Half-Year Stenciling

Hello Stamplings!

O jp[e tjos fomds upi we;;! Oops. In other words, I hope you are doing well! So many of you around the world have been dealing with terrible long heat spells and/or days to weeks of rain and I hope you find relief soon.  

Today we wrap up June with an illusive fifth Monday. That means we get to play with S = Stencils on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. I forget about using them, but when I do have a play, then I want to play with ALL of them!

Onefer

Nothing original here as far as design, but I'm delighted with this NBUS balloon stencil from Waffle Flowers which I got on sale not too long ago. I chose three CP ink pads next to each other in the drawer and I love how summer-y and ice-cream-y they turned out. 

Hammy and Stanley added schplatters by clapping water all over the panel from their perch on the window sill. I added a black card base and sediment banner heat-embossed in white because I thought the black made the colors bop. (🎶Bop with me baby allll night long ...🎶) I say "bop," because, like, you know, you don't want to use the word pop around balloons. Duh.

Challenges

Addicted to Stamps and More: Die cuts or stencils.

Just Us Girls: Stencil week.

Seize the Birthday: Add a silhouette or anything goes.

Twofer

This week marks the half-way point in the year, so it's not too early to get serious about Christmas cards, even if it is summer. I mail my cards in November, so that gives me four months to make a coupla hunnert cards. Great, now I'm sitting here in a full-on flop sweat! Why'd I have to bring it up?!

This heart tree stencil is NBUS from 2021. It's called "Heart of Christmas." I blended ink through the stencil and then the lads used their winkers, but that schplotched the blended ink around, so then I went over the hearts with colored pencils to reblend. Happily, that did not remove the schparkle, but you'll have to take my word for it.😊

I'm playing in the June Rudolph Days Challenge where the brief is Anything Christmas Goes.

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar:  S = Stencils

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your stencil creations this week which might help lift someone out of their creative schlump!

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your design! Thank you so much to everyone who visited and linked last week! Mwah! 

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To my American friends, Happy 4th of July! May our hard-fought democracy and our precious constitution stand for another 249 years! 🎆🌭🍦

Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* 

 

*Life is too short!

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Summer Colors and PP Blues

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome to a brand-new Monday and the start of summer in this half of the globule! Are you going on summer vacation? Or like us, do you leave this time for families with school-age kids and take your vacation after kids go back to school? That's one of the joys of being empty-nesters/retireds, although I'm not a fan of the word retired. It's so sleepy. You're re-tired?🥱 I think the word should be "rested."

"Are you still working?" "No, I'm rested now." 

This is the fourth Monday in June, so it is A = Anything Goes week on the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar. I struggle with this week, stupidly enough. Apparently, I'm at that age where I need direction because, you know, squirrels everywhere.

Onefer +

What happened was, my friend Karen used a colored paper a few weeks ago that I loved. She shared that it was from Concord & 9th and I lucked into their annual inventory sale ... and you know the rest of the story. Kaching, kaching.

I think it's been six years since I bought an ink pad, having invested in the delicious Catherine Pooler pads and reinkers, but I decided to buy C9th's latest bundle of paper and matching ink. When the order arrived, Hammy reminded me that we had a NBUS stamp and washi tape set called, "Rainbow Daisies" from Pinkfresh on Mt. NBUS and it worked beautifully with the C9th colors!

Next, I found a NBUS sediment from "Essential Sentiments" by Ink to Paper for inside the wreath and I stamped it in the matching ink onto hammered card x six. The bling added the perfect balance and punch-uation. It's an old, but classic and timeless design.

And, bonus, I still have all the rainbow daisy flower die-cuts from the washi-tape, so the lads and I are going back into batch-production this afternoon to build up the card stash even more!👏

Twofer

My friend, one-l-Michele🥰, has her first sketch up at Freshly Made Sketches as a member of the Design Team and I wanted to make a card to support her and her great sketch! The timing works out that I'm always squeezing in under the fence with my Monday posts, but better late than never.

For this card, I celebrate stamping. I stamped and clear-heat-embossed my NBUS "Eclectic Blooms" stamp from Concord & 9th. Following the colors from the Color Throwdown Challenge, I painted the blooms and washed the sky with my Ziggies and the lads added the schparkle and the schplatter. To finish, I added a stitched frame from Reverse Confetti, and some blingadingding.

I'm also linking to the Krafty Chicks Challenge where the brief is clean and simple (CAS).

PP Blues

As a distraction from the scary world, I thought I would share this photo of me holding a piece of paper over a magazine article to show how thin the paper is. As a cardmaker, you are thinking it's a thin piece of vellum or if you're old like me, you will be reminded of the "onion skin" paper used for carbon copies back when I started secretarial school in the 1900s. 

But, no. Sadly that paper is toilet paper. Yup. If you're a longtime reader, you know I've complained about this before. No one listens. I would think by now there must be some women in charge of the toilet paper products ordered for use in public washrooms in stores and on planes, ferries, trains, etc. 

Pinterest

I'm all for being economical and ecological, but are they really? When a woman has to unroll 58 yards of the stuff in order to get enough to cover her tiny hand after a tinkle, how is that either economical or ecological? Rant over.

And, by the way, we don't sit on the seat, so it's not that easy to be bent over with our heads even with our knees and our butts in the breeze, as we twist to the side in order to unroll long narrow ribbons of the stuff! Sorry. Now I'm done.

Except to say that it's also unhealthy! It's not just that we don't want to get our hand in our business. It's that our doctors have told us that we have to be dry our precious bits thoroughly in order to prevent urinary tract infections. 

Also ~ slap! Okay, okay.

~~~

I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: A = Anything Goes

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations with no restrictions! Your card may help motivate others out of a schlump! 

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! Thank you so much to everyone who shared their designs last week! Mwah! 

Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse!

*Life is too short!

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Delicate Flowers

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome to the beginning of a new week! There's lots going on in the world and not all of it good, so thank you for coming to a safe space for a little ray of silliness and card fart.

This is week three of the June I.D.E.A.S. Calendar which means E = embossing, wet or dry. I had a spree doing both on my creations. I started by stamping and then heat-embossing these flowers and leaves in clear e/p and painting them with my Ziggies.

This stamp set was part of the Simon Says Stamp card kit in May 2019. Yes, that's right 2019. I'm among friends. The SSS kits are very popular and many of you may have seen this, if not own it. One of the stamps was stained, but I can't find that I posted it and the other stamps were all NBUS. 

What happened was (as near as I can figure), back in June 2019, there was a small 3.2 earthquake along the Hayward fault near here. There was no damage, but it was enough to cause everything on Mt. NBUS to shift and this set slipped into a deep crevasse. 

And there it remained until last week when Hammy and Stanley were crev-assing around and things shifted again. Never a dull moment here! I decided to use the whole set in one sitting before it disappeared again. The only funny thing that happened was realizing halfway through painting that I didn't have dies for this set. Not sure if SSS ever made them.

So I sent the lads off on another excavation, this time into the box under my desk that contains antique crafting tools ~ in this case, scissors. Remember scissors, or skizzers as we like to call them? That was a lot of fussy-cutting, but the old tool still worked fine. As did the skizzers.

Embossing folder is Sizzix 662765. Sediment strip from Memory Box. The pp is from Craft Consortium.

Alphabet Challenge: Embossing, wet or dry.

The Flower Challenge: Add embossing, wet or dry.

Seize the Birthday: A/G (no toppings).

The embossed oval and foiled sediment were gifts, so maker unknown.

Addicted to Stamps and More: Any occasion.

Allsorts Challenge: What makes you happy (crafting and painting) or A/G.

Embossed panel was a gift, so folder unknown.

SSS Wednesday Challenge: Fur, feathers, and/or flowers.

We Love Stamping: June: Nature or A/G.

Embossing folder by Darice. Sediment (v.o.) might be from PTI.

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That was a fun spree! As you might be able to see in some of the photos, the stinkers had their winkers running overtime! Even though you may not have this set or be able to purchase it, there are many sets out there with similar images, so I hope these designs inspire you.

If so, you will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using your wet and/or dry embossing! Your card, in turn, may help motivate others out of their creative schlumps or give someone a step-off for their own design! 

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! 

Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* As always, thank you for coming by to visit and leaving a comment!

Hang in there!

*Life is too short!

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Best. Day. Ever.

Hello Stamplings!

Welcome to the show! I hope you had a good week! I've been alternating between card-making and spring-summer-cleaning, both of which give me joy. I'm weird that way. I've killed a lot of dust bunnies in my day, but I still haven't solved the mystery of how the junk drawer gets messy in only five minutes!

This is week two of the June I.D.E.A.S. Calendar which means D = Dies.

Onefer

I broke out my NBUS Postage Collage Cover die from SSS for this design, using the cute playing card images from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps. The sediment is from another oldie-but-goodie: Taylored Expressions "Pawsome" set. My red ink pad needs reinking, but I can't find the reinker, nor, it turns out, the dark green reinker. Smart little Hammy wondered if I put the bottles with my Christmas schtuff~but no. (I can hear you shouting, check the junk drawer!😂)

Challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and More: Any occasion.

Cut It Up: Anything goes.

NBUS: FYI, there's a celebration this month!

Twofer

One could say this design is from the Playhouse "junk drawer," otherwise known as BOB. BOB contains beloved bits I love too much to discard. And when those bits come together as if by magic, it's a thing to behold.🪄

I wanted to use the base panel pp which was left over from a recent make. The lads and I had a rumble with BOB and every snippet we needed was right there, from the schparkly plum paper to the bold sediment to the pretty leafy branch I cut a coupla years ago from a die owned by my friend Bev.

Challenges:

Freshly Made Sketches

Just Us Girls: Die week ~ layers.

Snippets Playground: Anything goes with snippets and bits.

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This is a napkin my sister Diana sent me. It's so funny in a few ways, but I kracked up at the hairdos! These ladies are not getting their hairdos wet, so they don't need to worry about drowning!🌊

~~~

I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: D = Dies

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using your dies! Your card may help motivate others out of their creative schlumps or give someone a step-off for their own design! 

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! 

Enjoy your week! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse! 

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Wonderful Memories

Hello Stamplings!

Happy June, buds! I hope you are well! I have to start my post today by sending best wishes to the firefighters in Canada fighting the terrible fires and to all those being impacted by the smoke flowing over several states. It's frightening to see such huge fires when summer hasn't even begun.😞

We are just back from a wonderful visit to British Columbia and the Gulf Islands and I have photos below, but, first, a card to share:

This is the first week of the month, so the I.D.E.A.S. Calendar is I = Ink. For this QACAS card, I used my Ziggies to watercolor the flower-only part of the vase-and-flower bouquet slapstick stamp from Penny Black. The lads (retrieved from a friend's home) were tickled to be winking again! The sediment is ancient from PTI, but the pretty font of this set will never be outdated to me ... even as outdated as I am.😂 

Vacation Photos

The Mister and I love Vancouver, Vancouver Island, and the Gulf Islands. On this vacation, we spent a couple of days in the city of Vancouver and then took the ferry over to Salt Spring Island where we stayed in a beautiful VRBO rental for several days. We enjoyed flowers, trees, plush greenery, hiking, restaurants, water views, deer, eagles, shell beaches, etc. No whales this time, but that's okay.

Once back on the mainland, The Mister flew home and I spent a few days with my dear friend Lolly (Stamping With Loll). On the weekend, our friends Susan (Cardmaker's Garret) and Christine (It's a Card Days Night) joined us. We haven't been together for six years, so it was a pleasure to see them again and catch up! And, as you can see, Lolly spoiled us with her delicious homemade goodies!

Lolly is holding her dog, Jessie; Susan's dog Tessa is in between Christine and Susan on the sofa, and in the bottom photo, Jessie warmed up to me as Lolly hugs Violeta. "V" belongs to Lolly's son Jeremy and his husband, Alejandro, both of whom I also got to spend some time with, as well as Lolly's hubby, Gordon. Thank you for your hospitality, friendship, and yummy food! It was a memorable and restorative trip all the way around!

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: I = Ink/Color Mediums

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using some form of coloring, inking, painting, etc. Your card may help motivate others out of their creative schlumps or give someone a step-off for their own design! 

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! Thank you so much to everyone who shared their designs last week! 

Enjoy your week! 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 leave a comment and/or join as a follower!

*Life is too short!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Birthday Embossing

Hello Stamplings!

And Happy Monday to you as you begin your week with high hopes! Whatever they may be, I hope they come to fruitition. (Which makes more sense than fruition. What's a "fru?")

All around our neighborhood, hydrangeas are blooming with their many tiny little flowers all balled up into one huge flower. They are one of my most favorite flowers and I was inspired to bring out an old favorite stamp and paint.

Onefer

This stamp is Essentials by Ellen Mondo Hydrangea. I stamped the flower and leaf in black, heat-embossed in clear e/p, and then painted with my Ziggies before die-cutting. 

The lads went to town winking and then all three of us schplattered with diluted guache on the flower and leaf and with diluted purple ink on the background panel. That panel was embossed with an SU Sizzex e/f and attached to a lavender card base.  Finally, the flower was attached using foam squares. The sediment is a foil greeting from Memory Box.

Challenges

Beautiful Blossoms: Mood board with purple hydrangeas.

Cut It Up: Send me flowers.

Seize the Birthday: Flowers.

The Flower Challenge: Add spots or stripes. (Or both!)

Twofer

For this QACAS design, I used my NBUS gingko leaves 3D e/f from SSS with a panel of watercolor black paper which gives it a lovely texture. Then I simply swiped the raised bits using a piece of white chalk turned on its side. The circular sediment is also from SSS.

Challenges

Alphabet: C is for circles.

Let's Craft and Create: No patterned paper.

Little Red Wagon: D is for die cut.

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I.D.E.A.S. Calendar: E = Emblossing

You will find a linky tool below for you to share your creations using some form of embossing. Your card may help motivate others out of their creative schlumps or give someone a step-off for their own design! 

I love seeing what you create, visiting you, and pinning your designs! 

Thank you so much to everyone who shared their designs last week! Mwah! 

~~~

Enjoy your week! 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!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday next Monday. We will be with friends so I will not have a post. See in June!! (Another year whooshing by way too fast!) 

*Life is too short!

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