For You

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you're doing okay today.

This is my inaugural launch of the New Blogger, so if anything looks wrong, it's not my fault, their fault. I finally gave in because when I reverted to Legacy and came back just five minutes later, they had switched me to New Blogger again. We played that game of Tag You're It about 30 times and I finally gave up. There was a time when I was ornery enough to keep clicking back til I'm blue in the face, but now, shrug, ain't nobody got time for that.

It seems New Blogger was created to make it easier for people to blog from their phones, which is the way of the future. Unfortunately for some of us, blogging from our phones is impossible due to eye problems and/or arthritis in our hands and wrists, so we just have to be grateful they are still making a laptop/computer platform available for us to enjoy while we can. Sala Vee.

To be honest, it isn't as bad as when I first tried it, so they have fixed quite a few things. If you are hesitant or if you tried it once, please try again rather than giving up if you enjoy blogging. We will help each other through the transition and to that end, I have a couple of questions after my cards.

Onefer

My friend Nancy Leppek has started a new challenge blog called Color Hues and I wanted to make sure I got a card made to support her. I'm very becited to have this new challenge in Blogland and she has a very talented Team working hard to inspire us! 

I kept my design very simple so the yellow and green colors could be in the spotlight. The beautiful butterfly die is "Delicate Butterfly" from Memory Box and  I cut several layers to give it more dementia. The layered stitched squares are from MFT, the little NBUS tag is also from Memory Box, called "Classic Tags," and the sediment is from Creative Time, "Teeny Tiny Greetings."

Challenges

• Color Hues: Yellow and green.
• NBUS #18: Never Before Used Schtuff.
  
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Anything snippets goes.
  
• Retro Rubber: Also colors! The butterfly die is from 2019, the stitched squares are from 2015, the little NBUS tag is from 2011 (what?!), and the sediment is from 2012.

 

Twofer

This design was a bit of struggle. I wanted to try embossing with dies and I really liked a video I saw where the card had both the usual embossing with a folder (evergreen branch from Stampin Up) and embossing with a die (evergreen tree from Taylored Expressions).

First, I dry embossed with the embossing folder. Check. Next I watched several videos about embossing with dies, but they all used the Big Shot and I wanted to know how to do it with my Gemini Jr. I did find one video, but the sandwich the lady showed did not emboss for me. It cut through the paper when I tried it and mustard went everywhere. Three hours later I still didn't know, but I saw lots of other interesting videos when I veered off onto Squirrel Alley. 

I finally got out my Big Shot and was able to emboss without the die cutting the paper. Check. Then I gold embossed the sediment, rimmed the edges of my panel with gold ink, and then attached it to a gold panel. 

Hammy and I thought it needed a little sumpum sumpum, but nothing too busy like sequints, so we decided it would be pretty to add another tree to that little empty space just waiting for it. We dressed it in gold, and stacked it six times.

I'm sorry I didn't ground my trees. There was just too much snow everywhere to get in close to them. Of course, the tree and sediment don't even look gold above, so here's a closeup to prove it:

Challenges

• CAS Christmas: Christmas tree.
  
• CAS Mix Up: Embossing with dies. I embossed two ways, stamped, and die cut.
  
• Jingle Belles: Baby, it's gold outside!
  
• Krafty Chicks: Christmas.

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You might have noticed my images have a sort of sepia glow to them. That's because of the smoky haze, or smaze as one of our weathermen calls it. At least it's not weirdly red anymore, but our smaze is still thick and for several days it has been at the very unhealthy 180-200+ mark. Now they are saying it won't be safe to go outside until next Tuesday. I feel so sorry for all the critters. And, of course, poor little Nellie doesn't understand why we aren't doing walkies any more. 

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New Blogger Frustrations: [Already tried to find answers via Blogger/Google black holes.]

• I've discovered that I am no longer receiving notifications of blogs to which I am subscribed, including challenges. Has anyone heard if this is temporary, or if we have to resubscribe to blogs, or what the blazes? 
• Does anyone know how to wrap text around images in New Blogger so they can be placed somewhere other than centered? For Nellie's photo above, my hack was to revert to Legacy to place the photo. Then when I went back to New Blogger, it stayed to the left, but I don't know how long Legacy will be around. 

Thank you!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, but stay safe and well! 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!)