Black and White and Colored All Over

Hello Stamplings!

Happy Sunday Funday! We are gearing up for a week of rain which we desperately need here in California, so everyone has a skip in their step. Mind you, I'm only skipping in the figurative sense. You know, up in my head where there is a swing set, a wading pool, and a long paved trail for skipping and roller skating. Don't try skipping with your roller skates on. It might not surprise you to know that I did that once and fell hard on my head.

What was I saying?

I realized mid-afternoon yesterday that I was running out of time to play in the January CAS Christmas Card Challenge where Julia is the host and the prompt is Silhouette. You'll be proud of me for reaching first for a brand-spanking-NBUS stamp to make this QACAS card:

This stamp is from Stampers Anonymous and it's called "Deco Christmas." I think it's been around a while and with the images being so big, I'm sure my design is not original. The set has three great silhouette stamps and three beautifully-fonted sediments. 

After stamping the image and sediment, I thought some embossed snow would add a little drama and wintry feel. I forgot to add a little shadow under his feet to ground him and Hammy wasn't here to remind me. (He was over at the neighbors for a playdate with their gerbil.) Let's just say the snow was coming down so hard it immediately filled in the footprints. Yes, let's say that.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Christmas.
  
• CAS Christmas: Silhouette.
  
• HLS Christmas: Anything goes.

CASEing PP

The above is a card I made and posted last year out of a beautiful piece of Alexandra Renke pp and a sediment. I just love everything about Alexandra's watercolored flowers and the very free-flowing artsy feel. I wanted to see if I could CASE her flowers, so I made my own floral pp:

I used a whole slew of various company's solid stamps in my stash to create this garden card. I colored each stamp with my Memento markers, spritzed lightly with water, and stamped them. As you can see, I couldn't bring myself to stop with large gaps between my flowers and leaves in the wonderful organic way that Alexandra has with her hand-painted art. In the end, I guess I'm more of an overflowing English-garden kind of girl! 

Challenges

• Allsorts: Beautiful blooms.
  
• SSS Wednesday: Make your own background.
  
• We Love Chocolate Baroque: For ladies and girls.

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Take care and keep safe!

Thank you for your continuing good wishes about my back. I am feeling much less pain already. That's the good news. The bad news is that now it's harder not to overdo it. Oy! 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!)

Happy Everything!

Hello Stamplings!

Is it just me on drugs or did that week whoosh by faster than a speeding bullet?! Then again, maybe it's nice that these days are going by so fast!

Fortunately, my cards were done a while ago. I made them as a reminder that there is only one week left in the current Twofer Card Challenge where this month's prompt is F🌹L🌻O🌼W🌷E🌹R🌺S! It's wonderful to see so many wonderful blossoms in the gallery so far!

The NBUS flower image both my card designs have in common is "Flowers in Bloom" by MFT. I have tons of poppy stamps because I love poppies, but I had to add this one to my stash because it is just so open and inviting! ETA: Found out the flowers might be cosmos, not poppies. They look very like poppies once they've opened all the way, but I'm happy that now I have a cosmos stamp!

Onefer

This CAS birthday card design is pretty self-exploratory. This particular poppy reminds me of an awning or covering of some kind. Once I thought of that, it was pretty easy for my assistant to suggest an image for underneath it!

The poppy is embossed in platinum, die-cut, and colored with my Ziggies. The large and lilting sediment is from Impression Obsession, heat-embossed in copper. The stencil (which you can barely see behind the images) is by Tim Holtz and the hamster in the cup is from Your Next Stamp.

Everything, of course, has been duly winked by His Niblets and then the corners were duly chomped.

Challenges

• HLS CAS: Short and/or tall.
  
• Shopping Our Stash: What's new with you? 
  
• Watercooler Wednesday: Kath's Challenge: All about occasions.

Twofer

For my Twofer second (and different) design, I heat-embossed an old and well-loved large text background stamp from SU called En Français. Over that is the full triplet of poppies, die-cut, heat-embossed in gold, painted by me with my Ziggies, and winked by Hammy. The love sediment from Winnie & Walter is die-cut from gold to match the mat and gold-embossing.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Make your mark.
  
• Handicraft Dream: Love.
  
• We Love Chocolate Baroque: January: Feminine.

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A Milestone

Yesterday was our Golden 50th Anniversary! In the middle of a pandemic and me with a broken back and no more rodeo money coming in. But, never mind, we had a quiet day and a lovely romantic dinner with perfect steaks, baked potatoes, and champagne. Delish and devine!

We received an incredible handmade card and the most gorgeous flower bouquet from Dan and Rachel and the grandtwins.

Flanking both sides of their card are our cards to each other. It really is impossible to believe all the years that have gone by. We feel very blessed to have enjoyed every one of them and hope to have many more!

In case you're curious, here's a photo from our wedding:

Most of you are too young to remember that even back 50 years ago, there was a keen interest in toilet paper. Here you can see that the trend was for the bride to stuff it in her ears and for the groom to wear it like a medal on his chest. Naturally, we wanted to be trendy! (The Mister says I've never been obedient, but, honestly, I couldn't hear the vows!)

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Take care and keep safe!

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!)

Seeing Stars!

Hello Stamplings!

I'm out of my bubble! Yay! But don't worry, I'm not seeing STARS because I bumped my head on the way out!🙆I'm seeing stars because this month the prompt for the Twofer Card Challenge is STARS!

The star stamp my cards have in common is an unmarked stamp that I've had for ages.

⭐✶★☆🌟🌟★☆✶⭐

Onefer

Here you can see my OLC detective card design, the two masks I made so I could blend the colors, and the star stamp I used. Seeing it now on my monitor, I'm karacking up that the detective mask is inspecting the star stamp through his magnifying glass. 

I stamped the Katzelkraft detective and the sediment (Paw-some by Taylored Expressions) and applied the masks over them. I used Tim's inks to blend the background and then I gold-embossed the stars across the sky. I decided not to color the detective because he would just compete with the background and possibly be invisible.🔎Then again, for a detective, being invisible would be a very good thing, so maybe I made the wrong call there. 

Hammy came through after wards to make the water spots using a syringe which he uses like a pogo stick. He also put a layer of gloss on top of the frosting on the cupcake I added. (The little dog is part of the stamp, but the cupcake is snot.) 

Challenges

• Alphabet Challenge: P is for Party! Congratulations on your 10th birthday!!
  
• Inkspirational: Night.
  
• Little Red Wagon: Colour me happy.

⭐✶★☆🌟🌟★☆✶⭐

Twofer

This simple Christmas design packs alotsa schparkle! I stamped and gold-embossed the same star stamp I used in my Onefer onto pretty linen paper. From that I die-cut the ornaments from Nestabilities. The sediment (from Stamping All Day) was also gold-embossed. The front panel was attached to a shimmery gold paper mat. Wallah wallah ding dong done.

Challenges

• Cards 4 Galz: Silver and/or gold.
  
• Merry Little Christmas: Anything Christmas goes.
  
• Sparkles Christmas: Gold or silver or glitter.
  
• We Love Chocolate Baroque: November = Christmas.
  

 

Join Us!

This is our last Twofer Card Challenge of 2020 and I look forward to seeing your festive designs using ⭐★🌟STARS🌟★⭐in the gallery this month!

Pop over to the Twofer Card Challenge where you'll find the Team has made beautiful inspiration star cards for you! We are also fortunate to have the lovely and talented stars Pia and Liz as our Guest Designers this month! 

AND ... 📣

I. This month we have added the same TWIST we did in November last year, which is that you can make two holiday card designs instead of two different occasion card designs!! All the other rules apply.

II. Wait. There's more! Because this is the last challenge of 2020, I want to end it on a positive and joyful note, so there are a few PRIZE$ on offer!! Have fun!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, but please be careful. Covid didn't just go away on November 3rd as a part of some giant conspiracy. It's deadly serious and you need to be a star and take care of yourself and those around you. Mwah!

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!)