Classic B/W and Red for Christmas

Hello, Stamplings!

Thank you for stopping by today, seeing as how you're exhausted after all that post-Thanksgiving shopping you did over the weekend. When you weren't eating leftovers. Or is that just me?

I won't keep you cuz you know I have tons to do. I mean, I know you have tons to do.

You can count on me for mostly uber-doober QACAS inspiration as it gets closer to Christmas. My cards today took minutes to make. The beautiful image above is NBUS from Unity. I had to buy it (cough) months ago after seeing it on my friend Shelly's blog and I finally got around to inking it up for Christmas. It was stamped onto a corner-chomped OLC base and clear-embossed. The Christmas flower was colored and shaded with Ziggies and the sediment is from Penny Black. Hammy winked the heck out of that flower. Hmm, maybe that's why the colors all blended. Bless his heart.

Challenges

• Less Is More: OLC Holiday.
• Rudolph Days: A/G Christmas.
• TIME OUT: Black, white, and one colour.

Twofer.

Another uber festive card. This full-front text image is an old wooden stamp from Stampendous. I inked it in black and embossed it in clear ep, which you can just make out in the shine here and there. I found a NBUS roll of pretty SU ribbon to tie around the card front. Tip: This is a cheater's bow you tie after you've tried twelveteen times to tie a bow. It's less bulky to mail, too.👏

Challenges

• 52 Christmas Card Throwdown: Ribbon & glitter.
• Fusion: Photo inspiration.
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas: Anything goes.

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Enjoy this busy time of year for us card arteests! 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!)

We Have Deer, But Where Is Santa?

Hello Stamplings!

And we have RAIN!!! Thank you all for your prayers! The rain will help the weary firefighters put out the remaining fires, but it will make things difficult in many ways for the search teams and the evacuees, so people still need your prayers. On the other hand, the rain will clean the horribly unhealthy air we've had for two weeks, and it will give the poor parched and dusty plants and trees a drink and a bath. Who doesn't love that?

That's what I'll be doing later on today after prepping for Thanksgiving tomorrow, but first I wanted to write this post before the day gets away.

I used a NBUS "Playful Deer Stitched Frame" from Poppystamps for these cards. Behind the deer die are snippets of Yupo paper smooched with alcoholic inks. The whole shebang was popped up on a colored card base embossed with a dotty (read snowy) embossing folder.

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Embossing folder, stamping, die-cutting, alcohol inks.
• Sweet Stampers: Christmas.

Here are a few more zamples: (Sorry, I might have had a wodka and orange juice for breakfast, purely for medicinal porpoises, you understand. One must gird one's loins for cleaning and baking!)

Note: Instead of AI Yupo smooched paper, the gold card has a snippet of pp behind the deer.

Challenges

• Cards for Guyz: Christmas critters. (Dark blue.)
• Moving Along With the Times: Winter animals.
• Simon Says Wednesday: All that glitters is gold.

 

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I also have a Santa card. It's interactive in that it requires you to use your imagination!

This QACAS card karacks me up. Do you ever wish you had a dollar for every time you've said to your husband or kids, "I feel like I'm invisible!" Well, look, even Santa has days like that!

The Stampendus winked hat, boots, and sediment are all NBUS from a cute little stamp store in Indiana. The belt is Washi tape.

Challenges

• Cards in Envy: Santa Baby.
• CAS Christmas Card: Santa
• CAS on Friday: Use Washi tape on your card.

 

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Happy Thanksgiving!

And, finally, to you my friends and faithful supporters and commenters, Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to all who are celebrating and Happy Thursday to all who are not! And, as always, if you don't feel like celebrating either one, extra hugs to you.

I'm thankful for all the times we've shared this year and all the inspiration you have given me. I'm also thankful for all the challenges and their design teams for all the work they put into bringing us fun places to share our creativity! Mwah!

The bold sediment from Altenew is another NBUS. I was wishing I had backed and offset it with black, but the more I look at it, the more I like that it is camouflaged without being camouflaged, if you know what I mean. I cut it from a snippet of the same stencil monoprinting you have seen me use on other cards recently. The ribbon is from SU.

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* Now where did I hide the potato chips so the Mister wouldn't eat them all before tomorrow ...

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!)

Wrapped Up in Wreaths

Hello Stamplings!

On the Days of the Year calendar, today we are celebrating "Homemade Bread Day," "Baklava Day," and because then we need it, "Take a Hike Day!" Since we can't hike here atm because of the smoke, we'll just call it, "International Celebrate Carbs Day!"

But more important than any of those, today is our favorite son's birthday! Happy Birthday, Dan, and many, many more! And because I didn't acknowledge my favorite daughter-in-law's birthday on October 1, I'd like to do that now, too. Happy Birthday, Rachel, and many, many more! Your birthdays are even more cherished now!

Today is also reminder day over on the Twofer Card Challenge blog, so here you go with two more sets of designs to inspire you to play. In each case, I made one conventional wreath design and then I used my wreath in an unconventional way on my second design:

For these cards, the wreath I used for both designs is "Cascadia Wreath" by Memory Box. In case you think the camera played tricks, the colors of the card bases are honestly white and cream.

I thought we could all use our vivid imaginations and pretend those flowers are poinsettias, so my first design is a Christmas card, kept uber simple with white-one-white, pops of red, and a schplash of silver. The sediment is from The Ton. I'm entering this card in the TIME OUT photo inspiration challenge: red, white, gray.

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I'm pretty chuffed with how this turned out. It was one of those one-thing-leads-to-another card designs. I ended up using a perfume bottle clear stamp from The Alley Way Stamps for the pretty Ziggified vase. I've had it at least four years, but it was still NBUS cuz I've just never had occasion to make a card with a large perfume bottle. As I was looking through my schtuff, I thought the bottom of the perfume bottle would work as a vase, so I put on my surgical gown and operated on it to remove the atomizer dealiebob. 

The card base is die-cut from an MFT stitched rectangle out of beautiful schparkle paper from SU that was a gift from my friend Brenda. The NBUS sediment from Kaiser Craft is heat-embossed in silver and in Hammy's absence, I winked the vase all by myselves. Sorry I forgot to take a photo closeup to show you all the shimmer and sheen. I also forgot to add a shadow to ground my vase. Okay, let's just move on.

Challenges

• City Crafter: Friendship.
• Color Throwdown.
• Little Red Wagon: Remember when.

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For this Twofer set, I leaned towards rustic and used a wreath from Papertrey Ink called, "Cutaway Tags: Summer."

Making another Christmas card for the pile, I die-cut the wreath from a snippet of gold-embossed Bazzill paper and added another strip behind the wreath. Then I covered the sediment strip part of the die with paper that matched the card base, onto which I heat-embossed the sediment from PTI in gold. To finish it off, I flung gold schplatters all over it with Wild Abandon.

Challenges

• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use your snippets!
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: All that glitters is gold.
• Uniko: Celebrate. Optional twist: GOLD.

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For my second design, I deconstructed the wreath, using the center sediment strip and some of the flowers, which I colored with my Zigs and winked. The sediment is NBUS from the same set. I found the cool woodgrained background paper in the same stash where I found the paper I used on my first set of Twofer wreaths last week. It feels great to have used these cool patterned papers after years stuck in a drawer! 

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The Twofer Card Challenge is open until November 24th, so you still have time to put your thinking caps on and play along! I have to say, once I got into it, it was really fun thinking of two ways to use a wreath that weren't the same underlying design.

It's all win-win for you as you end up with two cards for your stash and it's all win-win for us as we benefit from how you inspire us!

 

~~~

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!)

Metallica Thanksgiving and Christmas

Hello Stamplings!

This is the time of year when we get out all our gold and silver papers and embossing powders and utensils. Who actually has a sterling silver service that they bring out for special occasions? Or are you modern and you use Great-Grandma's set for everyday?

I never had any of that, although I do have the Mister's grandmother's small teapot in the bookshelf, which I polish now and then. Mostly then. Now is spent playing with those papers and powders I mentioned.

Like this. 

Just to be different, haha, I made two of them.

Uber QACAS design again because, you know, time. Prolly you will be seeing uber short posts (short by my standards) from me for the next month for the same reason. The sediment is NBUS from Lawn Fawn and the leaves are from Concord & 9th.

Challenges

• Inkspirational: Photo. The table looks like a Thanksgiving table to me.
• Less Is More: Metallics.
• Simon Says Monday: Thanks/Thanksgiving.
• Words to Craft By: Blessings.

Christmas wants to shine, too, you know!

I received the snowflake frame from Lolly recently so instead of putting it away, I came up with the novel idea (for me) of immediately making a card with it, all golden and delicious! The sediment is from MFT. I think. And lest you think Hammy did nothing to help with these cards, you're right. He's off this week with the family celebrating an early Thanksgiving!

Challenges

• 4 Crafty Chicks: Snowflakes.
• Simon Says Wednesday: All that glitters is gold.
• Watercooler Wednesday: Heidi's all-about occasions.

~~~

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!)

2018 Twelve Tags of Christmas With Loll and Friends!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you enjoying the week! Yesterday was Veteran's Day: a wonderful day to reflect and thank all the men and women who have served the country during times of war and peace and to thank their families for all the sacrifices they have made. Thank you!

Today is my day to appear as a Guest Designer for my friend Lolly's inspiring annual Christmas tag event: Twelve Tags of Christmas With Loll and Friends. This will be the final year and I want to thank Lolly for putting this event together every year for five years! I have found lots of beautiful tag inspiration in the galleries over the years!

Here is my tag for Day Nine:

I actually made the tag background in May at our Vancouver retreat. Christine is lucky enough to live near a paper factory and we all reaped the benefits of that! There were a lot of tags for us to play with and we decided to slap them around in some spritzed Lindy Magicals. We were very pleased at how beautifully the non-watercolor paper tags soaked up the powdered ink!

To make my tag, I added two whimsical die-cut Christmas trees made from a "Small Snow Covered Tree" die by Dee's Distinctively Dies. I had to buy this die as soon as I saw it last summer on Bonnie's blog. I cut the trees from a schparkly snowy paper, but you'll have to take my word for that. Hammy inserted a foam dot between the layers to give them some dementia. The white heat-embossed Christmas sediment is from PTI and the shimmery fluffy bow is from a roll I've had since the twins were babies.

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Thank you, Lolly, for having me as one of your Guest Designers. It's been fun!

I hope you'll be able to join in the Twelve Tags of Christmas With Loll and Friends! There are prizes! Below is a recap of all the information you need!

 Challenges Dates:

• Inspiration Tags posted Nov. 5 - 16.
• Linky open for entries Nov. 5 - 23.
• Top Tags posted Nov. 30.

Rules: 

• Make a Mixed Media or CAS Mixed Media Christmas tag. (Include stamping plus two mixed media elements.)
• Include a link to Twelve Tags challenge in your write-up.
• Add your entry with the linky tool on Loll's blog.
• Enter as many times as you'd like, new entries only please.

Prizes:

• Winning Tag - $50 Gift Certificate for Simon Says Stamp.
• Random Draw + Top Three Tags: $25 Gift Certificate each 
  

  for Simon Says Stamp.

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Fires

It was a pleasure bringing you a cold and icy tag today to take my mind off the fact that so much of California is burning again. All these years of drought are really being felt as over 117,000 acres have burned in this latest fire which is only 30% contained. Over 7,000 structures have gone up in flames, most of them homes. An entire town of 26,000 people is in ashes. To date, 42 people have died, and over 200 are still missing. It's beyond sad, but it's also a miracle more people didn't die as the fire was traveling the length of a football field every three seconds! Horrifying!

Thank you to all the brave firefighters who are putting their lives on the line to save as many homes and as much property as they can. We pray for their safety as they work 24-hour shifts. Many of them have lost their own homes, but they work on, trying to save the homes of others.

We are five days into it and the smoke is still at an unhealthy level throughout the Bay Area (where we are), which is 180 miles away from the center of the inferno! And there are two other deadly fires currently raging near Los Angeles. It is all very scary and it reminds us once again how life can change in an instant. It reminds me to tell you how much I appreciate you! Mwah!

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

*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!)