Happy Halloween Challenge

Today wraps up my week of Halloween goodies, I hope you have enjoyed looking at them as much as I have enjoyed making them. I love playing with my Halloween stamps. These are the treat holders that I made for my friends and co-workers this year. As soon as I saw these I knew I wanted to use the mini-pizza boxes from Jen Del Muro.

The challenge at Stamp Something this week was to make something for Halloween. That's great for me, I think I have more more Halloween treats this year than I ever have before!

I thought they were so cute and they were easy to make. They make nice little gifts because of the variety of things that you can put in them. I was also thinking that they would make great place cards with a little something for your dinner guests, or as any kind of little party favor. For my Halloween treats I made two different sizes. The one on top is the smaller one and was for my friend that is forgoing chocolate right now, hers was filled with green tea bags. the others were filled with chocolate eye balls and a stamper friend found some stamps in hers. The boxes are made from DCWV black paper. Both of these stamps were from Michael's dollar bin. The witch's hat was stamped with Palette black ink and Jeepers Creepers is stamped with CTMH White Daisy ink. The witch's hatband is colored with Prisma markers. I used all my leftover Halloween papers to make the papered area behind the stamped image. I think all the ones shown in the picture were DCWV. The ribbon is from Michael's too.

I want to thank everyone that has been leaving me comments lately, I really do enjoy reading each and every one of them. If you have time check out the blogs listed on my sidebar. There are so many wonderfully talented ladies represented there. Have a fun Halloween!!

Stamp Something For the Birds Challenge

What do you know, more polka dots! Anyway, this is my entry for the challenge this week at Stamp Something. The challenge was Something for the Birds and we were to use a bird image, any size, shape or color. I have no idea what kind of bird this is so I decided to make him a little on the colorful side. He is colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. The picture makes him look a little on the dark side, but you can still see the brighter colors in his crest. I think that saying is funny. The stamp set is from Inkadinkado, flowers are Marcella by K and the brads are from The Paper Studio. I am not sure of the maker of the green paper, but the navy blue is DCWV.

Is everyone ready for Halloween tomorrow? I am, I have my candy all ready to pass out. This is my third Halloween living in this house and I am so excited that we actually get trick or treaters. This is the first place that I have ever lived that I have gotten more than five! My favorite is when the little boys come up and try to scare me. I hope everyone else has a great time!

Halloween Treats

This is one of the treats I am taking for a co-worker tomorrow. I am off on Friday so I am taking mine in early. One co-worker is no longer eating chocolate or candy (can you imagine?!!), so this is a can of natural almonds. I covered it with black paper then decorated it. I am glad the lid was a Halloween color that I had paper to match. I used my small circle punch to make my polka dots, they are glued onto the black paper. I took the picture at an angle so you can see them. I am loving polka dots right now! The stamp is from Michael's dollar bin from last year, I stamped it with Brilliance ink and then colored it in with an orange Prisma marker. Only a couple more Halloween projects left to show you then I will be onto something else!

Vampire Riley

I am almost done posting Halloween cards! I think I may have one left, and then the project that I made for my co-workers. I can't post it yet since a couple of people from work read my blog on a regular basis and I don't want them to see their treats until I give them out in person. I love all the Rileys from Hanna Stamps so very much. They are cute, fun to color and they make me smile, what more can you ask for from a stamp! Riley is colored with Prisma markers. Paper is DCWV, the stripes and polka dots are from the Fall Stack. Thanks for stopping by!

Three Witches

I loved this stamp from Stampendous the first time I saw it. I talked myself out of getting it because I have so many Halloween stamps. Every time I went into Mike's I looked at this stamp again, always passing it by because I have so many Halloween stamps. But this week stamps are 40% off. And on Sunday from 4:00-8:00 Michael's had a coupon for 15% off your entire purchase, including sale items. That never happens so I decided that I really did need this stamp! I don't know what it is about it, but it does make me smile. I think it may be the way they are standing with their feet turned in. If I stand very long I turn my feet in and stand on the outside. Weird, I know. I didn't realize my niece does the same thing. When I got my wedding pictures back, every single shot of Zoie, she is standing that way. Anyway, here are the deets on the card: main stamp is Stampendous stamped with Palette ink and colored with Prisma markers, sentiment is Studio G, stamped with CTMH Orange ink, DP is The Paper Studio and other paper is DCWV, brads are also from the Paper Studio.

I really love Halloween, maybe that is why I have so many Halloween Stamps. Not so crazy about all the scary part of it, but I love dressing up and seeing all the kids in their costumes. I used to teach pre-school and it was so fun to listen to the kids debate about what costume they were going to wear. I got my candy tonight and I am ready to go!

All Bundled Up

I hope everyone has had a great weekend so far. I worked on Halloween treats most of yesterday and am almost finished. I am so in love with this color combination right now. I love this shade of blue and white together. Today I decisided to make my own polka dots using a pencil eraser and white ink on my blue paper. Bella is colored with Prisma markers and I used Liquid Applique on her hat, coat and boots. The sparkeles around her feet are from a pack of glitter that I have had forever, they are round little circles and very thin. They are actually a lighter blue IRL but for some reason the picture is a little dark. The sentiment is from a Studio G (I think) pack that I got for $1.00 at Michael's. I stamped the sentiment with CTMH Lilac Mist and then went over it with a clear Gelly Roll glitter pen. Paper is DCWV and ribbon is Offray.

I joined a blogger group on SCS. There are some really cool blogs on the list, check them out when you have a chance, they are on my side bar. Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween Treats

I have gotten in more crafting time than I thought I would this week. When I was looking over my schedule for the week, I didn't think I would have any time at all. This is the treat holders that I made for Jenna and Samantha to take to school with them. They were pretty easy to put together, which was good since I needed almost 50 of them! Samantha had choir practice last night so I took my Scor-Pal and paper trimmer and got everything cut out and ready to go, and then stamped them this afternoon. I wanted to do something other than just candy so I bought these Halloween pencils. I love stamps with candy corn on them for some reason. I got this one last year at Micheal's in the dollar bin. I stamped the image with Palette ink and colored in with LePlume markers, and used a corner rounder on the top corners. To finish it off I added some curling ribbon in Halloween colors. It kind of looks like a pocket protector, don't you think so? Thanks for stopping by!

Stamp Something Challenge

This is my entry for the Stamp Something Challenge this week. The layout was the challenge this week. I painted the dresses on these girls' dresses with my new Twinkling H20 paints and colored the rest with Prismacolor pencils. The paper is from Making Memories and the ribbon is American Crafts. I used decorative accents on the corners. Happy Wednesday!

Bird Card

Hello! Just a quick post here today. I didn't think I was going to be able to find time to get any crafting in, but I did manage to get a few minutes and this is what I made. For some reason I couldn't get the colors on this to turn out right with my camera. The card stock is a dark chocolate brown and a dark navy blue. The blue piece is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder, Birds and Blossoms I think is the name of it. I took about 15 pictures and this was the best I could get. Sorry. I stamp this image with Palette ink and colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. Since I have gotten some new colors, I am enjoying my pencils a lot more that I was before. I have been using them to color more and more often. The stamp is from SU. I don't know if you can see or not but I used navy blue eyelets in the corners where I used the SU Ticket Corner punch. I went over the flowers with the clear Spica marker that I got this weekend. Gotta run!

Inky Active Cards

Both classes I took on Friday were a lot of fun. My favorite was this Inky Active card class, all the cards did something. For me, this was a first, I haven't made any of the cards like this before. Jackie, from Inky Antics was the instructor, and first she demonstrated using coloring pencils and OMS. Her company has the coolest blending stumps I have seen. All I have been able to find around here are the little ones that aren't much thicker or longer than a cotton swab. These were like Sharpies, they were great. Here are some of the cards we made:

I especially liked my coloring on this guy! This one should be mounted onto a card base but I took the picture before I did that and it also has a ribbon pull on the end to make it easier to pull to show the other side.

I think this was my favorite card though. It is hard to see in the picture, but when you pull the ribbon at the top, there is something that comes out from each end of the card. The sentiment backed in green is actually a pocket that will hold cash. The base is also wide enough that if you changed the pocket it would hold a gift card.

All the stamps here are from Inky Antics and colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. Not sure of the papers or anything because they were supplied. I bought a few of their stamps at the show and after my wallet recovers, I will be ordering more! Thanks for checking in with me. I am working a lot over the next couple of days so I may not have a lot of crafting time.

StampScrapArtTour, Oh, My!

I had so much fun this weekend! I went to the StampScrapArtTour in Chattanooga at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. I signed up for two classes on Friday afternoon, DIY Monograms and Inky Active Cards. There was also a Make It Take It and dessert reception on Friday night. Saturday the vendor area was open for shopping. I will be posting a few things each day for the next couple of days to show you what I made. The Monogram class was working with the Just Rite Monogram system. Everyone in the class got a Monogram stamp set to keep. Here is the Stationary set I made:

I won a couple of stamp sets as a door prize. Here is one of them. The other is just a sheet of cling mounted rubber and I couldn't get a clear picture but they are all snow flakes and snow sayings.

I had a great time. It was a small show but the demos and make and takes were very good. I got some pointers on coloring with pencils and OMS, I had learned that technique just by reading about it so it was good to see someone actually doing it and explaining how to get the best results. I met several really nice people, including some that I "knew" from SCS, so I can now put a face with a screen name. Most of the vendors had the option of buying their stamps mounted or unmounted, which I loved. I have several new stamps, some new Twinkling H2O paints, a Marvy punch, the Tim Holtz design ruler and tons of ideas. I will post the Inky Active cards tomorrow! Stay tuned for projects made with my new stamps.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday. I usually struggle so much to make cards for men, but as soon as I saw this stamp from The Angel Company, I knew I had his birthday card covered. The name of the stamp is Train Collage. I stamped the image onto off white card stock using CTMH Chocolate ink. The birthday sentiment is from Clear Dollar Stamps and the brads are from Paper Studio. My Dad really likes trains and they play into several of my childhood memories of me and him. I remember when I was real small, he had an electric train set he would set up occasionally and I loved watching that train go around and around the track. I remember one Christmas Eve, we were on our way to my Grandmother's house and had to stop for a train, Dad rolled down the windows to hear the train and he sang "Silent Night". I actually had a tape recording of this somewhere. An album we listened to over and over and over again was Merle Haggard's "My Love Affair With Trains". I had misplaced his album and wanted to replace it and it took me forever to find that vinyl album, I combed every used record store I came across until I found it. Now it is available on CD and we both have it on our iPods. Thanks for reading my childhood Dad and train memories and Happy Birthday Dad!!!

I will be in Chattanooge for the rest of the weekend. I will post again on Sunday or Monday.

Thanks Card

Good evening! I appreciate you stopping by to see what I have been up to. I have been seeing lots of Christmas cards on other blogs that use combinations of blue and white. I wasn't in the mood tonight to make Christmas cards so I decided to make a thank you card instead. In the spirit of Thanksgiving I try and send out thank you notes to people that I appreciate, especially for things that are easy to overlook. I also try to do this at my birthday. Anyway, I am trying to build my stock of thank you cards. I am getting much better at making cards before I need them, so I have not had to go out and buy a card in months. This image is from SU, from the Gently Falling set. I stamped the image with CTMH Lilac Mist ink, cut it out and then mounted it with pop dots onto white card stock. Paper is from DCWV and ribbon is American Crafts. We are off tomorrow to the Stamp Scrap Art Tour!

Fuzzy Spider

I am still having fun making Halloween cards. I just know my friend Angela is going to love this big furry spider! She hates spiders and will probably close this as soon as she sees it! The main spider image is a Martha Stewart stamp. I stamped him with Palette ink and then covered him with liquid applique and fun flock. I went over the part of the web he is spinning with a Gelly Roll Stardust pen to give it some shimmer. The background was made using the Cuttlebug Spider Web embossing folder. When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by the writing spiders that would sometimes appear by our back door and at my Grandmother's house. Their webs were always so intricate, each and every one of them were so different from the other. In the morning, when they still had some dew on them was my favorite time to look so I tried to recreate that look on my web here. After embossing the spider web, I painted over the raised area with Twinkling H20 paint. The "Boo to You" stamp came from Micheal's $1.00 bin last year, the ribbon is from Mike's as well.

I am excited. We are headed to Chattanooga this weekend and I am going to be able to go to the Stamp Scrap Art tour at the Choo-Choo. I have never been to one of their shows before. I also signed up to take a couple of classes on Friday, a Monogramming class and a class where we will be making four interactive cards. Thanks for stopping by!

Pumpkin Field

What do you think of my Pumpkin Field? This was made using the Stair Step fold technique and was the challenge on Splitcoast today. I usually only look at the technique challenges and never even attempt them. In fact, I read this one earlier in the day and thought, nah, not even going to try that one! But then I decided that was what a challenge was for was to help me learn something new. The scarecrow is the same one I used last week and is from Hanna Stamps and the pumpkins are from three different sets, Clear Dollar Stamps, Fiskars and Hero Arts. The images were stamped with Palette Ink and colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. The sentiment is from the Hero Arts November set and was stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. Paper is DCWV and the brads are from Jo-Anns. Thanks for stopping by!

What's Moo?

Oops. I made this for my Mom and forgot to mail it! The stamp is from a TAC set, What's Moo. I stamped it with Palette ink and then colored it with Prismacolor pencils and used a little OMS to smooth out some of my lines. My Mom likes cows and her favorite color is pink. She used to collect a lot of cow stuff but her main collection is a certain type of antique cream pitchers that look like cows. The paper is DCWV and I am not sure where this ribbon came from. The colors are a little off, but IRL, the pinks match a lot better. Mom is great at finding me things at yard sales. She goes just about every weekend. I love getting those calls from her on Saturday mornings, asking me if I need .......because she just found one at a great bargain! I hope everyone has had a great weekend. I have been working on Halloween treat boxes today and Christmas cards. Have a great week!

Stamp Something Challenge- Friendship Card

The challenge this week at Stamp Something was to stamp something for a friend. I made this friendship card to give to a friend at work that hasn't been feeling very well lately. She is always so thoughtful and thinking of everyone else. I am so bad though, I have been meaning to make her something for the past week. When I saw this challenge I decided now was the perfect time. The image was stamped using my friend Elaine's stamp set. It is a SU set, but I can't remember the name of it. I stamped it with Brilliance ink and colored it with Spica markers, if you click to enlarge the photo, you can see how sparkly it is. I was going through my stash of paper and found this from one of the DCWV Stacks. I don't normally used these printed sheets, but for some reason this one jumped out at me. I picked the colors on the dress from the paper. I have used this combination several times in the past couple of days, I am in the middle of another project using purple and green. The flower is also from my stash and I have had it for quite some time. It wasn't in the original packaging so that probably means a friend gave it to me! So this is a card for a friend, using the stamped image from a friend and an embellishment from another friend!

My sister's birthday

Today is my sister's birthday. I actually got her card done early enough to get it in the mail and for it to arrive on time! As soon as I saw this stamp I had to get it. Renaugia and I are very, very different people. So this made me laugh, a lot. The stamp is from Stampabilities and I stamped with Palette ink. The little flowers are colored in with Spica markers and outlined with a black Glaze pen. The DP is from a pack I got at Hobby Lobby a while back. The other papers are DCWV and ribbon is from Hobby Lobby too.

In addition to it being my sister's birthday, it is a special day for another reason: Three years ago today is when Kip asked me to marry him. Isn't that sweet? What is even sweeter is that he did it on a day that I already had the date memorized. So my wonderful hubby has been hard at work on this project for me:

A shelf for my wooden stamps! It's like going to the store to find my stamps now. Isn't that the coolest thing in the world? When I got home from work today it was finished and hanging up, all I had to do was put my stamps on there. So that really completes my craft room. I have one more picture to show you and then you have seen the whole room. This is my computer area:

My little space here is an odd shape but it makes me very happy. If I am in the roller chair I can go back and forth between the computer and the craft desk very easily. They are on opposite walls and the little bookshelf under my stamp rack is directly behind my craft desk. Thanks for stopping by!

Autumn Blessings

I made this card tonight for the color challenge from SCS today. The colors were supposed to be Tangerine Tango, Chocolate Chip and Kiwi Kiss. I don't have any SU paper so I substituted the closest colors I had. I love working with fall colors. The stamp is from Clear Dollar Stamps, the set is called Autumn Blessings. I used CTMH Chocolate Ink and colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. I stamped and colored the image twice, cut out one of them and used pop dots to attach the two images. Then I used my chocolate ink and brushed over the stamped section. The ribbon is from a ginormous pack that I got at Jo-Anns some time ago.

My husband is building me something that I can't wait to show everyone. Hopefully it will be finished and installed tomorrow and I will take pictures to show you. TFL!

Isn't this the cutest?

Every new Riley or Sophie stamp that comes out, I think it is the cutest one yet. I loved this one as soon as I saw him. I think that is also the quickest I have every inked a new stamp! He had ink on him within an hour of being at my house. I decided to use my numbers Cuttlebug embossing folder because it made me think of counting sheep. Riley was stamped with Palette ink and colored with Prisma markers, paper is DCWV and ribbon is from Hobby Lobby. I never know what to do with white areas on an image. If it is a snowman I put glitter on it, but anything else leaves me stumped. If I leave it uncolored I feel like I forgot something. I decided to color the slippers with a white gel pen and then to make it stand out a little more I used a gray marker to outline Riley. What do you do for white areas? I would love to hear your ideas. Thanks for stopping by!

Fall is in the Air!

I so very much love fall. The past several mornings it has been very cool in the mornings when I leave the house and I just love that weather: cool enough in the mornings and evenings to possible need a light jacket, but warm enough during the day to still wear flip flops and shorts! I made this card with some of my favorite fall colors. This scarecrow is from Hanna Stamps and is part of the Trick or Treat mini set. I stamped with Brilliance ink and then colored him with Prisma markers. I colored his overalls with a dark blue and then went over it with the colorless blender to give it more of a faded look. All the paper is from DCWV. The clip is from The Paper Studio and the ribbon is American Crafts I believe.

I have such lucky friends. My friend Angela won a $200.00 shopping spree from Hanna Stamps as a part of their one year birthday celebration. I am so jealous, but happy for her. She is a great person and friend, and she shares her stamps with me!! How lucky am I to have such a great friend? I hope everyone had a great weekend. See you soon.

Craft Room is finished!!

Happy World Cardmaking Day! I tied to convince Kip that it was a gift giving holiday but he didn't fall for it. To his credit though, he did go to Michael's with me yesterday and waited patiently while I looked through all the Prisma pencils to find the ones that I needed. I don't have a card to show you tonight though. I did get something quick done and some other images colored but my camera battery died.

However, I finished my craft room today! I feel like there should be royal trumpeters helping me make that announcement. I did get a couple of pictures before my batteries died. My space isn't technically a room, but it suits my needs pretty well. The previous owners of this house converted the garage into a small bedroom, bath and storage area. My crafting space is part of that area off of the laundry area. This is the view as you walk in:

That's the girls craft stuff on the right and my work space there just past the CD tower. Straight ahead is my aquarium. I kind of wish it wasn't there but it is too hard to move and I do enjoy watching the fish. Under the aquarium is where the girls keep their paper containers and their card making supplies. Here is my paper shelf:

All my papers on on there. The top has bins that has stickers, yarn and crochet patterns and books, material and some other odds and ends. My Stampin' Up stamps are also on this shelf as well as a box of miscellaneous wooden stamps. The bottom shelf are the girls projects and things that either require supervision or assistance. One thing I did a couple of weeks ago was to switch out my rolling desk chair from my computer desk with the straight back chair that was at my desk. Now I can roll around and grab what I need. After five back surgeries, I really needed that to be able to find the card stock without bending over. The shelf with the Cropper Hopper containers has all the patterned papers on it and the card stock is on the shelf below separated by color family. I do have one more photo but I will share it tomorrow. It was so dark you can't really see. Have a great night.

Card Folder

These are the folders that we will be making tomorrow night at church for our Craft Night. They will not all be the same colors but all this same style. We will also be making matching note cards that will go inside. I hope to have enough cards that each folder will have eight cards, already stamped with Happy Birthday, Thinking of you, Get Well and Thank you. We will also be including envelopes and stamps. Here is the inside:

I so wish I could take credit for this wonderful idea but that honor belongs to my so talented friend Julie. I am very happy to know so many talented people! When these are all finished we will be donating them to the Ladies Bible Class and they will be distributing them to some of our shut-ins and other people that aren't as able to get out and go shopping. Hopefully having some ready made cards will benefit them and those they choose to send them to. Someone on SCS mentioned to me that it would be better to not put the stamps on the envelopes because if the envelope was messed up the stamp would be wasted. I thought that was a great idea. We will add a couple of extra envelopes and then just put the stamps in the folder. If you live near here, I hope to see you tomorrow night!

Most all of the paper that we will be using is from either DCWV or The Paper Studio. The ribbon came from Wal-Mart. The stamp is SU and the ink is CTMH. Have a great night!

Gigi Giraffe

This is another stamp from Clear Dollar Stamps. The layout is from the Sketch Challenge today over at SCS. I rotated the original sketch to accommodate my giraffe. She was colored with Koh-I-Nor pencils. All the papers are from DCWV and the brads are from the Paper Studio. I am not sure about the ribbon, it came from my huge ribbon stash. I have been challenging myself lately, to use something on every card that I make, that I have had for a while. So far so good. For the longest time I would buy pretty ribbon all the time and never, ever used it! Not on cards or in scrapbooks. It just looked pretty in my basket. But I am using ribbon more now.

I am so tired so I am going to bed now! But before I go, I want to say, if you have never ordered from Clear Dollar Stamps before, go check them out. They have a lot of very cute stamps, good price and good quality and they ship super fast. Thanks for taking a look at my blog!