HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

It's here, it's here, it's finally here! Halloween has finally arrived. If you are celebrating, have fun and be safe! My card today is for the Riley and Company Orange and Black challenge. I left Riley a little pale with very little shading since he has gone all goth with this image. I gave him some little diamond stud earrings and then added that skull and crossbones from Recollections. I don't remember where the paper came from, it was actually from a Halloween or two ago and I have been holding on to it.

I can't wait to see all the little trick or treaters in their costumes tonight. This is the first place that I have really ever lived that has lots of trick or treaters too and I love it. I remember my first apartment after I moved to Nashville, there were several kids around so I got my outside all decorated, bought tons of candy, got ready to pass it out and I had exactly one trick or treater. After we got married I asked Kip if there were a lot that came by here and he didn't know since he was normally gone to a party. I was thrilled to have so many.

Have a great halloween!!

Twelfth Day of Halloween!

Here is my final post for the Twelve Days of Halloween challenges with Simply Betty Stamps. And just like last year, I had a great time playing along with these fun, daily challenges. Anytime I can pull out the Halloween papers and embellies I have fun. Image is from Simply Betty, colored with Copics and the papers and bats are from K & Co and the ribbon from my stash.

On the twelfth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me,

Twelve bats a flying,

Eleven casks a-leaning,

Ten ghouls a groaning,

Nine ghosts a booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters,

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I had so much fun today. I went with a friend and her daughter to a cooking class at the Viking Cooking store where we learned to make pasta doughs and sauces. Yummy! I took a couple of pictures that I will try and post tomorrow.

Enjoy your Halloween tomorrow!!

Day 11 of Simply Betty's 12 Days of Halloween

I have another Simply Betty project to share with you today. I can't believe tomorrow is Halloween. We had a fun time last night with some friends and family at our Halloween Bash. I tried something new, I made some black bean burgers. I have one vegetarian friend and instead of buying some frozen ones I wanted to try and make them. I didn't think that many people would eat them so I planned on freezing some to have some quick lunches on hand. But they all got eaten! We made three kinds of burgers and they were the first plate to disappear. I will be making those again.

On to today's project! Our inspiration from the Simply Betty Blog:

On the eleventh day of Halloween

My true love gave to me,

Eleven casks a-leaning,

Ten ghouls a groaning,

Nine ghosts a booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters,

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I used this Edward Scissorhands image from the Burton Chibi line. When I saw casks, it made me think of a science lab and that make me think of this image. I love the Edward Scissorhands movie, but it makes me really sad. the image is Simply Betty, papers are from Martha Stewart and the border is from K & Co.

One more challenge post to go and then my Twelve Days of Halloween will be complete!

Tenth Day of Halloween

On the Simply Betty Blog:

On the tenth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Ten ghouls a groaning,

Nine ghosts a booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters,

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I thought this mummy image would be perfect for my groaning ghoul. If you look close, that background paper is full of the eyes of lots more ghouls!

Nine Ghosts A-Booing

Just a quick Saturday post from me today. We have until the 30th to load all of our 12 Days of Halloween projects on the Simply Betty Blog so I will be back today and then in the morning with the last of my entries. This have been another fun round of Halloween challenges! On to today's poetic inspiration:

On the ninth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Nine ghosts a-booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Six pumpkins a glowing,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I know that cat looks like he has been spooked by something. Probably all those ghosts in the background! Image from SImply Betty Stamps, colored with Copics, ghost from K&Co. and I am drawing a blank on the papers right now.

Gotta run, I am teaching a Copic class today then back home to get ready for our Halloween Bash tonight!!

Eight Monsters Shrieking!

That's right it is day 8 of the Simply Betty 12 Days of Halloween challenge. Only 4 more challenges to go! And what fun these challenges have been too.

One the eighth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

If you look there are other little monsters in the background paper behind my main image!!

Simply Betty Day 6

I am back with my day 6 project for the Simply Betty 12 Days of Halloween challenge. I still don't know what got on the first one I made, but it was pretty much all across that purple panel. Fortunately I didn't have to start over again, I was just able to redo that one panel. Here is the poem for our challenge:

One the sixth day of Halloween,

My true love gave to me

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

My image is from Simply Betty Stamps and was colored with Copic markers, the papers, little goblins and the sentiment are all from K& Co. and the brads are from Jo-Ann's.

Halloween--Day 7

Here I am with a second post today! And yes you are reading it right, I skipped from Day 5 to Day 7 of the 12 Days of Halloween! I didn't notice until I was loading the photo of my day 6 project, but it has a big smudge of some sort on it so I am going to redo that portion of my card. I will be back with day 6 tomorrow.

According to the Simply Betty blog:

On the seventh day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I used Pumpkin London for my card and colored her with Copics. Paper is from Martha Stewart, ribbon from Michael's and the jack-o-lanterns are from Reminisce.

Last Saturday I met some girlfriends for lunch and some shopping and those little pumpkins were one of the things I bought at a scrapbook store. I had to be good in there because I had already spent too much money at World Market. I love that store! I am of the opinion that you can never have too many dishes or stamps!

Have a great evening, My friend's daughter is here cooking with me. We are making chicken noodle soup for dinner and homemade twinkle-like cakes for dessert. Shhh, don't tell, but we already ate one of the cakes and dinner isn't ready yet.

Five Scary Spooks

And on the fifth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

This is my card for Simply Betty's 12 Days of Halloween challenge. My scary spook is standing in a hallway showing off the photos of the rest of her spooky family. I am a couple of days behind on posting my cards so I will be back with another card this afternoon after I get off work.

Kip and I use a shared calendar app on our phones and he was looking over the activities for the next few days. He noticed that I listed our Halloween Dinner as "Our Halloween Bash" and asked if it was really going to be a "bash" or if we were just having people over for dinner. I told we were just having a few people over but it just sounded more fun and festive to call it a bash!

Have a great day!

4th Day of Halloween with Simply Betty

On the Fourth Day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Four Skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I am back with my entry for the fourth day of Halloween with Simply Betty Stamps. It's not too late to play along if you want to join in on the fun. The image is from Simply Betty Stamps

and was colored with Copics, papers are from The Paper Studio and Target, skeleton hand is from K&Co. and the ribbon and buttons are from my stash. Aren't those dancing skeletons just too funny?

I am getting excited as Halloween gets closer and closer. I have been making candy and things for our yearly Halloween dinner with family and friends, the house is decorated and I have my treats ready to pass out. Add to that the fun of getting to play with all of my Halloween images and supplies and I am one happy crafter.

And on the 3rd Day of Halloween...

On the third day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Three black cats

Two trick or treaters and

An owl in an oak tree

I think I am as excited over Halloween every year as the children of some of my friends. I am getting the house all decorated, planning my Halloween dinner for friends and family and am having fun playing with all my Halloween supplies and participating in all the challenges, especially this one from Simply Betty. My card today uses Betty from the Emo Everyday line.

See you later!

On the Second Day of Halloween

One the second day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Two trick or treaters and

An owl in a rotten oak tree.

I am back with my second day's entry for the Simply Betty's 12 Days of Halloween. Aren't those little trick or treaters cute? I love seeing all the little ones come by my house every year, it's so much fun.

Gotta run, we are have a scary movie-a-thon at my house!

Simply Betty 12 Days of Halloween is Back!!!

I had so much fun playing along in this challenge last year and was very happy to see it back again this year. Each day there is a new challenge to play along with. I love, love, love Halloween so these challenges are so much fun. It's not too late if you want to play along, info is here.

On the first day of Halloween......My true love gave to me an owl in a rotten oak tree. I decided to use Zombie Christian for this challenge. The tree is a die cut using one of my favorite Sizzix dies and the papers are from K&Co. and The Paper Studio. The grave border punch is from Martha Stewart. I have three organizers full of Halloween papers, embellishments and ribbons. And almost no owls! Honestly, I think I have more Halloween supplies than Christmas supplies. It took me a while to find an owl to use and finally found it in the last bin in a pack of K& Co. Halloween stickers.

So that's my first day of Halloween Challenge card! Thanks for stopping by today.

Leaf Challenge

Good Morning! Well it is back to work for me today. Not only is it Monday, it is the Monday following an entire week off. I really do like my job, but being on vacation is better. It took me a while to get going this morning too. The current challenge on the Riley and Company challenge blog is to use a leaf or leaves on your card. I decided to use Scarecrow Riley from the Riley in Oz release.

Image is from Riley and Company, paper is K&Co. buttons and ribbon from my stash.

Have a great day!

Back from Vacation--Lots of Pics

Kip and decided to head out on vacation last week. I didn't have time to schedule some posts to go live while I was gone because I was too busy getting everything packed. Since we were both going to be gone, I didn't announce it anywhere online that we wouldn't be at home this week. After talking about it a bit, we decided to head out to Savannah, GA for a week long vacation. It was heavenly. We were both in dire need of a vacation and this one was pretty great. We had a nice mix of seeing new things, visiting new places, eating incredible food and getting in some relaxing time as well. We started out last Saturday morning and since we were passing through Chattanooga we met my sister and her husband and son for lunch. After enjoying our lunch with them we drove the rest of the way to Savannah.

Here are some of the random photos I took. I will add a little explanation of what they are. They are a little jumbled up and not really in the order that our vacation went!

This is a photo looking at at the River Walk area in Savannah. I have a thing about taking photos of fences and trees! I loved that brick work against the cement of the sidewalk with the brick buildings in the background.

One of the things that we did was drive out to Tybee Island. On the way back we stopped at Uncle Bubba's for dessert. We were still full from lunch but wanted to eat there so we sampled the Strawberry Shortcake and the Key Lime Pie. Everything we ate on vacation was fantastic and this was no exception. This was a photo I took just behind and to the side of the restaurant.

This is a photo of my feet in the ocean at Tybee Island. The very, very cold ocean. I just had to get my feet in there though!

Another fence picture! This was also on Tybee Island. I just loved those little yellow flowers and the zig zag fence on the sand.

This was walking out onto the pier area on Tybee.

This is one of those photos that I just happened to have the camera ready as that little bird took a drink of water from that pipe. Normally when I try to capture something like that on film I wind up with a big blur. I am very happy with this photo.

One of the park areas in Savannah.

The Cotton Exchange building with the griffin fountain in front.

The famous Waving Girl statue in Savannah.

The port area.

We had a fabulous time. It rained and was overcast the first couple of days we were there but all in all it was a great trip. We took a trolley tour around Savannah on the first day and then later in the week we took The Movie Tour to see some of the sites where movies have been filmed in Savannah. In addition to touring Savannah and driving out to Tybee Island we also drove to Hilton Head. While in Savannah, I found a fabulous kitchen store called Kitchens on the Square that I ended up shopping in on two separate days. My love for kitchen gadgets even exceeds my love of stamps and markers, so I was really in heaven in that store. I also love hot teas, and we founds a couple of stores that had some amazing tea blends that I was able to purchase. We headed home yesterday morning and then as we passed through Chattanooga this time we met my parents for dinner. Today we are just vegging out and trying to catch up on the laundry!

House Mouse Flag Card

Good Morning! I spent quite a bit of time this weekend coloring. Sometimes I will do that, I will just stamp or print a bunch of images and then just color. I have always loved coloring, with crayons, pencils or markers, it doesn't really matter, coloring is just relaxing for me. Most of the time now I use Copics when I color but sometimes I want to play with pencils. I am getting another box ready to send to a Marine friend in Afghanistan and thought this House Mouse image would be the perfect on to include on the accompanying card. When coloring House Mouse images I do tend to reach for my pencils more often than my Copics, I am not sure why either, but they are generally my first choice. Image is from House Mouse Stamps and was colored with Prismacolor pencils, paper is from The Paper Studio (I think) and the stars are from my stash.