Sunshine and Snowtime

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you've had a wonderful two weeks! It's been busy here, but a very productive and fun kind of busy.

I missed die cut week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar, so today is all about E = Embossing. But, of course, die cuts and ink like to be included whenever possible.

Onefer

I went with another sunflower this week. I have several of them, but this one is NBUS from Scrapbook.com called, "Sunflowers."  I'm actually using it pretty quickly after buying it on sale. (I'm afraid if I turn around, I'll see all the old virginal items on Mt. NBUS glaring at me!)

The background embossed flowers aren't sunflowers. I could tell because Altenew put "Daisy Bed" on the 3D folder. But what the heck, I think they do a fairly good job of impersonating sunflowers. A simple sediment, a black frame, and, of course, lots of winking by the lads finished it off. 

Playing in Krafty Chicks (CAS); Seize the Birthday (Add a Sediment Strip); and The Card Concept (Sunflower Delight; I was inspired by the sunflowers for my CAS design style.).

Twofer

This delightfully sketchy Christmas tree is NBUS from the Tim Holtz's set, "Season of Magic," in collab with Simon Says STAMPtember. Something about the set really grabbed me and I starting using it right away. It's versatile and so far I've made some cards in simple black and white, some gold heat-embossed, and some watercolored with the Distress Stains. 

Tim is having a video demo on Saturday, which I can certainly use, but I couldn't wait to have a play.

For the tree background panel, I used a snowy e/f and then backed that with a v.o. piece of bumpy green paper I found. To make the texture even bumpier, I embossed it with a pebbly Sizzix 3D e/f (662825). That was a bit much for the thin pp, so some of the bumps popped, showing the white core. That was a happy accident because now it looks like colored bubble wrap. 

I think you can just make out that Hammy and Stanley sprinkled the tree with some snowflakes that came with the kit. This was their first time flaking together, so it was a bit of a blizzard. You don't know until you try and now they will be finding snowflakes in their cornflakes for months to come!

I'm delivering my card to the Snippets Playground, along with a thermos of hot toddies and a blankie now that the evenings are drawing in and getting cooler. I used snippets for all three layers. (Not the sediment, which is premade from Memory Box.)

Getaway

It was perfect! And that handsome man you see is celebrating his 77th birthday today by heading off on a motorcycle tour in Europe, one year since his bad accident. I'm so proud of him for all his hard work to make it happen and I thank you for all your prayers this past year. (We would appreciate a few more to keep him safe until he is home again.❤️)

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Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse! Mwah!

*Life is too short

Daisies and Tufts

Hello Stamplings!

How are you? I hope you had a good week and that you were able to see the remarkable night sky over the weekend when five planets were visible with the naked eye! There were three in the west just after sunset (Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury) and then hours later, two in the east just before sunrise (Saturn and Mars!) 

The amazing event fell on the night of a new moon when the sky was the darkest, so if you were really lucky, you even saw the Milky Way! We only saw Venus, Jupiter, and (maybe?) Mercury, but then we had to put pajamas back on our eyes and go to bed!

Onefer

It is E = Embossing week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar and the NBUS embossing folder featured here is called, "Quilted Daisies" from Scrapbook.com. 

The floral spray die cut is NBUS from Concord & 9th, designed by Kristina Werner and called, "Daphne's Flowers Inlay." The nice thing about this flower die is that Kristina has numbered the bits to make it easy to make the leaves and flowers any colors or patterns you want. Mwah!

And, yup, I used more of the gorgeous pp from Craft Consortium, all swirly and shot with gold. It loses a bit of its gob-smacki-ness when it's used for teeny blossoms, but I like how it turned out and I do enjoy inlaying. That's different laying than napping-laying, but I do enjoy that, too.

Entering: Allsorts ~ Anything Grows From the Garden; Seize the Birthday ~ Anything Goes option; and Snippets Playground (I used lots of pp scraps to die-cut the flowers).

Twofer

As we speed towards July, I hope to make my Twofers as Christmas designs from now on.🤞   

I also used a NBUS e/f for this card. This one is from Simon Says Stamp called, "Tiny Tufts." The thing is, what kind of tufts are they? Olives? Carnations? I pulled out my Artistic License and decided to make them Christmas berries.

I used my brayer and red ink on the bumpy embossed side and, as usual, it looked like leftover pizza, so I turned the panel over and brayered the debossed side. It sort of looks like fabric because of the textured watercolor paper.

To give it more pan ache, Stanley suggested we scallop the edges with a die from PTI. Then it was a matter of finding dies that I could use for stems and berries to decorate the sediment while not obscuring the background. Yay for "Up Goes the Tree" from Penny Black! I painted the berries and stems with my Ziggies and then Hammy carefully glossified the berries, et Violet! The sediment (also from SSS) is called, "Elegantly Modern Christmas."

(If you're wondering, the scalloped borders are up-lifted because I accidentally trapped a piece of Timothy hay under the panel. When I turned back to my desk after looking through my dies, I found Stanley madly nosing his way all around the edges of the card, trying to find a way to get under the panel! I had to distract him with a strawberry to get him to stop, but after all that, I decided to leave it and call it a design feature! Never a dull mo!)

Entering: The Card Concept ~ Christmas in July. I was inspired by the colors and the white and red balls on the Christmas tree in the photo. (Love the little beagle!) Also entering: Krafty Chicks ~ Christmas, and The 12 Months of Christmas Link Up ~ Anything Goes.

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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!

NBUS Flowers V-VII

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well. I wasn't planning on being gone for over a week, but I got squirreled by a sideline project and when I wasn't paying attention, the days of the week fell away and drifted to the floor like a Victorian lady with the vapors. One after the other. Woop, there goes another one!

Plus, the little fence lizards are out in force sunning themselves on the garden wall and the last few days the little tiny baby lizards are venturing out. I mean, not by the hundreds mind you, or even the dozens, but a coupla families live in the wall and I find them so entertaining. And the butterfly bush is blooming. I'll have to get some new photos soon.

But, hey, in spite of my squirreliness, I made a card.

V.

The schpark for this card was the beautiful embossed flower panel which my friend Greta included in her get well card to me not too long ago. I went through my NBUS baskets and found a flower that looked very similar. It is from the Rose Peonies set by Gina K. 

I stamped, clear-embossed, and die-cut the flowers and then I used my watercolor pencils to color them. Although you can't see it😕, Hammy winked the flower petals and glossified the centers. Before attaching the flowers and sediment, I added some interest to the background panel by blending matching CP inks at an angel. I mean angle. Thank you again, Greta!

Challenges

• Addicted to CAS: Flower.
• Can You Handle the Pressure? AG with a twist of flowers.
• The Card Concept: May flowers. See the photo inspiration. I was inspired by the flowers and the colors. My design style is clean and layered for this card.

VI.-VII.

Some time ago I made the two QACAS designs shown below, but they've never been post-toasted. I used two of the NBUS flower die cuts from the Cutout Blossoms set 664161 by Tim Holtz Sizzix. It is a fun way to use alcoholic backgrounds.

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

Perhaps because so many of us are near the same age, I know there are a lot of you dealing with health issues right now, either your own or someone you care about. I may not be in touch as often as I'd like, but I do care and I pray things will get better for you ~ and, for that matter, the world! We have to try and enjoy a bit of every day. Mwah!

*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!)

Life's a beach and then it's Christmas

Hello Stamplings!

I'm sorry I'm so late. I've been down to Police Headquarters filing a Missing Week Report. It did make me feel better seeing the long lines of people doing the same thing. I'm pretty sure I saw you, but you were in the line by the green door and it was too far to yell without seeming uncouth. That's one of those funny words that you rarely hear the other part of. Hmm, if I were couth, I wouldn't end a sentence with a dangly partisouple.

Onefer

This Beach Baby from Penny Black has been around awhile and she recently crawled into my shopping cart. You just can't help but smile at her and when I saw the little baby on the Double D "Signs of Summer" mood board, I had a blast painting this image to match with my Ziggies. I painted the red stripes on her swimsuit top and put white gel drops on her hat and Hammy painted her toenails! The image and sediment (from the same set) are heat-embossed in liquid platinum. I was going to paint on some waves, but I decided to leave well enough alone.😱

Challenges

• Double D: Signs of summer.
• Happy Little Stampers: AG Watercolor.
  
• The Card Concept: Long summer days. Style: clean and simple.
• The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: W is for watercolor.
  

Twofer

This QACAS design was so easy, it was ridiculous. I used a panel of gold and vellum card from a paper pad to cover the front of my card and then simply die-cut and attached the tree and star from MFT called Christmas Tree Win. It really looks quite mod without a sediment considering it pretty much screams Christmas, but then when I cock my head, I think, no, it needs a sediment, so I'm sure I'll add one. Or not.

Challenges

• Christmas 24: Trees and ornaments.
  
• Jingle Belles: Leave it in neutral (in this case metallic neutral).
  
• Rudolph Days: June. Anything Christmas goes.

Family Time

We had a wonderful Dad's Day celebration and I did remember to get a photo:

Adam, Dan, Henry, The Mister (aka Papa, aka Kevin)

And then we spent a busy week dog-sitting little Cisco. He has appeared here before, so you may remember he owns my sister-in-law. It was a hoot!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, and keep safe! 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!)

A Beach, a Bee, and a Baby

Hello Stamplings!

We've whooshed through another week unscathed and in lickity-split time and I hope you've done the same! 

Every Friday morning now for weeks we will be sleepily moving around the kitchen getting breakfast and one of us will start the conversation about the day and each other's plans and suddenly the one not talking will whip around, drop their jaw onto their chest, bug out their eyeballs, and whisper, "Wait. Is it Friday again?!" Every.single.week. It feels like we get up on Wednesday, step out of the shower, and it's Friday. It's positively ionic.

Fortunately, a three-day week is all I need to make a coupla cards.

Beach

Inspired by so many summer-y beach-y challenges, I made this cheer-y design which looks a little crooked-y. That happens.🙈 Just lean into it. It's Friday.

Of all things, I used a Tim Holtz woodgrain stencil to blend out a stretch of ocean and a stretch of sand. The fun NBUS beach huts are from Avery Elle, watercolored by me, and then winked by Hammy. The NBUS sun ray stencil is from Moda Scrap. 

Of course, as any sensible person wouldn't, I decided to add the top level of the sun rays to the card base after adhering the panel. I remember back in the day when I had forethought ... but that might be an afterthought. Did you know merrythought is a real word? The definition is not the one I would have given it. It means wishbone of a bird. That's crazy, right, but at least you earned something new today. 

Challenges

• The Card Concept: The dogs days of summer. I was inspired by the summer theme and the colors. My style is clean and layered.
• CAS Mix Up: August watercolor hosted by Loll: Beach.
• Country View: I do like to be beside the sea.
• Happy House: Summer holiday.
• Seize the Birthday (no toppings): Anything goes.
• Simon Says Stamp Monday: Summer memories.

Bee

I was playing in another lifetime with my friend Harriet and we were having fun with foil. This was a very glittery foil on an ancient bee from GKW. After wards I colored it in with my Ziggies and framed it with a square frame turned to form a diamond shape, as one does. I added a simple sediment heat-embossed in gold and a coupla Matts.

Here's a closeup which is a bit blurry because of all the schparkle:

Challenges

• Just Add Ink: Just add T (as in Thinking of you).
• Shopping Our Stash: KISS: Keep it simple, sister.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Midsummer blues.

Baby

I told you a while back about the old lizard we call Stubbie and all the little lizards that entertain me out the Playhouse window. I have pictures of him and I was going to do this whole collage, but, you know, how many lizards do you really want to see? 🦎

Anyway, I rant out of time, so instead I will just show you this itty-bitty baby I spotted sunning himself on a large white rock in the yard. I was taking photos of my card when I saw him, but before I could turn my camera towards him, he skittered underneath the rock. I circled him so you don't have to strain your eyes. So cute!!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy (LITS!*), but please keep safe and 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!)