CASology #50; NBUS #14 ~ Free to W-O-W

And we're back around to Saturday ~ whoosh!

We had the twins over yesterday, so now we've whooshed right into Saturday, prolly even Sunday for some of you!

I was really intriglued by the cue card word for this week's CASology challenge, which was "free."

There were oh-so-many ways to go with this word and a lot of you did stunning cards evoking what the word brought to your minds.  Truthfully, I just wanted to link up a solid white card base.  Period.  For a card artist, a blank card is the epitome of freedom.  We get to experience that feeling of freedom every single time we sit down to make a new card.  Utter coolness!

But, well, I thought maybe that would be a little too QACAS, even for me!  (Talk about a One-Minute-Craft-Dash!)  So I put a little effort into, but still kept it white-on-white (W-O-W).

 

I choose two NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff) embossing folders and since the top embossing layer had a butterfly, I heat embossed a two-layer butterfly (fussy-cut) to attach as added depth to the card.  The bottom layer of the butterfly is card stock, the top layer is vellum. 

 

 

I just love the purity of an all-white card.  Using the butterfly to represent free was not unique or original, but there you have it. 

 

The CASology Design Team was curious to see what "free" meant to us when we think of it's definition and synonyms.  Butterflies fit several of the definitions given:

3b:  not bound, confined, or detained by force,

7a:  not obstructed, restricted, or impeded,

7c:  not hampered or restricted in its normal operation,

8b:  not confined to a particular position or place, or

8c:  capable of moving or turning in any direction.

That was fun!  It makes me want to go back to the Playhouse and make about 58 more cards representing "free," especially cards be fitting the upcoming 4th of July holiday in America, as so many of you have brilliantly done!

~~~

The twins were here just for yesterday.  Unbeknownst to them, they provided today's post with the 8-year-old version of "freedom."  You see before you two young boys who are free to sit or lay anywhere in the entire room:  floor, sofa, three chairs.  Instead they both want the exact same area and they were happy to fight it out for that precious "elbow room!"

Duke couldn't care less.  He had his area staked out first!

~~~

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

Thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower!

 

*Life Is Too Short!   

Paper:  Neenah "Solar White"
Ink:  Imprintz EP "Detail White"
Dies:  SU! "Square Lattice"; Darice "Butterfly Flower"
Pop Dots

LIM #125; MUSE #23; NBUS #13; SSS ~ Celebrate!

Greetings Card Peeps!

This is the card I was planning to post yesterday and I'm going to appliqué it to the following challenges, in no peculiar order:

 

Less Is More.  Per the request of our delightful hostess, Chrissie, we are to make cards for the birthday of our other delightful hostess, Jen.  I hope you like the card, Jen, and that you have many, many more birthdays!  And I hope you knocked the cele out of brate for this one!
 

 

Simon Says Stamp challenge where the theme is the always well-loved "Anything Goes!"  Please note there are going to be TWO lucky winners this week!

MUSE Card Club.  I've been missing the recent MUSE challenges, darn it, but I had to make time to play along and CASE this great card made by Anita (in France), the talented Guest Designer this week. 

Anita always comes up with really clever cards!  Here is the card she made, as our Muse, for us to CASE:

 

I mediately thought of another NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff) that I could use for my CASE of Anita's card:  Washi tape from Love My Tapes called "pastel birds on a wife."  While that does create a pretty funny visual, I meant to say wire, birds on a wire. 

 



I kept Anita's linear design elements, framed matting, sea quints, and similar sediment.  Thanks, Anita!  (I think it's very "Jen" as well.)

 

~~~

Be Careful

This morning when I went into the kitchen, I smelled something foul.  It wasn't too, too bad, so I took the garbage out, even though it had just gone out the night before.  I had breakfast and went to exercise.  When I got back home, it was pretty bad when I walked in the door.  It smelled like a dead animal.  I recognized the smell because it happened to us once before about ten years ago.  It is NAH-ASSTY if you've never smelt it.

Pinterest

That's what this smelled like again.  Bleep.

If I'd made a video of the next few minutes, it prolly woulda gone viral.  I proceeded to narrow the smell down to the kitchen / hall area and set to sniffing like a bloodhound seeking out a steak sammich.  I opened doors, I stood on chairs, I got down on all fours and sniffed along the floor boards.  Nothing.

 

Hours went by.  I sat at the computer, catching up on some emails.  I got a headache.  I went out to the Playhouse, came back in and oooofftah, Meg!  It was getting worse.  I looked up carcass removal on the Cobweb and dialed the number, thinking why do we still say we "dialed" a number when, in fact, we punch them?  I got an answering machine and hung up.  Mister was due home in a couple of hours so I thought maybe I should wait for a second opinion.

Another hour went by and I started the sprinklers because we are spose to be in the triple digis here again for the next few days and my new plants were audibly gasping.  I went back to the kitchen to turn on the microwave timer (over the stove) as a reminder to change the sprinkler to the next area of lawn.  Once again, right there, right by the stove, I literally clasped by hand over my mouth and nose because the stench was so bad.  There, I thought, right there, it had to be something stuck in the wall behind the stove.  

 

Involuntarily, I also took three steps back from the stove, my hand still over my nose and mouth.  My eyes were darting around the area, as if somehow I would magically be blessed with x-ray vision.  And they fell on the burner knobs.  The two on the right were turned on.  Turned on just enough for gas to be escaping.  For hours and hours, filling the closed-up house.  Bleep The Bleep.  I turned them off, then turned off the a/c, opened all the windows, and put the fan up.

That coulda been bad.  Real bad.

Now I'm not going to say that Mister did it just because he'd been in the kitchen earlier having breakfast and I noticed the smell first thing when I walked in, because honestly, my fat tukus could have bumped against the knobs on my way to the coffee.  We'll never know.  But kids, if you are keeping a "One Hunnert Ways My Parents Are Losing It" chart, please put this one in Dad's column.  You know, the one with a lot fewer checks in it than my column.

 

I'm very thankful.  Very, very thankful.  And pretty cheesed off at myself for not being able to distinguish the smell of gas from the smell of a dead animal.

This has been a public service announcement.

~~~

 

Enjoy your day, because you never know when you might blow your own self to kingdom come!  No, seriously, enjoy.  In fact, Celebrate!!  LITS*!  (Now you know why I keep saying that.)

Thank you for coming by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower!

 

*Life Is Too Short!   

 

Paper:  PTI true black, white

Stamp:  Paper Smooch "Metropolis"

Ink:  Versafine onyx black

Washi:  Love My Tapes "Pastel Birds on a Wire"

Sequins:  stash (GKW)

CFC #106; NBUS #12; PIXIE'S #78 ~ Over The Edge

Oh, hello there!

It's been a busy week.  I've missed a couple of favorite challenges and I've not visited as much as I had hoped, but earlier tonight I made a card for a different couple of challenges and it was all good.

 

I started writing my post, but I got distracted (was that Spike just ran by?).  I came back to the computer and read a few emails and then I got caught up in the Cobweb and started surfing and before long I ended up at this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge, which is "Over The Edge."

Well, that would certainly be a fun challenge to sink one's teeth into, I thought, la de dah, what?  It ends when?  I scurried out to the Playhouse and sat for a few minutes in the middle of the room connoitering.  Usually people reconnoiter, which I never understood because as far as I could tell they skipped clean over the connoiter part.  I mean, things don't reoccur until after they've occurred.  Don't get me restarted.

 

I began flipping through my dies looking for something NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff) and, considering most of them are NBUS, it didn't take me long to find just the thing for this challenge.  I also used a NBUS sediment.

I cut the Memory Box die twice, once with red paper and once with kraft paper.  I filled the negative kraft cut with the hearts from the red cut by placing them on a piece of regular tape.  The hearts were then attached to the card base and I cut along the border in a couple of areas that were deeply intended.

I heart this simple CAS card.  Oh, I guess that's redundant, or rather, dundant.  You see what I go through up in here?!

~~~

I just realized that I've also used a snippet (red paper), so I finally get to run over to the playground and join my pal's at Pixie's Crafty Snippets Playground!  It's open all year 'round; all you have to do to join is use up some of your scraps (snippets)!

 

~~~

I'm thrilled to introduce you to our newest friend, Jacquie Southas of What Did I Do Today?!   I just love that blog name!  Jacquie's card art is really terrific and I promise you'll find inspiration when you visit her site to say hello!  Thank you, Jacquie, and welcome!

 

~~~

 

I'll be back tomorrow with what I was working on before I went over the edge.  Enjoy the rest of your evening or your new day if you are just waking up!  No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS*! 

 

And thank you so much for stopping by the Playhouse.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment or join as a follower!
 

*Life Is Too Short!   

Paper:  PTI kraft; SU! real read
Stamp:  The Alley Way Stamps "Mad Gab"
Ink:  Versafine onyx black
Die:  Memory Box "Twisted Heart"

WOYWW #212 ~ Show and Tell; Printer Survey Results

Happy Wednesday!  It is time once again for a desk hop through the impossibly fun What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday (WOYWW), hosted by the one and the only Julia Dunnit!  I hope to see your desk linked up!

I have so much love on my desk today to share with you lovely desk hoppers! 

I received a thank you card from Kim of Cupcakes, Cards and Kim, and a thank you notebook from Hazel, of Play As U Go.  From Annie, for my (early, it's next week) birthday, came a stamp, a hummingbird purse pad and pen, an exquisite summer wall hanging, and one of her stunning accordion cards!  I also received early beautiful birthday cards from Donna and from Mamie.  I'm so spoilt rotten and so appreciative!

The awesome ATCs are from Janet of Fairy Thoughts, Sarn of Stamping With Pleasure (who also sent a card shown today), Bridget of Me & My Photography, Kay of 505 Whimsy Girl (who also sent a photo card shown today), and Annie of Redanne.  Thank you all so much!

 

~~~

 

Here is a close-up of Mamie's card.  She printed a picture from my blog that I had posted of my backyard and put it behind the window frame on the card.  So clever and so sir real to sit here and look at it and then look up and out that very window! 

~~~

Here is a close-up of Annie's fantastic accordion card!  It is unbelievably magnificent in real life!  If you'd like more information on this type of card, you can visit her site where there are details about her brilliant works of art.

~~~

 

Printer Survey Results

I'm sorry to report that there was no clear consensus from my printer survey, but I do thank you all so much for taking the time to participate.  Here is a rough breakdown by reverse popularity: 

 

Sony:  1 ~ (Laser) Used for foiling.

 

Samsung: 1 ~ "Great."  (Need to get model number.)  

 

Xerox:  1 ~ Phaser 6280.  Heavy paper curls; vellum has to be fed one-at-a-time.

 

Kodak:  2 ~ (All-In-One)  Will take heavy paper if fed from the back.

 

Brother:  2 ~ (one All-In-One, one laser)  "Amazing."  "Love."

 

Lexmark:  3 ~ Will take paper "not too thick" and it works "fine-ish."

 

Canon:  10 ~ Overall, good comments.  Will take heavy paper if fed from the back.   The "Pixma" model "does everything."

 

Epson:  12 ~ The comments ranged from "works fine" to "don't like" and "hate."  The "Artisan 837" takes heavy paper and is great for colored digis.

 

HP:  28 ~  The comments varied widely from "love," "no trouble," "prints heavy paper if fed from the back," "doesn't bleed when coloring" to "rubbish," and "don't like." 

 

Model numbers were all over the place, when they were given at all, most likely because the ages of the printers were all different. 

 

Bottom line:

• Get a printer that feeds from the back and it will probably take heavy card stock, with the exception of very heavy water color paper. 
• Buy a printer that holds separate cartridges which can be replaced one-by-one as needed.  The companies make their money off the cartridges, often selling the printers very cheaply or giving them away for free when you buy a computer.

~~~

One of the benefits of living in an urban area is the availability of brick-and-mortar stores.  I think I will find a store or stores and go personally to check out these:  HP Officejet Pro 8500, the Brother all-in-one, the Samsung, the Canon Pixma, and the Epson Artisan 837.  I will take a stack of my various heavier card stock with me and run them through the floor models to see for myself how well they print.

I'm not sure when I'll get them all looked at.  I already feel a bit like Prince Charming.  I will let you know when I find a shoe that fits!  Thank you again for your valuable input!!

 

~~~

 

I leave you today with a picture collage of the new little baby Kite learning how to fly under mama's watchful eye!

 

Happy WOYWW!!  Enjoy your day!  As always, thank you for stopping by to visit the Playhouse!  Please let me know you came by so I can be sure to return the flavor! 

 

*Life Is Too Short!   

Papertrey Ink's June Blog Hop Challenge ~ Golden NBUS #11; SSS Summer Fruits

Hey there!

It is time once again for the monthly blog hop challenge run by Nichole Heady at her {capture the moment} site, featuring Papertrey Ink (PTI) products.  Here is the inspiration photo for the challenge:

 

There are doubtless priceless, limitless, endless, ageless, countless, timeless, matchless, sugarless (slap!) ways a card could be designed using a touch of gold or a lot of gold.  I had some beautiful NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff) ribbon I have been wanting to use since the weather turned to spring and summer. 

Considering the ribbon has golden threads woven throughout the design, this was the perfect opportunity to use it for this challenge: 

The sediment is also NBUS and it is part of the PTI "Harvest Berries" set.  I love the ginkgo images from that set and have used them a few times, but this is the first inking for the beautiful sentiment.  I thought it went perfectly with the delicious ribbon.

Take a moment and let those words sink in.

The card stock is PTI vintage cream and the ink is SU! ruby red.  QACAS!  Don't you think this would make awesome gift sets of cards, using different sediments?  And I'll bet if you stay tuned, you might even see that ribbon again on future Christmas cards appearing here!

 

~~~

 

A friend just pointed me in the direction of the current Simon Says Stamp challenge where the theme is "Summer Fruits," so I'm editing my post to also enter my card there.

 

~~~

 

Take My Word For It

 

~~~

 

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

 

And thank you so much for stopping by the Playhouse.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment or join as a follower! 
 

*Life Is Too Short!   

NBUS #10 ~ A Thank You for Jeanne

Magnificent Monday Greetings!

I have a card to share that I sent to a friend recently.  She has received it so I can share it with you.  I did use NBUS, but I didn't find a challenge for it, so you might call this a . . . okay, okay, I won't make up another acronym!  If I keep it up, pretty soon I will be known as that crazy lady who is always making up AACCKronyms!!

The cupcake is from a Serendipity Stamps die and the frosting I colored on with a SU! marker.  I love how it ended up looking like one of those "hidden picture" puzzles.  The sediment is SU!, the paper is from my stash, and the NBUS is the beautiful ribbon from SU! in "blushing bride."   For me, lover of white space, I have to say I do like all the texture and pattern and sheen of this card.

 

~~~

 

We had a fun time with the twinklets!  Some of you may remember the radishes from a post earlier this month and how I was going to let them keep growing so that Henry and Adam could excavate them when they came over, even though Mister declared them to be disgusting.  The radishes, I mean, not the twins!  Here's a little collage for you:

They were huge and you can see in the close-up just how fibrous (blech!) they were!  You can also see, because you're an artist, the awesome molecular design.  Seeing the picture, I wish I still had working spark plugs up in my head because wouldn't that design have been so fun to ink up and stamp?!  Darn it, Darnell.

~~~
 

And if you'll indulge me, here are the boys at a local park:

Ah, brothers.

~~~

After lunch of ribs and fries, Henry sat back in his chair and declared, "I didn't like those ribs." 

Pointing down at his plate, I said, in my sweetly sarcastic way, "Those ribs, Henry?  The ones where all you left were the bones?!"

What a hoot children are!

~~~

Before we go, let's all give a warm welcome to our new friend, Cazzy, who is joining us from It's Cazzy Time!  Cazzy has been crafting since 2004, so she has lots of fun schtuff for you to see at her place!  Thank you for joining us, Cazzy!!

~~~

Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS*!  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!

*Life Is Too Short!   

MIM #121; MM #67; NBUS #9 ~ Colored Vellum Christmas

Surprise!

 

I had a little extra time to make a card which I can schedule for a Saturday delivery! 

 

On Make It Monday (MIM), hosted by the talented Nichole Heady, we were treated to a wonderful video by Betsy Veldman on creating colored vellum flowers.  You will love this video and the stunning card Betsy created with an open lattice front.  WOW!  I love the look of vellum and the fun of coloring on vellum, so I was anxious to play along.

 

The thing was, I also wanted to play in the Merry Monday challenge this week, where the extraordinary Lesley presented one of the coolest sketches ever!

The movement on this sketch is sOoOo fun!

This is my first year making Christmas cards this early in the year and participating in Merry Monday and even at that, I'm still starting six months later than I had hoped.  I used to think, nah, can't do it, can't make Christmas cards in the summer.  But then at the end of last year, after making nothing but Christmas cards for weeks on end, I decided to change it up this year.  Making them all during the year, when it's not "expected" is heckamaze fun actually!  There's no pressure.

 

I checked my Christmas stamps and was surprised that I don't have a pointed setia plant stamp.  That would have made a perfect colored vellum Christmas flower, ahem, but since I don't have one, I chose to make a colored vellum holly wreath.  It's not prezactly a flower, but it is a plant ...

I heat embossed the image in white on vellum and die-cut the circle.  I colored it with markers and added MS red glitter to the bow.  I die-cut the red circle and glued the vellum to it, just around the edge, and then gluing that, just around the edge, I attached it to the card front.  Then out popped the weasel. 

We are sposed to use at least one Papertrey Ink product in the MIM challenges and today only one is what I used ~ the "pinefeather" ink.  The sediment placement differs from the sketch, but it fit just perfectly in the slope of the sparkly red snow-covered hill.

This card is so Christmas bright!  If I had nothing but time, I would make one for everyone because IRL, children, this card is a love song to the world!!

~~~

Our newest friend to join our cray-azy journey is Ms. Julie Ann Lee of Magpie Heaven.  Julie Ann is very new to Blogstown and she would love it so much if you would pop over for a visit.  Thank you, Julie Ann, and welcome to this fun, addicting, and warm community!!

~~~

Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS*!  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!

 

*Life Is Too Short!   

 

Paper:  Unknown heather gray;

  SU! sparkly paper; white vellum

Stamp:  Technique Tuesday, NBUS "Joy to the

  World" from "Jingle All The Way"

Ink:  PTI pinefeather: Imprintz EP; SU! markers;

  Martha Stewart glitter glue

Die:  Spellbinders Classic Circle

Bling from stash

Corner Chomper

 

P.S.  I'll be tallying the results from my printer survey (end of that post) the first part of next week, so if you haven't joined in, please leave me a comment this weekend!  Thank you!  Mwah!

Fish Eyes ~ CCC #49; CTS #33; NBUS #8; PP #150

And we're back around to Friday ~ whoosh!  Around these parts, it is also the first day of summer, so Happy Summer!!

I've still been getting dirty with the gardening.  I didn't realize just how many little things needed attention.  It felt good, like spring cleaning the house. 

 

But after wards I couldn't settle easily into card making, so I ended up making two cards.  I actually thought about switching gears, but I find I don't do that well at all.  I made the dog throw up in the back seat when I learned how to drive a stick shift.  Do they even make those any more? 

 

Some of you just went down memory lane thinking about your learning-to-drive experiences with shifting, some of you just skipped these paragraphs.

 

So, where was I?  What I mean is, I get a germ of an idea and even on heavy meds, I can't shake it until I make it.  My germ this time came from CASology where this week's cue card word is "fish." 

It sounds simple enough and I've got a pretty fair collection of fish stamps, some NBUS, some not.  The ones I used for my cards are not, but the sediment is.  BTW, for some reason sometimes I read NBUS as "knee-bus."  Is anyone else doing that?  I'm so weird.

 

I decided my fish should be swimming in a layout taken from the always sensationally clean-and-simple sketches from CAS(E) This Sketch.  This week's sketch is another incredible Jackie Rockwell design:

And, finally, if there was ever anything that could carry off a lot of bling, it would be fishes with their bubbles, am I right?  Have you ever actually held a bubble in the palm tree of your hand and been mesmerized by the colorful sparkly bling display?  So I'm also playing with Ann Marie's fun CAS challenge to "bring on the bling" at The Paper Players.

Congratulations, ladies, on 150 challenges!!

~~~ 

 

Here is the second card I made, which is the one I am entering in the challenges:

 

I like it better than the first one (below).  And it gotsa lotsa bling bubbles!  The sediment is NBUS from my new PTI "Whale Wishes" stamp set.  I can't wait to use the whale and the matching die, but for today my ancient little "A Gold Fishy" stamp from Embossing Arts Co. was used.

 

Since it is hard to make a photo graph of the gold embossing and the shiny gold (brass?) charm, here is a close-up: 

 

 

 

The charm says "friends" in case you can't make it out and I'm sorry I have no idea who manufactured it.  The giant pastel "bubbles" in the background on the card base were made with a big dauber and SU! marina mist and barely banana.

 

~~~

 

Just for card talk, coz that's what we do, here's my first card:

My googly-eyed fish was heat embossed in purple.  The waves are from an unmarked border stamp.  The conversation bubble and the "MWAH" were hand-drawn and that bubble was outlined with a "clear star" Sakura gelly roll pen.  The other bubbles (Mostly Animals) were heat embossed with a NBUS embossing powder that has glitter in it!  Now that was impossible to catch in the long shot, so here is a close-up.

It's a whole lot cuter IRL, but it wasn't rocking my boat for the challenges.  Looking at it now, I think it doesn't work because the dude's lips aren't mwahing.  He just looks like he swam into the wrong photo shoot.

 

~~~

 

While I was in the garden, we had a new friend join the party!  I'm delighted to introduce you to Claire Grantham of Ham 'n Mule Designs.  Isn't that a fun blog name?!  Claire is a very multi-talented crafter you'll want to visit!  Welcome, Claire, and thank you!!

~~~

I saw on the news yesterday that the moon last night was going to be a "super moon," so  I took a very bad picture of it for you with my little point-and-shoot camera:

Honestly, it just looked like a cool full moon.  I Googled "super moon" and it turns out the weatherman jumped the gun a bit.  The actual "super moon" won't be until June 23rd, when the moon is closest to the earth and appears the brightest (Astroblog). 

 

A super moon is at perigee as opposed to apogee.  I'm thinking those terms came about because when people look up at the moon, they most commonly say, "Gee!"  Sometimes they say, "Gee, Willikers!" 

 

Next week's lesson will be about the Willikers.

 

I do hope you have clear skies in the next few days and can see it for yourself!

 

~~~

 

We are being blessed with a twin sleepover on Saturday!  We're so becited to hear all about their vacation!

 

Enjoy your day and your weekend!  No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS*!  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!

 

*Life Is Too Short!   

 

 

P.S.  I'll be tallying the results from my printer survey (end of that post) the first part of next week, so if you haven't joined in, please leave me a comment this weekend!  Thank you!  Mwah!