Eat, Sleep, Craft, Repeat 2019

Hello Stamplings!

As promised, I have a recap of my time with my friends at Loll's Eat, Sleep, Craft, Repeat 2019 Retreat! This is my second year attending. You can see last year's post here. Some of the photos were taken by Loll's very talented SIL, Alex, where indicated. The rest I took. Each of us is posting today, so the links below the photo will take you to each stop on the blog hop!

Here we are in our fun aprons that Lolly made:

l to r: Christine, Trina, Susan, (me), Colleen, Loll, Bonnie, Nancy, Linda

The place we stayed was located in a beautiful wooded area:

The first few days we had the pleasure of being joined by Nancy's delightful daughter, Jeani (arrow):

We also enjoyed having our very talented friends Colleen and Linda join us for part of the retreat this year. They are in the group photos above and here:

Lots of crafting happened!

Photo by Alejandro Garcia

Photo by Alejandro Garcia

Photo by Alejandro Garcia

Photo by Alejandro Garcia

We shared each other's supplies. Here I am with Bonnie:

Photo by Alejandro Garcia

Besides taking our photos, Alex took the time to teach us how to better photograph our cards and gave us tips on equipment to buy to achieve that. Here is he teaching us. Thank you, Alex!

To save some space, I made collages of some of Alex's photos. Here are some proud "Show and Tell" photos:

Photo by Alejandro Garcia

And here are the beautiful cards we made:

Photos by Alejandro Garcia

Weren't we productive?! We took turns teaching the different techniques shown. In addition to the finished cards, we each came home with lots of card fronts. As I make them into cards and post them in the weeks to come, I will talk more about the techniques shown in the cards above.

My lesson was on painting with watercolor pencils and here is a card I made using the technique. (You can see the other cards we watercolored in the collage photo above: bottom row, far left.)

To color with watercolor pencils, you color your image with your pencils and draw the pigment out with a waterbrush or paint brush. My tip was a simple one. I find I have more control over the color and vibrancy of the pencils if I hold a pencil in my left hand, then touch the tip of my waterbrush to the lead with my right hand, and then paint as usual.

The image and sediment are from my NBUS "Enchanted Iris" by Altenew. The background was made at ESCR by smooching Lindy Magicals on Yupo paper. Lindy Magicals are powdered inks that shimmer and shine. You can find more information via YouTube and Google.

Unfortunately ...

We didn't think the knives were sharp at all, but on our last morning this terrible accident happened:

GASP!

I know, it looks bad, doesn't it? I'm just messing with you. It wasn't knives. It was just the result of the klutz below loosing her grip on a poorly-closed (by her) bag of frozen blueberries:

Thankfully, most of the stain wiped right up with a damp cloth, but that is NOT the way to start your morning!

Hammy

Last, but definitely not least, Hammy was in attendance for the whole thoroughly enjoyable event! Here he is sitting on the Werthers candy bowl to get a better view of everything:

And here he is ready to help dole out double-sided tape to anyone in need:

Photo by Alejandro Garcia

Everyone loved the little guy and how he scampered to help out. Of course, he did startle the ladies once or twice by also scampering up their pant legs, as he loves to do!

Thank you, Lolly, for including me again this year! You have everything organized and arranged so all we have to do is have a fantastic inky time! ❤

~~~

Thank you for sharing this recap with me! 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!)

From Poppies to Snowballs

Hello Stamplings!

Today is Memorial Day in America. A day where we pause to honor the lives of the men and women who died while serving in the military and to acknowledge the sacrifices of the families they left behind. 

I've made a poppy card thank you. 

Rather than the symbolic red poppy color, I painted my poppies the colors of the state flower of California using both my Kois and DIs. I have seen card artists who can magically paint flowing backgrounds on their watercolor cards. It's not my usual sort of minimalist lean, but I always love it when other people do it, so I tried it. 

I have to say I was pretty pickled tink with how I did. So much so, that I carried my card into the house from the Playhouse in order to show The Mister and, well, you can see what happened. I got halfway across the deck and an unkind seagull took a bathroom break all over my card!!

Can you believe it? No? Oh, all right, I'll be honest. I over-diluted some white acrylic paint and instead of practicing first on a piece of scratch paper, I let Hammy take a leaping jump onto the paint brush and ... oops. I decided to share anyway. Even though all accidents are not "happy" accidents, it's how we learn, so it's all good.

BTW, the NBUS image is "Charming" by Penny Black which I stamped in black and heat-embossed in clear before painting.

Challenges

• CAS Colours & Sketches: Colours.
• Mix It Up: Anything goes with option of mixed media.

Twofer

This adorable ageless beauty has graced the pages of this blog before. She is my Aunt Charlotte, immortalized by Art Impressions. I'm sure you can see the family resemblance especially in the chest area. Aunt Char was always slim in the hips while I took after the heavy-bottomed other side of the family. As a result of being both front- and end-loaded, I have no fear of tipping over. (Which tiddly Aunt Char has done on most holiday get-togethers.)

I started this card during Retreat free time in order to enter it in the Christmas Kickstart Challenge when I got home. The brief was "S is for Snarky Christmas," but sadly the doors have closed. Now I think most of you know what x-rated thoughts Aunt Char is referring to by "reindeer games," but in case you have young children (or a hamster) looking over your shoulder, I handdrew a pile of innocent-looking snowballs.

Challenges

• Just Add Ink: Just add Q-X-Y-Z. X is for just a teeny bit x-rated.
• Love to Craft: Anything goes.
• Rudolph Days: Anything goes Christmas.

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Bonus Surprise

The lovely lady seen with me above is none other than Scrappy Mo, the hostess of Rudolph Days! Loll reminded me that Maureen lived very close to where we were renting a house in British Columbia and we were all delighted that she was available to join us for lunch one day. It was a pleasure meeting you in person, Maureen!

~~~

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!)

CAS Stencil

Hello Stamplings,

How are you? I hope you've had a wonderful coupla weeks while I've been away! I got home yesterday so it's going to take me a while to get things sorted and get back into my routine. I had an amazing time and I promise I'll have photos of the Retreat to share after I get them up the download!

Today I'm quickly posting cards I made just before I left because the challenges that schparked them are about to close their doors. 

Ironically, the colored panel was made exactly a year ago at Loll's retreat using Lindy Magicals. After wards, I added embossing paste through a Nested Circles STAMPlorations stencil. I cut the panel in half to make two cards.

The upper card has a textured black border off to the left side and the bottom card is centered over a black card panel. The same black was used for both sediment panels made with MFT labels which I'm pretty sure were NBUS even though I've had them for ages. The white heat-embossed hugs* sediment is NBUS from Penny Black's "Good Wishes" stamp set and the white heat-embossed smile sediment is NBUS from Concord & 9th's "Love You Mean It" stamp set.

(*I saw this hugs sediment on my friend Brenda's blog and I immediately had to search for it online. Well, I found it all right, along with a few dozen other little items I just had to have. I told Brenda that I was able to find the stamp and it "only" cost me $186! Hey, sometimes we go down that rabbit hole and that, ladies and gents, is why I continually have so much NBUS!)

Challenges

• CAS Stencil Challenge: Stenciling over a colored background.
• Lost Coast Portal to Creativity: Use some words.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use those snippets!
• Simon Says Stamp Monday: Use a stencil.

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Before I went to the Retreat, the Mister and I spent a fun week in the Vancouver, BC area. Part of our time was spent on Galiano Island, where you can take a trail to these unique wave-made caves:

I thought you'd love this super cute photo of The Mister. We had such a great time on our trip and beautiful weather. Hammy is in the backpack cuz I was afraid he would get washed out to sea or lost running around in those little hamster-sized nooks and grannies!

~~~

Enjoy your day and the weekend! 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!)

Dabbing With Baby Wipes

Hello Stamplings,

I hope this finds you doing great! Hammy and I are still playing with our friends at the retreat, so needless to say, we're delirious and our fingers and paws are very inky and happy.

Today I have a scheduled post with some cards I made using a baby wipe method. There are many ways to use a baby wipe on your card; they aren't just for cleaning your stamps. If you go to the CAS Mix Up Card Challenge, you will find links for videos on the technique and there are prolly more you can find via the you tube.

Onefer

What happened was, I white heat-embossed my full-size MFT Floral Fantasy Background and proceeded to color it in with my Arteza fine-line colored pens. I wish I had taken a photo of it pre-baby wipe to show you how very vibrant it was. We're talking VIBRANT and for me, it was way too-too, especially with such a busy Zentangle-ish image. 

So for the first time ever, I took a baby wipe and dabbed across the panel and by golly, it worked like magic at removing just enough color to make me love it! You can see where I dabbed away with a lighter hand in certain places to leave the card with some dementia.

I popped the colored panel up on a scalloped (PTI) turkoyce fun foam panel and I used a vellum strip for the sticker sediment so as not to block much of the image.

Challenges

• Card Concept: #115 {Mosiac Madness}
• Seize the Birthday: No toppings.
• Ike's World: Embossing.

Twofers

I used the rest of the dabbed colored image to make two QACAS designs. The sediments are from Simon Says Stamp. I used a PTI impression plate for the kindness card and an embossing folder for the praying for you card. 

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up Card Challenge: Baby Wipe. I used stamping, coloring, heat-embossing, and dry embossing.
• CASology: Color.

Challenges

• CAS(E) This Sketch.
• The Flower Challenge: Embossing (heat or dry). I used both.

~~~

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!)