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!