Happy Halloween!

I forgot I had this one last Halloween project to post. I have been using my Copics so my that my Prisma pencils have been seriously neglected. I stamped this Halloween House Mouse with Memento ink and colored it with pencils. I decided to go with a non-traditional color scheme so I colored the butterfly costume to match the papers that I had chosen. This was a pretty simple and quick card. 

I had a pretty low key Halloween. Kip had to work today so we didn't have any plans. He won the costume contest at his work though! Anyone else do anything exciting? Have a great night everyone and don't forget to set your clocks back.

Twisted Thursday Challenge-Add a Pumpkin

Wow, I am barely sneaking in with this Twisted Thursday Challenge! The twist on the provided sketch was to use a pumpkin on your project. I don't have any fall or Halloween images from Shirley's 2 Girls (yet!) and it took me a while to come up with an idea that would allow me to incorporate a pumpkin. I decided to play around with the colors with this set and make her into a green skinned witch--yea a reason to use a pumpkin! So I started with this great paper that came from Target's Dollar Spot and cut out the pieces that I would need to complete the sketch that we were provided. I stamped the image with Memento ink and colored with Copic markers. I cut out the images and adhered it to the card using foam dots. Those little pumpkins are from a set of stamps that I got at Michael's a very long time ago. They were stamped directly onto orange paper and then cut out and added to the corners of my card. Speaking of needing to get some of the great Halloween and Fall images from S2G, I need to do it before the end of the month while the Halloween images are on sale!

Mermaid

Good afternoon! First of all I want to thank everyone for their kind comments on my projects for the S2G Blog Hop. That was so much fun! And for inquiring minds that want to know, Kip is still asking where the cookies are! My card tonight uses a mermaid set from CC Designs. Each piece was stamped, colored with Copic markers and then cut out. I used some Cinnamon Stickles for the sparkle in her hair and some liquid pearl paint for the pearls around her waist and on her headband. I took a piece of watercolor paper and using Twinkling H20 paints, painted my watery background and sandy bottom. Not sure what colors I ended up with here, I mixed several shades of blue to get one that I was happy with. After getting that the way I wanted, I started assembling my scene. The rocks, clown fish and one of the angel fish were added directly to the painted panel, one angel fish was added with a thin piece of foam tape and the mermaid was added with a thicker pop dot. I wish I had thought to take a picture from the side so you could see the dimension a little better. To finish my card, I used some sheer gold ribbon from Hobby Lobby and some brads from my stash. Paper is from DCWV. Thanks to my friend Angela for letting me borrow this stamp! Have a great night!

S2G Blog Hop!

Welcome to the 1st S2G Members Blog Hop sponsored by Shirley's2Girls! If you've just happened upon my blog, you can CLICK HERE to start from the beginning at the S2G Challenge Blog. Hopefully, you have arrived here from Tiffany's blog, if not, join in the fun and start from the beginning.
My card uses the adorable Mouse and Cookies stamp from Shirley's 2 Girls. I actually bought this one because it made me think of my husband, he loves cookies more than just about anything. In fact as I was posting my pictures he noticed there were cookies in the jar and he kept asking where the cookies were. The image is great to go with holiday baking gifts. I stamped the image and then colored it with Copic and Prisma markers. the tray and cookies were stamped twice and then I cut one out and then layered it with some thin foam tape. The scalloped circle behind the image was punched out with a Marvy punch and then I used white dimensional paint to mimic the look of an iced cookie. 
For the holidays, I will actually bake cookies to fill my jars. I used the same image and supplies for my cookie jar. The cookie paper is from Hobby Lobby, the card stocks are from DCWV and the ribbon and rick-rac are both from Jo-Ann's. Here is a picture of the gift jar with the card together:
How about a prize? In addition to the fabulous eye candy, we have decided to hide a prize somewhere along the hop! One pre-selected blogger will draw a random winner from the comments on her post, and the winner will receive a free stamp from Shirley’s2Girls. The fun part is...we're not telling you who it is! So as you hop, make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!! We will announce the winner on Monday in the SNR S2G Forum.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to hop on over to Charlene! 

Halloween Notecard

I needed a couple of quick Halloween notecards to send out this week and decided to go with something a little more simple that didn't have to be colored. I used paper that I got from the Dollar Spot at Target and them plain black and orange card stocks from DCWV. I do not know the maker of this stamp. when I bought it last year, the writing on the label had been worn off and you can't read it. That smile is just too cute though, isn't it? To finish it off, I added some ribbon that I purchased from Michael's. This did end up being very easy to reproduce!

Quick post tonight, I am helping the girls with some Halloween and birthday projects and they are calling for my attention! Thanks so much for stopping by and I love reading all the encouraging comments that have been left for me.

Hanna Fans Blog Hop

Good evening! Here is my card for the first ever Hanna Fans Blog Hop! I actually made this card as part of a gift set that I will be giving a friend just before Thanksgiving. The card uses Chimney Riley and the image was stamped with Memento ink and then colored with Copic markers. I used  white Fun Flock on the Santa suit and Liquid Applique on Riley's beard. The snow is a combination of Liquid Applique and chunky glitter from Martha Stewart. All papers are from a Hobby Lobby paper pack, sentiment is from Studio G, and the button is Making Memories.
This is also part of the gift. It is an altered coffee tin that I covered in the same paper from Hobby Lobby, white card stock and plaid ribbon from Jo-Ann's. I used this adorable Elf Hanna that I colored with Copic Markers, a Spica pen and a silver gel pen. After coloring everything, I cut it out. I stamped the fireplace and drew in my floor directly on my scalloped oval and then added Hanna when I was ready to decorate the tin. My friend that is getting this has three small children and she loves to do different activities with them. On each piece of the rolled paper, I have written and activity for the family to do and there is one for each day from Thanksgiving until Christmas. Some examples of activities: make cookies, make a card to send to a service person, call or visit a relative that lives far away, and draw a picture to give a friend. 

Instead of sending everyone in this family an individual gift, I send family gifts. So in addition to the tin of activities, I will also send a box with supplies to do most of the activities. They are also game lovers so I will include a gift card to a toy store so that they can pick out a new game. I made the gift holder with the same paper pack and the image is done the with the same supplies as the card above.

Thanks for stopping by! The next stop on the hop is Jacquie. Here is the entire list of participants:

1. Frances http://stampowl.blogspot.com/
2. Cindy http://cindyhaffnerscorner.blogspot.com/
3. Silke http://silli-silli.blogspot.com/
4. Sandra http://paperfuntastics.blogspot.com/
5. KelliJo http://mommachull.blogspot.com
6. Mary http://alatteinkinfun.blogspot.com/
7. Gina http://ginasmakingsandmusings.blogspot.com/
8. Jacquie http://jacquiemakescards.blogspot.com
9. Kimberley S http://faerietaleswithpaper.blogspot.com/
10. Jen http://designsbyboo.blogspot.com/
11. Maria http://www.riacreations.blogspot.com/
12. Jackie http://stampingsister.blogspot.com
13. Joycelyn http://stampsncoffee.blogspot.com/
14. Joy http://daiseyfreak.blogspot.com/
15. Tracey http://www.trays-spot.blogspot.com/
16. Sparks http://sparklecreations.blogspot.com
17. Lorie http://www.thethinkinspot.blogspot.com/
18. Tanya http://lovepapernstamp.blogspot.com/
19. Laurie http://stampinvirgo5.blogspot.com/
20. Bek http://www.bloomingpink.blogspot.com
21. Janet www.corrosivecreationsbyjanet.blogspot.com
22. Kelly http://sandcastlestamper.blogspot.com/
23. Michele www.enchantedstamper.blogspot.com
24. Angela http://inmyquiettime.blogspot.com

Captain Kangaroo Day

The challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum today was to make a card to celebrate an obscure October Holiday. I googled a list of October holidays and saw that Captain Kangaroo day was on October 3rd. No doubt about it, that was going to be my holiday, I didn't even read the rest of the list. I was a huge fan of the Captain Kangaroo show, I had a serious crush on Mr. Green Jeans, couldn't wait to see the little family that lived behind the books on the bookshelf, and sang along with the "Now you know my name is Simon, and the things I draw come true...". So yes, my card had to honor the greatest show my childhood. I started with School Riley and colored him with Copics, added some Glossy Accents to the glasses and cut out only the top part of Riley. Since Mr. Moose was a puppet, he was always behind a shelf so I tucked him behind the brown paper along with his friend Bunny Rabbit. If you aren't familiar with the show, Mr. Moose was always trying to trick the Captain into saying something that would cause ping pong balls to rain down, often involving a knock-knock joke and Bunny Rabbit was always trying to get carrots. I punched out a bunch of "ping pong balls" with a regular hole punch, some are glued directly onto the paper and others were added with pop dots. The papers are DCWV, ribbon is American Crafts, the button is Making Memories and I used some green DMC embroidery floss.

Not quite sure who will end up getting this card! I think I will give it to my Mom because during my days of loving Mr. Green jeans, she bought me a pair of green jeans and had to wash them a lot because I wanted to wear them every day. Wonder if she will remember all that, based on this card? 

I think this is one of those times that my being a couple of years older than Kip really comes out. He didn't remember all these characters! Not only did he get a very detailed description, but I also managed to find some clips on You Tube and made him watch them. It's a good thing he loves me so much, because sometimes he thinks I am a little weird, I mean unique! If you remember Captain Kangaroo, leave me a comment letting me know what your favorite character or segment was.

What's New??

Wow, I actually got to play along with a Twisted Thursday challenge on a Thursday! Usually I am not home and don't have crafting time until the weekend. The twist this week was to use chipboard along with the sketch that was provided. I looked at the sketch this morning and I had kind of planned out what I wanted to do and what stamp I wanted to use. I knew I wanted to use chipboard buttons on those circles. But, when I sat down to make my card, I had no chipboard buttons. I did, however, have these chipboard circles that have monograms on one side. I flipped them to the blank side and used Pebbles Metallic Chalks to color them the color I wanted them to be and then used my Crop-a-dial to punch the holes. Viola, I had chipboard buttons!! I tied twine in the center of each "button" before adding them to my circles. The main image, the sentiment and the paw prints are all from the same S2G set, What's New, which was my first S2G set I ever bought. My image was colored with Copic markers and the papers are from the DCWV Pet Stack. 

I am off work tomorrow, so I am hoping to have a lot of craft time. Well what I really need to be doing is working on the soon to be craft room! I am making progress. I can't believe I moved with so much stuff. I blame it on the fact that we had such a short engagement, I only had nine weeks to plan a wedding, who had time to pack! Finally, I am unpacking all those boxes and finding so many treasures. I have also found some kitchen items that I knew I was missing so that has been a good thing. Thanks for stopping by!

Woo-hoo!!!!

First, my exciting news and then on to the deets of my card. Yours truly will be taking a Copic certification class in November! I am so very excited about this too, I can't wait. I will be driving quite a distance to take the class and it happens to be the weekend before Thanksgiving, so I am thinking of taking that entire week off work and spending time visiting family along the way. Today's card uses the Flutter Anya from The Greeting Farm and the image was colored with Copic markers. I added a little bit of glitter on the hearts that are on her wings. Papers are DCWV, the ribbon is American Crafts and the butterflies came from my stash. I am still deciding on the butterflies. Every have one of those parts of a card that you just aren't sure of? One time I look at them and really like them and the next, they kind of make me shake my head. Let me know what you think of them!

Jenna (10) and Samantha (7) were over here today and we had a great time playing in the craft room. We had a great time stamping and coloring. Normally they like making cards, but this afternoon was all about stamping and coloring. Samantha crafts with me a lot more than her sister and she also goes to our craft night at church with me so she has heard me explain the basics of coloring and blending with Copics many times. It was so cute to listen to her explain everything to Jenna and calling out the numbers of the colors to color Riley stamps with. Too cute to hear her say " you need to add some E35 there for some shadow"! They are as excited as I am about the new crafting space that we are working on. Thanks for visiting!

Brown and..challenge

I haven't had a chance to play along with the challenges at Stamp Something in a while. The challenge this week was to use brown and another color. I chose to use brown and green. I started with this fall image from Whiff of Joy and colored it with Copic markers. I sprinkled some Autumn Flower Soft at her feet to add some color and to finish off the image panel, I used a pale yellow CTMH ink sponged around the image. The green background paper is from DCWV, as are both the tan and brown card stocks. I used a Fiskars border punch for my scalloped border. The ribbon was purchased at Target, they don't carry it anymore though. I really liked that ribbon, it is very soft and makes the prettiest bows and you got a lot of it for around $3.00. This stamp is actually my friend Angela's that she was kind enough to share with me. I haven't bought any of these stamps yet and so she let me try some of hers to make sure I liked coloring them. I love having a stamping friend to share with, not only do we sometimes share supplies but we also share ideas, tips and techniques with each other.

Another reason I will be very happy to have my new crafting space is that I will once again have a computer in my crafting space. I have really missed that, it's hard to watch tutorials or follow detailed directions when the computer is upstairs on one side of the house and the craft room is downstairs, on the opposite side of the house. Sometimes when I sit down to blog, I have forgotten the name of name of a stamp set or a product that I used. Thanks for stopping by!

You Only Live Once

Here is my entry for the Shirley's 2 Girls Twisted Thursday Challenge. The twist this week was to use metal on your cards in addition to the sketch provided. I used the S2G set You Only Live Once, stamped it with Memento ink and then colored the image with Copic markers and a Sakura glitter pen. The sentiment was stamped with CTMH Desert Sand ink. My metal photo turns, brads and the flowers are all from Jo-Ann's and the papers are DCWV. I won the challenge last week, I was so excited. I am really loving these images, the more I use them the more I like them. My wish list just keeps growing longer and longer!

Well, it has begun. What has begun? The moving of the crafting space. We are redoing the downstairs den with my crafting space and Kip's favorite forms of entertainment--the TV, Playstation and XBox are all going to have a new home soon. We decided that this will give up both more room than we currently have and allow us to spend more time together. I am so excited about the space but not so much about the part of actually moving everything. My parents were visiting this weekend and Mom helped me get started. We made some good progress. I hate to admit it, but there were still boxes from when I moved in after we got married. Yes, we have been married almost four years and there were still boxes that needed to be unpacked. Another thing that I am excited about is the fact that when we are finished, I will have extra space so that friends can come over and stamp with me, in my craft room!! Thanks for stopping by and have a great start to your week.

Halloween Poppers

The challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum on SCS is Trick or Treat, I made these Halloween Poppers that can be filled with treats. My image is Vampire Riley from from Hanna Stamps. I made them basically the same way you would make Christmas Poppers, but I cut them a little smaller. One of the reasons I did this is because I thought that a bunch of these on a platter would look like those peanut butter candies that are wrapped in the orange and black papers. My image was colored with Copic markers and then punched out with a Marvy scalloped oval. Due to the size of the popper, I didn't have enough room to add a backing piece of paper so I took a marker in the color that I wanted to use and then used the brush tip to go into the grooves of the scallops. The ribbon is from Wal-Mart.

To make these, I used a cardboard tube (paper towel or toilet paper roll) and I cut my tubes into 2 1/2 pieces. I measured out my papers to the length that would completely cover the tube and slightly overlap. For the width, I  measured 3 inches past the ends and cut there. As a general rule, I just kind of eyeball this step. If I am using longer tubes, such as a full size toilet paper tube, I will make the ends about half the length of the tube. You will need to add about 1/2 inch to what you have decided to make those sides, that much will be used when you bring in the sides to tie your bow. This does not work very well with card stock unless it is very thin, DP works better. I had bought some cheap card stock for this project and it is very thin and easy to work with. After adhering the covering, I gathered up one side and tied my ribbon. This is the point that you will fill your popper. After you have added your goodies and tie the other side closed. Then decorate them if you want and you are done. If my directions don't make sense or if you have any questions, feel free to email me and I will try to explain it a little better!

Little black dress

Since I had that teal paper out from the color challenge, I decided to try another card with it. Teal is not a color I use very often and if I do, it is not normally this bright of a teal. I started with the dress stamp from Stampabilities and embossed it with  black embossing powder. I wanted to created some texture and some extra shine so as soon as I embossed with the black I sprinkled some glittery embossing powder on top of the black and then heated it again. In person, it has a cool effect that I couldn't quite capture in the photograph. The sentiment is a SU stamp that was stamped using CTMH Ocean ink. The papers and brads are from The Paper Studio. All in all a pretty simple card, but I like it. Have a great night!

Color Challenge

I made this card for the October release challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum on SCS. The challenge was to use the colors rust, olive and teal on a card. Now, the rust and olive were easy, adding teal was not! I so rarely work with that color that I was surprised to even find a piece of teal card stock in my paper stash. I started with the Farmers stamp from Hanna Stamps, stamped it with Memento and colored it with Copics and Prisma markers. The ovals were cut out with scalloped oval Nestabilities, the papers are from DCWV and the ribbon is from my stash. Well, I am off to grab a healthy snack and then to play along with the Hanna Stamps release party!

Caroling Cats

This is my card for the Shirley's 2 girls Twisted Thursday Challenge. There is a sketch provided and then a twist--this week it was to use the sketch and twine or raffia on your card. When I read the challenge, the post says that the DT will be using cats on their projects and for some reason the cat part of that stuck in my head so I thought I had to use cats too. Next time I will read a little closer! I only have one S2G stamp that has cats on it so I used it, but I cut the cats out so that they would fit with the sketch. We have three cats here at our house so I colored them to look like two of them. Images were stamped with Memento ink and colored with Copic and Spica makers and I used a white gel pen to make the strips on the orange cat. The Christmas tree is from Inky Antics and was stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink and colored with Copics. I used some red seed beads on the wreath and the tag is a Cuttlebug die. I bought that patterned paper when I first started making cards, it was a giant pack of Christmas papers and I love them, I can't remember who made it though, card stock is Making Memories. 

We have had a great weekend, hope you have too. Kip built a compost bin for our backyard and I managed to get some things done around the house. We have been eating healthier for the past couple of weeks which means time sent planning meals, shopping, food prep and cooking all our meals. It has gotten easier with each week and I try to do as much of the food prep as I can on the weekends to save as much time as I can during the week. I think I chopped about 10 onions today, but that is the only time I will have to chop them all week. On the menu tonight; chicken fajitas and it's time to get them started. Thanks for dropping by!

World Card Making Day

I tried to convince Kip that this was a holiday that he was supposed to buy me a gift for, but he didn't fall for it. I think this would be the perfect time to add to my Copic collection! I hope you had a good one, and kudos to you if you talked someone into buying you a gift.I spent more time sorting through craft supplies than actually creating with them. We had craft night at church last night so I had to put everything away that I took. Someone gave me several boxes of craft stuff a month or so ago and I was sorting through all of that too. My card tonight uses the CTMH set Little Spooks. I stamped with Memento ink and then colored with Copic and Prisma markers. I distressed the edges and rubbed some ink on the edges to make it look a little more aged. Those great papers came from the dollar spot at Target. I used one of the girls' little spiders on my folded up corner. 

We had a great craft night last night. We played with Copics and traded tips and techniques for working with them. It was great to have a couple of new faces there too! Enjoy the rest of the weekend.