Polar Memorial Day!

Hello there, Stamplings!

I hope you are enjoying the long Memorial Day weekend here in America! We will always remember and be forever grateful to all the men and women who have bravely given their lives in service to our country.

As we enjoy barbecues and baseball and iconic car races and pool parties under (hopefully) sunny skies, I've come bearing a Christmas card!

Wait. What? I know, I'm preverse that way. The thing is, I wanted to participate in my friend Maureen's Rudolph Days Challenge, which I've missed a month or three, and the deadline is fast approaching for May. I'm also playing in these challenges:

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Holiday.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Furry Friends.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Christmas.

For this card, I used a NBUS Lawn Fawn plaid pad, a NBUS stamp from Die-Namics "Cool Day," and (one-NBUS, one-not) dies from Die-Namics "Stitched Basic Edges." I daubered pool party ink for the background and colored the scarf and bonnet with my Ziggies.

PB looks like he's being sarcastic with that "joy to the world" sediment, doesn't he? From the look on his face, I should have made a sediment on the computer that said, "Have you seen my coat?" 

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Whenever possible, I'm going through my "To CASE" folder and actually CASEing some of my card idols. Today's card was inspired by this card from Helen's Craft Haven:

Thank you, Helen, for the adorable inspiration. I'm making a few more of these before I put all the goodies away. I may even make a few non-Christmas cards to use up other pp and some of my pretty new Washi tape for the straight border side.

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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 to return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

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Mwah!

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Hope, Girlfriends, and Gullfriends

Hello, Stamplings!

Before we begin today, I just want to reach out to my friends in England who have been impacted by the horrific bombing at Ariana's concert in Manchester. You are in my thoughts and prayers. 

There is so much anger we all feel after these cowardly acts of terrorism, but there are no words to express the depth of outrage we feel when our children are targeted. As so many others have said, the best revenge is to carry on and not allow the fear these acts evoke to paralyze us from living our lives to the fullest.

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Lots of photos today, so once you grab your beverage, let's start with a little card of HOPE. We can all do with some hope about now.

I love embossing this "Hello Lovely" stamp from Concord and 9th in white and painting it with my Ziggies. I think it pairs nicely with the hope die from W Plus 9, which was colored with orchid hues of alcoholic ink on glassy paper. Sorry, glossy paper.

Challenges

• Double D Challenge: Flowers Galore.
• The Flower Challenge: Case a DT Member. I chose to CASE the very talented Maria.
• Stamp Ink Paper: Cardmaker's Choice. Congratulations SPI on your 100th challenge!
• TIME OUT Challenge: "Flowers and friends make life a garden."
• Where Creativity Meets C9: I'm entering this challenge for the first time. This is challenge #9 and the theme is "florals."

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Here I made a simple card by embossing some of my beautiful pp with one of the Die-Namics stitched dies:

I added a "Hope Happens" sediment and that was it. Oh, and I attached it to a colored card base to use up some of my colored card, too. 

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Travels

I mentioned last time that we attended our niece's graduation over the weekend. There were two other highlights along the way that I wanted to share with you.

The first highlight was meeting "for reals" my dear bloggie friend Marybeth!

She is every bit as lovely as I imagined she would be and I was so pleased that we could meet! It was like we'd known each other always and our time together was waaaaaaaay too short! If you don't know Marybeth, be sure to click on her name which will take you to her stunning blog. Her talent is awe-inspiring!

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We traveled home via the coast and stopped for a few days in Santa Barbara. Our second highlight was taking a boat out to the Channel Islands where we hiked Anacapa, the smallest island:

The Mister failed to mention that in order to get UP to the island, we had to climb up from the boat 157 steps! And after we reached the top, we still had to climb a hill! 

I guess it was best that he sprung it on me just before we went or I would have fretted myself into a tizzy. I don't like heights and I have mobility tissues, but after three wodkas, I just breezed to the top! Just kidding, I didn't have any wodka (good idea, though!) and I did have to take breaks, but I made it!! And it was so worth it!

Peppered along the entire island are Western Gulls who were busy nesting - some of them right along the trail. According to our docent, there are no "sea gulls," just "gulls." Don't tell Jonathan Livingston that.

She also said that the red dot you see on the under side of a gull's beak is a "target" for the little chicks to aim for when they want to get fed! (Maybe they aren't born with a sense of smell or they would pick up on that fishy odor, doncha think?)

Here you can see that their eggs are speckled! Notice the little guy just beginning to emerge:

The docent said that only three nests have hatched so far this year, so it was a treat to come upon this one with two speckled chicks:

Mom told me off, but just look how cute they are!

And, finally, on our way back to the mainland, we were treated to a show by lots of playful dolphins and two blue whales!

The whales wouldn't breach for us, but they are a pretty rare sight, so it was amazing just to see these mammoth critters surface and sail alongside for a while!

~~~ 

Thanks for hanging in if you're still here! 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 to return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

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Mwah!

p.s. If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave me

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Clearing Out the UCBs

Hey, there! Happy Sunday Funday! 

We've had a busy and wonderful coupla days celebrating the graduation of one of our nieces from medical school. She worked very hard to achieve her dream and the Mister and I are looking forward to single-handedly keeping her busy now that we've reached our dotage! 

Did you know "dotage" means feebleness and senility, but it also means foolish infatuation? The word dates back to the 1300s, but no reason is given for the two unrelated meanings. Unless, as often happens in works of literature, some senile old coot was foolishly infatuated with his nurse? 

"In his dotage, Wilbur experienced dotage towards Clementine, his day charge nurse. Clementine, thirty years younger and twice married and widowed, responded by ... ." 

I like wondering how you would finish that sentence. In the meantime, hello! Where were we?

You've seen this front panel before which I made by sprinkling Brusho powders through a Tim Holtz stencil, spritzing the powders with water, and then quickly drying them with a piece of paper toweling. I finally turned the panel into a card. The sediment is gold embossed on vellum.

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Next, continuing to work my way through my box of Unfinished Card Bits, I've taken some previously posted tags and made them into cards.

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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 to 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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Mwah!

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Another Birthday?!

Greetings, stamplings!

I hope those of you who celebrated Mother's Day had a great time! We've now got graduations and then Father's Day and so it goes as we march race towards Christmas. I'd like to say I have a dozen new Christmas cards to show you, but alas and alack, I have been forgetting all about them. Slap!

I have been making birthday cards, however, to plump up my always-needed stash. 

For this first OLC card, made espeshully for a challenge, I used NBUS Washi tape and applied the "less than 10 minutes" rule.

I used two OBB stamps, which means "old but beloved." You know, like your grandma. The sarcastic humor of the sediment never fails to karack me up when I use it on a card. 

You may be seeing lots of QACAS Washi tape cards in my future posts. Mike had these unbelievably gorgeous boxes of Washi tape on sale from $25 to $9 and I couldn't resist. I chose b/w for this design, but the boxes also have tape in very bold patterns and stunning colors. 

Challenges

• Less Is More: One-layer card using spots and stripes.
• Sweet Stampers: Dots and/or stripes.

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I've also been playing around with a NBUS angled die from Die-Namics and  I made these:

It was a quick and fun way to use more die cuts from friends, stick-on winged critters, and lots of designer pp!

You asked ...

A few of you want to know what I did with my purged stamps. I'm happy to say that the clear stamps were divided up between bloggie friends and the wooden stamps were divided between two young kindergarten teachers and a bloggie friend who works with a senior group. I love the idea of having them used by new hands both young and old, rather than having them languish in my dark drawers. Everyone is happy!


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Here is a Mother's Day photo of me with Henry (left) and Adam who arrived for brunch all spiffy and handsome in their dress shirts and trousers:

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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 to return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

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Mwah!

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Happy Mother's Day!

Greetings!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms around the world that are celebrating! Today is a wonderful opportunity to pamper mothers and grandmothers! I am going to be happily pampered with a Mother's Day brunch by Dan and Rachel and the boys. The Mister and Hammy will come too, of course!

However, I know for some of you today can be very painful, so I send you extra hugs of comfort and understanding.

Here's my card:

On an embossed card base, I've layered this NBUS succulent journaling die (which has a matching stamp) from Neat & Tangled which I've cut and paper-pieced from alcohol-infused glossy paper.

I tried to think outside the box with this and stretch the succulent die to make it look more like a rose in honor of the Mom sobriquet. Does it look a bit like a rose to you? 

Here's a closhup of the alcoholic paper's gloppiness. Erm, skuzsh me,  I meaned to shay gloshiness:

Challenges

• Cards in Envy: Motherly love.
• Happy Little Stampers: Anything goes with dies.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use those snippets.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Penny's "Mom" theme.

 

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Speaking of succulents, for my Mother's Day bouquet for you I've got an update on those succulents which bloomed this year for the first time even though they are at least three years old. I first showed them to you on April 9 and here you can see how they grew and opened!

Here's a closeup of the individual magnificent flowers:

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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 to 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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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!

Wildflowers in the Wind - y Birthday

Hello there, wee stamplings!

I hope your spring (or fall, depending) is going well! I have always gotten such a kick out of the names for those two seasons. Right after winter, there is a "spring" in our step and then just before winter we "fall" prostrate in anticipation of the cold days to come! 

Thank you for your words of encouragement and advice on my last post about my marathon reorg. I enjoyed reading all your thoughts and I'm enjoying my uncluttered and clean space.

Today I've got a card with happy springtime colors for you.

The flowers are being blown by a warm spring breeze. It's been very windy here after our very rainy winter. I love it, but I've had to put Hammy on a leash when we go outside.

I remember when we ladies had big ratted hair held together with tons and tons of hairspray. God help the boyfriend or husband who happened to roll down the car window driving down the road. "My hair! My hair!" 

The NBUS wildflower stamp is by Rubbernecker and I've had it for ages. I was delighted to finally give it a whirl, coloring it with my Ziggies and then spritzing and stamping it. Looking at the photo now, the design seems to be crying out for a butterfly, don't you think? Yes, I think I'll add one.

And speaking of butterflies, those pretty purple bits look like our butterfly bushes which are just starting to bloom!

Challenges

• CAS Mix-Up Card Challenge: Stamping, Splatters, Direct-to-Stamp/Spritz Watercolors.
• CAS Watercolour Card Challenge: Flowers.
• CAS(E) This Sketch!: Sketch.
• The Heart Desires: Colors.

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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 to return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

To open the pop-up comment box and jump to the end w/o scrolling:

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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!