As an elementary school teacher for 37 years, I was never a great fan of Halloween. Being the grandmother to several youngsters has changed my tune a bit, and I enjoy crafting for all of them. I made little tins filled with some Halloween goodies for three of them. They all got stickers, fake tatoos, a squishy little pumpkin that lights up when you toss it, and some chocolates from a local candy shop. Caleb got a little ball that looks like an eyeball, and the two little girls got black cat coin purses. I took a photo of Caleb's which I left with Sarah when we visited in September, and decided since the girls' look just the same so there was no need for another photo.

The clothespin on the top was made with some patterned paper and little ghost stamps, and tag from an old, but fave, "Friendship Jar: Fall" stamp set by Papertrey Ink. Here's a look at the little coin purses which I thought were just adorable.

They each got cards, too, of course. I had quite a few reward points at Papertrey and decided about a month ago, I'd really like the Halloween Pin-Up Make It Market Kit. Glad I did, as both these cards were made much easier with the preprinted images and dies.

Here's Caleb's. I'm not sure he knows anything about Frankenstein, but I know he likes monsters and super heroes, so I figured he'd like the images.

The "Night Star Cove"r plate is the perfect frame for the card. It's cut from Royal Velvet cardstock which is such a great contrast for the Orange Zest.

The card for Skylar and Ella uses those colors as well as Limeade Ice. Not my usual combination, but great for Halloween. Ella's a little young to get the humor from the sentiment, but Skylar certainly did!

She also appreciates the glitter on the shoes and socks. I bought a couple Spectrum Noir glitter pens for Christmas cards, and the "Crystal Clear" one is becoming a favorite.

It was a busy weekend. My father was a music professor and I grew up on musical theater, but I'd never seen "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." We saw it on Saturday at the newly refurbished Geva Theater. The musical was terrific, and the renovations are quite lovely.

On Sunday, Skylar came over and we made Halloween cookies, also a first. She's really very adept with a rolling pin, and can cut out the cookies with no supervision.

 

For a five year old, she's also pretty good with frosting the cookies as well.

Her mom, dad, and sisters came for dinner, and we had cookies and ice cream for dessert.

And a quick look at the little girls out for trick or treating tonight. Skylar started out very hesitant about the event, but Ella quickly caught on and was a very eager trick or treater! There'll be more for SNAP on Wednesday.

A very late wave to Sian and the Memorandum Monday crew!

 

When I spotted the inspiration photo for the Card Concept Challenge this week, I knew I had the perfect stamp set for it.

I recently bought the Hero Arts set, "Autumn," which I had yet to use. The design of the pumpkin reminds me of the recent coloring book/doodling craze. Included in the set are several leaves with the same kind of patterns.

I gold embossed the images and colored them with my Kuretake watercolors. Papertrey Ink's burlap coverplate added just the right kind of texture for the background. I added a stitched strip from a rejected piece from yesterday's crafting session. The sentiment is also from an used set which I've had for quite some time. Papertrey sent it as a thank you awhile ago, and it turned out to be perfect. I die cut the word from Canyon Clay paper and then made a banner with a stitched edge for the rest of the sentiment. 

One of the interesting features of the Card Concept Challenge is the ability to make a card in any style. I'm sticking with my usual "Clean & Simple" for this one, and I'm happy to have another birthday card ready to put in the mail next month!

The 25th of the month snuck up on me, and I didn't get started on this card until this morning. I love the inspiration piece of this month's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop, so I was determined to create a card for it.

I'd like to report that it came together quickly, but alas, not so much. There are all kinds of scraps on my desk, and at least two versions of the card are in the circular file. I am happy with the end result, but would have preferred to have posted it an hour or so ago!

I started with the fall leaves and the music in the inspiration piece, stamping and fussy cutting some Leaf Prints, one on a musical themed patterned paper (Theresa Collins, perhaps) and the others with Distress Inks on watercolor paper. Then the red berries from Spruce and Sprigs with some Glossy Accents. The acorn sticker is from Little B. I die cut a stitched circle from Rustic Cream paper and mounted it on a piece of woodgrain (again from the inspiration piece) paper from MME. The die cut (from Ripe Avocado) and stamped sentiment are from the Color Pop Autumn Mini-Market Kit, which is turning out to be a great purchase. Then I popped it all up with some fun foam and added it to a Canyon Clay card (to pick up the orange in the inspiration piece) and added a stitched strip to the bottom of the card for a little added interest. 

Off to see what inspiration is linked up for the hop. There are 12 birthdays in November on my calendar, and I need to make a lot of cards.

I'm getting in just under the wire for Virginia's View Focal Point Challenge.

I actually have two sets of cards ready for the challenge, but only time enough to post one of the them. I was inspired to make these cards by the beautiful fall card Alexandra posted a week or so ago.

I used a Simon Says Stitched Circle die to cut a circle in a piece of Rustic Cream cardstock by PTI. The leaves are from Paptertrey's Leaf Print set. I stamped them with a variety of Distress Inks, and then spritzed them with a bit of water before stamping them on watercolor paper. I don't own the dies for this set so they were fussy cut by hand. The three-dimensional acorn is by Little B and was included in the October Simon Says Card Kit. The sentiment from Birthday Style (PTI) was stamped on Canyon Clay cardstock, and then I layered the Rustic Cream with leaves on top with dimensional tape. Three rainstones finished it off.

Of course when I finished I had a circle of Rustic Cream, and it seemed a pity to let it go to waste.

The only differences here are the cardstock (not sure where I got it) and a few splatters of Tim Holtz's Distress Mica Spray in bronze on the circle before I added the leaves which are stamped with the same process.

The sentiment here is a partially inked one from Simon Says "You Matter" set which was sitting on my desk at the time. I edged the hand-cut banner with Chai Tea ink from Papertrey. Off to link up with the challenge before it closes!

As soon as I saw Nicole's inspiration piece for the PTI September Blog Hop, I knew I wanted to play along.

Kraft, black, white, green, and twine—what's not to like about that? So, I set aside some time to play. I hoped to come up with one card for the hop, but ended up making three. Only one can be linked to the hop, but I'm sharing all of them here.

The card on the left is the one I started out to create. When I was waiting for the white to dry on the pinecones, I came up with two other cards using tags as the focal point.

I trimmed off the top edge of the kraft card, and layered a piece of True Black on the inside of the card. The wreath and sentiment are from "Rustic Wreath," and the pinecones came from Avery Elle's "Winter Wreath." Much to my surprise I could not find a pinecone in any of my PTI sets. A bow was tied to the wreath with Rustic Jute Button Twine (PTI.) 

I used White Enamel Accents to add some "snow" to the pinecones, and used some clear foam tape to add some dimension to the wreath.

I used Tag Sale #9 to cut two tags, one each from kraft and True Black cardstock to mimic the tags in the inspiration piece. The branch is from last year's "Spruce and Sprigs" stamped with Pinefeather ink. Once tied together with twine, I added the tags to the Select White cardstock and rounded one corner. The sentiment is from "Rustic Wreath."

This card is essentially the same. I added a second pine bough cut from vellum to place behind the one stamped with Pinefeather, and used two AMuse black pearls instead of the pinecone. I'm posting this before church, but won't be able to link it up with the blog hop until afterwards. I'll be anxious to see all the other creations based on this inspiration. Glad, too, to have a few Christmas cards created!

Although my goal of participating in a challenge every week has been only partially successful, the Fusion Challenge is one of my favorites. They offer up a sketch as well as an inspiration piece, and I combined aspects of both for this week's challenge.

I took the circular design for the focal point, and used some of Maile Belle's Ombre Stripes paper from the inspiration piece as well as a few of the colors. I think there's enough elements from both the sketch and the inspiration piece to fit the challenge.

All the elements of the focal point are from Papertrey Ink's "Scene It: Celebration" stamps and dies. I die cut the circle element three–once in Summer Sunrise, once in Summer Sunrise Patterned paper, and once in Hawaiian Shores and off set them. Celebrate was die cut with Tropical Teal paper.

I love the layered look of the three die cuts, and appreciate how Papertrey Ink develops cardstocks that complement one another.

It's a very rare occurrence, but I didn't make a single card in August. The cards I posted were all made in July before we left on our vacation. So when I sat down on Thursday to made a couple September birthday cards, it had been awhile. Luckily, I won a $25 gift certificate to Papertrey Ink during their Stamp-a-Faire event, so I had ordered the new Mini Market Kit: Color Pop Autumn which arrived just before we left. 

When I was making the first of the birthday cards, I felt it needed just something extra, so I tried a technique I saw recently on Jennifer McGuire's blog using die cuts as embossing plates. It worked beautifully and I was very happy with the results. The card itself, however, is too busy for the CASology challenge which focuses on very clean and simple, so I made a second card for the challenge with the same technique, but no patterned paper. 

Here's the first card:

And a closer view, since the light was better when the card was laying flat.

Everything for the card except the gingham patterned paper (My Favorite Things) came from the Color Pop Autumn kit. I added a few rainstones at the end as well. I love the preprinted die cuts which come with these kits which make for some quick and easy cards.

Here's the card for the challenge. Everything in this card came from the kit.

The stitched edge is embossed with Simon Says Stitched Rectangle dies which I used twice on the first card—to cut the patterned paper and then emboss the edge of the card.

And finally, the other birthday card I needed. For this one, I cased Betsy Veldman's card when she used one of the patterned papers from the kit and just stamped the outline images.

No stitched embossing on this one, although in retrospect I think it could have used it. 

It's a holiday weekend here, and we have a few plans, but mostly a lot of free time and a long list of projects to work on. Hope your weekend is going well.

Papertrey Ink hosted a Stamp-a-Faire on Saturday. There were nine different challenges with video tutorials. I've watched all the videos, and they were all wonderful, but time constraints limited me to participating in just three of them. I picked the three I thought would be most challenging, since they involved brand new products (gold leaf paint) or techniques I often struggle with. The first was Gilded with Gold by Danielle Flanders. I didn't start with any vision for a card, and ended up with four cards, none of which I'm thrilled with. Why four? So many attempts went south, I had bits and pieces all over my desk which ended up as cards. I definitely love the gold leaf paint (I purchased Martha Stewart's), and learned quite a bit in the process. The next time won't be so fraught with difficulties!

Here's the first one, and probably my favorite.

Looking for something else entirely, I came across a scrap of vellum with gold dots, and a card I had previously scored six times. The vellum piece fit in exactly right.

Next up, I tried adding gold leaf to a couple of Maile Belle's "Black and White" patterned papers. The first time I dotted on some gold leaf between the black stripes.

Then I tried adding some gold stripes to this design:

I ended up with one Love die cut (Wonderful Words) and it fit perfectly onto this piece of patterned paper from the "Star Scribbles" pack of papers.

 

 

The second challenge I took on was Kay Miller's watercolor challenge. She's a master at watercoloring, and I was so interested in her technique which combines stamping with watercoloring. I ended up sticking very close to Kay's design. I didn't have the Berry Sorbet ink so substituted Melon Berry which is a much more subdued color. I think it worked out alright though, and it will make for a good fall birthday card.

I was pretty happy with this one, and my husband who rarely comments on my cards, said he liked it a lot.

The last challenge I took on was Amy Sheffer's Starry Night challenge. As soon as I saw it I was taken with it, but didn't have high hopes that I could pull it off. My ink blending skills leave a lot to be desired, so when I finished this card, I was really pleased. For once, I took my time and let everything dry before moving on to the next stage.

It also gave me an opportunity to use the new sentiment set, Number the Stars. I stamped the banner with Enchanted Evening, and backed it with the same banner cut from silver paper. I had some silver thread which is one of the elements on Amy's card, and added some sequins and silver stars in my stash.

I also splattered some white acrylic paint and some silver metallic watercolors. Finally got the splatter technique down! You can't see it from the photos, but I added some Wink of Stella glitter to the banner as well.

I have a couple other challenges I'd like to try, but won't have time to get to them until long after the galleries close. Given my schedule this weekend, I'm happy to have managed these three. 

 

It's the 25th of the month and the day for the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop Challenge. No surprise, I'm still working on the Stamp-a-Faire projects, and hope I'll be back later with another post before the galleries close tomorrow morning. I didn't want to miss the chance to participate in this month's blog hop, though, because the minute I saw the inspiration photo, I had an idea for the card.

The idea was contingent on the Papertrey order arriving in time, which it did. I knew I wanted to use the new "Some Like It Hot" set which features one of my favorite flowers, the hibiscus. I used the colors in the photos–aqua and orange, the diamond pattern on the wall for my background, and the gray carpet as the card base. I would never have chosen gray had it not been for the photo, but it turned out to be a great choice.

It's not often that a card turns out the way I envisioned it from the start, but this one did. I stamped the hibicus on separate card, masking them to group them together, and then fussy cut them out, and popped them up with some foam tape on the diamond embossed background. It's been awhile since I pulled out an embossing folder (Quickcutz). I die cut "birthday" with the Swoosh die and the small stamp sentiment came from Swoosh as well. It just needed a few clear sequins to finish it off.

Until I purchased a MISTI, getting the layers right for multi-stamped images was always a struggle. The MISTI solves those problems. I used three different inks for each of the flowers, and love the dimension you get with these. 

I'm babysitting for my new granddaughter this afternoon, but hope to be back in the craft room later today. You can see others' interpretations of the inspiration piece right here.