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!)

Owl You Doing?

Hello Stamplings!

You know how much I love birds and you've seen my photos ranging from tiny hummingbirds to massive hawks. I have a drawer full of every kind of bird stamps, but for some reason, I rarely make a card with one of my owl images on it. What the owl?!

I remedied that and had such fun playing with these owls from Paper Smooches Chubby Chums set.

For this anniversary card, I used a panel of gold-embossed DSP for the background. The stitched heart is cut from a gold-striped Bazzill snippet and filled with a soft green center. The owls were cut from an alcoholic Yupo snippet, and the beautiful gold-embossed "love" sediment is from GKW.

Speaking of anniversaries, yesterday the Mister and I celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary! We can't figure out how that's possible since up in our heads we are only 32 years old (and sometimes 12!)! We met 50 years ago this coming September! You know, when I was six.

Challenges

• The Card Concept: Pink party in lovely pink and green and gold.
• Love to Craft Challenge Blog: Anything goes.
• Shopping Our Stash: Hearts on fire.

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Here is my twofer graduation card:

The sediment is from Endless Creations. Hammy rightly suggested we give this very smart owl some googly eyes and a glittery tassel on his mortarboard.

I am really proud of myself because I thouAgHhEtAD when making this card and realized that in May the twins will be celebrating their 8th grade graduation. So I made another one for the other one!

That's Henry's card on the left and Adam's card on the right. How do I know? Because Henry's favorite color is yellow and Adam's is blue! (It's the tassels.)

Challenges

• The Creative Crafters: Anything goes.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Clean and simple.
• Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: B is for Book. (Snark optional.)
• Watercooler Wednesday: Masculine anything goes.

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This post is a reminder about the current Twofer Card Challenge, so here is a photo of both my Twofer cards together. 

The prompt this month is BIRDS! The Twofer Card Challenge is open until January 24th, so you still have lots of time to play along! Thank you!

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The New InLinkz Sign-in Requirement

If you play in challenges, you are familiar with the InLinkz button you click to enter your card. You may have noticed that InLinkz is transitioning to a new sign-in process, which you will eventually see on all challenges that use InLinkz. The new InLinkz sign-in requires you to enter challenges either via Facebook, Google, or your email account/password. I was being asked questions about the process, so I wrote a letter to Maria at InLinkz to ask her about the situation and let her know that many challenge players are wary of entering challenges because of the new requirement.

According to Maria:

The sign in requirements we have instituted, it is not an actual sign in but rather a verification of emails and it is a needed change due to the GDPR.

The GDPR states that email and IP address is personal data. As such, we, as a processor, cannot provide data to a controller (you) without getting the consent of the owner, which is done through email or facebook/ google accounts. In simple words, we cannot gather emails without making sure they come from whom they say they come from (hope this makes sense).

The confirmation process is something that entrants need to do it only the first time they enter a link in a new linkup. After that, they will not need to re-confirm for any subsequent linkup they participate.

I hope that makes you feel more comfortable about signing in to continue playing in your favorite challenges!

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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!)