NBUS Challenge #6 ~ Day Five!

Greetings!

Can you believe we are halfway through NBUS #6 already? Yup, flies time when you're having fun! If you want to link up, the tool is below. (Using the Page Down key will save some wear and tear on mouse wheels and fingers.) There are a few rules, so make sure you check those out to be in the drawing. Thank you so much to everyone participlaying!

It's the weak end, so do you have crafty plans? We are in for a rainy weekend, which we all love cuz we need more of it. So far this year, the El Nino weather forecast has been El Stinko.

But it's not about Spanish today, it's about Irish. Today I'm presenting three St. Patty's Day cards. We celebrate here because the Mister is half Irish from his dearly departed mother, Genevieve. Even though it's not until the 17th, my mouth is already watering just thinking about corned beef and cabbage with carrots and potatoes and Irish soda bread, all washed down by a lovely dark Guinness for the Mister, a wee dram of Jameson's finest for me, and some Red Lemonade for my furry sidekicks.

Do you need to go get a snack and a beverage now? Go ahead, I'll wait ...

Okay, up first:

I've used white glossy card stock and snippets of stripey green. The NBUS is the awesome Layered Banner die by Papertrey Ink, as is the "Celebrate" sediment from the matching stamp set heat-embossed in platinum. The shamrock and greeting are ancient, from Stampin' Up. IRL, the greens match better than they appear on film. No Academy Award then for this card for cinematopography.

Challenges

• Curtain Call: Anything goes, with optional Key Lime photo inspiration.
• The Card Concept where my friend Ardyth is the Guest Designer: Shamrocks, patterns and greens. And, gah, I need those cookies! My card style is CAS - clean and simple.

Up second:

A lovely Irish blessing that sees ink every year. Nothing NBUS here, but the laws of Generational Ireland require the annual making of a card using this blessing. The background is smooched and the ancient greeting is from Personal Stamp Exchange.

Up third, with two men on and nobody out, we have another annual crowd favorite, which, you know, knowing me, I have to make:

I'm sorry. Any monitor cleaning bills can be forwarded to the main office.

It will come as no surprise that this greeting is from River City Rubber Works. The fancy ankle-breakers are from All Night Media.

Challenges

• Double D Challenges: Feeling "Green."
• Fusion Card Challenge: Just the photo inspiration.

~~~

Enjoy your day! Enjoy the NBUS #6 Challenge! 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!

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An InLinkz Link-up

Friends on World Card Making Day!

Hi there! Happy World Card Making Day! 

In spite of phones and texting and Face Plant and Twiddle and so many people thinking they don't have time to bother with sending cards in the mail any more, cards are a maxibazillion dollar industry. For those of us who make our own cards, we have Our Own Day!! 

Here is my card celebrating friends:

The embossing folder is "Linear" by Lifestyle Crafts. The owl and female fox are ... wait. Hold up. 

Honestly, people, I thought that female critter was a fox. Hammy looked through all my critters (and there are a lot of them) and told me it was a female fox. But now that I am typing this, I'm not so sure. Is that a cat? Seriously, is it? Because, darn it, I was going to enter a challenge that calls for "Forest Friends." Sigh. But, wait, there are feral cats, right? Okay, you convinced me. 

So as I was saying the owl and the (muffled) and the toadstools are from Paper Smooches and the male fox is from Papertrey Ink. The friends sediment from My Sentiments Exactly is copper-embossed. The branch is from Memory Box. The googlie eyes are from my googlie-eye stash. The critters are watercolored using my watercolor pencils. 

Here is a close-up of the coppery shine and winking:

Challenges

• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes.
• The Card Concept Challenge: Forest Friends. (Clean & Graphic. I think.)
• Virginia's View Challenge: All Things Colored.

Look Who's Here!

Could I be any happier embracing my bloggie friends in front of the Playhouse?!

A lot of you have already seen two of these talented bloggie friends gracing the pages of my blog before. They are Harriet on my right and Kim on my left. And on Kim's other side I'm squeezing none other than the fabulous Greta! On Thursday we were all delighted to meet each other live and in person!

Greta is from Oregon and she is just as charming and fun-loving as I imagined she would be from her wonderful blog, GG Creations. If you don't know these three ladies, you are missing out on a lot of mega-talent and inspiration!

Greta's sister Laurie lives nearby and she also joined us. She kindly took the photos for us. Thank you, Laurie! It was a pleasure to meet her, as well!

~~~

I think everyone also knows how much I love cinnamon rolls, right? Well, sweet Kim made and brought us all cinnamon rolls to have with our coffee AND she made another pan just for the Mister and me! What a friend to have, right?! Thank the Lord for elastic waistbands and PALEEESE do NOT tell the Mister about this pan of rolls! He'll never know and anyways, I've only got his best interest at heart because he's pretty much confined to the bed, so this much decadence would not be good for him. Cough.

My sisters are going to be so drooling when they see this! And, yes, they are that good!

One last share for you:

Greta brought us gorgeous handmade frames which she made by foiling and die-cutting fun foam and I wanted to show you mine. Isn't it pretty? You'll see other examples of this awesome idea in several recent posts on her blog!

New Friends Corner

This post is running long, so I will be back to introductions in my next post.

~~~

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 when the Mister is up and running again. I'm happy to say we've been drama-free the rest of this week and his leg is slowly improving!

*Life is too short!

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Happy Mother's Day!

A very special hello to all the Moms around the world who we are celebrating today! And a belated hello to those moms in places like the UK who had their Mother's Day celebration back in March. I received a lovely card and a beautiful bouquet from Dan and Rachel and the twins and I am cyber-sending this card out to Rachel, in turn, and to all of you wonderful moms, wherever you are!

Like so many, I did not have a happy childhood, but as an adult I was blessed with a wonderful MIL and many "adopted moms" who more than compensated for my youth. Cheers to moms, the memories of moms, and those who are moms at heart! 

For my card, I used some rediscovered store-bought blossoms. This one was made by Jessica Swift.

I added some sponged ink for a little depth and topped the confection with an SU pink ruffled pearl. The "ribbon" band is a length of Washi tape. Since I don't have a "MOM" stamp, I used a "WOW" stamp from SU "Friendly Faces" - no, that's not right, it's "Friendly Phrases." After I post this, I'll pop it off and turn it around so it says WOW once again and, wallah, I'll have a celebration card in my stash.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Holiday.
• The Card Concept: (style: clean and simple) Pretty Paper Packing. 

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And here's my twofer card:

The blossom is a Memory Box die called, "Prized Chrysanthemum Outline" and the NBUS sediment is from Stamping All Day. (Thank you, Viv!) I filled the negative petal openings with two shades of lilac and lavender. The smell is heavenly. The leaves were cut from a die I can't seem to lay my hands on this minute, which is odd because my desk is clean. My guess is there's a naughty hamster around here somewhere.

The thing is, I mostly made this design in order to have a play with doing leaves the way my friend Loll showed us how in a superb video. It looked amazingly involved (to me), but it is really easy to do. I just love the end result and the difference it makes, compared to the 1D leaves I normally stick on my cards, is enormous. Thank you, Lolly!

 Challenges

• Happy Little Stampers May CAS Challenge: Die-Cuts / Punches.
• Make My Monday: Trees and Leaves.
• Shopping Our Stash: 200th Challenge! Big, Bold & Beautiful.
• TIME OUT Challenges: Photo Inspiration.

Click the links to see the Design Team inspiration cards and find details on rules, sponsors, and prizes.

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Here's my beautiful bouquet to share with you:

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So moms, I hope you get to put your feet up today and RELAX! Or even just one foot up! Either way, you don't do it often enough, so grab your chance today!

~~~

I'll be away enjoying my annual sister's retreat this coming week. I have a couple of posts scheduled, but you may notice my visits are sparse. I'll catch you up when I get back. Be well!

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!

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DJKASEing Marybeth

Oh, hi!

I'll bet you never thought these ol' pins could waddle that fast did you? I wasn't planning this post, at least not today, but about an hour ago I came across my note with a challenge I HAD to play in and the time is almost up.

It was very important from me to join in the Tag You're It challenge so I could DJKASE one of my favorite card artists. She is Marybeth Lopez and her delightful blog is Marybeth's Time for Paper. If you aren't familiar with Marybeth, you are in for a treat! She has never made a card or a tag that I haven't fallen in love with!

Marybeth is the featured designer at TYI, and here then, is my attempt to emu late a Marybeth Masterpiece:

I'm sorry the photo does not do this pretty tag justice. Here is the challenge prompt and Marybeth's tag:

Aren't they stunning? I'm especially biased about the card you see because I was privileged to receive that card from Marybeth for my birthday last July. It is even more gorgeous in real life! Now it is my turn to honor Marybeth by making a "Marybeth" DJKASE for this challenge.

My colors are different because I like to be a bit different with a DJKASE, so I used the color choices from the MFT Card Challenges: Color Challenge, which is also about to close!

The papers used in my tag are PTI kraft, vintage cream, and new leaf, as well as Bazzill lavender. The tag die is the MFT Die-Namics "Vertical Frame." The roses are from the PTI "Rosie Posie" dies, embossed in purple (the shine doesn't show in the photo). The leaves are from a Sissix die. The sediment is NBUS from the MFT set "Pretty Poppies" heat-embossed in SU dark brown and the dewdrops are from Hero Arts.

~~~

Because I used several snippets, including a snippet of ribbon, I am taking my tag over to the Playground at Pixie's Snippets Playground to show my mates.

And the current challenge at The Card Concept is "Thinking of You" with a photo of roses! I hope a tag is okay? That question has not been asked in the FAQs, quite possibly because the natural response would be, "It is called the "card" concept, dearie! Off you go!"

Still, I'm going to be a rebel and see what happens. It never hurts to try.

And, lastly, I am entering a new-to-me challenge called Retro Rubber where the premise is to encourage us to use our older stamps that still need some love! (Actually, I have plenty of NBUS stamps that are over a year old and never been loved at all, she says, ashamed.) For this challenge, Retro Rubber wants us to make a tag or a card with a tag. My "Rosie Posie" and leaves are over a year old.

If any of these challenges are new to you, please check them out and play along to show your appreciation for the hard work involved in maintaining a challenge!

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

~~~

Marybeth, thank you for your friendship and encouragement and for using my beautiful birthday card as your "Tag You're It" feature photo!! It is a pleasure and an honor to support you in TYI and add you to my DJKASE tab of card artists!

~~~

In Other News

I have one other thing to share with Marybeth and with all of you. You all know how much I love hummingbirds and how we had our resident hummer Hitler for years and how he died and another male attached to our feeder. Well, we've had some interesting developments the last few months which have led to this exciting event:

All these years and we've never spied a nest before. Not only that, but look where it is:

 

I put a circle (upper left) where the nest is in the small tree behind. It is right outside my Playhouse window! It's up too high for me to see inside, but I'm okay with seeing it all!

After I posted this, I realized that in the picture above I captured the little mama at the feeder, so I made another copy with an additional circle on the right (below) where she is barely visible. You can see she has a straight shot to her source of nutrition.

Aren't they smart to nest in the Oleander tree? Her back and wing look just like a leaf. Can you see her? She is fiddling with the nest; the eggs haven't hatched yet. (Mister got up on a ladder and peeked inside. We plan to have him do it again and snap a photo.)

The reason I wanted to share especially for this post is because Marybeth also loves hummers and I've been jealous of the fact that for years she has enjoyed having hummingbird nests in a miniature tree in a pot right next to the diving board of their pool! The wee birds are unperturbed by all the activity and the adults and kids using the pool can look right down in the nest! So, look, Marybeth, we have a nest, too!

I'll keep you posted and share more photos. I have my ginfers crossed that the babies make it!

~~~

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!

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Year of the Shrago!

Happy Chinese New Year!

There is a bit of confusion over what animal sign is associated with the year 2015. Some say it's the Year of the Sheep. Some say Year of the Goat. Some say Year of the Ram. Apparently, we have options this year because those are all the ways "yang" is translated into English. So I propose we say it is the Year of the Shrago.

In the Year of the Shrago, you will find your Mo Joe Juice will be flowing at new all-time high levels of creativity. Bravo!

All this is my way of reminding you that I am guest designing for a wonderful challenge going on over at Inkspirational with a photo that has an Asian influence. We would love to see you participate! There are many floral designs you can come up with even if you don't have any traditionally Asian stamps, plus there are always digital images available.

I have more inspiration for you today. (Did you get your beverage? Okay, good.)

So last week when I was doing my original card for Inkspirational, I heat-embossed two "Love" symbols on the pretty origami paper. The first one you can find here or on the Inkspirational site. I thought for this second card, a butterfly I found in my drawer would make a nice accompany mint:

Rather than a Spellbinders rectangle die for embossing, for this card I used a rectangle mat die, which I believe came from PTI. It's a perfectly fine card, right?

Well, ahem, yesterday I thought I should deepen the grooves of my embossing to make it more pronounced, so I reached for an angled thingie that I have in my carousel for doing rub-ons. It was a bit dirty on the end, but it looked like it would work, so I took my metal ruler and grooved.

Aacckk! It turns out, gasp, that wasn't just some stain on the end, it was dog-gone INK! Sah-lap! What a dumb-dumb! INK! That'll make you drop a thing like a hot potato and fly backwards in your chair!

Well, hey now, it was too pretty to throw away, so I just inked the whole way round to fix it:

I even like it better. Here's a close-up of the sheen and shine:

And there you go. I do hope you will play along with the Inkspirational Challenge in any way that inspires you!

I'm also entering:

• CASology "Monochrome" challenge.
• Less Is More: "Wings"

And, then, since whenever I see a butterfly, I want to play in Mrs. A.'s Butterfly Challenge, I looked across the pond to see the brief. Beg your pardon? This month we are to use a ribbon with our butterflies. Well, chile, there is a blank space inside that rectangle in that lower right sweet spot, so ho ho how about this?

~~~

Part Two

Now let's turn our attention to a more whimsical card. It turns out I don't have an image of a Shrago. Nor, (I don't think) of a Goat or a Ram. But I happen to have a NBUS sheep from Paper Smooches!

This card makes me grin. I like the current CTS sketch, so I started with that. Hammy pointed me to my star collection, which made no sense, but when I opened the drawer and worked my way to the back, I found this awesome bit of ribbon I've had since the last century. It's gorgeous IRL, so that became my band and, well, I have to admit, stars and celebrations DO go together!

I then did an acrylic block watercolor background using the same colors in the ribbon. I stamped the sheep on the dry watercolor and fussy cut it. Then I made a stitched oval using my Lil' Inker dies. My NBUS sentiment from the Stampendous set "Retro Ornament Set" was laid out on an acrylic block before stamping so that it would curve to fit the oval. Then I popped on the sheep and punctuated the design with a little star cut from my watercolor paper using my NBUS Framelits dies.

Once I took the photo, I realized that I really should have embossed the card with the stitches, too, so I ran it through my Big Shot to do just that. Here is one without the stitches:

And here is one with the stitches:

 

I felt like I was too clever by half when it worked! Erm, well, not really. Unfortunately, it squished my oval panel and now it looks like somebody took that wool and put it in the washing machine and now it's a too-tight sweater over those pop-dots! Oops.

I am entering my non-squished Year of the Sheep card in:

• CAS(E) This Sketch
• Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge: Anything Goes [Paper Smooches Stamps]

~~~

Part Three

I am trying to make two cards for every one card and, as it happens, I had just enough of that pretty ribbon to make one more card, thusly:

 

For this card, I used a different sketch (below). I used a stitched circle instead of an oval and cut it out of craft foam and I used a kookoo bird instead of a sheep.

The birdie is really new NBUS. It is the result of another instance of enabling, except this time I can't remember who did the enabling. The stamp set is by Tim Holtz, called "Bird Crazy." There are six birds in the brood and you will be seeing all of them. They moved in here and immediately hit it off with the hamster!

For this card, I did a little cosmetic surgery on the head and tail feathers and then I colored her with my colored pencils. The "Hey" is also NBUS from Avery Elle. The eyeballs are, I think, from Darice.

Once again, after taking the photo, I wished I had stitched the card base, so I popped out her eyeballs and ran her through the Big Shot. Here then, is the "after" shot:

That's better, no pop-dots to squish on this one. She nails you with that look, doesn't she? You're not quite sure if that's a "Hey, how's it goin'?" or a "Hey, whadder you lookin' at?" Or, maybe a "Hey! Why did you squish me?"

Challenges

• Freshly Made Sketches: Sketch
• Cure For the Monday Blues: Photo Inspiration. (My first time here.)
• The Card Concept: Photo Inspiration "Get Well Soon." I was inspired by the stars. My card is clean and simple and if it doesn't bring a smile to someone not feeling well, they are badly sick. Like in a coma.
• Shucks, I missed the Feathered Friends challenge at The Paper Players.

Any of the challenge links will provide you with information on rules, sponsors, and prizes!

~~~

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!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling:

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