CASE and OLC

Hello Stamplings!

Happy August! I'm just gonna leave it at that. Let's just enjoy every moment!

And make cards!

My Onefer today is a CASE (copy and share everything) of a card I've been meaning to make since, geez, quite a while ago.

The original was made by my friend Trina and you can find it here on her blog, Phamtastic Design. (By clicking over, you will become acquainted with Trina, if you are not already familiar with this talented card artist!) It took me a while to figure out how to do her card justice and still put my own spin on it.

The flower is NBUS from the Hero Arts die set called, "D1856 Bouquet." The die-cut sediment is from WPlus9 and the stitchery dies are from MFT. Hammy did a great job of winking, so he wanted a closeup:

Challenges:

• Simply Clean and Simple: Anything goes.
  
• Snippets Playground: Anything snippets goes. I used snippets of white and gold for my die cuts.
  
• NBUS: A/G, never-before-used-schtuff.

Twofer

I was planning to make and post my usual Twofer Christmas card, especially now that we are in August. (Oh, sorry, I wasn't going to remind you of that.) But then I saw the new challenge at Less is More is "One Layer" with an autumn theme, so I distracted myself and made this quickie:

This stamp set is from PTI's "Autumn Hills." I heat-embossed it in gold on a burnt orange card base. Using colored card for the base gave this QACAS design all the oomph it needed. "Wait. What?" asked the pipsqueak, "How about if you give that house a coat of white paint to add a little more oomph to your oomph?" 

Well, slap my pancake, what a great idea! So that's what I did, using my white Gelly Roll pen and what a difference it made!

Challenges

• Krafty Chicks: Stamp Act.
  
• Less is More: OLC.
• Stamping Sensations: A/G.
  
• We Love Stamping: Masculine.
  

~~~

Had to share:

That's me on the left with my dear friend, Susan. We have been friends for over 45 years. We recently got together for dinner with our Misters and we couldn't believe how alike we had dressed ... down to the same exact pair and color of Tom's shoes! Longtime girlfriend/ships can make you twinsies!

While fashions have changed for women of our age,

thank goodness, friendships have not!

~~~

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!

Sunshine or Moonshine?

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you doing well!

I just realized that now you're going to be expecting a recipe for moonshine. I asked Dr. Google and my, is it ever a long and involved process! I'm surprised there isn't a shortage of booze on the shelves by this point in the pandemic, so Justin Case, I'm going to stock up on corn mash.

🌞🌝🌞🌝🌞🌝🌞🌝🌞

(Interesting that the moon emoji is larger than the sun emoji.)

We have a fun, wide-ranging, far-reaching, and imagination-stretching prompt for you this month at the Twofer Card Challenge. It's sun🌞 OR moon🌝. And note: there are a lot of summertime/beach themed challenges abounding in Blogland right now, so the more challenges, the merrier! 

Here are the two designs I came up with:

The item my two cards have in common is a NBUS Hero Arts die called, "Safari Sunset."

Onefer

Everything about this card is self-exploratory. Onto a piece of jungle-y pp, I layered the sun cut from more pp and inlaid with clouds. The giraffe is a stamp from Fiskars, stamped onto pp from Bo Bunny and then fussy cut, and the sediment is from W Plus 9.  EZPZ!

Challenges

• AAA Birthday: Tic Tac Toe. (masculine, die cuts, patterned paper.)
• The Male Room: Happy 7th Birthday!!
• Seize the Birthday: Anything goes.
• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Happy 10th Birthday!!
• Stamping Sensations: August challenge: Make it masculine.

Twofer

This Christmas design on the other hand ... I mean, I don't even know what to say. I knew what I had in mind, but it took some convincing for my ginfers to put it together. Quite a few bits went into the circular file and a few handstands had to happen, but eventually Mr. Muse was happy with the black and white winter sun and the Swiss dot snowfall. The peace die is from Winnie & Walter. Hammy added the star to balance the design. Peace out.

Challenges

• Christmas Kickstart: Snow is falling.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Anything snippets goes.
• NBUS #17: Anything never-before-used goes.

  

~~~

I would love to see you play with us and enter your beautiful sun or moon designs in the gallery at TCC!

Please remember that you can make two conventional designs or one conventional design and one unconventional design using the prompt. We have winners for both categories. The fabulous Team ~ and our talented Guest Designers Mac Mable and Linda W. ~ have made conventional designs to inspire you over at the August Twofer Card Challenge! Mwah!

~~~

In other news, we were surprised recently when two peacocks came strutting by our house!

They just calmly walked on by, even with me standing in the driveway, holding Nellie. Sadly, they were so calm, they didn't fan their tails for us. They must be someone's pets and I hope they made it home okay. Never a dull moment in Sublurbia! [ETA: Maxine tells me these are peahens, not peacocks and like so many birds, the ladies don't have much to show. Thank you, Maxine!]

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Stay safe and keep well!

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!)

Butterfly ~ Butterfly II

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you're doing okay as another week whooshes by. I walked by a store yesterday and they had Halloween costumes in the window! 

Mmm, no. That's a lie. I'm not going downtown and, hence, I didn't walk by a store with Halloween costumes. But the way this year is flashing by, perhaps it is happening! 

I'm here to remind you that there is only one week left to enter your cards in the 29th showing of the Twofer Card Challenge, where the prize is ten million dollars and the prompt is:

🦋BUTTERFLIES!🦋

What? Wait. No. Move over. You see what happens when I let Hammy type my post! What a liar he is! (Well, that's a bit harsh. He thinks of it as teasing.) There is no prize other than the possibility of seeing your name up in lights on the winner's post! But, hey, that's always fun!

We made these two designs to inspire you:

These are a bit artsy-ish for me, aren't they? You could say I've spread my wings! 😆 This time the item my two cards have in common is a NBUS stamp from Docraft Papermania called, "Square Urban Stamp."

Onefer

For this encouragement card, I simply stamped the image with Versamark and heat-embossed it in gold on black card. The gold-embossed sediment is from STAMPlorations. To focus your eyes, I added gold border strips on each side. QACAS.  (Wouldn't this image be perfect stamped on coasters?)

Challenges

• Happy House: The treasure of nature.
• NBUS: Any never-before-used-schtuff.
• Stamping Sensations: July: All creatures great and small.
• TIME OUT: Peaceful.

Twofer

For this birthday card design, I placed a square card over a piece of scratch paper and verrrrrry carefully stamped the image in black four times around the corners of the card (after first stamping off once to mute the black ink). Then I had a lie down and asked myself why I hadn't just used my gray ink pad.

Then I cut two circles out of the center. I replaced the center circle after gold-embossing the sediment from Stamps of Life, "Sentiments4Circles." I colored the butterflies in oranges and Hammy added his winking, even though you can't see the schparkle nor the juiciness of the oranges. Finally, for a little dementia, I ran an orange marker around the inner rim of the outer circle.

Challenges

• 613 Avenue Create: A/G (Optional twist: sediment is the focus.)
• Butterfly Challenge: The letter "A" with options. Mine: butterfly + apricot.
• Seize the Birthday: Anything birthday goes.

~~~

I hope my cards have inspired you to make two butterfly designs per the rules and join in the fun at the Twofer Card Challenge! Mwah!

~~~

I will leave you with a photo of one of the butterflies I am blessed to see enjoying the butterfly bush outside my Playhouse window. It's not a Monarch visiting this time, but the large tiger swallowtails are equally mesmerizing!

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! I'm slower at visiting now, however, because I'm older and I look out my window a lot.

*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!)

Same Difference

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are safe and dry wherever you are. And contented.

The Mister and I were discussing current events and at one point I shrugged and said, "Same difference." He knew immediately what my next words were going to be: "Hey! My friends who live in my computer will want to know the etymology of that idiomatic phrase!" And I got right on it.

The term "same difference" doesn't actually make any sense and is not grammatechnically correct. What you're actually saying is that a thing is not the same, that it is different, but that the difference is so slight as to make it not worth noting, hence: same difference. The earliest known use of the oxymoronic phrase in print was in 1945 in a book titled, "I am Gazing Into My 8-Ball," by New York gossip columnist Earl Wilson.

Today my twofers are, in fact, different. 

This is one of my QACAS (quick and clean and simple) cards that are easy to make and easy to mail. In a large mixing bowl combine a colored card base and a freshly washed leaf of white paper pierced with your awl or an Avery Elle Dotted Die. Gently fold in a NBUS "Swirling Cutwork" die from Memory Box, a sediment inked to match the card base, and three itty-bitty blings. 

Twofer

This sunset-colored rose duo is a CASE (copy and share everything) of my friend Lolly's beautiful coral rose card. Please check out Stamping With Loll to see her card and read her post where she explains this fun technique so well! I changed my paint colors slightly, used a different sediment, and splattered my card panel with gold. (Hammy went on a two-day backpacking trip with his cousins who are visiting from New Mexico, so, gasp, this card is not winked!)

Challenges

• Back to Basics and Beyond: Use an embossing folder.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything goes.
• Stamping Sensations: July: In my garden.

~~~

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!)

Twofer Card Challenge #6 ~ Trees

Hello Stamplings!

Goodness gracious me and bless my biscuits, these months are dropping over like outhouses on Halloween, 1-2-3-4-5-6- and half the eighteenth year of the first century of the third millennium is done, put to bed, lights out.

It makes a woman of my age mighty nervous, I don't mind telling you. So let's have all the fun we can then, shall we? To that end, it's time for this month's Twofer Card Challenge! Our prompt this month is TREES and these are my cards to inspire you:

The palm tree stamp I used for both cards is from my NBUS "Totally Trees" set by Stampin' Up.

Onefer

For my Thinking of You card, I embossed the three colors of paper with a waves die and then pieced them together to make them look like sand, sea, and sky. The sun is from Lil Inkers, the glossified Adirondike chair and sediment are from Technique Tuesday. The beach ball is a sticker.

(Looking at my card now, I realize that the size of my ocean wave is a bit ominous and if someone were sunning themselves in that chair they would get a very rude awakening in about one minute!)

Challenges

• Inkspirational: Power. I believe there is power in the sunshine and the seaside to relax and restore the body and mind. And to give you a sunburn, so be careful out there.
• SSS Work It Wednesday: Summer.
• The House That Stamps Built: Repeat Impressions DCC66: Summer vacation.

Twofer

Putting on his surgeon's mask, Hammy operated on the palm tree after noticing that the fronds would make a very dandy evergreen Christmas wreath! Right?! It was a fun and QACAS way to stretch the stamp, which is still useble as a palm tree.

Challenges

• CAS Christmas Card Challenge: Masculine.
• Stamping Sensations: June = anything goes.
• TIME OUT: Holidays (twist: one layer).

    

~~~

I hope you'll get the opportunity to play along this month! The challenge is open until the end of day on June 24th. Remember you can simply use the same tree as a conventional tree on both your cards and just change up your design! You don't have to get all jiggy with it!

Please click over to the Twofer Card Challenge to see the amazing Twofer cards our talented Guest Designer Maria Rodriguez and the sensational ladies of the Design Team have made to inspire you!! Thank you for your continued enthusiasm and support! Mwah!

~~~

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!)