Group of Seven - Water Lifting

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well and I hope your garden is producing wonderful treats. Gardens love the heat, I think; people, not so much. But before we know it, we will be enjoying the cooler temperatures and beautiful colors of fall. Hang in there!

This month our Group of Seven Cardmakers played with a second way to do ink blending and you can find instructions and video links on the website.  We then took that one step further by adding another technique to our cards with water lifting. Using a water brush or watercolor paintbrush and water, we lifted the ink from our open images by applying the water in small areas and then blotting up the water with a paper towel. This technique is also known as faux bleaching.

I enjoyed playing with this technique and made two cards.

Onefer

I used a NBUS Birthday Balloons stamp from Studio Katia. The date on it is 2018, which is basically considered brand-new to me!😂 There are two stamps in the set and they are so cute. 

I heat-embossed the image in gold and then blended two oxide inks over the panel. Using my waterbrush and a paper towel, I removed the ink from the balloons. To finish the card, I added the sediment and two lines of gold Washi tape.

Challenges

• HLS Birthday: Anything goes.
  
• Send a Smile 4 Kids: Birthday cards for kids.
  
• SSS Wednesday: Bright and cheerful.

Twofer

Next I had fun making a Christmas card using the same technique. After I was happy with the "bleached" snowman (from Gerda Steiner Designs), I turned it over to Hammy who gleefully schplattered the scene with water so it looked like it was snowing. I matted the panel with crinkly gold mulberry paper. I don't remember using mulberry paper without fraying the edges, but I like it unfrayed. Now I will start using more of my stash of it!

Challenges

• Krafty Chicks: All occasions.
  
• Peace on Earth: Anything Christmas goes.
  
• Rudolph Days: Anything Christmas goes.

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I hope you will pop over to the Group of Seven Cardmakers website to see the other cool designs from the other ladies! There will be a link for you to share your own fabulous creations using this technique. Many thanks go to our talented friends Linda Snodgrass and Colleen Foelker for introducing these techniques to some of us at a craft retreat years ago. It's been a fun technique to revisit!

~~~

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! 

*Life is too short!

Sunflower Season

Hello Stamplings!

Good day or good evening wherever you are! I hope you had/will have a sunny day! If not, I'm bringing the sunshine to you with my card. (Sorry if you are about to turn in and my card keeps you awake!)

Onefer

This sunny sunflower and sweet bees image is NBUS from Whimsy Stamps, called "Sunflower Buggies." I had great fun coloring it with my Ziggies and, of course, Hammy followed behind with his winker. 

It was a head-scratcher trying to figure out how to add a sediment and do something to the sides which were begging for some kind of something. The next time I stamp it, I will stamp it off to the side. I stamped it in the middle because I was planning on stamping two more, one on each side. Then I decided against that idea and after a bit of scratching and cocking my head, the sunny striped Washi Tape saved the day!

Challenges

• Beautiful Blooms: A/G with mood board.
  
• Colorful Options: Yellow and green.
  
• Double D: Sunflowers.
  
• The Flower Challenge: Add spots or stripes.
  
• Let's Craft and Create: A/G + polka dots and/or stripes.
  
• Triple B: Sunflowers (and bees!).

 

  

Twofer

Here are a few more Christmas makes. I used regular embossing folders (not 3D). I know the trick of lightly spritzing the paper on both sides before embossing a 3D e/f, so I thought I would do the same with a regular e/f and I was surprised and pleased with the resulting dementia. The e/fs are from Sizzix and the sediment is from Winnie & Walter.

Challenges

• ABC Christmas: P-Q-R. Mine is Q is for Quick for the white-on-white card on the left.
  
• Christmas Craft Creations: Clean and simple (CAS).
  
• Jingle Belles: Oh Christmas Tree (or pine branches).

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The Mister stopped at the Farmer's Market and brought home fresh peaches and blueberries. He handed them to me with a knowing smile and a question in his eyes. He's irresistible.

Ina Garten's Peach and Blueberry Crisp

It is delicious with vanilla ice cream. 

And it was fun to use "knowing smile" in a sentence.

~~~

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! 

*Life is too short!

Thinking of Maui

Hello Stamplings!

I hope this finds you doing well! I have had a quiet week, creatively. Which, if you are in the middle of one of those rare times when your chores are caught up and you are free to play, is flustruating. 

So I looked at YouTube videos one day, Pinterest the next, and Instagram the day after. I got so many great ideas! Unfortunately, then I slept in between and forgot everything. Then I turned to my folders of ideas that I've saved over the years. We've talked about this before. You know those folders of techniques you want to try and those cards you want to CASE? 

 
Here's how that went. I opened the technique folder on my computer and was smacked in the face by spider webs. It looked like there was a nest of rats under a pile of die-cuts and pastes over in the corner. I quickly closed the door. I moved down the list to my to-CASE folder and the dust and spiderwebs there weren't too bad, since I'd just been in there recently. I thumbed through a few hundred cards, but mojo was missing. 

So on the sixth day I poured a wodka for me and a thimble of carrot juice for my wee helper and we decided to try going through everything in the Playhouse. Did I start by excavating something from Mt. NBUS? Of course not. I was drinking. I started in the farthest cupboard and we were both embarrassed by how much the door squeaked when I opened it. Fortunately, as I snooped around in there, I could feel my ol' mojo juices slooooowly start flowing. Squeeeeee!

When I got to the Fruit section, I stopped. I haven't done a card with a fruit image for ages and with summer fully upon us, fruits around here are sumptuous and plentiful. Our favorites right now are peaches and blueberries, but when I came upon an old pineapple stamp, I thought about the tragedy in Maui and a card was born:

I did my favorite direct-to-paper technique where you color your stamp, spritz it lightly with water, and then stamp it onto paper. After wards, I filled in bits using my colored pencils. And after adding the sediment, I ran the panel through my Gemini using the Subtle e/f from SU. 

At first, I made several panels using traditional yellow, green, and beige markers to color the pineapple and I will finish them and make them into cards soon, but this off-beat pineapple is the one I wanted to share today. It came about after Hammy passed me a few purple, teal, and blue markers. 

I cocked my head. Hmmm? He queried, "Who says pineapples can't be whatever color you want them to be?" So I gave it a go and love the result! The vibrant unexpected colors are perfect for representing how colorful and beautiful Hawaii is. The devastation from the fire on Maui is unimaginable. The whole world is thinking of them as they recover and rebuild.

Challenges

• A Place to Start: A/G.
  
• Can You Handle the Pressure: A/G.
  
• Four Seasons: A/G Summer.
  
• Simon Says Monday: Use your favorite technique.
  

Twofer...s

I recently posted a card with a double-frame (Picture Frames Die from Waffle Flower) and I wanted to show you how I used the same idea for making Christmas cards. It worked great and I love that it uses my frame and word dies, as well as snippets of Christmas pp, white cardstock, and metallic foil paper! QACAS! I am sharing this with my friends at the Snippets Playground.

~~~

I'll leave you with this true-to-life saying that my friend Bobby found on FB:

I had a thought.

Then I had another thought.

Unfortunately, they ricocheted off each other

and now I can't find either of them!

😄😄😄

~~~

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! 

*Life is too short!

CASE and OLC

Hello Stamplings!

Happy August! I'm just gonna leave it at that. Let's just enjoy every moment!

And make cards!

My Onefer today is a CASE (copy and share everything) of a card I've been meaning to make since, geez, quite a while ago.

The original was made by my friend Trina and you can find it here on her blog, Phamtastic Design. (By clicking over, you will become acquainted with Trina, if you are not already familiar with this talented card artist!) It took me a while to figure out how to do her card justice and still put my own spin on it.

The flower is NBUS from the Hero Arts die set called, "D1856 Bouquet." The die-cut sediment is from WPlus9 and the stitchery dies are from MFT. Hammy did a great job of winking, so he wanted a closeup:

Challenges:

• Simply Clean and Simple: Anything goes.
  
• Snippets Playground: Anything snippets goes. I used snippets of white and gold for my die cuts.
  
• NBUS: A/G, never-before-used-schtuff.

Twofer

I was planning to make and post my usual Twofer Christmas card, especially now that we are in August. (Oh, sorry, I wasn't going to remind you of that.) But then I saw the new challenge at Less is More is "One Layer" with an autumn theme, so I distracted myself and made this quickie:

This stamp set is from PTI's "Autumn Hills." I heat-embossed it in gold on a burnt orange card base. Using colored card for the base gave this QACAS design all the oomph it needed. "Wait. What?" asked the pipsqueak, "How about if you give that house a coat of white paint to add a little more oomph to your oomph?" 

Well, slap my pancake, what a great idea! So that's what I did, using my white Gelly Roll pen and what a difference it made!

Challenges

• Krafty Chicks: Stamp Act.
  
• Less is More: OLC.
• Stamping Sensations: A/G.
  
• We Love Stamping: Masculine.
  

~~~

Had to share:

That's me on the left with my dear friend, Susan. We have been friends for over 45 years. We recently got together for dinner with our Misters and we couldn't believe how alike we had dressed ... down to the same exact pair and color of Tom's shoes! Longtime girlfriend/ships can make you twinsies!

While fashions have changed for women of our age,

thank goodness, friendships have not!

~~~

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! 

*Life is too short!