Simply Betty's Monster Mash Blog Hop

Welcome to the Simply Betty MONSTER MASH BLOG HOP!! You should have arrived here from Katya's blog and if you want to start at the beginning so you don't miss any of the awesome stops on this blog hop then you can start here at Betty's blog. 

The challenge was to create anything Halloween using any of the Simple Betty Stamps Halloween images. I chose to use two of the images from the Steampunk Halloween 2012 images A Little Arsenic Before Bed and Jack and Jill. 

I decided to try and make more of my Halloween decorations instead of being limited to what I could find in the stores. I started with two wooden $1 picture frames and painted them very bright green, then a layer of crackling medium then topped that with a layer of black paint. After that was dry, I added the ribbons and the rosettes. I have decided that these will be sitting or hanging fairly close to each other so I put the decorations on opposite corners. 

A Little Arsenic Before Bed:

Jack and Jill:

And a close up shot of both images:

Your next stop on the hop is LISA.

Supplies used: images from Simply Betty Stamps, colored with Copic markers, wooden from from Michael's, acrylic paints, Tim Holtz Rosette die, skeleton and poison bottle from Joilee's, ribbon from Michael's, background paper from Recollections, and silver beads from my stash. 

Kitchen Pictures

I redid my kitchen several months ago and had an idea to make some things to hang on the walls. Everything has been done except the things I wanted to make so I decided to take a little while this weekend to get most of them done. I am working on a couple of needlework things and when they are finished everything will be complete. I went with a red, yellow and white color theme in there and wanted it to be kind of retro too. Specifically the colors are red and white polka dots with yellow and white gingham. Kip was so afraid when I told him my color choices. I think he thought I was going to paint the walls with those colors. His fear was that it was going to look like a fast food restaurant. 

My mom made my curtains and we were able to find the perfect material and then I was able to find paper to match too. Everything turned out the way I wanted it to!

This is an image from Amber Ink. All the images were colored with Copics and use paper from The Paper Studio. I purchased some plain black frames to hang them in. 

This apron was in the Help for Katie set.

And this one is a Karen Lockhart apron.

I hung them above the piece that Kip made for me to hold my aprons. The apron in the middle is mine, the one of the right is Samantha's and the one of the left was made by my great-grandmother. 

I thought I would include this picture too, since it shows a little more of the kitchen. It also shows the curtains that my mom made for me. The bird plates came from Pier 1. I wanted to use that clock that I have had for a very long time but it was green. The casing that holds the clock is made out of plastic and I wanted it to match the kitchen. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a can of spray paint meant to paint model cars, popped the actual clock out and then spray painted it. 

Bathroom Re-Do and Original Art

This is my new shower curtain in our main bathroom. Actually the curtain, toothbrush holder, towels and everything are new. I love bright colors and this just made me smile when I saw it. I didn't paint the walls, I really do prefer neutral walls and then add my color against that. There are several reasons I like that, the main one being that you can change out a room much easier without the hassle of painting or worse yet, wallpaper. Until now the walls have been plain, nothing at all on them so I decided some bright colored art work would do the trick. If you are looking at the sink then this arrangement is to your left and the shower to the right.
Samantha and I spent the afternoon painting some original artwork for the bathroom. I bought these square canvas panels at Hobby Lobby and we painted them with matching acrylic paints. We did out best to mimic the circles in the shower curtain. 
We had two panels left over and Samantha decided some flowers would be nice. We used the same colors of paint and she painted one flower and I painted the other one. 
I love to paint, but it isn't one of my great talents! I love the way everything turned out. Let me know what you think!

Jeep Girl

I have always loved Jeeps. Even as a little girl, I wanted a yellow Jeep Wrangler and told everyone that I was going to get one when I grew up.  I still love those, but when the Jeep Libertys came out, I fell in love with them too. Kip surprised me and bought one right before our first anniversary. My old car was dying a slow death so we were already planning to replace it. One night we went to look at the Jeeps and  I didn't even have my license with me so I couldn't test drive it outside of the parking lot! Next thing I knew we were in the office filling out paperwork. So when I saw this stamp from Stamping Bella, I just had to have it! Of course I had to give it a yellow paint job too. The image was stamped with Memento ink and then colored with Prismacolor pencils. I used some Glossy Accents on the headlights. Papers and card stock are from DCWV, thread in the buttons is DMC and I am not sure of the maker of the buttons. 

I have spent the afternoon on another project. Decorating the house isn't something I do that often, but I decided I wanted to redo the upstairs bathroom. This is the main bathroom in the house and the one that guests would use. As most of you know, I love bright colors, so my bathroom is now bright blues. pinks and greens. Bright colors and polka dots, I absolutely love it. Samantha and I are going to paint some artwork to hang on the walls and then I will take a picture to show everyone. I hope my husband likes it!