TIME TO KICK BACK!

Ah, summer! I've been thinking about vacation and next week we will be headed to the central Oregon coast for a 5-day respite, so I was inspired by ideas at two of my regular challenges: Tic Tac Toe and The Paper Players. Each of them had elements for me to borrow for this card.

I started this card by making a card base from an old sheet of  bright blue water printed card stock with glitzy bubbles printed along one side. I left off the bubbles for the card base but used them for a smaller die cut rectangular panel that I matted with yellow and white papers before attaching the layers to the face of the card. I white heat-embossed the sentiment and then constructed a summery cocktail from Tim Holtz's "Happy Hour" die set. I struggled to make a glass with vellum (because I wanted it to be transparent) and ended up using two layers of vellum, inserting the drink and accompaniments between the layers. I don't think it was totally successful, but I'm sharing it anyway!

The center row across - Layers/Free/Summer Colors:

TTTC274 - Featured Designer Design Team X - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

Paper printed with circles, as well as a slice of lemon:

The Paper Players: PP745 - A Theme Challenge from Stef

BIRTHDAY WISHES

I'm in need of a couple of birthday cards this week and decided to make two at the same time to save myself some grief. I was inspired by Color Throwdown Challenge #823 - kraft, fuscia, and orange. I made an A2 card base and matching envelope from some kraft paper I had in my stash.

I'm fond of the spotlight technique and stamped the Hampton Art #SC1013 flower-filled envelope with black ink twice - once on the face of the card and the second time on an extra scrap. I colored the scrap with markers, cut the image out with stitched die, and attached it over the uncolored image. the final step was to white heat emboss a PTI sentiment on a strip of black cardstock and glue it to the face. 

I finished the inside off with a small portion of the same image in black, die cut it with a rectangular stitched die, matted it with black cardstock, and attached it to the inside where I'll hand write a message, I lined the matching envelope with some fuscia-colored printed paper.

Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Challenge #836

OUR BIRTHDAY BOY

Our grandson hits the magic age of 16 in September and he'll be down to the DMV at 8:00 AM to take his driver's license test, and of course he'll pass. His dad has an older model silver-toned pickup truck that will become his "new" wheels. As far as his parents are concerned, it can't come a moment too soon because they're sick of running him, his twin sister, and younger sister back and forth between school and soccer practice. So, you can guess where I was going with this birthday card!

I started with a bunch of coordinating soccer papers by Authentique that I purchased last year before his 15th birthday. The pickup die set is new to me from Whimsy Stamps ("Truck Die Set" #WSD122) and I die cut the pieces from dull silver vellum and added bright silver accents, which don't show up very well with this photo. I got the idea that I wanted to cut an opening through the card base and background soccer field and slip a black and white photo of him inside the truck. Of course, he's hauling soccer balls and die cut numbers (PTI).

When the card is opened, there's his photo and die-cut sentiment (PTI) with more of the coordinating papers. I found a sheet of paper that's printed grass to use as lining in the black square envelope.

There are a couple of challenges I wanted to share this with:

NBUS because of the brand new truck die:

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #76

And the Pretty Papers challenge. I'm not sure how "pretty" these papers are, but they are definitely coordinated:

Love Those Pretty Papers Challenge: ATG Using Pretty Patterned Paper July 2025

 Challenge

JULY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are in July and our favorite Ghoul Friends have a new inspiration board for us at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge - actually, you're not required to use the board. It's there for your inspiration, but I usually like using it to get myself jump-started.

 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: July 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

I think you can see from my card that I definitely went with the lower right quadrant of the board! 

I die cut a deckled rectangle out of gray cardstock and then started assembling the scene with a variety of manufacturers' products. Using black ink from Memento I stamped a grassy knoll from Whimsy Stamps "Zombie Party" and a leafless tree from Newton's Nook "Spooky Street". I overlaid a moon that I had created from Tim Holtz's "Halftone Halloween" by stamping with grayish tones on  tan cardstock and then blending and die cutting it with circle die. I glued it to the face of the gray deckled rectangle and stamped the tree again. The bat is from Newton's Nook "Spooky Street" and the cat and pumpkin are from Unity "Toil and Trouble" - I stamped and colored them, fussy-cut them, and attached them to the face of the card with black dimensional foam. Finally, I attached all of this to a black card base and created a coordinating envelope, adding a sentiment and cat from LDRS Creative "Wicked" to the flap.  

It's now your turn! If we get to 25 entries the ladies can finally reward someone with the alien dies from Whimsy Stamps that have been hanging about for months!

And as long as we're on the subject of cats: Here are Tux and Tiger. Would you believe that these two boys were litter mates? It's hard to believe as they are so different - born to Chloe our calico a couple of years ago.

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

It's a very hot day today on this 1st day of July - what better thing to do than to hide myself away in my office/craft room and make a Christmas card? My inspiration today was over at Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge #90, where I was interested in the tall green and turquoise trees on the Christmas shelf at the right top quadrant. 

I had this partially made piece of a card from a couple of years ago - see the original here. I trimmed it down from a slimline size to fit on a standard A2 card base, matted it with a slightly larger white die cut rectangle, and added 3 miniature trees and a shooting star from Alexandra Renke's "Winter Village" die set. The trees and star were die cut from glitter cardstock.

Peace On Earth Christmas : Peace on Earth Challenge #90 

Added July 5, 2025:

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

And it is a beautiful day in my neighborhood as we finish out the month of June. It's been a minute since I posted any new work, so with today's post I'm hoping to get back into some sort of rhythm of card making again. Since I work a couple of months ahead on my duties as a Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge design team member, the last time I posted a non-Halloween card was actually May 18th! Hopefully today's post will get me back on track. 

I've been wanting to join the challenge over at Color Throwdown #835 in which we are challenged to use only the colors yellow, green, and turquoise + neutrals. I thought it would be fun to be literal with the photo and create my own row of Victorian houses.

These little houses are from PTI's "Winter Hills" stamp set. I stamped them with black ink on colored papers, fussy-cut them, and glued them over the top of a pre-stamped row of trees and gray-matted rectangular die. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things "Right at Home". 

                              Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Countdown #835

 

JUNE MID-MONTH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Back again with our mid-month reminder at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge!

This time around I used up the scraps of a page in the 12x12 Halloween stack that I made a card from at the first of the month. The main things in our mood board brought forward as inspiration are bats, cat, and witches.

I started by die cutting a circle from the printed orange paper, laid it over a rectangle of purple cardstock, and trimmed out the two layers with a stitched die cut rectangular panel. I black heat embossed the sentiment and the cat and matted it with the last bit of printed orange cardstock. I glued it to the face of a black card base and added the die cut Whimsy bats and witches. I used the same purple two-sided card stock for a coordinated envelope.

You still have 2 weeks to get your Halloween projects completed and shared with us:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: June 2025 Mid Month Reminder

Are you getting a bit tired of seeing these same cute Whimsy dies that the ladies have been trying to give away if we get at least 25 projects? I know I am. Well, let's get with it!

JUNE TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

WOW! The 6th month of 2025 has arrived, along with a new June mood board with some very cute images for your inspiration.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: June 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

You know how you can start a card with an idea and then end up with something completely different? That's what happened here - I was working on a card influenced by the top right quadrant of this month's mood board and the only thing that survived of the original idea was the colors!

In my final iteration, I started with a 12x12 printed sheet from  an American Crafts stack called "Boo Crew". I cut the sheet up, using only part of the overall printed image of a haunted house and nearby trees. I trimmed out a 5" square with the moon and attached it to a 5-1/2" side-folded card base and then overlaid the trees and pumpkins with black dimensional foam, adding more fussy-cut pumpkins and bats. The final addition was a die-cut sentiment from LDRS Creative (#8321 "Large Word Halloween") cut from the darkest orange portion of the sheet, and a custom envelope from a coordinating two-sided cardstock in the same stack. 

The ladies are still trying to award these cute dies from Whimsy Stamps if we can get 25 or more entries:

HOT STUFF

I've been contemplating the current Inkspirational Challenge - Designer's Choice - HOT and thinking to tackle the idea. Today was a perfect day to do that, because it's a bit too cool and wet to work out in the garden.

I have this really great rubber sunburst image from the vaults at Hero Arts that I've used once since I bought it and it seemed like the perfect place to start. I also had a postage die out on my desk and I decided to combine the two things together in some way. Then the idea hit me to add a '16' and make it into a card for my oldest granddaughter who will be turning 16 in a few months. 

I started with a white card base and a small scrap of the same stock. My postage stamp die cuts out a rectangle at the same time as the outline, making 2 pieces. I stamped the image on the scrap, colored it with my Copic markers, and stamped the tiny sentiment from Hero Arts #CM351. (The number 16 is from a very old sheet of Letraset transfer lettering - and when I say old, I really mean it! I have a bunch of these sheets from my graphic design days of 50 years ago.) After coloring the image and adding the sentiment, I die cut it with my postage die and discarded the outline of the die. I die cut a yellow rectangular panel, matted it with red-orange cardstock and added a PTI flourish with orange ink because I thought it was looking a bit bare. I also wanted to add an embellishment so decided to punch a rectangular hole at the top and thread some light blue twine through it. The final step was to cut out an opening on the back of the red-orange panel to reveal the colored image that I had glued to the face of the white card and attach it with some dimensional foam.

Here's a close-up of the image:

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #341 - Designer's Choice - HOT

Added 5/31/2025:

HOCUS POCUS

It's mid-May here at Two Old Bats and this is our reminder that you still have a couple of weeks to join in with my silliness.

You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about... You do the Hocus Pocus and you turn yourself around. That's what it's all about!

I know those aren't the correct lyrics, but when I started putting this card together, this is what I thought it looked like these guys were doing - either that or spelling out YMCA! Since I decided to use a new word die - Hocus Pocus - I've taken the liberty to change the lyrics to meet my silly mood.

I started this card with a horizontal A2 black card base. I added a rectangular bright pink printed cardstock and layered the printed skeleton paper over the top of that. I added the die cut LDRS Creative "Large Word Halloween" #8321 that I had cut from the pink cardstock and backed it with the black. The final step was to add a couple of googley eyes, a side-tied  bow of twine, and a coordinating envelope and treat box.

We haven't given away the cute Whimsy Stamps dies, so those are still available if we hit 25 or more entries - let's get with it!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: May 2025 Mid Month Reminder

Since this card features a large die cut sentiment, I'm going to share it with the others at the Word Power May Challenge:

Word Power: Word Power May 2025 Challenge

RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

Usually about this time in the year I start thinking about 4th of July cards. The last couple of years I've found myself too busy between trips out of town and all of the summer activities to discipline myself to make 30 cards. So I'm not really sure I'll be carrying through on this - and to be completely honest, I don't think we Americans have much to celebrate this year. I'll just leave it at that.

I was inspired by a couple of challenges - Color Throwdown#832 and CAS Colours & Sketches #560.

I started with a white card base and a stitched rectangular top panel. I stamped an old PTI fireworks image with light blue ink and over-stamped the sentiment from Hero Greetings #CM495 in dark blue. I cut our 4 1-1/2" squares from blue star and red & white stripe paper and mounted them above the sentiment. I matted the stitched panel with dark blue card stock, added a silver sequin star and pale blue gem stone, and made a coordinating envelope.

These are the challenges that inspired me:

Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Challenge #832

CAS Colours & Sketches: Challenge #560 - sketch

RUDE BIRTHDAY WISHES

"R is for Rude" - that's what challenge #262 is this month for The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers where I am May's reigning queen! You can see that Edna stands ready to pass judgement on the level of rudeness of all of our cards:

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #262 - R is for Rude

This card started with a top-folded white card base onto which I stamped the first Tim Holtz Snarky Cat in the upper left corner in black ink. Then I masked him off and stenciled the background with PTI "Stormy Sea" dye ink, using a Tim Holtz stencil, and colored him. Then I stamped, colored, and fussy-cut the remaining three cats. The one in the center was glued directly to the card face, along with the sentiment ( Unity Stamp Company "Purr-ty Cats"). The final step was to add the last two cats at each side with a bit of dimensional foam. I also prepared a custom envelope and lined it with a piece of white paper that I stenciled using the same Tim Holtz stencil.

My son will be getting this card early next month on the event of his 51st birthday! AND because this card features both stencilling and birthday wishes, I'm sharing it with the gang over at Seize the Birthday (my spellcheck doesn't like that spelling of stencilling, but I checked the dictionary and it's acceptable).

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday # 304

MAY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

May has arrived here in Blogland and our favorite ghoul friends have posted a new inspiration board that is sure to interest you! Here we are back at a pink theme, but this time I came armed! 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: May 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

I was drawn to the cupcakes in the lower right quadrant - especially since I have a brand new-to-me stamp set from Newton's Nook Designs (#NN2008S07 "Spooky Roundabout") that I got to play with. I used a black 5-1/2" square card as my base. I trimmed a piece of pink card stock to 5-1/4" square and stamped the "roundabout" image on it with black ink. I stamped the same image a second time on white heavy paper and fussy cut all of the ghosts and skeletons from it and glued them to the pick card, The rest of the images in the circle were colored with Copic markers. The final layer of the card is a black 5" square with a circle die cut from the center and laid over the pink square. The sentiment was white heat embossed onto a strip of orange and magenta striped print paper and inserted into the side of the die-cut circle. I used a bit of white gel pen for bats' eyes and the tips of the candy corn. The "cute & creepy" was a white heat embossed afterthought.

I made a custom square envelope with black heavy paper and lined it with the same orange and magenta stripe I used for the sentiment.

Today's treat box is  brought to you by the color pink! The ghost is a sticker that I adhered to a scrap of cardstock and fussy cut. I die cut a couple of circles (black and the orange/magenta), attached all to the box plus a couple of die cut bats, and tied off with magenta and orange twine from my stash.

Additionally, over at Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge, one of the diagonal choices from the Featured Designer Jeanie is "Die Cut/Patterned Paper/Treat Holder". My little Ghirardelli Halloween treat box certainly fits within that with the die-cut bats and circles - one with patterned paper.

TTTC269 - Featured Designer Jeanie - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Speaking of pink, how about this Oklahoma Red Bud tree in my front yard? As I've often commented about here on my blog, we tore out a lot of grass in our front yard and replaced it with a smaller patch and native pollinator plants. It was finished last summer and this year the grasses and shrubs from last year are starting to bloom. This is the second year of our red bud tree and it's been glorious! We also have purple sage and paprika-colored yarrow just about to open up - can't wait to see it all in bloom at once!