Peonies and Poinsettias

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well! I've had a few great days as the weather is leveling off and I've had fun getting reacquainted with my Ziggies!

Onefer

You know, I still can't wrap my head around how productive I could have been during Covid ~ and wasn't. I put it down to the limbo state we were all in. Remember how the pandemic was just going to last for a couple of weeks, then a couple of months, then a few more months, and so on? It brought a sort of paralysis to our lives. And husbands and wives and kids were all staying home together, sometimes getting on each other's nerves, as the days moved to months and then moved to years. 

With this hobby, it would have been the perfect time to be more creative than ever, and purge, super clean, and reorganize, use all that NBUS, and tackle all those techniques. I don't know about the rest of you, but it didn't work out that way for me. I was pretty much of a creative load, doing just the minimum to keep my passion for this hobby from dying out completely. It was all very odd.

All this to tell you that my dear friend Sonja, who lives in Slovenia, sent me the awesome flower and basket die I used today. She sent it to me in 2020 and I'm only using it for the first time now ~ and it was great fun. (I know, better late than never, but it did make me wax philosophical about the last three-plus years.)

And there is a happy ending as the pandemic has come to a close🤞and I can feel myself returning to the joy cardmaking brings me ... and remembering the joy it brings the card recipients! I hope you feel the same way.

Challenges ~ lots of spring flower challenges!

• Beautiful Blossoms: Anything Flowers Goes. Optional Mood Board.
  
• Double D: Flowers.
  
• HLS Watercolor: Option Flowers.
  
• The Flower Challenge: Pretty Pastels.
  
• Triple B: Birds, Blooms, and Butterflies.

Twofer

I've been trying to make a Christmas card for my Twofer this year whenever I post. So naturally, with that beautiful basket in front of me, Hammy thought we should try filling it with Christmas poinsettias. I used poinsettia dies from three different dies/companies. The NBUS border die is from Spellbinders, called Candlewick. (BTW, Hammy is sad it doesn't really show in the photos, but he wants you to know he winked both baskets and bouquets liberally!)

Challenges

• 52 Christmas Card Throwdown: May Colour Challenge: red, green, and brown.
  
• Peace on Earth: Anything goes.
  
• Snippets Playground: Anything snippets goes. My baskets and poinsettias were cut from snippets.

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By the way, do you like my fancy photography with the pretty red ribbon? Well, 😕, it's there to let you eyeball the basket of poinsettias without being distracted by the boo-boo. Here, look:

Yup. That happened. The last thing I did was pop the bouquet over the basket. I had done some last-minute touching up, which apparently hadn't dried, so I got paint on my finger. I laid it there for a second while I sat all puffed up with pride, enjoying my incredible artistic accomplishment. 

Moved my finger and 😱! It happens to all of us. I may try getting it off, but that might make it worse. So I think the best thing to do is send it to one of you next Christmas because you will understand and overlook it. 

What schmear? I don't see a schmear!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! 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!

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