A Tiny Cow or Tiny the Cow

Hello Stamplings!

How're you doing? Times are again a bit uncertain and the weather is again all over the place around the world and for the bazillioneth time, I'm grateful I have an escape. Otherwise, I don't know, I might have a drinking problem, or possibly be in jail for spousicide, or locked in a padded cell blowing bubbles through my nose. 

Who knew a few hundred thousand dollars worth of craft supplies would make such a difference in lives?! We did! It's our little secret.🙊

I just have one quick card for you today:

And here with her arm raised to toast you is our cow friend, Tiny. Tiny is from the Penny Black Vintage Collection. As you can see, the sun is starting to set and in Tiny's family (and ours) that means cocktails, especially during the holidays. You may remember that Hammy often takes a vaycay in early December after all the Christmas cards are mailed. He took this photo of Tiny a couple of years ago (pre-Covid) while visiting her in Baja. 

Tiny has since mooved into the Udderly Divine Bovine Retirement Village so in future she will have to hide Hammy in her Santa hat if there are any other cows around. Because you know ~ cows and rodents. (Great Chicago Fire of 1871.)

The photo of Tiny was too good not to frame and put on the mantle every year at Christmas time, so I used red glitter paper for the mat and for the sediment. I used a torn piece of paper to delineate the sand and ocean. I used a cloud stencil and blended CP ink for the sky and I used a colored pencil for the sand and sand dollar. The Flying Gulls are NBUS from Memory Box.

(If you're nautical by nature, you might notice that the ocean horizon is not level. It's because the little photographer had had a few cocktails himself and not because a Sue Nami was about to hit unsuspecting Tiny.)

Challenges

• Day of the Month Card Club: Cow Appreciation Day.
  
• Just Add Ink: Just add two: sky, sea, trees.
  
• Penny Black Saturday: A/G (optional monochrome).
  
• Rudolph Days: Anything Christmas goes.

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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!)

All That Glitters ...

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you doing well, staying busy, and enjoying some creativity ~ whether in your craft area or your garden. So many places have short summer seasons so the days have to be relished as much as possible. Well, and sure, there's hot dogs, too, to be relished. It makes me pause and wonder, what do relish companies make and sell during the winter months? Sauerkraut? Chicken broth?

I know you want to live in my mind for just one day, don't you? Let me know when you want to come by and I'll kick out some of the squirrels.

Onefer

This design turned out to be a tribute to the old Papertrey Ink company who made both the balloon circle die and the wonderfully-fonted sediment which I embossed in gold. Inspired by the current challenge at CAS Mix Up, I tried a new-to-me technique of dropping alcoholic inks onto vellum paper. What a fun trip that was! Usually I have a sort of sixth sense about knowing when to stop adding more and more of this or that to a technique or design.

I found out that I have no such sixth sense when it comes to AI on vellum. I played, loved the result, but then I cocked my head, checked my hamster, and played some more, rinse, repeat! As you will see in the close-up, at one point I added shimmery acrylic paint to the mix. Wait. What? Yep! I'm telling you, it's addicting! And so cool. The end result is dark and moody from one angle and killer bright and shiny from the other angle:

The linen card design itself using the vellum balloons is uber-duber QACAS. Is that some kind of rainbow mirror card I used for the matting, you ask? Nope. Just what the camera and Mr. Sun put together as a cheery surprise for us.

Challenges

• CAS Mix Up: Hosted by Coni: Alcohol Inks on Vellum. In addition, I stamped, heat-embossed, and die-cut.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Anything goes.
  
• Watercooler Wednesday: Dawn: All About Occasions.

Twofer

Uber-doober QACAS II. This little poinsettia stamp and die is NBUS from poppystamps. I simply heat-embossed it in red and then heat-embossed a few leaves in green. It was Wednesday, so Hammy was in his beanbag chair directing the composition and I like the loose minimalist design he came up with using only one leaf. (He's getting pretty old now, you know, for a hamster, so he may have nodded off, but I went with it.) The sediment is heat-embossed in gold.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Die cuts and/or stencils.
  
• CAS Christmas: Poinsettia.
  
• Less is More: Christmas in July.

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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!)

It Makes My Bird-Loving Heart Happy!

Hello Stamplings!

I think the summer heat has gone to my head. I was talking to a friend last week about any plans for traveling in the fall and then I asked her if she was going to make her usual trip to the Midwest in late June or early July? Needless to say, she cocked her head in the universal gesture of, "What the hay is wrong with you?!" Oh. This getting old thing is a mental surprise every day. As is the calendar!

Speaking of calendar, it's time to remind you that the current Twofer Card Challenge ends on July 24th. It makes my bird-loving heart happy to see the pairs of birdies in the gallery!

You can imagine the fun I had making these cards! The BIRD stamp my two different designs have in common and which I just HAD to have, is NBUS from Art Impressions. (Bird-Brains UMD1878.) 

Onefer

There are only about a million reasons why you could use this chicken on a card, especially when you have the snarky sediments from Tim Holtz. I used this card as a humorous thank you card for my SIL. The background is a piece of pp (pats self on back). The stitched square frame is from MFT. For the background behind the chick, I did a blend of yellow and gold inks through a honeycomb stencil. I zigged the chicken and Hammy winked her. She was really out cold cuz she never moved a feather and you know it had to tickle, especially on those feet!

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Any occasion.
  
• CAS Colours & Sketches: Sketch.
  
• HLS July Stencil: Anything goes.
  
• Repeat Impressions Theme J1421: Patterned paper and a stamped image.

Twofer

And then I got nostalgic and turned my chicken into a Christmas wreath. Chicken wreaths used to be a tradition in a small town in Missouri where my sister once lived. She moved several years ago and the tradition may be going on for all I know. The youngsters had such fun dying the feathers and feet green and red while the grownups sat behind the wood shed and drank moonshine. For weeks afterwards the kids would show up at school with their hands and arms dyed up to their elbows! (Hanging a chicken wreath on your door was thought to ward off sickness. I personally think the stink warded off visitors and hence nobody brought germs into your house.)

Hammy made the wreath even more festive by adding a wee holly stamp here and there and then winking the entire wreath. I heat-embossed the sediment in princess gold powder and chomped the corners.

Challenges

• HLS July Christmas: Anything goes.
  
• Less is More: Christmas in July.
  
• Shopping Our Stash: Christmas in July.

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I hope you have time to play in the Twofer Card Challenge this month! We all have bird stamps, dies, or stencils that are just waiting to fly onto your two different card designs! We are fortunate to have Maria and Coni as our guest designers, as well as lots of inspiration from the talented Design Team!

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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!

An update from the Back Department: both of us are much better, still waiting for some medical follow ups, but all in all 👍! I send my return best wishes to all of you (or your family) who are suffering with illness or floods or drought. 

*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!)

Beautiful Bird Designs!

Hello Stamplings!

Once again I apologize for being gone so long. We were scheduled to go to the lesser-visited North Rim of the Grand Canyon this past week and that would have been a wonderful reason to have been offline for so long, but alas, we didn't go because The Mister put his back out a week ago, just at the start of the long 4th of July weekend. Why do these things always happen on long holiday weekends????

Until the doctor put him on stronger drugs, he was flat on his back for several days and I donned my Nurse Ratchet uniform once again. Little by little he has gotten better and stronger in terms of standing and walking for short periods of time. Yesterday he graduated to sitting for a few minutes, so he's getting there! 

Life is a series of curve balls, eh? ⚾

Thankfully, we have a hobby that provides distractions! It's the tenth of a new month (I won't mention the name), so I have my Twofer card designs for Twofer Card Challenge #40 to share with you. This month our prompt is:

🐦BIRDS!🐦

You all know how much I love birds, hummingbirds in particular. The hummingbird my two designs have in common is actually a stencil. I don't know who makes it; it was a lovely gift from my friend, Ang, affectionately known as "Mrs. Duck."

Onefer

I laid the stencil over a smooched background. On my craft sheet, I mixed some Nuvo glimmer paste with a few different colors of Brusho powder and then spatulated the mixture through the stencil. I was surprised that it turned out as dark as it did, but the resulting schparkle in a rainbow of colors is brilliant in person. All that schparkle made this hard to photograph and to make it even more schparklier, Hammy suggested a glittery panel as a mat. The sediment is from an ancient PTI set.

Challenges

• Addicted to Stamps and More: Any occasion.
  
• Make My Monday: Anything airborne.
  
• SSS Monday: Fun and quirky.

Twofer

This uber QACAS calm design is self-exploratory. I painted the rainbow hummingbird through the stencil with my waterbrush and my Ziggies which was chance-y, but it worked. I saved that awesome piece of rainbow ribbon from something I can no longer remember, but I was tickled to find it in my stash! The sediment is from PB's "critter celebration." Hammy did his usual pro job of winking the hummer!

Challenges

• AAA Cards: Sketch, plus optional critters.
  
• Seize the Birthday: Anything goes.
  
• Watercooler Wednesday: All things feminine.
  

Come Play!

I hope you will pull out your favorite bird stamp, die, or stencil and make two different designs for two different occasions to join in the fun at Twofer Card Challenge #40! The two talented guest designers, Maria and Coni, and the entire Design Team have made beautiful bird designs to inspire you!

Thank you!💋

💕I have received (and continue to receive) beautiful handmade birthday cards and I thank you all so much! They were especially helpful to keep my spirits up through the long weekend and this past week. I love all your sweet and kind notes!💕

Before the calamity, I decided I should have The Mister take a new profile photo for the blog, considering I look different now that my hair is no longer colored. (It's more silver in real life; not sure why it looks so dark in the photo.) This time Hammy insisted that Nellie be given her turn in the spotlight! What a considerate guy!

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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 and please let me know if you have any problems receiving this post.

*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!)