Hello There! DJKASE #17

Hi Gang!

We have yet again whooshed and I mean wahooshed our way around to Friday! It's been another busy week on the range, a lot of it still dealing with Blogger schtuff. More on that later. First, though, I need to just have some happy card talk!

Since it's Friday, I'm delighted to say I have another DJKASE for you! This week the copyliment was determined by two challenges.

Over at the Inkspirational Challenge, there is a CASE going on (and a Design Team call) of a friend of mine, so I hitched my DJKASE to it.

The card artist deserving of this special challenge tribute by Inkspirational is my follower and friend Sandie of London Days.

Sandie is a sweet lady and a very talented card artist who has been blogging since 2011. She has a beautiful clean and simple style of card artistry and she has won numerous awards. Sandie is also well-known as a member of several design teams. Recently she helped to start a brand-new challenge called Time Out Challenges. I love the name of that. So true! Our crafty time is our "time out" time when we take the time, and enjoy the time we take, to create. I just wanted to see how many times I could use the word time in a sentence before it got ridicunanas.

Back to the challenge at hand, we could pick one of Sandie's cards to CASE from her amazing blog or we could pick one of the cards highlighted on the challenge page at Inkspirational. I picked a card from Sandie's blog at first, but I kept going back to one from the challenge. What helped me decide was a second challenge (below) that just popped up in a timely manner from CAS(E) This Sketch.

Here is the card of Sandie's that I chose to DJKASE:

Sandie's card

She recently made a similar card on March 26, 2014:

Sandie's card

And here is my DJKASE of Sandie's fabulous cards:

Darnell's card

I am getting a little better with the watercolor splotches. There is a little trick to the ink you use and the amount of water you spray and spritz. I added each element slowly and carefully until I was happy with the array of circles and splats. Then I applied the sediment. I used Stazon ink because my card base is watercolor paper.

When I went to lift the stamp off the card, only fifty percent of it was inked. Splat! Not prezackly what I actually said. I took my black outliner and did the best I could filling in the blanks, but, shoot, dagnabbit it all. And, yes, I stamped it off first on scratch paper and then heavily reinked the stinker. If my OCD starts giving me hives, I may stamp the sediment again on a snippet and paste it over the blooper one.

Sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug. Or, in our community, how about: Stamping is like any other sport. Sometimes you have coverage and sometimes you don't!

Sandie, in spite of that, it was a pleasure to copyliment you today! I hope you are pleased with my DJKASE of your bright and beautiful card! Thank you for being a follower and for your continued support and encouragement! 

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The other challenges that I'm entering are:

• Addicted to Stamps and More. Clean and simple.
  
• CAS(E) This Sketch. You can see why this sketch impacted my card choice for Sandie!

• Color Throwdown. Those are birds, people! I thought it was some kind of stunning caterpillar with weirdly long legs hanging off a twig!
  
• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. Anything goes.

Please click on any of the challenge links for details about rules, sponsors, and prizes! I hope you are able to join in and help support these generous challenge blogs!

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New Friends Corner

There is a follow-up below regarding Blogger. I'm delighted that these new friends were able to join before the problems started.  It is my pleasure to introduce them to you today!

Roxie of Paper Scaper. Roxie has been blogging since 2010. She is a retired landscape designer who enjoys many hobbies, including stamping. Her cards are stunning. Period. Her use of color is phenomenal! I always come away feeling rejuvenated by her happy and bright cards!!

Sue P. of Planet Susie. Yes, that's right, she has her own planet! Trust me, you will like visiting there very, very much! Sue has been blogging since 2012 and crafting since she was a little girl. She and I share the fact that we each made our own wedding dress and our bridesmaid dresses. She beat me by one year though! In addition to her wit, you will quickly understand why Sue P. has won so many awards for her works of art!!

Sandie of Sandie's Card Garden. Sandie has also been blogging since 2010. Sandie works part-time and is a wife and proud mother of six children and eight grandchildren. She makes beautiful cards, quite often around photos of her lovely family! Another award-winning card artist, Sandie will leave you feeling fully inspired!!

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

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Blogger Update

I have heard from several friends saying that they can now follow other blogs again via the blogger "Join This Site" button. I've heard from others that they cannot. Thank you to everyone who contacted the help forum to register your dismay.

Now I'm hearing from several people that even if they are able to follow, their picture is not there, either at all or it has been replaced by the gray shadow figure. A couple of days ago I discovered that an entire post of mine had disappeared and I spent several hours researching how to get it back. Aaackk!!

It is true that our blogs are run by third-parties and that often Blogger has no control over issues that arise. However. When a large percentage of us have the same problem and we are using different third-parties, it makes sense that Blogger correct the problem responsibly.

Often people feel that we should just be glad we get this service "for free." I read somewhere (can't remember where at this point) that companies must be paying Google to track our blog traffic and cookies and cakes and they are making money that way. It's hard to believe they aren't making money somehow and just providing this service to us for "free." 

Free or not, if a service is being provided, that service should work right! Am I wrong?

"Service. servis. Noun. 1. The action of helping or doing work for someone."

I hope they fix all the issue for everyone soon! Blogland is a VERY happy place when things are working right!!

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I'm throwing in a funny I saw on Facebook, just to break up all this serious schtuff and wake you up!

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Reader Question re Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet: 

In the meantime, while it is not my intent to become a clearinghouse for this sort of thing, I do have a friend who asked me to ask you for help and I'm happy to do so:

"All of a sudden I have lost the ability to paste any text that I've copied on my Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet. I've looked high and low on the Internet and the most I could find was there may be a fault with Chrome. I've also tried with Dolphin browser but still no luck. If any of your followers can help I would be forever in their debt! It's driving me bonkers!!"

Please respond in a comment if you can help. If it is an involved answer, I will connect you so you can talk directly. Thank you everyone!

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On Squirrel Watch

Sorry this is terribly long, but I won't have this Blooger schtuff as a regular feature. And anyways, I would rather do a long post than have several small ones hit your device. I guess because I don't want you to think, "HER again?!" This way you can take breaks and change the keg on your kegerator.

We have another busy few days. Sadly, the Mister and I are going off in different directions in order to attend two funerals. Both deaths were completely unexpected. Well, that sounded dumb, but you know what I mean. They weren't really old people or people who had been ill for a very long time.

But then, yippie, we get to see the kids and the twinlets on the weekend and that always invigorates the spirit! Even though they are taking back their sweet Grand Dukey Dog and we will miss him terribly until the next time.

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Oh, that's right, she made a card.

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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Mwah!