Bye to Bodie and Snowflake Joy

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you doing well as you climb Mount Wednesday and start the downhill journey into the weekend! Be careful you don't get going so fast that you miss the awesomeness Thursday and Friday have in store for you!

Today we begin with this Onefer:

I mean, how cute is that dog?! Our dear and long-time local friends said goodbye to their beloved Basset Hound "Bodie" recently and I made this sweet card for them. The basset stamp is from a great group of dog stamps by Katzelkraft. The sediment is by PTI. The background was lightly painted with my Ziggies.

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Twofer

It's time for another Rudolph Days Challenge and this is my entry. The pretty snowflake-JOY die is NBUS from Poppystamps, cut from an old scrap of blue textured pp. I lined the tag from behind with a snippet of smooched ink. Then I attached a pretty pink bow to pick up the pink in the background. I attached all that to a snowflake-embossed card base. This one will go in the "Hand-Deliver" stash box.

Challenges

• ABC Christmas Challenge: "S is for Snow."
• Jingle Belles: Let It Snow.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: A/G, but use those snippets!
• Poppystamps: Anything Goes.

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I thought you might be amused by this:

Didn't I do a marvelous job applying my little round foam glue dots to make sure my tag would adhere to the card base and not be uneven? Phew! That took a while!

When I was finished, I proudly held it up for Hammy to see. In that droll way of his, he smirked and asked, "And on your finished card, will the recipient know what YOJ means? In fact, what does YOJ mean?"

I whipped my head around and said, "Wha - !" Fortunately, with a little patience and a mug of wodka, I was able to unstick all of the dots and restick them on the reverse. Never a dull moment when you craft while old and distracted!

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I was delighted last Thursday to welcome a visitor to the Playhouse who came from very far away!

This is my friend Sonja all the way from Slovenia! Her blog is Old Punca and we have been online friends since September 2014, when we first commented on each other's blog! It was a pleasure to meet her and her husband Silvo in real life and enjoy lunch and a few hours getting to know each other better! Thank you, Sonja, for making a visit to see Hammy and the Playhouse a part of your San Francisco holiday!!

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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 and return the flavor, although I'm not sure when that will be right now! I'm taking off on Thursday on an extended vacation to visit my sisters and friends, leaving the Mister here to keep the home fires burning. I've got my October Twofers scheduled so my blog won't be completely dark and I just might pop in now and then to surprise you!

*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!)

Lovely Shenanigans and Glory Hallelujah!

Hello Stamplings!

Greetings on this last week of summer 2018! How's it going?

I'm really sorry I missed your call yesterday. Michael's (I call him Mike) is having his "lowest prices of the season" sale so I ran over there just to take a peek. You know, in case they got in something new since I was there last week. They didn't, but it would have been rude not to buy something(s)!

Why do I always fall for that "lowest prices of the season" line, anyway? We all know the calendar has four seasons in a year and yet businesses have 32 of them!!

Onefer

Hammy and I have sadly not been able to mesh our creative juices with the cue cards of one of our favorite challenges for months. That changed this week, YAY! CASology's cue card for this week's challenge is DRESS and we immediately thought of this sweet dress and hanger from Memory Box.

I cut the dress from a bit of left-over stencil monoprint background from my stash and just love the fun "fabric" it made. I outlined the dress with a black marker for some definition and that's why it looks like it was cut from something thicker than plain white paper.

The panels for the dress were cut in pink and black using a Lawn Fawn zigzag die and they were offset because they created a cool diamond border. The sediment is from Concord & 9th. Since I was making fabric and making a dress, I finished off the card by cutting a border on the right with my rarely used pinking shears.

Twofer

From sweet and ladylike to rakish and rowdy, here's a card for kicks and giggles! (Management's Legal Department has issued the following warning: engagement in activities depicted above by two consulting adult pumpkins may result in a baby pumpkin.) The pumpkins are very old wooden stamps that still know how to amuse a card recipient! The fun sediment is from Riley & Company and the angled frame die is from PTI. 

Challenges

• Cards in Envy: Feels like fall.
• Creative With Stamps: Pumpkins.
• TIME OUT: Home Sweet Home: Pumpkins.

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Thank you!

I am thrilled to give you an update on our grandson Adam following his shallow river dive in July. This week the neurologist declared that Adam's C1 neck break had healed sufficiently, so the neck and body braces were removed and there shouldn't be a need for surgery! Adam still has to be very careful, however. He can't ride his bike for a while yet and he isn't sposed to roughhouse with Henry until after Christmas! Obviously the doctor doesn't have teenage sons because, bwahahahaha, that's not gonna happen!

We feel very blessed and are very appreciative. Everyone in the family would like to thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers! Mwah!

From this,

To this!

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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 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!)

Reminder ~ Twofer Card Challenge #9 ~ LEAVES

Hello Stamplings,

I hope this finds you doing well as you start a new Monday! We had absolutely gorgeous weather on the West coast of the US of A, just the opposite of the horrors on the East Coast. Again, my thoughts and prayers are with everyone still dealing with the storm.

We've turned chilly here, in spite of the calendar telling us it's still summer, so out came the long pants, cardigan sweaters, and fuzzy robe and slippers. I think I told you a few years ago about how the Mister's father called his robe and slippers, "blipdah-blapdah" when he was a toddler. Some things are just too darn cute to forget and get passed on through the generations. That's how nicknames happen, right?! What is your family's 'blipdah-blapdah' story?

My cards today are reminders for Twofer Card Challenge #9 where the prompt is LEAVES! This prompt is very popular right now and the cards some of you have already entered in the gallery are really incredible! Mwah!

Here you go.

The die I am featuring is the Mighty Oak die from PTI. It came out a long time ago and I haven't played with it for ages, so it was great fun returning to it.

Onefer

The coloring here is more springtime than fall, but it will be appreciated by all my friends on the other side of the world. I cut the oak leaves from a very bright alcoholic ink glossy paper background in the my stash and pieced them into a white card base negative. The sweet sediment is from GKW.

Challenges

• 4 Crafty Chicks: Alcohol Inks Twist.
• Sweet Stampers: Bright colors.

Twofer

I noticed the Mighty Oak leaf die pattern had a cluster of leaves that looked like a flower; you can see it near the upper left in my Onefer. So for my second card I mimicked the formation, again using AIs on glossy paper, and then arranged a few petals falling. I add the sediment which I think is from Penny Black to an MFT flag. Hammy only recently got his lips back to normal from his last schplatterama with a straw, so I took a turn this time. Stop laughing. I know I'm not as good at it as he is and now I appreciate how hard it is! 

Challenges

• CAS on Friday: Flowers
• The Flower Challenge: Anything Goes.

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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 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!)

Thinking of You

Hello Stamplings!

The whole country and prolly the whole world is watching as Hurricane Florence bears down on the East Coast with dire predictions that it will be the "storm of a lifetime!" I hope everyone who lives in the impacted area was able to evacuate to safety. I can't even imagine and my heart goes out to all who are dealing with the situation, including public service staff and first responders.

Here's a little card I made to let you know I'm thinking of you.

I had all my leaf stamps and dies out on my desk for this month's Twofer, so I used my NBUS "Bold Greenery" from MFT for this card, cut from a smooched alcoholic Yupo paper. The coloring of the card base and panels looks a little uneven in the photo because it's a beautiful matte cream paper from my stash that has a beautiful sheen. It doesn't photograph well, but it's like buttery leather to the touch and I wish I knew the name so I could find some more of it. The sentiment is from MFT's Lable Tape set. I'm entering this card in the MFT 2018 Card Design Super Star: Clean and Simple Genius!

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And here we go from the sublime to the wicked! I don't make a lot of Halloweenie cards, but Hammy loved this cute "Witch Feet" stamp and die set from Hero Arts, so I had to get it. The stitched center oval from MFT is popped up with foam tape.

The drawings of these cool shoes and socks made me wonder, "What ever happened to knee socks?" Geez, I wore the heck out of knee socks in the winter to keep my legs warm under my jeans. I had them in every color. Do folks in winter climates still wear them? I never see them in adverts or in the stores. Funny how some things, even practical things, just go away. 

Challenges

• Just Us Girls: Hand-drawn elements.
• Less Is More: Black, white and one other color.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Pop it up!

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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 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!)

Twofer Card Challenge #9 ~ Leaves

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you had a fantabulous weekend and you're ready to face the week with relish. Mustard and ketchup are included on the side bar!

And here we go with the new challenge for September at Twofer Card Challenge!

Before the deciduous trees get naked in the Northern hemisphere and as new leaves are budding in the Southern hemisphere, we want to celebrate LEAVES this month!

Onefer

This OLC design was very easy to make. First I die cut several NBUS Garland Greenery leaves from Memory Box from some leafy pp and Hammy sprayed them with gold shimmer. The base is made from a hammered pale blue fold card I've had since back in the day. I heat-embossed the sediment from PTI in platinum and then simply laid on the die-cut leaves. You might get a glimpse of the glimmer and texture of the card if you click on the photo to enlarge. Or you can just stay where you are and put your nose up to the screen and cock your head just a tad to the left. Now try the right.

Twofer

If you don't mind me crowing a bit, this card is unbelievably gorgeous IRL! I have several sheets of stunning handmade paper with real leaves and stems that I have a hard time using. But I'm at that age of "use it or lose it," so you'll be seeing handmade papers more often. It's hard to stop looking at them. I'm surprised I haven't caressed those leaves right off the paper and, of course, Hammy wants to eat them! I used more of the die-cut gold-sprayed leaves tucked under the sediment panel which was in my stash. This card is intended to encourage a friend who is having a hard time.

Threefer. Wait. What?

Don't worry, I promise it won't become the Threefer challenge! What happened was this particular handmade leafy paper comes in three forms: a vellum, a mulberry, and a heavier mulberry. I know, right! Ooooooh. A while back Cas(e) This Sketch had this layout which I liked it, but I wasn't able to play that week. I saved the sketch and used it for this card. The base panel is from a paper pad from Mike. The little tag and sediment are from My Creative Time and again, more of the same glimmery die-cut leaves were used as embellishments.

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The three cards I showed here today are all conventional uses of my leaf die to show you that you don't need to be designing "unconventional" uses for your leaves in order to play in the challenge!

I hope you are sinpired, I mean, inspired! Break out one of your leaf/leaves stamps or dies and come up with two different designs for two different occasions to build your stash! And remember, "design" is just a fancy way to say "layout," so we want you to make your layouts different for each card to stretch your design skills!

Over at the Twofer Card Challenge, you will find lots more incredible inspiration from our very talented Design Team and Guest Designers, Linda and Susan! I look forward to seeing what you make!! Mwah!

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Card Onefer Challenges

• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Stamp It On For STAMPtember.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Anything goes. (Feminine.)

Card Twofer Challenges

• Cardz for Galz: Beautiful backgrounds.
• Stinkin' Inkers: Leaves are falling.

Card Threefer Challenges

• Mix It Up Challenge: Anything goes + optional three or more layers.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Anything goes, but must use snippets.

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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 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!)

Rainbow Parrot and Kavorting Kats

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you well! Today we are celebrating national Parrots Are People Too!

This holiday was started in 1956 by a little old lady in Maine who owned 13 parrots. This was before videos, but purportedly she had a room set up with elementary school desks and each parrot had a desk for his or her studies. If you closed your eyes, you would think you were listening to a group of first-graders. It must have been an amazing sight!

Oops, not really. I made all that up as a segue to my Onefer:

Cept for the parrot, this is a one-layer card. I sponged a light pastel background and applied three strips of rainbow Washi tape. The stamped sediment is from PTI and the parrot, colored with my Ziggies is from GKW. I've had it for ages and this is the first time I've stamped and colored it. Of course, Hammy winked and googly-eyed the final touches!

Challenges

• Little Red Wagon: Back to Basics.
• Seize the Birthday: Rainbow.
• Shopping Our Stash: Coloring.

Twofer

I made this card a few weeks ago and didn't post it because I wanted to make 26 of them in various designs and post them all at once. You know, like that's gonna happen. Let's all pause while you choke on your laughter and get a glass of water. I made this for my sweet friend Kay. The base is embossed with a Sizzix e/f, the postage stamp panels are NBUS from Memory Box, the happy birthday is from GKW, the flag banner is MFT, and the cute little NBUS Zoophabet stamp is brought to us by Penny Black.

Challenges

• Just Us Girls: Word Week: Celebrate
• Simon Says Stamp Monday: Stamp it on.
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Stamp It for STAMPtember.

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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 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!)