Embossing Day!

Hello Stamplings!

Howze you doing? On this part of the globe, we are in that middle-of-February sick-of-winter time with its freezing boring cold and gloomy dumpy doom. To combat this, we make cheery cards!

It's Embossing Day at Chez I.D.E.A.S. That reminds me of the old-timey, "Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, etc." schedule which described the lives of wives from Victorian times until, well, our time. I'm grateful for all the modern conveniences and inventions which allow me to spend my days using my new-timey hobby schedule to make crafty things!

Onefer

The first NBUS product I am featuring is, "Cheerful Floral" by Memory Box which comes with stamps, dies, 3D embossing folder, and stencil. I didn't notice until this minute that there is also a separate die for the center blossom, so you could make it, what, 4D? I mean, if the embossing folder is 3D? Anyway, next time. I painted the bouquet with my Ziggies, painting all the flowers in different shades of CP pinks, per The Flower Challenge.

The process is pretty self-exploratory, except to say that I used a heavier hand when blending the same color of ink in order to create some shading on the flowers and leaves, rather using than the stencil bits provided. I'm sorry you can't see that the lads liberally winked all the bits. After wards, I added a diluted schplash of squash white. And the background panel was embossed with SU's Subtle e/f.

Playing in:

Addicted to Stamps and More ~ make your mark.

The Flower Challenge ~ feature the colour pink.

Seize the Birthday ~ A/G option.

Twofer

The NBUS product on this card is another 3D e/f from Memory Box. This one is called, "Snowy Forest." I simply used my brayer to apply Versamark to the raised bits and then heat-embossed the panel in silver e/p. 

(I didn't want all that powder on the sky part, but after I tried applying the Versamark directly to the folder [and getting it on the sky part], and after I then tried swiping the Versamark directly to the embossed white card [and getting it on the sky part]), I just decided not to fight it.)

Playing in:

Krafty Chicks ~ Christmas.

Little Red Wagon ~ red alert.

52 Christmas Card Throwdown ~ masculine Christmas.

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Sing it with me!

Uh-huh.

Monday – Wash Day!
Tuesday – Ironing Day!
Wednesday – Market Day!

Thursday – Cleaning Day!

Friday  – Bake Day!

Saturday – Fun Day!

Sunday – Rest Day!

Everybody happy?

Well I should say!

~~~

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! 

*Life is too short!

Tickled Pink on Fun Foam

Hello Stamplings!

It's lovely to be here and I hope you're doing great! I hope the team you (or your mate) were rooting for won the Super Bowl.🏈 I'm surprised they haven't made the Monday after a national day off!

Our plans changed last week due to the rain, so I had some unexpected crafty playtime with the lads. Squee for all!

Onefer

This week's I.D.E.A.S. letter is D = Dies and my first NBUS feature is the smallest feather stamp and die in the Feather Finery set by Papertrey Ink. The NBUS sediment is from the same set. I would have preferred "pickled tink," but we'll just pretend it says that. 

The second NBUS feature product is the Pink Fresh "Dotted Chevron" cover plate. Stanley honed his blending skills with CP ink and we used colored paper👍for the card base. Playing in:

Cut It Up! ~ this makes me smile

Freshly Made Sketches ~ sketch

We Love Stamping ~ CAS

Twofer 

Looking for the Onefer cover plate, I ran across this framed heart die from Reverse Confetti. Just last week when Hammy and Stanley were looking for a specific pp, they came across my stash of fun foam and asked if we could use it soon ... 💡click!

I had forgotten all about fun foam and it cut like a dream with this die. I attached it to a hammered card panel and then added some funky flat bling from GKW. I used a simple 'Hi' sediment so I can use it for any number of occasions. Playing in:

Just Us Girls ~ heart dies

Colorful Options ~ mood board

{PIN}spiration ~ mood board

Obfuscation

You know how I love words and playing with words. I think it's fun except when companies do it in an effort to make something deliberately unclear, pull the wool over my eyes, or pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

An email from a well-known company just arrived, saying they are going to "update" our pricing soon. Update? How about they just say they are going to "increase" our pricing soon (again) and leave it at that? I resent being treated like I'm too ignorant to see through it.

But that's the way of the world now. 

So when you have your next annual physical and the doctor comments on what's been happening with your weight, just smile innocently and say, "That's not an increase, doctor. That's an update!" 

Oh, and another thing. For those of us of a certain age who are shrinking vertically, why doesn't the doctor ever factor THAT into the math when he mentions our weight? I'm a little over 5'3" now, but I was once three inches taller. If my current weight were on a frame 5'6" tall, the doctor would be telling me to eat more!!🍔

~~~

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! 

*Life is too short!

❤️🩷❤️

Hello Stamplings!

Happy Febrrrrrrary! I always feel sorry for the Cupids out there in parts of the world where it is freezing cold. Their poor quivers!

This is a quick post as we have company coming for a few days. I'm not sure if I will be able to post next Monday, so I went with a Valentine for you today:

This week the IDEAS schedule is I = "Ink" and next week it's D = "Dies," so I've covered them both with this card. My featured NBUS today are the dog and mouse from "Wishing You Happiness," by Anita Jeram for the Colorado Craft Company.

(Am I the only one who buys a popular stamp set and then doesn't use it right away because it's being used by everyone? Then, you know, years go by ... so dumb, but hey, the important thing is to eventually use them!🙃)

I die-cut the stitched heart (from Cottage Cutz) and removed it from the panel. Placing it on a piece of scrap paper, I stamped the splotches using spritzed Distress Inks. I put the painted heart back in its original place, taped it at the back, and stamped the two arteests. The critters and brushes were lightly painted with my Ziggies. 

Then I sent Hammy and Stanley deep into the pp drawers and they found a piece that perfectly matched the pink and red inks I used. I die cut and stacked the love word (from My Creative Time) and then used the same piece as a mat. That was attached to a white card base so you'd never know the mat paper has part of it missing where the die was cut.🤫 Playing in:

Addicted to Stamps and More (diecuts and/or stencils), 
Cut It Up (have a heart),

Color Hues (pink and red collaboration with Inkspirational),

NBUS.

~~~

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!

Flowing Vine Collage

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you're doing well and you are fully back in the schwing of creativity with your new goodies from Santa! 

We had a lovely weekend belatedly celebrating our 54th weeding anniversary. Haha, was that a parapraxis? 

"A successful marriage is a matter of keeping the weeds out of the marital garden!" Darnell

Please let me know if you see that profundity needlepointed in a shop someday, so I can get authorship rights!©

Onefer and cousins:

The NBUS feature for this week's "Anything Goes" IDEAS is the "Flowing Vine Collage" by Simon Says Stamp. I used linen for the front panel and more of that delicious ribbed paper is peeking through. 

It seems like only yesterday, but this die is from 2016. That's okay ~ no shame. The important thing is that I used it and I had fun making cards with it, which my stash sorely needs:

The NBUS sediment used on the card on the right is from Penny Black's, "T for Transparent." I'm playing in Addicted to CAS.

And, lastly, I turned one of the die-cut vines into a stencil and made this one-layer panel:

After blending ink through the stencil, I made this one a Christmas card by next embossing the panel with the SSS, "Pine Bouquet" e/f. I popped up a NBUS die-cut sediment from Poppystamps called, "Lavish Merry Christmas." Helpful Hammy found me an antique piece of metallic aqua-green for the sediment backing that perfectly matched the CP Daydream ink I had used for blending!

I'm playing in Just Us Girls stencil challenge and Rudolph Days January challenge.

~~~

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! 

Besides making cards, my goodies from Santa included some new jig-saw puzzles. I love them, but I haven't done one since I started blogging.

To my good fortune, it turns out Hammy and Stanley love finding color-coordinated pieces! Our first play was a 1,000-piece puzzle with a picture of 101 pooping puppies, which we (and Nellie) found exceedingly amusing!

*Life is too short!

Happy New Year 2025!

Hello Stamplings!

Happy New Year! I'm still alive and kicking! In fact, I'm well-rested and a fatted calf, just like one should be after a wonderful holiday! We had a terrific Christmas and then a long vacation in Hawaii. Lots of photos below, if you're interested ...or not!🥱

It took me a while to get settled and think about making a card and blogging again. The longer I am away, the harder it is to get back into a routine. Or I'm just old now. I ended up deciding that this year my primary goal will be to use NBUS on every card and enter them in my NBUS Challenge. It's where I challenge you ~ and myself ~ to use all the schtuff we accumulate ... or "stockpile" as my friend JP calls it, which is a perfect visual!

Onefer

My card came about with the help of several other challenges. The "corduroy" lime card base is made from paper I've had since the last century and I'm happy to see it shine in this clean and simple card sketch. The die is NBUS from Alexandra Renke called, "Hazelnut Branch Set." The gold sediment strip is from Memory Box.

Freshly Made Sketches, Color Hues, and NBUS.

And The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, Seize the Birthday, and Cut It Up.

Holiday Photos

We started out in Maui taking the Road to Hana and spending time with Dan, Rachel, Adam, and Henry. It was a blessing to spend those days together before the lads went back to college. We were off the grid and without television! Bliss!

       

From there, The Mister and I flew over to Kauai to spend a few days with our long-time friends Susan and Jeff in their beautiful condo. They were terrific hosts as we toured all the beautiful sites of this scenic island. And we saw whales!

Well done for making it through! Aren't you relieved that I cut out half of the collages I made from hundreds of photos?! 

In Other News . . .

We came home to a stack of Christmas card mail, which extended the holiday. Thank you all for your beautiful cards! 

Sadly, I got the unhappy news of the deaths of two of my bloggie friends. Many of you might remember the talented Cornelia Wenokor (Fun Stamping). Together we produced a short blog series called, "The Back Stories." Cornelia would make one of her fun cards and then I would create a story to fit it. My other friend Mamie did not have a blog. Both will be greatly missed. 

We also came home to news of the horrific fires in southern California. It was heart-wrenching and scary to watch on television. Thank you for any way you are contributing to the aid relief.

Finally, for those of you who are wondering how Hammy and Stanley are, they are doing great! They are on the way home from traveling to Hammy's relatives as he does every year at Christmas time. Hammy reports that Stanley has been a real trooper!

~~~

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. I'm sending extra squishy warm hugs to those of you dealing with the Arctic Blast!🥶

If you followed my I.D.E.A.S. schedule last year, I wanted to let you know I'm going to use it again this year whenever I can. I found it to be a huge help with keeping me creating on the regular, so the weeks didn't slip through my hands.

*Life is too short!