of green as seen in the photo, but in the end I liked the striking effect of just leaving it black and white.

Nellie (9/19/19)

My photo table is the vantage point for this picture of Nellie wandering the yard and getting acquainted with her new home. The only difficulty we are having so far is calling her by the proper pronoun because our last two dogs were big Labrador Retrievers and both were male. 

Mister: "Where is he?"

Me: "She."

Mister: "She. Where is she? Has he been out?"  !!!

Repeated similarly several times a day. And when the Mister pets her, he says, "Hey, little Buddy." So if we don't get it straight, Nellie may become Buddy. But that's okay, we love him her either way!

~~~

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!)

It's Tracey's Birthday! (ATSM; PS pp; STB; SSS)

Happy Sunday, World and Happy Birthday, Tracey!

There is a big birthday party happening today for Tracey, a card artist who is a sweet friend much-admired in our stamping community.  Her amazing blog is called In My Creative Opinion.  I feel like Tracey is The Professor of CAS (clean and simple) and her blog is a classroom through which I learn.

 

You can find Tracey's party and cake over at The Organizer's blog (otherwise known as the inimitable Joyce from Cards-by-the-Sea).  Here is the link  Thank you, Joyce, for organizing this fun party!  This party for sweet Tracey is going to be open for a whole week if you would like to make her a card and add it to the party gallery.  I hope you will! 

 

To design my card for Tracey, I CASEd this beautiful card of hers:

And I used this picture perfect photo inspiration from Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge:

 Thusly armed, I made this card:

I masked and stamped three rows of greens, yelloranges, and purples using a leaf stamp and then overstamped that with a water droplet stamp.  Here is the inside:

Happy Birthday, Tracey, and many, many more!!

~~~
I'm also entering my card in these current challenges:

• Addicted to Stamps and More where the challenge is "Clean and Simple," sponsored by Nicecrane Designs.
• Seize the Birthday where the linky party is always open for "Anything Goes." 
• And "Anything Goes" is also on the menu at both Simon Says Stamp Monday and Wednesday!

~~~

It is my absolute delight to welcome our newest friends!  Many of you already know and love them. 

On the right is "Benzi" of Benzi Stampz!  She has been blogging since 2010 and is an award-winning card artist.  You'll be doing yourself a huge favor if you visit her wonderful blog!

On the left is the winsome and talented Mina from Pinkbuds.  Mina has been blogging since 2008!  You'll be totally inspired by the wonderful cards at her site!

Welcome, Benzi and Mina, and thank you so much for joining the party!
 

~~~
A couple of months ago I purchased a mini butterfly bush and I thought you might enjoy seeing how it is still thriving even though our temperatures are really starting to drop.  (Our full-size bushes in the front yard have long since stopped producing blooms.)

 

If you look closely in the lower center of this close-up, you'll see a Monarch butter fly, also a surprise to see this time of the year!

~~~

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 leave a comment and/or join as a follower!  Please let me know you came by, so I can be sure and return the flavor! 

 

*Life Is Too Short!  

 

Paper:  PTI vintage cream; SU! elegant eggplant
Stamps:  SU! leaf and front sediment; Paper Smooches
  inside sediment from "I Heart Art"; water droplets by
  Ryn's Designs
Ink:  SU! markers; eggplant pad
Die:  Lil' Inkers Stitched Rectangles

Summer Seashells ~ ATCAS #19; FUSION #14; PIXIE'S #84; SSWC; NBUS #33

Yo!  How are you?  I'm sorry I wasn't here this morning to welcome you to a new week.  Welcome to a whole new week!  It's a happy week for me as it is my last week of work for a couple of months.  Can I get an amen?

I only had time and energy to make a QACAS card.  Mercy, children, I used to be able to task so many multiples at one time.  And the squirrels, wow, I used to be able to keep them at bay, but now I'm distracted so easily and there are so many of them!  My sister recently reminded me that when I went back to help her stage her house a few months ago, we jumped around from project to project, so unlike us.  It got to the point where we wet ourselves laughing when one or the other of us would say, "Oh, look!  A squirrel!"

Where was I?

~~~

I'm linking my card with these four challenges:

Addicted to CAS (ATCAS) has a new challenge where the code word is "summer."

With such a broad-ranging word for this challenge, I'm sure you can link up a summery card!  Of course, we don't use the word "broad" anymore, let along ranging broads.

 

The Fusion Card Challenge has a brand-new look and a brand-new hippo the sis for us:

 

I did a fusion of the photo and the sketch.

 

The patterned vellum on my card is a snippet so I can happily skip across the pond and join in the hooliganisms at Pixie's Crafty Snippets Playground!

 

Finally, ever a big hit with card bloggers worldwide, the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is "Anything Goes!"

 

As always, many of the challenges I enter have awesome sponsors and prizes, so I hope you will click on the links for the details, meet the fab Design Teams and Guest Designers, and join in these fun challenges!  The DT cards are always awe-mazing!

 

~~~

 

My simple QACAS/NBUS card:

You can see by the refractation of light that the gold paper is metallic.  The snippet of patterned vellum was a left-over part of a page of several small square scenes.  In order to follow the sketch, I used an oval die to cut the square into an oval.  This left an oval with square ends, so I hid that little fact with my blue vellum strips.  The strips were folded over the gold paper and taped to the back and the gold paper was stuck to a white card base.

 

The flying bird is from a NBUS trinket pack.  My friend Sam would also call it VOS (very old schtuff)!  We are going to imagine the bird is Jonathan Living Seagull, as would be fit the shell-filled beach scene. 

 

And there you go, a beach at sunset.  Or sunrise.  In the summer.

 

~~~

 

Enjoy your summer 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 leave a comment and/or join as a follower!

 

 

*Life Is Too Short!  

 

Paper:  PTI white; unknown gold;
  Grafix vellum
Stamps:  Exactly none
Ink:  None neither
Die:  Sizzix Framelit Ovals
Embellie:  "Everyday Moments Trinkets" EM3126

You're Swell ~ CCIC; PSS; SSS; NBUS #23

Happy Saturday Hello!

My little work project ended up almost giving me a heart attack when the 66-slide Power Point presentation, which I had been dutifully saving after every slide, was nowhere on the system.  Fortunately, after much work, our IT guy was able to recover it.  He's in his twenties and luckily for him, he wasn't where I was because had he been, I would have kissed him right on the mouth.  Mwah!

 

So that took a few years off the old life-complexity, lemme tell ya.  These computers are great until they aren't.  For instance, as I type this, Blogger keeps popping up the dreaded washed-out red banner telling me an error has occurred in trying to publish my blog, even though I'm not even close to trying to publish my blog. 

 

And, AACCKK,  what about what Gmail has done with your inbox?  Oy.  Like you want some corporation deciding whether or not the emails you receive are "primary," "social," or "promotional!"  I'm so sure.  You can return it to the old setting, if you don't like it neither.  You can Google for help or let me know and I'll email you. 

 

~~~

 

On the home front, it looks like we might finally get the new sprinklers, weed mat, and rocks laid in the backyard hill-side planter today.  None of the workers have showed up yet, but the rock arrived yesterday in our driveway and it's all set to be wheel-barrowed to its new home by folks much younger than ourselves.  I will post pics when it's done.

 

~~~

 

Well, that was all pretty boring, sorry.  I hope my card won't be.  Needless to say, it was with immense pleasure that I escaped to my Playhouse last night and made a fun card for these three challenges:

 

Curtain Call

 

I'm sure a lot of you have heard that there is resurrected challenge back on the boards called Curtain Call.  The first challenge is "Feeling Nautical."  Here is the IB:

 

 

Simon Says Stamp

 

Coinkydinkly, Simon Says Stamp (which has moved to Wordpress and is now known as "Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog" (a mouthful!), has a current challenge called "By the Sea!"  Cool, or what?  Here is the IB:

 

Paper Smooches

 

And in a further freakish alignment of the challengetary stars, Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge Blog is having a "Cool Shades" challenge with these nautical colors:

Kraft, Navy, Red, Cream/White

The colors don't represent too well on the monitor.  In the fine print it says "Kraft, Navy, Red, Cream/White."

As always, there are some extraordinary challenge sponsors and prizes!  Please click on the links for all the details.

Here is my card:

I cut several waves from the Memory Box "Oceana Border" die.  The sediment is from Paper Smooches "Surf and Turf" set and it's NBUS (never-before-used schtuff).  The enamel embellies are from My Mind's Eye.  If I were to do this card again, I would heat-emboss the sediment in navy EP to give it more weight, but otherwise, I'm pickled at how this turned out.

 

New Friend

 

In my new friend introductions today, we have another Mystery Guest!  I'd like to welcome Sharon!  Thank you for joining our party!  If you have a blog you'd like me to share with everyone, please let me know.

 

Rockwell Designs

 

I also wanted to tell you that our friend Jackie Rockwell has a new challenge on her blog, Rockwell Designs, where the prize is a free blog header!  Jackie is a very talented blog designer and has designed many of the blogs you see around Blogglevania.  If you would like a blog make-over, head over and join in the challenge!

 

Mia Gulpa

I want to close with an apology to you if I have not been around to visit this week.  It's been cray-cray around here, but I think I'll have a quiet couple of days to catch up with you.  Also, I'm sorry that I don't know how to use my camera and I keep putting off reading the manual.  If I knew what I were doing, my cards wouldn't look like half-deflated balloons.  Maybe I'll take some time to figure that out, too, although I'd rather visit you!

~~~

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 leave a comment and/or join as a follower!

 

 

*Life Is Too Short!  

A Special Day ~ ABNH #27, STB; DD #61; FMS #94; MFW; SSS

Hi!  Howdy!  Hello!

Aaaccckkk!  Until about an hour ago, I had totally forgotten that I wanted to make sure I played in the current A Blog Named Hero (ABNH) challenge where the challenge is to use a favorite Hero Arts stamp.  I have so many, but this is my all-time favorite! 

 

So there will be no NBUS on this post today, because both my stamps are old-timers and well-loved!  Sort of like me. 

 

Here we go:

 

Since my card is a birthday card, I'm also entering it in the current Seize The Birthday (STB) challenge where the theme is "Anything Goes!"

 

 

 

 and in the current Birthday Card Challenge at Moxie Fab World (MFW).

 

 

For my colors I am using the current Dynamic Duos (DD) challenge, where the colors are pink pirouette and sahara sand. 

 

 

For my sketch, I am using the current Freshly Made Sketches (FMS) challenge. 

 

 

For my finishing touches, I am using the current Simon Says Stamp (SSS) challenge where the theme is "Pin It!"

 

As always many of these challenges have fantastic sponsors and prizes.  To shorten my post, I ask that you visit the links for all the details and to join in the fun!!

 

~~~

 

Wiping my brow, I give you my card:

 

 

I know so many of you have loved and used this hydrangea stamp which in my world will never go out of style!  Using black embossing powder, I heat embossed the image onto vellum.  The vellum was colored on the back side using SU! markers and attached to the pink pirouette mat, which was then attached to the sahara sand card base.  I added glitter accents to the blossom centers, which are hard to see.

 

~~~

 

Chow for now!  Someone check the book and see if this is my shortest post EVER!  Gotta dash!  Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS*!

 

Thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower! 

ETA:  Since I rarely link more than two or three challenges, and I was in a hurry, I didn't check the challenge rules before I published.  I am not eligible for any recognition at Freshly Made Sketches, because entries are only allowed to link up to three other challenges.
 

*Life Is Too Short!  

 

Paper:  SU! pink pirouette and sahara sand;

  unknown vellum

Stamps:  Hero Arts H2121 and C2926

Ink:  Black EP; SU! sahara sand

Embellies:  SU! clips; unknown brads

 

 

LIM #125; MUSE #23; NBUS #13; SSS ~ Celebrate!

Greetings Card Peeps!

This is the card I was planning to post yesterday and I'm going to appliqué it to the following challenges, in no peculiar order:

 

Less Is More.  Per the request of our delightful hostess, Chrissie, we are to make cards for the birthday of our other delightful hostess, Jen.  I hope you like the card, Jen, and that you have many, many more birthdays!  And I hope you knocked the cele out of brate for this one!
 

 

Simon Says Stamp challenge where the theme is the always well-loved "Anything Goes!"  Please note there are going to be TWO lucky winners this week!

MUSE Card Club.  I've been missing the recent MUSE challenges, darn it, but I had to make time to play along and CASE this great card made by Anita (in France), the talented Guest Designer this week. 

Anita always comes up with really clever cards!  Here is the card she made, as our Muse, for us to CASE:

 

I mediately thought of another NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff) that I could use for my CASE of Anita's card:  Washi tape from Love My Tapes called "pastel birds on a wife."  While that does create a pretty funny visual, I meant to say wire, birds on a wire. 

 



I kept Anita's linear design elements, framed matting, sea quints, and similar sediment.  Thanks, Anita!  (I think it's very "Jen" as well.)

 

~~~

Be Careful

This morning when I went into the kitchen, I smelled something foul.  It wasn't too, too bad, so I took the garbage out, even though it had just gone out the night before.  I had breakfast and went to exercise.  When I got back home, it was pretty bad when I walked in the door.  It smelled like a dead animal.  I recognized the smell because it happened to us once before about ten years ago.  It is NAH-ASSTY if you've never smelt it.

Pinterest

That's what this smelled like again.  Bleep.

If I'd made a video of the next few minutes, it prolly woulda gone viral.  I proceeded to narrow the smell down to the kitchen / hall area and set to sniffing like a bloodhound seeking out a steak sammich.  I opened doors, I stood on chairs, I got down on all fours and sniffed along the floor boards.  Nothing.

 

Hours went by.  I sat at the computer, catching up on some emails.  I got a headache.  I went out to the Playhouse, came back in and oooofftah, Meg!  It was getting worse.  I looked up carcass removal on the Cobweb and dialed the number, thinking why do we still say we "dialed" a number when, in fact, we punch them?  I got an answering machine and hung up.  Mister was due home in a couple of hours so I thought maybe I should wait for a second opinion.

Another hour went by and I started the sprinklers because we are spose to be in the triple digis here again for the next few days and my new plants were audibly gasping.  I went back to the kitchen to turn on the microwave timer (over the stove) as a reminder to change the sprinkler to the next area of lawn.  Once again, right there, right by the stove, I literally clasped by hand over my mouth and nose because the stench was so bad.  There, I thought, right there, it had to be something stuck in the wall behind the stove.  

 

Involuntarily, I also took three steps back from the stove, my hand still over my nose and mouth.  My eyes were darting around the area, as if somehow I would magically be blessed with x-ray vision.  And they fell on the burner knobs.  The two on the right were turned on.  Turned on just enough for gas to be escaping.  For hours and hours, filling the closed-up house.  Bleep The Bleep.  I turned them off, then turned off the a/c, opened all the windows, and put the fan up.

That coulda been bad.  Real bad.

Now I'm not going to say that Mister did it just because he'd been in the kitchen earlier having breakfast and I noticed the smell first thing when I walked in, because honestly, my fat tukus could have bumped against the knobs on my way to the coffee.  We'll never know.  But kids, if you are keeping a "One Hunnert Ways My Parents Are Losing It" chart, please put this one in Dad's column.  You know, the one with a lot fewer checks in it than my column.

 

I'm very thankful.  Very, very thankful.  And pretty cheesed off at myself for not being able to distinguish the smell of gas from the smell of a dead animal.

This has been a public service announcement.

~~~

 

Enjoy your day, because you never know when you might blow your own self to kingdom come!  No, seriously, enjoy.  In fact, Celebrate!!  LITS*!  (Now you know why I keep saying that.)

Thank you for coming by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower!

 

*Life Is Too Short!   

 

Paper:  PTI true black, white

Stamp:  Paper Smooch "Metropolis"

Ink:  Versafine onyx black

Washi:  Love My Tapes "Pastel Birds on a Wire"

Sequins:  stash (GKW)