When a Fern Becomes a Fir

Hello Stamplings,

How are you as you start the weekend? I hope you've had a great week and enjoyed some sunshine. It's been really perfect here with cool temps and I'm loving this time before it gets too hot for my delicate sensibilities.😂

Okay, let's begin our program for today. Our guest star is the stunning Fresh Fern from the Penny Black family! Please give her a warm welcome!

Fern is a NBUS stamp and today she is wearing an outfit of three shades of green, which she misted with water, before laying on the paper. Hammy chose simple faceted glass for her earrings and necklace and she has been photographed against a linen embossing folder, whose edges were lightly tinted all around with green.

Fern wanted to appear today to remind you about the current Twofer Card Challenge where "Leaves" is the prompt word. But is she the appropriate choice for such a reminder? Well, the Board of Directors of today's Art in the Park program had a spirited debate about whether Fern would be allowed to be a leaf model. After thorough research it was found that "the botanical world considers the frond to be a large divided leaf." 

Loud applause erupted from the park bleachers where Fern's many fronds were seated. Too bad this is a birthday card, or I would have channeled Michele and computer-generated a punny sediment like, "I'm grateful you're a frond of mine!"

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Birthday.
• NBUS: Anything new goes.
  
• Penny Black Saturday: Anything PB goes.
  
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Clean and simple.

 

Twofer

The more I looked at Fern's full glory on my first card, the more I began to see Christmas trees, so, tada, I made a second design using a fun pickup truck called "Big Delivery" from Taylored Expressions. I did the marker/spritz on the tree (fern) and used my Karin brushes to watercolor the truck. The diecut sediment was a gift from a friend. To finish the design, I hand-doodled a frame and Hammy winked the fiery truck.

Challenges

• Krafty Chicks: CAS.
• HLS April Christmas: Anything goes; option 'under the tree.'
  
• Holly and Ivy: Anything Christmas goes.
  
• Watercooler Wednesday: All things masculine.

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I hope you will have time in this coming week to stretch your design skills and join in before April 24th. Remember you do not have to make one design an unconventional one; they can both be conventional. 

When you click over to the Twofer Card Challenge blog, you will see that our talented Designer Anita has created another incredible pair of leaf designs to remind and inspire you! You won't want to miss that, nor all the wonderful creations already in the gallery!

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Coupla 😒 things:

• Subscribers to my blog: By now you have prolly heard that Blogger is discontinuing Feedburner email subscription service in July. That means if you are receiving email notifications in your inbox via Feedburner whenever I post on this blog, or on my NBUS or Twofer Card Challenge blogs, that will no longer be happening as of July. I think this will be a profound change for a lot of us. I know I subscribe to hundreds of you via Feedburner and I'm sad that I will no longer be notified when you publish a new post. Until I find out any more information, these are options for you:
• If you own a blog and you haven't already done so, you can click on the blue "Follow" button on the right side bar of my blogs. You will then be able to see when I publish new posts on your dashboard list or on your own side bar. For this blog, you also have the option of subscribing via Bloglovin by clicking that link to the right and Bloglovin will notify you when I publish a post. (bloglovin dot com)
• If you do not own a blog, please email me if you wish to continue receiving notice when I post and I will let you know via personal email. (darnell dot knauss at gmail dot com)
• Either way, you can save my blog URL in your bookmarks for easy reference. (djkardkreations dot com)
  
  
• Taking medical leave: As you may remember, since the beginning of the year I have been dealing off and on with a fractured T10 vertebrae in my back. It did get better for a while, but a few weeks ago I did something to reverse the healing and it has become very painful again. Sadly, the worst pain happens when I type, no matter which chair or position I use. Every day I have done less on the computer, but it isn't getting any better and it seems the only way it can heal fully is by complete rest. So ... except for a bit of housekeeping for Twofer and NBUS, Hammy and I are taking a long break from the computer. Thank you for your patience and good wishes! 
  
  

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy and keep safe! Life is too short! 

Mwah!💋 

Leaves of Many Colors

Hello Stamplings!

How are you on this fine weekend, already ten days into April? I used to say we whooshed from one date to another, but that word seems inadequate nowadays, doesn't it?

Then I went to my The Saurus and found out that it really is the best word after all, although I do love the sound of velocious and I think we should bring it back into popular usage. Then again, it does sound an awful lot like ferocious, so maybe that's why it went into obsolation.

I'm looking out my window on a beautiful day in awe of the giant Japanese Maple tree fully festooned with new leaves. The green hue is almost neon bright and I'm not sure if the photo can capture it. Lots of plants are breaking out in many shades of fresh green and they are just lovely, but that towering maple green grabs all the attention. And I'm sure on the other side of the world you are equally in awe as you enjoy your leaves turning all the warm colors of fall!

Why all this talk about 🍃🍂🍁leaves🍁🍂🍃? 

You guessed it, that's the prompt word for this month's Twofer Card Challenge! And here are my makes to inspire you:

The leaf stem my card designs have in common is from Paper Smooches.

Onefer

For my thinking of you design, I used a background I made during a crafty Zoom session with friends. This technique is called "faded water stenciling." It's a fun and easy technique which you can see demonstrated in a Splitcoast video by Dina Kowal. I've removed the sediment from the packaging so I can't tell you who makes it, but perhaps some kind reader will know. 

As you can tell by the rather plump glossifying, Hammy is home again!🐹 Because of the delay, he and Fitzwilliam🐸missed a fun tour of the Greek islands, but they were more than ready to be home! 

Twofer

Haha, look at that winking! You should see it in real life! Even as tired as he was, he still kept a steady hand, bless him. I gold-embossed the sediment and decided a bit of beautiful leafy Washi tape was just the bit of sumpin' sumpin' the design needed.

Thank you

I hope you'll be able to join in with your leafy creations! We are delighted to have Guest Designers Alison and Natalie with us this month! You will be inspired by their designs, as well as the designs of the entire DT! I do appreciate all your support of the Twofer Card Challenge and I hope you have fun while increasing your stash!

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I will leave you with a few more funnies from Mamie:

• My wife asked me to take her to one of those restaurants where they make the food right in front of you. I took her to Subway and that's how the fight started.
• During the Middle Ages they celebrated the end of the plague with wine and orgies. Does anyone know if there is anything planned when this one ends?
• I see articles about people my age mountain climbing. I feel good getting my leg through my underwear without losing my balance.

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, especially since I've been slow with my return visits because of my back. Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!

*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!)

Your Special Day and Christmas Rainbows!

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Easter weekend, although by the time I get this posted, it will no doubt be mid-week. That seems to be my new normal now as I start something and then a warm breeze blows through my meager thoughts, scattering them like moths under the street lamp. Then I'm off to gather them up, or head off in an entirely new direction! 

Eventually I wend my way back to creating and sharing. It may take me longer, but I get there in the end and here are my latest makes.

Onefer

Most of you will prolly remember this stamp from the cute Penny Black set called "critter celebration." It was very popular, just as the fabulous Anita Jeram stamps are now, and eventually I succumbed to buying the set. And then it sat because by that time I thought the interwebs had been saturated with the sweet critters. Now, with Hammy gone, I went looking for another critter to play with so this NBUS set is finally getting some love.

Using some pretty pp from SU, I paper-pieced the flower, stem, and mouse. I think I've mentioned before that paper-piecing is one of my all-time favorite techniques. I think it's because it reminds me of playing with paper dolls. I remember having lots of fun making more clothes out of magazine pictures. The sediment might also be from Penny Black. Some matching mouse-colored schplattering and a wee butterfly finished the scene.

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Paper-piecing, stamping, fussy-cutting, and schplattering.
  
• Penny Black Saturday: A/G, optional "cute."
  
• Pixie's: Anything snippets goes. Happy 400th Challenge, Di!!
• Seize the Birthday: Anything birthday goes (w/o option).

Twofer

This is thinking outside the Christmas box of decorations, isn't it? It's like bleu cheese. You're either gonna like it or you're gonna hate it. Either way, this was a fun and QACAS OLC design that took only minutes to make. I used the "poinsettia row" stamp from STAMPlorations, colored with markers and spritzed. Hammy would love winking all those colors, so I left them for him to do when he gets back. (They are on the move again, so that's good!)

Challenges

• AAA Cards: Two quarters and option of rainbow.
  
• CAS Christmas: Rainbow.
  
• Christmas Craft Creations: Christmas flowers.
• Retro Rubber: Rainbow connection. The poinsettia row stamp came out in 2016.
  

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A First

Normally, I put the laundry away right after folding, but the other day, I left it for a few minutes and when I came back into the room and glanced at the basket, I cocked my head to the side wondering when we acquired a sheep-skin rug.

Wait. What?

It was just the little diva, Nellie! You will notice that she, too, needs to be laundered and thankfully she sees the groomer tomorrow! 

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

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse, especially since I've been slow with my return visits, and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! See on Saturday with April's Twofer Challenge!

*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!)