Life's a beach and then it's Christmas

Hello Stamplings!

I'm sorry I'm so late. I've been down to Police Headquarters filing a Missing Week Report. It did make me feel better seeing the long lines of people doing the same thing. I'm pretty sure I saw you, but you were in the line by the green door and it was too far to yell without seeming uncouth. That's one of those funny words that you rarely hear the other part of. Hmm, if I were couth, I wouldn't end a sentence with a dangly partisouple.

Onefer

This Beach Baby from Penny Black has been around awhile and she recently crawled into my shopping cart. You just can't help but smile at her and when I saw the little baby on the Double D "Signs of Summer" mood board, I had a blast painting this image to match with my Ziggies. I painted the red stripes on her swimsuit top and put white gel drops on her hat and Hammy painted her toenails! The image and sediment (from the same set) are heat-embossed in liquid platinum. I was going to paint on some waves, but I decided to leave well enough alone.😱

Challenges

• Double D: Signs of summer.
• Happy Little Stampers: AG Watercolor.
  
• The Card Concept: Long summer days. Style: clean and simple.
• The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: W is for watercolor.
  

Twofer

This QACAS design was so easy, it was ridiculous. I used a panel of gold and vellum card from a paper pad to cover the front of my card and then simply die-cut and attached the tree and star from MFT called Christmas Tree Win. It really looks quite mod without a sediment considering it pretty much screams Christmas, but then when I cock my head, I think, no, it needs a sediment, so I'm sure I'll add one. Or not.

Challenges

• Christmas 24: Trees and ornaments.
  
• Jingle Belles: Leave it in neutral (in this case metallic neutral).
  
• Rudolph Days: June. Anything Christmas goes.

Family Time

We had a wonderful Dad's Day celebration and I did remember to get a photo:

Adam, Dan, Henry, The Mister (aka Papa, aka Kevin)

And then we spent a busy week dog-sitting little Cisco. He has appeared here before, so you may remember he owns my sister-in-law. It was a hoot!

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, and keep safe! 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!)

For YOU, My Monkeys

Hello Stamplings!

To those of you celebrating today, Happy Father's Day! We will be going over to our son's later this afternoon. The twins have jobs for the summer now, but they will end their shifts in time to join us for dinner. I know. I can't believe they are 16 either! I'll try to remember to get a photo.

And speaking of trying to remember, I'm going make an effort to create with my flower images more often. I think I've told you before, I buy a lot of floral stamps, dies, and stencils, and when I pin, bookmark, or file someone's image to CASE later, ninety percent of the time it's a floral card. Yet, slap my biscuit, I rarely reach for flowers when I get an idea for a card; it's usually critters! (Possibly I'm being influenced by a certain hamster?)

So yesterday, I made TWO flower cards! Gome!

Onefer

Not only that, but it's a NBUS set! This sweet set is called Magnolia and it's by Craft Emotions. I'll be using the other beautiful images soon and coloring them in the more traditional pink hues, but it was fun painting this one in blue and yellow. I used my Ziggies and Hammy added just a light touch of winking so the blue and yellow didn't mix to make green. The sediment is from Verve and the frame is Pointed Rectangle Frames by poppystamps.

Challenges

• AAA Birthday: Flowers.
  
• Less is More: Pale blue and yellow.
  
• Perfectly CAS: One corner.
  
• The Flower Challenge: Clean and simple.

Twofer

This was really fun. It is also NBUS, this time by Crafter's Companion for Gemini. The package contains an embossing folder and stencils. You emboss first and then there are two stencils so you can place them over the embossing and color some or all of the dandelions. So there is wonderful texture from the e/f and the stencils make it very easy (although not perfect, lol) to blend color on the puff balls. I used my blending brushes and CP inks.

The sediment is from Tim Holtz's Snarky Small Talk booklet. I don't know how I've missed these, but better late than never. There are dozens of really funny sticker sediments, so prepare yourself for seeing a lot of them since they are right up my sarcastic alley! Especially now that I'm of a certain age where what little filter I used to have is starting to fray away completely. Oh, dear!

Challenges

• Just Us Girls: Color week: orange, poppy red, and hot pink.
  
• Let's Squash It!!: Nature meets watercoloring.
  
• Simon Says Stamp Monday: Beautiful blooms.
  
• Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: T is for texture.

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REMINDER: The June Twofer Card Challenge ends on the 24th, so there is still time to play! The prompt is 🌞SUNSHINE!🌞 so if you're making a sunny summer card, why not make two and join in? I'd love to see you there!

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy and keep safe! 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!)

A Colorful Bird-day and a Turkoyce Snowman

Hello Stamplings,

How are you? Are you away from your devices now because we are free to move about the country / school is out / summer is almost here? I don't blame you. 

However, in this neck of the woods, we went from really beautiful spring weather to burn-your-backside-if-you-sit-on-the-step red hot sizzling summer weather. I'm not ready for it, so I'm inside and back to my old vices, on my devices, which is to say I'm bringing you a coupla cards. 

Onefer

I had fun painting these birds. Because we make handmade cards, we can color them howsoever whichway we want to color them. I love that about this hobby. 

The birds who are celebrating pride month on my card above are from a NBUS set from Your Next Stamp called "Happy Bird-day." The little musical notes and the sediment are from the same set. The framing dies are from MFT. Every feather has been winked by Hammy and is a schparkly delight.

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Viv has chosen Flight. I've stamped, watercolored, and die-cut. And googlie-eyed.
• Day of the Month Card Club: Best Friend Day.
  
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Anything snippets goes.

Twofer

I have this cool Tim Holtz snowman in an e/f and a stamp and today I used the stamp. I heat-embossed my snow gentleman using Tim's Broken China Embossing Glaze. I had a heck of a time trying to get a closeup of the wonderful shine from the glaze:

The "Snowflake Marquee" die is from Memory Box and the sediment is from GKW. Hammy did a great job (his first time) adding a faint grounding shadow and I munched the corners. That is to say, Hammy did offer to munch the corners and I said sure, but thankfully, I turned back around in time to save the card before he had eaten too much. I couldn't get upset because, I mean, he was munching it after all!

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Christmas.
  
• CAS Christmas: Hideko has chosen Snowmen.
  
• Christmas Craft Creations: Heat embossing.
  
• Krafty Chicks: Christmas.

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy and keep safe! 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 or subscriber! 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!)

Your Email/Follow Choices

Hello Stamplings!

In case you missed my note back in April, effective next month there will be a change in the service that notifies subscribers via email when I publish a post. If you have been receiving such notices in your inbox, you will need to choose another service, such as Bloglovin or Feedly, etc. Bloglovin has been a subscription service choice that I’ve had on my sidebar for years, so if you are already a subscriber via Bloglovin or Feedly, or the like, there is nothing for you to do. 

If not:

• If you wish to receive email notification from Bloglovin, you will need to open djkardkreations.com in your web browser. You will see a gadget to the right on the side bar directing you to enter your email address under the word "Subscribe." This will take you to my Bloglovin page. There you will see a blue outlined FOLLOW button in the top center of the screen. Click that and you will see instructions to "confirm your email to subscribe to djkardkreations." Click that and you should be good to go. (Please note that after July 1, the email will be from Bloglovin, not from djkardkreations.)
  
  
• Additionally, if you have a blog, you can choose to receive notification through your dashboard reading list by clicking the blue FOLLOW button to the right on the side bar under all the lovely faces.
  
  
• If you don’t have a blog and you don’t wish to subscribe or follow, you can simply bookmark this site and check in occasionally.

If you have any problems or questions, let me know. (darnell dot knauss at gmail dot com.) Please email me rather than leave a comment so that I will have a way to respond to you. 

Thank you for being a follower and/or subscriber and, especially, for being a dear friend to me and Hammy. It is very much appreciated and we 💕 you back! Mwah!

Sunshine Came Softly . . .

Hello Stamplings!

I had a tough time choosing a sunshine song lyric to start my post. I googled it and was amazed how many songs there are about sunshine. But that's a good thing, right? 

It's already the 10th and that means time for the next Twofer Card Challenge! June is a wonderful time to choose 🌞SUNSHINE!🌞 as the prompt and here are my two cards to inspire you.

The sun die I chose as my prompt product is from Lil' Inkers. As you can see, I gave myself an extra personal challenge to see if I could also incorporate that awesome lighthouse die from Memory Box into both my designs. The lighthouse die came out in 2013 and the stitched sun dies are prolly the same vintage and I still love using them. 

Onefer

This card design is all about die cuts and Hammy even used an old circle punch for the small suns to give them more girth around the middle. I thought as long as I was using some old-timey products, I would use some old-timey speech. Because when was the last time (only time?) you've used girth in a sentence? Maybe it will come back into favor because of Covid and how we all added to our girth as a means of self-soothing during the long isolation.

But I digest. The background is a piece of pp. The white slated die panel (Watercolor Stripes Cover Die from Altenew) was a gift from my friend Betty. I used pp for the large sun and for the lighthouse and there were yellow vellum stitched suns used as well. The vertical birthday sediment is from Stamps by Judith.

Challenges

• Make My Monday: Outdoor Fun.
  
• Retro Rubber: Summer Breeze.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Nautical
  
• Uniko: Anything Goes. Optional: use diecuts.

Twofer

The beautiful blue foil you see was actually the spark of both of my sunshine designs. The color just screams ocean and if you look closely, you can see there is a water bubble pattern in it, so everything took off from there. The e/f is called Branches, but I think the lines also look like waves, and the sediment is from Paper Smooches. Hammy added some glossification to the middle of the sun.

Challenges

• Little Red Wagon: Make it CAS.
  
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Create a scene.
  
• The Paper Players ~ Theme challenge from Ann: Signs of summer!

The Deets

You can use either a SUN or SUNRAYS.

I am looking forward to seeing your sunny designs! We are fortunate to have Veana and Daphne as our Guest Designers this month. Their sunny designs, and those of the talented Team, will be sure to inspire you over at the Twofer Card Challenge!

~~~

Fun With Letters

My sister Diana shared this fun brain teaser with me quite a while ago and I finally remembered to share it with you.

What's a nine-letter word you can turn into eight other words by simply removing one letter at a time?

STARTING

Remove the T = Staring

Remove the A = String

Remove the R = Sting

Remove the T = Sing

Remove the G = Sin

Remove the S = In

Remove the N = I

Of course, I had to take it one step further by starting to turn it into a story. It happened because I found myself staring out the garden window at a string that was out of place next to the butterfly bush. I stared at it for so long my eyes began to sting. As I sat there blinking to moisten them, I overheard my neighbor (the one with the collie who jumps on the fence) sing a song to her small daughter about the wages of sin. How odd, I thought, but I don't try to judge others too harshly when I'm in the process of eavesdropping. Wait. What? Eavesdropping? Not I.

I hope you have fun with your friends and family with this little brain teaser and enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy, and stay safe! 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!)

Buzzing By ~

Hello Stamplings!

Happy June! And Emily, Hazel, Robin, and Shayna! I did that because it's easier than accepting the fact that we are in the sixth month of 2021. That's just crazy! I hope you are doing well and you are enjoying a great weekend!

Things are sunny and busy here, so I will keep this uncharacteristically short.😁 

Onefer

For this OLC (no-layer) design, I cut a homemade stencil from the NBUS "Honeycomb Curve" die by poppystamps.

The two buzzing bees sharing gossip are from Crystal Clear Impressions (out of business) and the sediment is from Paper Smooches. Hammy winked the wings. This card was uber QACAS, just like we like 'em.

Challenges

• AAA Cards: #191. No layers plus twist of hexagons.
  
• Alphabet Challenge: E is for easy card.
  
• Double D: Bee Inspired.

Twofer

This birthday design was cobbled together from bits a while back and never blogged. The butterfly die is from Alexandra Renke, which I swiped with my Ziggies. The background brownish schplats and dots are actually shiny gold and the sediment was die-cut from a Brusho panel. 

Challenges

• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Anything snippets goes.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Anything birthday goes. (No topping.)
  
• Try It On Tuesday: Butterflies.

~~~

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