Autumn, Birthday, and Christmas AI and Tin Foil

Hello Stamplings!

How are you? I hope you are doing well and enjoying yourself wherever you are! I have a Threefer to show you what I've been playing with this past week, so get your comfy shoes on. I don't know what that has to do with it, but okay, comfy shoes are good.

I was watching a You Tube video (don't ask me which one) and you know how one ends and another one starts automatically, especially if your attention drifts and you start looking out the window? The new video turned out to be a Marion Emberson video using the technique of alcoholic ink on kitchen aluminum foil. 

That led me on a search of other videos and I found blogs where this has been done ten years ago! Maybe there are even older ones? So perhaps you played with this technique long ago, but I must have been in the Principal's office that day. (No surprise that.) That's one of many cool things about the Interworlds: you can always find new and new-to-you crafty things to try!

Onefer

To make a large foil panel in fall AI colors (below), I glued a piece of aluminum foil to cardstock and folded over the sides. Once I was satisfied with the colors, I die-cut the leaves using a Simon Says Stamp die called, "Etched Laurel Leaves." The brick e/f background was in my BOB. Hammy decorated it using his feet daubers and metallic inks. I gold heat-embossed the sediment, ran a copper ink pad around the border of it and the two panels and ... shazambam, it was done!

Here is the panel of tin foil after inking:

And here are a few leaves I die-cut to make into more cards:

Challenges:

• Cardz 4 Galz: Leaves.
  
• Just Us Girls: Fall mood board. I was inspired by the leaf image.
  
• {PIN}spiration: Birthday and leaves.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Use fall colors.
• TIME OUT: Photo inspiration.
  

   

Twofer

How about these for bright alcohol colors?? Sorry, I should have warned you to put on your sunglasses! The above is actually my first result using AI on aluminum foil. I didn't get the subtle results that Marion did and that's an understatement! But I have to say, the bold jewel tones are beautiful in real life. I used a Sizzix e/f for added texture ala Marion. 

Challenges

• Can You Handle the Pressure?: A/G with option of trees.
  
• HLS Anything Goes With Dies.
  
• HLS Birthday: A/G.

Threefer

There were quite a few spots of ink that remained sticky on the brightly colored panel I made, so I stuck on gold foil in those spots before dry embossing. Even after that, however, it wasn't completely sticky-free. I was concerned about ink getting on my embossing folder, so I laid a sheet of opaque vellum over the colored foil before I closed the lid and embossed it. 

When I lifted the embossing folder and removed the vellum, sure enough there was quite a bit of ink on the vellum. All that ink would have been on my embossing folder and now, WOW, I ended up with this stunning sheet of vellum, which natch, I made into a card. 

Here's a closeup:

The photos don't do the vellum panel justice. I will be doing this technique again, both for the foil results and for the vellum mop-ups!

Challenges

• HLS Christmas: A/G.
  
• Krafty Chicks: Christmas.
  
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas: Anything Christmas goes.

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If I saw the date right, I just noticed there is a new Gina K. video about using AI on glitter foil so maybe this technique is making a comeback. Can't wait to watch the video and try it on glitter paper!

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

Rereading this I have to add: If I've done this technique before at a retreat with you, please forgive me for not remembering. It's sad that I feel like I have to add that to my posts now, but I'm finding that I am often "very sure" that something happened or didn't happen, only to find out I am not remembering or misremembering. My brain is all filled up, I guess, and now things are starting to overflow out the back!

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!

Mum's the Word!

Hello Stamplings!

Good grief and garbonzos. I had these cards done a week ago, edited the photos, started my draft post, and then totally forgot about it and moved on! I wonder, is there an age limit on this blogging gig? 👵

Oh, well, no matter. Here they are!

I often put an item on my wish list after seeing one of your beautiful cards. Sometimes I follow through and make a purchase, sometimes I don't. Mostly I don't these days, simply because of all the excavation I still need to do on Mt. NBUS.🚧 However, recently my friend Bonnie made a drop-dead gorgeous card using The Ton's Jumbo Spider Mum and I went straight to their website and ordered it immediately. 

I don't know where I was when it was first released, but it was new to me and it wasn't NBUS for long. It's splendid fun to watercolor with Ziggies! I used fall colors for this first outing, but I'm hoping to paint more using all my flowery Ziggie colors. Of course, Hammy loves this set, too, because of all the space that needs winking! This might show the schparkle better if you click to enlarge:

Challenges

• The Flower Challenge: Use a die.
  
• Four Seasons: Fall.
  
• NBUS: Never-before-used schtuff.
  
• Triple B: Fall.
  

Twofer

I'm not sure how this will look on your monitor. Blah or Mwah? As I was looking at my finished fall card, I wondered, "Could a white mum be used on a Christmas card?" Hammy nodded yes. Then I remembered that I have quite a few sheets of ancient ivory cardstock that I've been hoarding. For what? The pearlescent shimmer is beautiful. It's the sort of shine that makes you go "oooh" when it catches the light. 

For this card, I embossed the flower with silver e/p. I found a Christmas sediment that fit in the corner, so I stamped and silver-embossed it on the card panel. This is an uber QACAS design which is a bonus for Christmas makes. I'm sure I'm not alone in having dozens of jars of e/p, most of which I rarely, if ever use, so it will be fun to emboss this mum in all the colors!

You can see the shine better in this closeup:

For some reason this makes me think of a Christmas sugar cookie! 

Challenges

• Christmas Craft Creations: Clean and simple (CAS).
  
• Simply Clean & Simple: CAS ~ optional: stencil.
  
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas: A/G.

Bloglovin'?

Real quick, just curious, can anyone shed light on why Bloglovin' has suddenly reappeared in my inbox? It just disappeared from the interspaces a year ago with no explanation and now it's back. Voododoodo-voododoodo . . .  👻

~~~

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!

Print Making With Pals

Hello Stamplings!

I didn't think it was possible to eat that much chocolate in twelve days, but I guess everyone in fire-ravaged California shares the same stress-reliever and now you can't even find it in the stores! Just kidding, but I'll bet there has been a run on sales! 

I pray for those who have lost everything in the fires, and I pray that those in the path of Hurricane Laura are safe. Mother Nature is not happy and she doesn't care that we are all stressed by Covid, inequality, politics, and home-schooling. 🙏 Thank goodness for🍹and, of course, 🖌🎨!

Speaking of art, I was happy to join with friends a coupla weeks ago for a fun crafty session via Zoom. We wanted to play with the print making technique shown by the talented colorist Kathy Racoosin in her video here. Today we are all posting our cards. Further down there is a linky list of the other ladies' blogs, where you can find and enjoy their beautiful designs!

Onefer

I chose to use Penny Black's "red and greens" holly die for my card. I colored and spritzed it using my Karin markers just like Kathy did. You basically use watercolor paper and "stamp" your colored and spritzed die onto the paper, thereby turning your die into a stamp! I mean, how cool and stretchy is THAT?!

I know I use the peace die from Winnie & Walter a lot, but the loopy font was just perfect for my print design. Glitter and schparkle seem to be where its at lately, so I attached the watercolored and pink mat panels onto a panel of glitter paper. Here is a close-up of Hammy's winking of the holly to tie the two glittery elements together:

Challenges

• August Rudolph Days: Anything Christmas goes.
• 52 Christmas Card Throwdown: August technique: make shadows (sediment).
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge: Anything goes.

Twofer

This design is for a fall birthday. I used Concord & 9th's "Floral & Flutter" die for my "stamp" for this one, but the technique was the same. The stitched scalloped frame is NBUS from Pink & Main. The sediment is from Cottage Cutz. I used the same colors of markers to color the sediment to match the flower. I think you can see without your binoculars that Hammy did his thing. You don't even want to know how over-budget I am on liquid glitter now that you've all joined me in telling Hammy what a good job he does with the winking!

Challenges

• Krafty Chicks: All occasions.
• Simon Says Stamp Monday: Beautiful botanicals.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Anything goes.

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If you'd like more inspiration from my friends using this fun technique. click over and enjoy!

Bonnie

Brenda

Christine

Loll

Susan

Fire Update

While the fires to the north, east, and south of the San Francisco Bay Area are still less than fifty percent contained, the marine layer has come in which has helped the firefighters immensely. The temperatures are supposed to go up again starting today, but hopefully steady progress will continue to be made. Thank you for all your good wishes and prayers!

There is a wonderful account on Instagram called @activenorcal. It has many amazing photos of the Bay Area, fire related and non-fire related. This photo gives you an idea of why hundreds of fires were started by dry lightning storms in the state on August 23rd.

Isn't that power incredible?!

Take care and please be safe out there wherever you are! 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!)

Cute / Classy / Cozy Christmas

Hello Stamplings!

As the title says, I have a Threefer of CEE creations for you. No, that's not a new aaackronym I made up. It simply stands for the letter C in the alphabet soup. You know, just me being cilly.

When I saw the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch last week, it was SO clean and simple that I had to play along, so I made this set of triplet cards. Then I looked out the window and the challenge ended. But that's okay, I'm sharing them anyway because they're cute and they fit other fabulous challenges.

These cute critters are NBUS, from Stampingbella. I embossed the card base with snow. Then I heat-embossed three snippets of icy blue vellum with platinum e/p using three different 'peace, love, and joy' stamps I own. I watercolored the chicklets with my Ziggies, fussy cut them, and popped them on ice. A twist of lemon and they're delish!

Challenges

• Perfectly CAS: Christmas
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippets!
• HLS: November CAS: Tis the season.

Twofer

I covered a white card base with a piece of vellum that came speckled in gold. Over that I placed a sediment that was heat-embossed in platinum on vellum. Next, I white heat-embossed this beautiful Waltzingmouse poinsettia on metallic gold paper, fussy-cut it, and attached it to the card front. Hopefully, you can get a sense of the shine and schparkle from the gold and platinum.

Challenges

• The Flower Challenge: Add spots or stripes.
• Just Add Ink: Just choose two: stars, spots, sparkle. My card has spots and sparkle.
• TIME OUT: Celebrations.

Threefer

The underskirt on this pretty card is a background I made using Lindy Magicals. Over that I laid a panel of white which was die-cut with a NBUS Creative Expressions "Poinsettia Edger" die. The sediment is from Hero Arts.

Challenges

• CAS Christmas: Warm and cozy.
• HLS Anything Goes With Dies.
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge: Anything goes.

~~~

Even though it will be weird to have our Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving, with Thanksgiving being so late, we are having the boys with us today and tomorrow to help put up the tree and decorations. We want to keep up that tradition because they'll be all grown up soon. If all goes well, there will be a 2019 photo posted soon, but I shake my head as I type this ... doesn't it seem like you just saw the 2018 photo of them with the tree?! Anyway, I'm glad they're here because Hammy has been off visiting his family and even with sweet Nellie here, I always miss him when he's away.🐹

Enjoy your weekend! 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! Fiona Hill for President! 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!)