Stamping Smiles Designs GD!

Greetings, Friends and Challenge Lovers!

I hope things are going well for you as you crest the wave of this week!

I'm surfing in to happily share that I am one of the Guest Designers for Stamping Smiles Designs Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge! This is only the third challenge for this fun new place to play and I hope you will be able to join us!

As always, there is a Tic-Tac-Toe board for you to choose from. In addition, there is a sketch option so you have guidance galore!

I've made two cards to inspire you!

First, I made a card I think is gender neutral. You wouldn’t have to make it the size of a business envelope, but guys might like the size of it!

As you can see I used the awesome sketch for my design and this card was also inspired by row one across on the Tic-Tac-Toe board: love, shimmer, and hearts. 

The shimmer is from the red foil paper from Stampin' Up. In fact, all the papers used for this card are from Stampin' Up. The word "Sending" is from Simon Says Stamp and the words "you" and "love" are from Winnie & Walter.

My second card is an always-fun interactive shaker card:

This time I used row three down for my design: hearts, confetti, and sketch. The diagonal hearts are actually strips of heart Washi tape. The double-stitched rectangle frames were made with Lil' Inker dies. The sediment is from Hero Arts.

I hope my cards have inspired you to play along! I want to thank Ka for the honor of asking me to be the Guest Designer for this Third Challenge! I can't wait to see what you create and BTW, you'll have the chance to win one of these stamp sets!! You can link your card here.

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I'm going to sneak in one more Valentine:

Hmm. Are you thinking that's an odd choice of focus pocus for a Valentine? Well, wait. Here's a closeup:

Now do you see hearts, organically speaking? Don't groan. I AM that coo-coo, but your groans will change to romantic sighs when I tell you that I made it for my friend to give to her cardiologist husband. Aw.

You see, every time you think I've gone round the bend, I fool you!

The die is from Memory Box and it's called "Quinn Flourish." It really is beautiful and it will be posted on the GIVEAWAYS page sometime today.

~~~

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!

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A Pocket Full of Love and XXOOs

Hi there and Happy Sunday Funday!

I've got a lotter pictures and since it's Sunday, the side show attractions have been given the day off so we can get right to the main infraction.

First off, direct from their sold-out show in Lost Wages, please give a warm welcome to A Pocket Full of Love!

Two different embossing folders are performing here. The background folder is "Wire Fence" by Darice, who has been entertaining creative minds prolifically for many years. The folder used to wrap the pocket is 3D "Quilt" from We R Memory Keepers. The marquee shouting LOVE is from Paper Smooches. The hearts (designed by Cuttlebug), are dressed in low-cut glitter foam, sparkling provokingly in the stage floodlights.

Following tonight's performance, this feature production will move on to the following challenge venues: CASology's "Glitter" and Less Is More's "White on White."

Happy 5th Birthday to LIM and thank you for all you've done to inspire me since my very early days of blogging! Cheers to many more happy years!

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Next, I am pleased to present a three-part harmony presentation featuring the NBUS border die "Hugs and Kisses" from Memory Box.

This little ditty is festooned with chipboard hearts from my stash. The sediment is from Hero Arts (A2917).

This lovely number is made from an ancient strip of sparkly red paper and a scripty love die cut designed by the renowned duo of Winnie and Walter. You can also catch this performance over at the Addicted to Stamps and More show, "Clean and Simple (CAS)" and the "Inspired by Words" presentation at the TIME OUT Challenge (featuring "Mind Games" by John Lennon). 

In the final scene, the chorus sediment is NBUS from Happy Little Stampers, "Everyday Sentiments." Here you will see firsthand how performers can appear on stage dressed in the die cut cast-offs from other numbers. Nothing goes to waste in the paper-crafting industry! As such, we are proud to also be appearing in the "Snippets" production over at Pixie's Snippets Playground and in the word production at Just Us Girls where the star of the show is "Valentine."

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this performance! I have been asked to apologize on behalf of the Stage Director for the gap in the dancers (downstage left) in the last performance. One of the XO duets became enthusiastically entangled in each other and missed last call for curtain. Please accept our complimentary and celibatory wine now available in the Auntie Chamber!

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FYI, the current GIVEAWAY ends at noon on Tuesday.

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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 or rejoin 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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Hearts and Flowers

Hey, there! I hope your week is rolling along smoothly for you!

I wonder why roller blades went out of fashion so quickly. I've said before how I used to love roller skating as a kid. I was too old for roller blades when they became popular, but I would think the young'ns would love them and still use them. Instead, they have hoverboards that don't even hover except when they're bursting into flames.

Okay, then.

I have two items on the menu to share today.

First up is a card for this week's "Adore" challenge at CASology:

The stitched rectangle is by Lil' Inker. The clear heart bling is from SU. The NBUS sediment is unmarked. The stitched capital I is from my alphabet stash, which container is as big and as unused as my heart container was, sooo ... anyone in need of some alphabet letters?

Gosh, I spose you could say I adore you so much that my hearts bleed for you. Eu! No! That's a bit violent, Shirley. How about instead we describe it as hearts flowing down a river of watercolored cotton candy punctuated with sugary splatters? Yummo!

I'm also playing with:

• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Love Is In The Air.
• Stamp Ink Paper Challenge: Tic-Tac-Toe: Heart, Pink, Bling.
• Uniko Challenge: Anything Goes with the option of Love. 

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The other challenge that spoke to me yesterday was the Muse Challenge. Not only is it challenge #150, but my sweet Scottish friend Jenni Murray has joined the Design Team, which means her card is up for CASEing this week.

The e/f is Cross-Stitch Frame Borders by Memory Box. The silver embossed French script stamp is En Francois by SU. The NBUS sediment is Inkadinkado from my friend Brenda. The flower stamp and die are Vintage Linens by PTI. The flower centers are Liquid Pearls, which are partially smashed because the card fell over on its face during the windy photoshoot. Oops.

Here is Jenni's beautiful card:

I loved Jenni's design so much that I pretty much did a complete DJKASE copy of it using different products. I followed Jenni's panel design, watercolor washing my embossed script panel, and I topped that off with a floral sprig and white-on-black sediment layer. I would recommend a crisp chardonnay with that.

Congratulations on the DT appointment, Jenni!

I'm also playing in the "Anything Goes" challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.

In other news ~~

RE: REfollowing

I spoke too soon about the loss of followers not being too bad. After several days of up and down ticks of only four-five followers, I lost 33 overnight! (Wish that were pounds!) You can read about what's happening here.

Please NOTE something I forgot to tell you when we talked about this last time. There is a second action you must take in order to make it go back to how it was. In addition to signing up for a free Google account, you also have to REclick to join as a follower because you have been dropped by Blogger. You can rejoin using the blue button on the side bar that says "Join This Site." Thank you! Every time I visit a blog by Blogger now, I click the "Join" blue button to double-check that I'm still hooked up with you. It's a bit of a nuisance, but there you have it.

Great Minds

You know how sometimes we feel like we are so unique artistically, but then we hear that it's hard to put a copyright on creativity because what we might think up could just as easily be thought up by someone else's hamster?

And you know how I posted just such a cool and unusual card in my last post with the double-die-cityscape cut-out? Well, you have to check out this card by my friend Ros of Mikey's Mom! On the very same day, she also posted a card using a double-die-cityscape cut-out on her card!!

You have to admit, that's goose-pimply.

A Discount!

I'm so happy to announce that my friend and teacher, Deepti Malik, is offering all of my followers a 50% discount off the price of her excellent watercolor class! To sign up, click Watercolor Cards Class at Craftsy.com. Thank you for your generosity, Dee!!

Giveaways!

Don't forget the GIVEAWAYS page at the top of my blog home page! 

This one closes at noon PST tomorrow, FRIDAY the 29th!

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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!

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Is This Goodbye?

Hello there!

I hope you enjoyed the first full week of the brand spankin' new year! I was so hoping it wouldn't whoosh by, but it did.


And I hope this isn't the last time I'll see you and hear from you!

Wait. What?

You may have already heard that Google is going to start the process of cleaning out and streamlining how people access Blogger.

If I understand it correctly, that means if you don't have a Google account and you follow me via the blue "Join This Site" button (Google Friend Connect), you will be dropped as a follower as of Monday, January 11, 2016. (It may not happen prezackly on Monday, but over time.)

That also means you won't be able to comment, which will make me very sad! Right now when you leave a comment, you may see these "identity" choices:

or you may have more identity options, like this:

or if the blog you are visiting doesn't have a pop-up box for comments, your identity profile options might look like this:

I'm not for sure if the ONLY way you can leave a comment in the future is by the first choice of a "Google account," but I know some of those other options are disappearing. So just to be safe, if you set up a Google account, you will be able to leave comments on anybody's blog.

ETA: Nan writes that it is only the ability to follow that will be affected and not the ability to leave comments. That's not what I've been reading, but it's a relief to know if that's how this pans out! She suggests having a Bloglovin link on our side bars, which I already do, as a way for people to follow instead.

The problem is I don't know how to "see" who follows me that way to introduce friends to friends in my New Friends Corner, or monitor my NBUS Challenge or giveaways, so I'm hoping people will still follow the "old-fashioned" way. If someone knows how I can see who follows me via Bloglovin or Feedly, I'd love to know. Thanks for all your suggestions and advice!

What You Can Do

Setting up a Google account is free and easy and I hope you will take a minute to do that now so that nothing will change between us when Monday rolls around!

Go to https://accounts.google.com/signup. The signup page will look like this:

Simples. As far as I know this does NOT mean you have to sign up for Google PLUS +. I sure hope that's not what it means as a lot of us don't want that. Please let me know if you have any problems with signing up. I would hate to lose you as a follower and I will truly miss your wonderful comments!

I even made you a card to say there are ten things I love about you and that I love hearing from you!

I embossed the card with a "Next Level" 3D embossing folder by We R Memory Keepers and attached little heart stickers in the indentations. I made the heart stickers by running a sticker sheet through my BS using the PTI "Notched Hearts" banner die. I colored the little hearts using my SU poppy parade marker. The NBUS telephone die is from My Favorite Things called "Ring Me." I hand made the numbers and used a piece of confetti as the cord. The center heart and the charm were in my stash.

As it happens, City Crafter is having a "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" challenge, which fits this post perfectly! And at The Paper Players, Joanne has a theme challenge of "All About Numbers."

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Giveaways

Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic response to my Year in Preview post, my goals, and my new "Giveaways" page. Today I have begun the first Giveaway and I have set up a new email account to efficiently (I hope) handle the process. Please see the tab at the top of my blog if you are interested, or I think you can find it here.

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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.
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Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel! Mwah!
If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave
me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!

Heart of Hearts

Hello, dear hearts!

I hope you had a lovely weekend! We had rain, lots of rain and, oh, how we loved every wet glossy droplet in this drought-starved place. We are truly starting the week with a clean and slippery slate!

I've been wrapped up in Valentines and other life schtuff, so I'm not posting as often, so be warned this is a three-cuppa post!

I wish the Valentine holiday didn't come so soon after Christmas (especially when you throw in a NBUS challenge in January), but I have so many heart-related crafty toys, that it seemed a sin not to send the hamster into the Hearts container for a few card ideas. Who knows, like Christmas, I just may start making Valentines all year long!

Today I am featuring the Memory Box die "Heart of Hearts."

This card is pretty self-exploratory. The front die-cut panel is popped up over a smaller panel which I covered in alternating rows of very, very sparkly pink and grey Washi tape. The photo is not the best as I had to quickly snap a couple of shots during a sorta sunny break in the rain. The "love" sediment, accented with a rhinestone is from Hero Arts.

Here is a closeup of the sparkliness. It's interesting how sometimes the little heart cutouts look recessed like they are IRL, but then sometimes they look 3D like they have been stenciled onto the paper. What is the opposite of "recessed?" Abscessed? Obsessed? Upsessed?

Challenges

1. At Less Is More, the brief is "Pink and Grey." I would like to congratulate Chrissie and the Design Team on the occasion of their fourth birthaversary! Of course, thanks to Mandi, too, who was Chrissie's cofounder four years ago! Head's Up: there are a LOT of prizes this week!
2. The Card Concept, photo inspiration below. My card is clean and simple.
3. Inkspirational: Rose colors.
4. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and featuring Hero Arts.

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I made other Valentines in different colors using this die. For some, I placed patterned paper snippets behind the cutout like below. The sediment is an old wooden stamp by The Rubbernecker Stamp Co. It has E526 written on it in pencil, but I don't know if that's the stamp number or the number assigned to it by whatever store originally sold the stamp.

Challenges

1. House of Cards February Challenge: LOVE.
2. Fusion Card Challenge, photo (patterned hearts) and sketch inspiration below.
3. Just Us Girls (JUGS): LOVE.
4. Stamplorations: Stamps and Hearts.
5. Happy Little Stampers Sketch Challenge, sketch below.

Between the two cards there are a lot of challenge links for you to click on for the details you need regarding rules, sponsors, and prizes so you can play along!

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Oh, and a couple of week sago, I used the die to make anniversary cards in different colors using mats. I got my money's worth out of this die!

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New Friends Corner

I am delighted to present five more new friends for you to meet and get to know!

Millie of Crafting With Creative M. Millie has been blogging since 2012. She makes such bright and happy cards, specializing in cards for kids. Millie also makes wonderful 3D projects. In addition to card art, she loves scrapbooking, candy making, baking, and sewing. You will be inspired as Millie shares her years of experience as a guest designer, winning awards in challenges, and serving on design teams!

Katherine Elliot of News From the Craft-A-Torium. Love that name! Katherine has been blogging since 2009, and she is a former Trend Reporter for Paper Crafter's Library. She loves making cards and all the wonderful tools that go with our hobby. I could seriously CASE every one of Katherine's fresh designs!

And since I have a soft spot for yellow labs, I love that she has the best-looking crafting companion!

Neva Cole of Finding Snippets of Time to Craft. Another awesome blog name! Neva has been blogging since May of 2013. As she says, because she lives a hectic life, she NEEDS to find time to craft as it relaxes her and brings joy to her life. And craft she does, from ATCs to altered art, so there is a lot to inspire you!

Jò of Jò in Wonderland Creations. Jò is from Italy. She started blogging in 2009 to document all the little everyday moments of her life and her love of all things paper crafting, especially scrapbooking. Her layouts are sensational and beautifully textured, as are her cards. You'll love Jò's zest for life, gorgeous creations, and photographs!

Lucy E. of Littlescrapsoflucy. Lucy started blogging in 2012. Like so many of us, Lucy started her blog as a way to share her cards and enter them in the fun challenges that we all love in our corner of Blogland. Although Lucy does not blog often, the cards she shares are always well done and thoughtful!

Thank you for joining, ladies, and welcome to the Playhouse!

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Family

I have to share an updated photo of the Mister, our son, and the twins. We saw them (and our DIL) for a lovely oyster bar lunch and, after a walk, some Gelatos for dessert:

Adam, Dan, Papa, Henry

I didn't even notice the sign over their heads when I took the picture!

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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 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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If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave
me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!