It's been a busy weekend. In addition to Thanksgiving which we celebrated at Tracy's mom's, we also celebrated Ella's 7th birthday. Ella invited two of her friends and two of Skylar's friends to join them and the rest of the family for a petting zoo party. Ella has only attended one birthday party since the pandemic started, and her friend also had a petting zoo. She immediately knew what she wanted for her party. The two women who brought the animals to the party (celebrated in the garage), were wonderful, helping all of us hold, pet, enjoy, and learn about a nice variety of animals. Here's a collage of a few of them.

Ella petting the goat, the cutest hedgehog, Skylar with the boa
The girls checking out the armadillo, a chinchilla (the softest fur ever), Ella holding a bunny
Skylar with the fox, a prairie dog, one of two long-haired bunnies

And here's the birthday girl, all decked out for the big event! Ella is our glitter girl. Her mask was covered in sequins. 

Knowing that, I made my first infinity shaker card, filled with glitter and sequins. 

Thanksgiving was also lovely. We celebrated at Tracy's mom's for the first time. She's no longer able to negotiate stairs, and my sister-in-law's home has many steps to get into her house. There were eleven of us, and as always, the food was delicious and far too plentiful. I took zero photos—not the first time I've neglected to get my phone out at a family gathering.

I also have a couple of Christmas cards to share. I shared these on Instagram a week or so ago, but blog writing has fallen to the wayside with all the activities, Christmas card making, tutoring, and trying to organize and decorate for next holiday. Early this month, I enrolled in the Online Card Class: Holiday Cards 2021 even though I knew I'd be in Wisconsin for the first week of it. I watched all the videos, and once I got home I worked on some of the techniques. The infinity shaker card was also featured in the class. 

The lesson for these cards was taught by Jennifer McGuire who challenged us to make our own patterned paper using strips of cardstock. I opted to use strips of striped patterned paper from Sunny Studios, and I'm pleased with the way they turned out. I used a Christmas card die from Papertrey Ink and got 2 cards for each cut as you'll see below.

After die cutting the opening for the striped Christmas tree, I was left with the tree itself. I decided to use a gold metallic oval to create gold "ornaments."

I also used tips from the card class to make multiples of both of these, ending up with 12 Christmas cards for my stash. This week looks to be another busy one. I'm almost done with the Christmas cards, but nearly all of them still need inside sentiments. Hoping to get the international cards in the mail later this week. Sometimes it takes 2-3 weeks for them to arrive. It's hard to believe December is just two days away!

It's Halloween, and I can't think of a better place to be than with grandchildren who are SO excited about going Trick or Treating! Sarah and her family moved to a fabulous neighborhood with lots of kids. Both Caleb and Hannah have good friends just down the street. I've shared a couple of Halloween cards here and here, but made five more for the grandchildren. We gave the three girls their cards and Halloween gifts before we left.

I made four different cards, creating two of the same for Hannah and Ella. It's thanks to my crafty friends that I had a huge pile of die cuts to choose from when it came time to create the cards.

Aside from the sentiments the cards are just the same—Royal Purple (Simon Says) cardstock splattered with silver metallic paint and layered onto a cardbase of Orange Zest (PTI). The silver glitter paper is several years old and came from a cute shop in Milwaukee. I used a clear glitter pen to add glitter to the cats which you can see better here. The cat and the moon are from PTI's "Boo Black Cat" set. 

I also wanted all the cards to have some kind of interactive feature. The cats have a wobbler behind them. Try as I might, I never got a very good photo, but when Ella opened her card at home she "wobbled" the card, and I got a better photo,

Next up is Maddy's shaker card. 

I started by ink blending the Pretty Pink Posh "Spider Web" stencil on Bristol paper. I die cut the letters with the Pinkfresh Studio "Adore" alphabet, backing it with acetate and filling it with a variety of sequins and tiny stars.

I found the cute spider sticker from "la petites" at Hobby Lobby. 

Skylar's card was a spinner card. I made this one twice trying to get the spinner to work effectively. I now know what kind of thread I need to make it work even better than it did. 

Putting a greeting inside the card proved to be tricky, too, since I didn't want it to show through the opening for the spinner piece. In the end, it worked out really well. The ghosts are die cuts from Poppy Stamps and the greeting from The Stamp Market's "Halloween" set. The patterned paper is from an old 6X6 pad by American Craft. 

Last, but not least, is Caleb's card which I thought would appeal to a nine year old boy.

The center ghoul on the card is mounted on the card with a large Wobbler like the black cat  cards above, There's a narrow strip of patterned paper from the same paper pad behind the three ghouls from Papertrey Ink's "Grins and Ghouls." 

I found the perfect sentiment in an old Papertrey Ink Make-it Market kit, "Halloween Pin-ups" which was die cut with an Essential Oval by Ellen Hutson. A slightly larger oval from My Favorite Things "Black and White Stripes" served as a mat.

Yesterday, one set of neighbors arrived to carve pumpkins on the back porch so we have a set of jack-o-lanterns to decorate the front porch tonight. It's going to be a chilly evening for Trick 0r Treating, but thankfully, it's not raining or snowing!

Hope you have a great Hallow's Eve!