New Year Flowers

Hello Stamplings!

Happy New Year! Is it February yet?! 

Hopefully by February 2021, we will start to see the positive changes that we have been anticipating for this new year in terms of delivering Covid vaccinations and all things political. This is the start of my ninth year bloviating blogging! Congratulations to me! I really enjoyed my break which went on longer than anticipated, but more on that below.

Twas Twofer Card Challenge #34 that brought me back because today is the start of our fourth year as a challenging card challenge! We are starting the new year off with the ever poplar prompt:  F🌹L🌻O🌼W🌷E🌹R🌺S! 

Here is my Twofer to perspire you:

That was a hard one to photograph! The NBUS stamp that both my cards have in common is "Whimsical Flowers & Quotes," from Altenew.

Onefer

For my encouragement card, I heat-embossed the stamp in white and used my Posca and Kuretake metallic pens to color the flowers and stems. Then I heat-embossed the sediment (from the same stamp set) in white, but you couldn't 👀 it, so I blended some antique linen Doxie in the background.

Then what happened was, the act of blending on the ink pulled some of the color from the flowers into the background. It looks a bit dingy in the photo, but in real life the result is quite shiny and pretty. I think you can tell that Hammy was delighted to get back to work winking the flowers!

Twofer

This second design is quite different. It was made by heat-embossing just a bit of the frame stamp in gold and coloring it with my Ziggies and a water brush. I'm not sure where the sediment comes from, but it was also heat-embossed in gold. A sliver of gold Altenew WT was added to keep your eyeballs from rolling around all over the card and up into your head. 

Here's the inside:

The whole design is uber QACAS. Here on the inside is a WPlus9 sediment heat-embossed in gold. Two strips of matchy-colored and gold-striped WT were added to the sides.

If you have low MOJO right now, I do hope you'll be able to use this month's challenge as a way to jump start it. If the prospect of making two different designs stymies you, you may just be overthinking it. I've put a coupla tips on the Twofer Card Challenge blog that may help you, in addition to the wonderful Twofer inspiration you will find there from our Guest and Team Designers! Thank you for your ongoing support!

I Stepped On a Crack 😵

I was able to get a lot done during my bloggie break. It's always revitalizing for me to go through every nook and cranny of the Playhouse, clean it and take stock. I'm always shocked by the amount of dust that can accumulate, but paper has a way of linting about like crazy. I reduced my cache of dies by half (HALF!) and the same with my ribbon and quite a few stamps, all of which have found new and happy homes. Well except for that one box that got lost on its way to the Midwest. Sigh.

And then, just as I was ready to come back and see you last week, my back started hurting. Bad. I have an old compression fracture at T-6/T-7, so I assumed I had irritated it because of the manual labor. After a few days without improvement, I went for x-rays, even though I didn't want to leave the house because our Covid numbers are outrageous and scary. 

Anyway, it turns out that I didn't aggravate the old break, but instead I broke my damn back again! This time the compression fracture is at T-10. It's due to osteoporosis from genetics and years of taking steroids for Crohn's Disease. These breaks can happen just from twisting, reaching wrong, or lifting a little white 13-lb Nellie dog. Sniffle.

I'm wearing a brace, taking medication, and the Mister is an excellent caretaker. The pain should go away in about three months. Fortunately, I am still enjoying making cards between resting, but I will be less active on the computer because it hurts to sit and type too long.

So that's my rodeo days over then.🤠

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! Life is too short! Keep safe and don't let your guard down!

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 as soon as I can!

MWAH!