djkardkreations: Spring

April 2, 2015

WINNERS! NBUS Challenge #4!

THANK YOU to everyone who played in my NBUS Challenge #4! It only ran for ten days, but there were an amazing 330 entries! My heart is full!

Please remember that the NBUS galleries are always available to you for inspiration! There is a tab at the top of my home page with links to all the former challenges and I also have NBUS gallery boards on Pinterest.

The winners of the five $25 gift cards in number ethical order are:

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Congratulations to all the winners! Of course, you are all winners to me! Ladies, please email me to let me know the US company you would like your gift card from and I will make the necessary arrangements. My email is darnell dot knauss at gmail dot com.

I'd also like to thank my new followers! I will continue with your introductions on my "New Friends Corner" as soon as I can. And, finally, special thanks to those of you who made the effort to visit and comment on your fellow gallery entries!!

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Light It Up Blue

I'll be back in a few hours with an entry for the Autism Awareness hop. I'm happy to also be one of the sponsors. I hope you can join in with a card, but if not, please try to comment on as many of the lovely entries as you can. There are lots of prizes being offered by both individual bloggers as candy and by many famous retailers! The links will be provided in my next post.

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Naturally, I made you a card today.

I just had to make a spring card with this adorable Paper Smooches bunny! Especially since there are a couple five challenges I was really hopping to put him in to show off his orchid "white" space:

Addicted to CAS: Cute. Or even stinkin' cute.
Butterfly Spot Challenge: C is for Corners + Butterfly.
CASology Cue Card: Spring.
Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use Those Snippets.
Words 2 Scrap By: The Earth Has Music.

Firstly, it's about spring and secondarily, it's about birds singing or howsoever you interpert it. As it applies to my card, you might be interested to know my bunny (whom Hammy and I call Towzer) can sing "Butterfly" by the BeeGees, which, as you can see, the butterflies love! Here is a verse for you...you'll have to pardon the lisp, what with his buck bunny teeth and all.

Green fields where we used to wander

Purple valleys, near my home

We would play there, beneath the sky

And then I kissed you, butterfly.

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The links will provide you with the details on rules, sponsors, and prizes.

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Bloggie Break

I'm going to try to take a little break from blogging after tomorrow's hop if I can stop myself from checking out the challenges! I'll still show up around Blogland now and then as I catch up on visits and commenting, especially to the NBUS entries I haven't yet visited.

My card says Happy Spring and it comes with my best wishes for Happy Easter or Happy Passover or Happy Day to you and your family! The Mister and I will be hosting Easter celebrations here on Sunday for family and friends and then I'm hosting a stamping workshop here on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to both funtivities!

Take care and enjoy your days! 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!

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Click CTL + Home.
Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post.
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If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave
me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!

March 26, 2015

Look! I Sponged! With A Stencil!

If you are looking for my NBUS Challenge #4, click HERE.

Thank you to everyone who has already played!

Hello, my friends!

I want to take a moment to acknowledge my sympathy for the families of all those lost in the tragic Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps. It is horrible for everyone involved and particularly unbearable to think of the pain happening in Haltern, Germany, where sixteen students and two teachers were from. We are reminded again of how precious and uncertain life is.

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Away in my crafty world, I needed a couple of "new home" cards for friends, so I went to play.

First of all, a lot of you may recognize that the design of my card is a direct take-off of the adorable card that Karolyn Loncon showed us how to do in the "Stretch Your Dies" class. Thank you, Karolyn, this was a lot more work than I normally put into a card, but it was worth it!

[I just noticed that the little guy is slacking his hold on those balloons and all the orange color has drained from his chicken fingers. It's not his fault. I took about 23 photos, so it's no wonder he's losing his grip.]

So Proud!

What is astounding about my cards today is that I sponged!

Now, to be honest, I have tried many times to sponge in the past. (Not counting the kitchen counter and the bathrooms.) I bought into the whole Distress Ink groovement and purchased the adorable little wooden sponge handles and, yes, even the carousel. I mean, c'mon it's a carousel!

Then I tried to use the dang things. And failed. Way more times than I care to think about.

The best I could do was schmear some ink onto the paper, along with irritating and unacceptable lines from the rectangle sponges! No, seriously, I watched the videos and I really tried to get up a good swirl from off to the right before I hit my actual card paper, but that never worked for me either, despite the experts' assurances.

I tried from a few inches away to several feet away. I tried a light hand. I tried a heavy hand. I tried a slow swirl. I tried a fast swirl. I tried counterwise and clockwise. I tried tiptoeing as I approached the paper, hoping the surprise of the sponge softly hitting the paper wouldn't leave a mark. It did.

In the end, I declared defeat. The sponges won. I put the torture turning device away in a cupboard filled with its cute little ink-stained deelybobs. It was all good. I don't expect to be interested in or talented in all things card art.

And then ...

Months later, I watched with awe during the BABES Lake House adventure as Ardyth sponged like an angel. Then Kim did it. I'm pretty sure everyone there could do it. I looked down ashamed, but not before I made a mental note that Ardyth was using a new-fangled round sponge blending tool. Ah, hello? Finally.

Well, long story long, I bought a couple after the Lake House and yesterday I SPONGED with the NBUS things!! I not only sponged, I made clouds with a stencil!

WHAT??

Me, a stencil? As far as I knew, I only had a couple of tiny brass stencils and I wasn't going to buy any more, nor the embossing paste. I just couldn't see investing in another new groovement when I have too much NBUS and too many techniques on my to-do list to justify adding one nother thing.

So, then, where did the clouds come from?

Hammy, of course. He earned his oats and carrots for another day as he piped up while I was staring at Karolyn's card with its pretty sponged grass and sky. "Don't you have a binder somewhere from like twelve years ago with those things that had shapes? You could trace them and then cut them out? You know. Stencils."

I sat up with a start and sloshed wodka on my shirt. Naturally he was right. In the second place I looked, I found this old thing filled with stencils!

As we were leafing through the binder, I saw all the fun shapes, but Hammy pointed out that the edges on some of the sheets also had shapes and you can see on the one above that there is a cloud border. "Well, I'll be darned," I mumbled as I creaked to my feet, "I'll give it a shot."

And it worked!

I didn't have room on the front of my card to put the rest of the sediment, so I decorated the inside. The balloons are winked, of course.

Here is my second card:

I used a ten y/o NBUS Hero Arts stamp called "Row of Squares" to make my little neighborhood. I inked the boxes and then I used my markers to add the rooves to each little "house."

I had so much fun, I made a third card to welcome spring:

This time, here is a close-up so you can see all the shiny bits.

Yippie Skippie, I did it! (Ardyth and Lolly, look at me!) And I even sponged HILLS! My sponging is still novice, of course, so I know you'll be kind. I have to admit, it was hecka fun!

Since I waffled on, I'll skip the ingredients bit, but if you have any questions, lemmeno.

Challenges