Happy Halloween!

I promise...this is the last Halloween oriented post I will be sharing here for a while (probably at least 11 months! ;-) This card uses the Autumn Apparitions set from the Holiday Mini catalog. It is so cute and easy to work with. I bought it for my Halloween invites...which I never got around to making! (I sent out e-vites instead...can you believe it?) ***hangs head in shame*** Oh well, I had so much going with the party etc...I had to cut out something to keep what left I have of my sanity. hehehe

I used Jan Tink's Bib Card instructions for the base of the card. However, to fit the whole scene, I had to go with a 5-1/4 x 5-1/4" sized card. I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to align the vine images on the side, and the moon is actually the pumpkin without the stem. When I was finished with the stamping of my scene I used my pastels to color in the background. I think I used every image from this set to create this card! (the Happy Halloween image is stamped inside) I also got out my beloved Cheese Cloth background (retired) for this one because it just screams Halloween.

I thought I'd share a couple photos that were taken at our party on Saturday, since I've gotten a few inquiries as to what I dressed up as. I was an evil witch (not too far of a stretch, eh?) that turned my prince charming husband into a frog. Doesn't he make a cute froggie?


Hope your day is filled with treats...and maybe a trick or two!

Thanksgiving Planner

I just noticed as I logged into my blog account today that my last post over the weekend was my 100th post! That is quite a milestone for someone who wasn't quite sure when starting out if I was going to keep this blog thing going or not! Actually some days I still don't know if it's the best use of my time, since it can get pretty time consuming by the time I photograph or scan the projects, transfer them to the computer, add the watermark and then take time to try and come up with something interesting to say, only to wonder if anyone actually looks at it. But then it makes my day when I log in to see I have a few nice comments now and then...so I guess some people are looking. So here goes post #101! :-)I'm really happy with the way this project turned out! My Mom plans and cooks THE BEST Thanksgiving dinner for the family each year, so I just knew she would love this! I started with a cheap-o school folder as the base for this planner and with the help of my stamps and embellishments, you would never know! The school folder works great because it has the pockets inside. Here is what it looks like opened up:

I added a card stock insert punched with the slit punch to hold the place cards. (a few extras had to be placed behind the card) I just found out over the weekend that I have to make another place card because my cousin is flying in from Vegas. It will be great to see her, so I'll gladly make another place card. Luckily I have a calligraphy pen that matches Really Rust almost perfectly, so I was able to coordinate the place cards well. I sure wish Stampin' Up! would sell calligraphy pens in a selection of SU! colors! I've been suggesting that since I've become a demo...maybe some day they will listen.

For the other pockets I just created a menu card, a covered shopping list pad and a giant paper clip for her to keep track of her coupons. (hopefully she is better at that than I am...I clip them occasionally, but never remember to use them until after they expire!)

See the napkin rings? Those are the only two I've made so far...I need to get on the ball and make the other ten...I've got 23 more days! Actually, I might forget the paper ring and glue the scalloped shape onto some mini grapevine wreaths I have. Just have to find where I stashed them and hope I have at least a dozen.

Stamps: Autumn Harvest, Trimtastic, Typeset Alphabet (lower) Print Pattern & Weathered backgrounds, Holidays & Wishes, Rough Around the Edges jumbo wheel

Card Stock: More Mustard, Old Olive, Really Rust and Very Vanilla

Inks: Black Stazon, More Mustard, Old Olive, Really Rust and Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Coluzzle, Punches: Ticket Corner, Slit, Scallop, 1-1/2" & 1-3/8" circle, Crop-A-Dile, Jumbo Pewter eyelets, Aqua painter


I gave this set to my Mom last week and she absolutely loved it! I plan to make some of these as Christmas organizers using Wintergreen or Dashing designer papers. I know I can use one to help keep me organized for shopping! I will be offering this as a class in November. If you are interested, please contact me.


Looks like another beautiful fall day...ENJOY!

Spooky Booquet

Last night was our Halloween party. We had a great time! As usual, everyone came up with some awesome costumes! Good thing we had ballots for everyone to choose their favorites, because we couldn't have decided on our own! Each year I like to make a little something to give the best costume winners. This year we gave out these Halloween Booquets. I think they turned out pretty cute, and they were simple to make. The bases are metal luminaries. I cut a piece of floral styrofoam to fit snug into the cup and on top of that I added some shredded paper found in the gift wrap section of Target. So that you don't see the styrofoam showing through the cut out face of the cat & jack-o-lantern, I just covered the opening with some card stock.

The suckers were easy to arrange since they already have a stick, and for the candy bars I just bought lollipop sticks in the baking/candy making section at Michael's and glued them onto the wrappers with tacky glue.
I decorated the Halloween suckers with punched out shapes from my much used Batty For You set. This set sure has gotten a work-out since I've gotten it! It's just so cute and easy to use...I LOVE it! I also tied a bit of Halloween ribbon onto the suckers. Isn't that ribbon cute? One of the ribbons has cats, moons & stars and the other one has ghosts, moons and bats. (found that at Michael's too)
Stamps: Batty For You, Autumn Apparitions (Boo stamp)Card stock: Basic Black, Only Orange, Summer Sun, Green Galore, and Marvelous Magenta - that color was retired a couple years ago, but fortunately I still had a couple sheets because it matched the paper shreds I used almost exactly.
Ink: Black Stazon
Accessories: 1", 1-1/4" & 1-3/8" circle punches, & scallop circle punch, plus other stuff mentioned above
I also thought I'd share a photo of the pumpkins we carved this year. Have a spooktacular evening!

Full Harvest Moon

I've been so busy getting ready for our annual Halloween Party that I haven't had a chance to post anything here this week. Each year we like to make new props to decorate our yard and add to our haunted barn. The last couple of years people have emailed me with funny Halloween photos including a photo of a mooning scarecrow. I always laughed and thought, "one of these years I'm going to have to make one of those!" Well, this was the year. After a few obstacles I finally got him completed and set up yesterday.

We have him standing in our front yard next to the drive way so that passersby can see him and our guests won't miss his full moon! I hope it makes everyone laugh. I think that is the best part about having our Halloween parties each year...all the laughs we get when we see what our family and friends come up with for their costumes.

Next post will be stamping related...but probably still Halloween related. I made some really cute prizes to award those with best costumes, but don't want to share that here yet...I think a few people coming check out my blog once in a while and don't want to ruin the surprise.

Enjoy your weekend!

Batty For Arachnaphobic Autumn Harvest Apparitions on a Spooky Skyline

Now, how's that for a title?! Those are the sets we used last night to create the projects at my October Hostess Club. There was a little bit of whining that the projects I had prepared were too complicated, but in the end I think everyone was happy with their completed projects. Besides, I knew they could handle it!

The first project we did was Jan Tink's Bib Card. I gave everyone a choice of doing either a Halloween or Thanksgiving version. I think the group was pretty much evenly split on their choices. We used the masking technique I described on a card here also using the Autumn Harvest stamp set. Then the images were water colored with ink from the ink pads & the aqua painter - except for the background. To create the soft blended background, we used the stampin' pastels, then went over the entire image with the Weathered background stamp inked in Creamy Caramel. The scoring and cutting involved to make this card is a little tricky, but it is well worth the effort, I think. I'm glad that Jan came up with this cool design and shared how to make it on her blog!

Stamps: Autumn Harvest, Weathered background, Autumn Apparitions (Halloween), Holidays & Wishes (Thanksgiving)

Card stock: Really Rust, Very Vanilla, Old Olive, More Mustard (Thanksgiving) & Elegant Eggplant (Halloween)

Ink: Black Stazon, Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip (Thanksgiving) Elegant Eggplant (Halloween) various to watercolor

Accessories: Coluzzel, Scallop punch, 1- 1/4" and 1- 3/8" circle punches & aqua painter

The other projects we did was an cute little box called Qbee's Peek-A-Boo Box filled with M&M's and a pop up candy card. I found the template for this the adorable little box here. It's called a Peek-A-Boo box because when opened it has a window punched out to show the contents inside. The photo below shows the box open. Thanks to Brenda (AKA QBee on SCS) for sharing her awesome template!

The pop up candy card is a design that I fell in love with when Karman, who is now my upline, did a workshop here for me 3 years ago. She taught me how to make it, but I'm not really sure what it is called or who came up with the original idea. It sure is a cute design though! When you pull up on the ribbon the candy inside is revealed. The basic directions for the pop up candy card are as follows:

Cut two pieces of card stock: 4 ¼ x 6 ¼” (for outside of card) & another piece at: 2 ½” x 4 ¼” (inside card)

Stamp pieces of card stock as desired.

Score the outside piece along large edge at: 1 ½”, 1 -3/4”, 4 ¼” & 4 ½”

Fold card and tape along the back overlapping edge. Punch a hole thru both layers at the top middle and thread 14" ribbon through the hole. This will hold inner card plus candy.

To keep our energy up between these projects, we were treated to a delicious pumpkin cake made by this months hostess. Thanks Colleen! She said she would send me the recipe, so when she does I'll share it here. Have a great weekend!

Spooktacular

As promised, here are the other pages we made at my Holiday scrap class this past Friday. (Again, the edges got a bit cut off during the scanning/stitching process) Since we have a Halloween party each year, I never run out of Halloween photos to scrap! Autumn Apparitions is a nice set to create with. The bold images stand out nicely and require no additional coloring so it makes for quick cards and pages. In addition to the Creepy Crawly double-sided designer paper, we created our own designer paper for the background with the help of two textured wheels. First we wheeled the Pumpkin Pie 12x12 card stock with the Rough Around the Edges jumbo wheel inked in Really Rust, then we went over that with the Speckled wheel inked in Basic Black. That made a nice textured background for our Halloween photos.

After stamping the title with Big Deal alphabet, the white card stock was cut away from the inside of the "a's" and the "p" with an exact-o knife or small scissors. Then small scraps of Creepy Crawly paper was adhered on the back to cover the opening. The middle of the "o's" were filled with the moon (which is actually the large pumpkin image from this set) and then the bats and the spiders were added with the help of the stamp-a-ma-jig. After putting this much work into the title, you definitely want to use the SAMJ to make sure the placement is perfect just like the rest of your title!

On the second page, the circle image in the middle is a shaker tag. Halloween confetti was added to the inside for a fun touch. I also did some faux stitching around the edge of the shaker tag...that was a bit tedious because of the circle and not being able to use a template.

Hope you liked seeing the pages we created at the Holiday Scrap Class! If you missed this class, but would like to come over and make these pages, please let me know and we can set up a class for you and a friend. Hope you have a "spooktacular" day!

'Tis the Season

On Friday night I had a holiday scrapbooking class here. We made two 12x12 layouts (2 pages each for a total of 4 pages). One layout was Halloween and the other was Christmas. Today I am going to share the Christmas layout we did. It took me a while to scan and then stitch together each side of these layouts and unfortunately part of the layout is cut off and looks kind of crooked...but I've lost my patience for trying to mess with it any further. Just wanted you to know that in real life these aren't crooked and there is more of a border at the top and bottom of each page. I also noticed after scanning that I didn't write my journaling yet...oops!I just love the Wintergreen double sided papers, so I was excited to use them for scrapbooking. Same goes for the Season of Joy stamp set, this was my first time using both of these in my scrapbook. I had seen the snowflake image used as a scalloped border in the October Stampin' Success magazine and knew I wanted to try that. (shown above on the left side of layout) I also knew I wanted to use the word stamp included in this set as a border.(shown below) To get the spacing of each word block image, the Stamp-a-ma-jig became my best friend! Isn't that poinsettia in the center of the layout awesome? I learned how to make this from a very creative woman that came up with this design and then posted the instructions on SCS. You use both the large and small tag punches to create this. I still don't know how she looked at the tag punch outs and thought to herself...I am going to create a beautiful poinsettia or star burst out of these! I guess she is just a creative genius! After talking with her in emails I have also learned that she is a very nice person besides! Thanks again Donna for not only coming up with this fabulous design, but also for taking the time to share your instructions! I can't wait to make more of these. I didn't have any mulberry paper or the pretty sparkly paper that Donna used on her sample card, so I used card stock that matched my layout along with vellum. I cut out the poinsettia from one of the sheets of Wintergreen papers for the center and topped it off with a clear rhinestone brad.

Stamps: Season of Joy, Big Deal Alphabet, Typeset Alphabet-Lower

Card stock: Always Artichoke, Sage shadow, Certainly Celery, Soft Sky, Wintergreen double-sided designer paper

Ink: Always Artichoke, Sage Shadow & Certainly Celery

Accessories: Stamp-a-ma-jig, Rhinestone brads, Silver eyelets, Celery grosgrain, Soft Sky Double stitched ribbon, Large & Small Tag punches, Photo Corner punch, Ticket Corner punch, Round Tab punch, 1/2", 1" & 1-3/8" circle punches.

Tomorrow I will share the Halloween layout we did during this class...so don't forget to check back! Enjoy your day!

Autumn Motifs

My friend and upline Karman celebrated her birthday yesterday, so I made this card for her. I know that out of SU!'s four color families, Earth Elements are her favorite, so I used those colors to create this card for her...perfect for an Autumn birthday I think.

I like using the stamp with the row of dots from In the Spotlight to create the look of paper piercing. Somewhere I saw the scallop punch used with this set and hoped I'd remember to try it next time I got out these stamps. Doesn't that image look cute with the scallop punch? This is the first time I've use the Hostess set Punch Party, because I don't have the Designer Label punch...but Karman does, so I punched some out last time we stamped together...so she kind of helped make her own card! hehehe Hope you had a nice day on your birthday Karman!

Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Party Punch, In the Spotlight and Rough Around the Edges jumbo wheel

Card stock: Old Olive, Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip, More Mustard & Very Vanilla

Ink: Old Olive, Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip, More Mustard & Really Rust

Accessories: Scallop, Designer Label, Slot & 1" Circle punches, Taupe grosgrain, Antique Brass brads, Chocolate Chip marker & Stampin' Dimensionals

I probably won't get a chance to post anything else until after the weekend. I have a scrapbook class tomorrow and still need to get things ready for that. Then on Saturday we are going to CedarPoint for their HalloWeekend. Can't wait...riding the coasters during the day and haunted houses at night! Should be fun!

Happy Fall Y'all!

I just LOVE the scarecrow image in this set and haven't played with him in so long! So I got him out last night to make this card. SU! needs another cute scarecrow image! I don't think there's been one since he retired a few years ago.

The other day I visited a good friend of mine who has a big pumpkin patch and a green house where she grows flowers and veggies to sell. While I was there I bought some beautiful mums and some Indian Corn stalks to decorate for Fall. She told me to come back when I was ready for my pumpkins. I got a call from her over the weekend saying she picked some of the best shaped ones she could find and put them aside for me...so come and get 'em before someone buys them!

She was right! Those were the most perfect shaped and sized pumpkins I could ask for...and she wouldn't let me pay for them. Each year she likes to contribute as many pumpkins as we want to take for our party...isn't that nice? So of course I had to make her a nice thank you card. I know she loves scarecrows and everything Fall related, so I think she will love this card...plus it was a good excuse to pull out this cute scarecrow image, don't ya think?

Stamps: Happy Fall Y'all (retired), Canvas background

Card stock: Old Olive, Really Rust & Very Vanilla

Ink: Old Olive, Really Rust, Always Artichoke and various others to watercolor

Right now I have the pumpkins arranged out front around the stalks of Indian Corn and they look so nice and festive...and unsuspecting. That's because they don't realize what we have in store for them in a few weeks! *insert evil laugh*

These are the pumpkins we carved for last years party using the Pumpkin Masters pumpkin carving kits and patterns. They always turn out so cool! They look like they are really difficult, but they're not. My boys have done these with us since they were little. Not sure I can get them to do one this year...I know there was lots of complaining last year. Teenagers! I'll just pull out the "it's tradition" card and hope they will want to make their mama happy. ;-)

Have a good one!

It's getting spooky!

We've been having such gorgeous, unseasonably warm weather here in Michigan that we've been taking advantage and getting things decorated for our upcoming Halloween party. I thought I'd share a few photos of our graveyard along with a couple scrapbook pages today.

This first photo is of me & Mr. Bones taken a couple years ago...he always guards the entrance to our Restful Bones Graveyard. (I decided this should be my new profile pic for the month of October :-)

The next couple photos show the graveyard with the tombstones I've made throughout the years. I try to come up with humorous names to paint on each one. Our guests have to walk through the graveyard to get out to our "haunted" barn where our party is held.

We usually even decorate my hubby's '66 Chrysler 300... but I don't think that is going to happen this year, however, since he has already put it away for the year.

So far we have the graveyard all set up, minus the tombstones. (I don't put those up until right before the party because it seems like if I put them up too early I end up having to repair them.) We set up this other life sized zombie (not shown)in the middle of the graveyard this year and I swear every time I walk out of my garage he scares the heck out of me!

I've also been busy working on some scrapbook pages for my holiday scrapbook class coming up on Friday...but I can't share those yet! I must say...I am really excited to share them because they turned out really cute. However, I can share a couple pages I made using last years awesome Halloween sets called Best Fiends & Just Between Fiends along with the Halloween Night designer papers. Here is the left side of the 2 page layout:

Here's the right. They look better side by side, but can never get them posted like that here.


See the scariest couple winner? That is my friend (fiend? hehehe) Rachel and her hubby. She loves to stamp & scrapbook too. Costume contest winners won a bag (hand stamped of course!) of goodies including a Halloween DVD. Hmmmm...note to self...better start thinking of what we're going to give this years costume winners.


Stamps: Best Fiends (retired) , Just Between Fiends (retired), Arachnophobia & Speckled wheels, Whimsical Alphabet (retired) & Howling Good Time (retired)

Card stock: Certainly Celery, Only Orange, Lovely Lilac & Halloween Night designer series papers (retired)
Ink: Black Stazon, Only Orange & Certainly Celery ink cartridges, various to watercolor

Accessories: Bold Bright eyelets, Vintage brads, Aqua painters, Tearing Edge, circle punches

Techniques: Bleaching, Water coloring


Thanks for stopping by...have a great day!