Happy Lunar New Year!

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome as we whoosh around to another week! Tomorrow begins the Year of the Fire Horse. (That's horse, not hose, like I keep reading it!🙃) If your year has started out sluggishly, get ready to feel renewed engerny! I found this little bridle bit for you:

Given that the Horse is a Yang Fire sign, its energy is audacious, exuberant, and high-spirited. “Put together these Yang qualities of Fire in the Fire Horse, and we have an extremely intense, energetic, fast-moving and action-oriented year ahead."🐎

Onefer

I  should have made you a card with a horse on it. Instead, here is a Fire Dragonfly:

Otherwise known as the Aqua Dragonfly. I used The Greetery's, "Jumbo Curiosity Moth," but changed out the moth body for a dragonfly body I found in my stash. The wings are cut from a piece of brusho'd glossy paper.

The dragonfly was inspired by the layout from Freshly Made Sketches. In order to change up the bottom half of the sketch, and because this is E = Embossing on the I.D.E.A.S. calendar, I embossed the bottom half with a Sizzix e/f. 

I'm not sure if you can see in the photo, but I wanted to add some razzahmatazz to the embossing and, you know, pretend I was a professional, so I blended some light aqua ink over the raised images. Only that was "Ew," way too much aqua per my resident hamster critic, so I really got brave and lightly blended black ink over the aqua! I know, black! I'll be viral, right? I'm also playing in the Allsorts Challenge (Embossing).

Twofer

This is a textbook QCAS design. The pretty sprig is NBUS called, "Meadow Grass" from Taylored Expressions. I die-cut it from white cardstock, but for some reason it photographed creamier than it is IRL. Sadly, you can't see Hammy's beautiful winking, which he was so becited to do again!

I'm playing with Seize the Birthday (CAS with Dies) and Addicted to Stamps and More (Die Cuts and/or Stencils).

Threefer

As I was typing this yesterday, I happened to see a couple of more challenges and before the clouds completely covered the sun, I made another CAS design.

I used one of the emboss-resist designs from Stampin' Up for the base. I started by masking off and ink-blending the candle bases in order to follow the sketch from AAA Cards. Then I had a heck off a time trying to figure out how to do the flames. All of my candle flames were too small. I tried free-hand and fussy-cutting them, but I got another "Ew" on that idea. 

Next, I took a field trip through the Playhouse and when I got to my greenery drawers, I hit the jackpot when I came across the "Leaf Canopy Die" from Altenew. It's from 2018 and old now, but it remains one of my favorites and who knew one of the pretty leaves made a perfect candle flame when ink-blended through the negative die-cut?! And even more amazing? I just noticed one of the sediment stamps in the set says, "So happy I have finally found you!"😮

I found a white die-cut balloon and string in my stash and blended them with ink and added the sediment. I'm also playing in The Paper Players challenge from Stef calling for, "CAS with Balloons and Birthday."

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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! 

*Life is too short!