FranmadeInOregon
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
DOUBLE DOUBLE TOIL...
Saturday, October 11, 2025
BACK AMONG THE LIVING!
It's been almost a month since I've made a new card and posted it here. The last two weeks of September and into October are a bit of a blur. The family gathered at a local eatery on the 14th to celebrate our twins' sixteenth birthday (they actually turned sixteen on the 9th, but like I have said, September is birthday month and very busy). And four days later we all started dropping like flies with a nasty flu. Well, we thought it was flu, but then my daughter-in-law and I both tested positive for COVID and the month went downhill from there. I was sick through both my husband's and my birthdays and finally came out the other side on October 4th for a large, combined celebration of our birthdays and 40th anniversary with 40 of our closest friends and family - then I went back to bed!
So, I think a zombie card is called for here! The latest challenge at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is "S is for Spooky". While Edna is sporting fangs, blood, and a Dracula cape, I went with the drippy blood from the mouth of zombies. And they're spooky for sure!
I stamped the bottom third of Whimsy Stamp's "Zombie Faces Background" #DDB0064 onto a scrap of white cardstock and fussy cut the bottom rows of zombies out and colored their mouths with a red marker. Then I white heat embossed the sentiment from Tim Holtz on a black and gray patterned paper, matted it with a fine line of dark red, and attached it to a dark gray folded card base. The final step was to attach the zombies to the face of the card with dimensional foam.
Here's a link to the challenge:
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #267 - S is for Spooky
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
OCTOBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE
Here we are in the final countdown to Halloween 2025! How did we get here so fast? We have a brand new mood board for our final month.
Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: October 2025 Anything Goes Halloween
Monday, September 15, 2025
CUP O' CATS
It's mid-September, with Halloween bearing down on us! But, not to worry, you still have a couple of weeks to get your "Anything Halloween" project entered at Two Old Bats September Halloween Challenge.
I started this card with an unused black 5-1/2" square custom envelope, an unused die cut pumpkin cup from my stash (Trinity Stamps #TMD-088 "Boo Brew"), and the idea of cats and pumpkins as shown on our inspiration board. Add to that a challenge at Just Us Girls with the word prompt "Container", and voila, a cup O' spooky cats!
Here's our September inspiration board for a kick-start if you haven't started working on your Halloween project yet - also, go and check out the great cards the other ladies have made for your inspiration:
Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: September 2025 Mid Month Reminder
Sunday, September 7, 2025
A BIT OF BARNYARD H-EWE-MOR
Starting the day with a bit of humor is always therapeutic! Yesterday the Snarky Sisterhood announced their September theme - "F is for Finally Fall". That definitely has my vote! September is my favorite month, but that's most likely because practically everyone in my family has a September (or June) birthday. It starts on the 9th with my twin grands' birthdays, followed by my husband's, followed by mine, followed by our son and his wife's anniversary. My father also had a September birthday.
I recently purchased this very silly stamp set from Whimsey Stamps ("So Weird" #CWSD473) filled with barnyard animals and humorous sentiments. I really had no plans for how I would use it. Be prepared to see these great weird animals again off and on. But when I started on this card I used a couple of old stamp sets to complete my idea. The sentiment is from an old fall Impression Obsession set (#WP683 "Leaf Set").
I started with an ancient flurry of leaves (probably Inkadinkado) that I stamped in yellow, orange, and rust inks for a background. Then I cut the "EWE" off of one of the Whimsey Stamps sentiments and stamped it in black over the leaves. (I have a bad habit of cutting out individual words, and then sometimes they get lost.) Then I masked out the single word and over-stamped the old IO sentiment. It was a lucky stroke that they happened to match pretty much in font size. The ewe was stamped upside down over the leaves and the card stock was trimmed out with a stitched rectangular die. I matted the die-cut panel with a bit of brown card stock and attached the layers to the front on my white card base. Finally, I stamped my ewe a second time, fussy cut her body, and attached it to the face of the card with dimensional foam.
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #266 F is for Finally Fall
Thursday, September 4, 2025
LOOKING FORWARD TO FALL
Monday, September 1, 2025
SEPTEMBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE
It's the beginning of September and we're starting the countdown toward Halloween - just 60 more shopping days left! If you've been following along with us all year, you have nearly all of your Halloween cards or projects completed.
Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: September 2025 Anything Goes Halloween
ON OR IN THE WATER
That's the theme this week over at the Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge. I was digging through my stash and came across this heat embossed and blended panel left over from a previous experiment long ago.
For this card, I just overprinted a couple of dolphins from a Hero Arts (#CM317) stamp set. Of course, the heat embossing repelled the ink, making the dolphins look like they're "in the water". I stamped a third one, fussy cut him, and attached him over the waves with tiny pieces of dimensional foam after stamping a tiny sentiment and adding the panel and matting to a white card base. A bit of touch up with a Copic marker and white gel pen was in order. So easy, and one more scrap cleaned out of the stash!
Also in my stash was a sheet of white wood-grained paper for a custom envelope - I think wood-grain often looks water-like - and scraps of a blue nautical-themed paper for lining.
Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge Blog: SOS555 - On or In The Water
Sunday, August 31, 2025
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER CARD!
I'm playing with challenges again today, and using the layout at Freshly Made Sketches #701 - A sketch by Jen and the colors by Seize the Birthday #312 - Black & White.
Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #701 - A Sketch by Jen B
Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #312-Black and White
Saturday, August 30, 2025
2ND POST OF THE DAY!
Well, this was fun - I think I'm on a roll! This time I'm inspired by two challenges - Color Throwdown #839 and Inkspirational Challenge #349 - "Add a Tag".
The colors for Color Throwdown are obviously aqua, red, and white! I did add a tiny bit of silver on the sentiment and the center of the poinsettia. The tags are really old dies and I don't remember who manufactured them. I stacked two shapes together, punched a hole in the top, and tied some aqua bakers twine through the hole. I attached the tags to the face of a white card base that I had silver heat-embossed with a sentiment - I glued dimensional foam to the back of the tags so that I could slip small die cut leaves behind. The foliage and floral dies are from Spellbinders "Christmas Blooms". I believe I purchased these sometime last year, but I don't think I've used all of the images before.
Links to the two challenges:
Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Countdown #839
Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #349 - Designer's Choice - Add A Tag
HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS
I remembered that I had this old PTI "Songbirds" stamp and die set that I haven't used for quite some time, and that seemed appropriate as I play with a new-to-me Tim Holtz die set (#666715 "Vault Festive Wreath"). I wanted this card to have an old-fashioned and textural look to it and used some pieces of kraft wood-textured card stock for the background and wreath base. Rather that use bright green foliage, I opted for some green stripe printed stock. The candles and banner are die cut from heavy ivory watercolor paper scraps.
Friday, August 15, 2025
HAPPY HALLOWEEN - EEEK!!
For this card, I had some bits and pieces from a previous attempt that I never used and they've been languishing in my stash for a couple of years. I love it when I can use up old scraps and reorganize them! I started with a printed image that I had fussy-cut from some really old printed cardstock. It seemed appropriate for this month's challenge, although it is a bit creepier than the skull and flowers our leaders have included in the mood board. I thought it would be fun to stamp the sentiment onto a band of red-orange paper and thread it through the eye socket - YUCK, creepy! I prepared a side-folded pale gray card base and then picked up some of the colors of the bird/skull image - mauve textured die cut stitched rectangle, aubergine die-cut filigree frame, and red-orange mat. The skull, raven, and sentiment were attached to the card front with dimensional foam.
Monday, August 11, 2025
DONNA'S BIRTHDAY
We're sitting here in record-breaking heat today - 107 degrees F yesterday and expecting the same for the next couple of days. I worry about our feral cats, but they always seem to manage to survive. I'll make sure they have plenty of cool water on the covered patio.
Today is my friend Donna's birthday, and for inspiration I went to a couple of challenges: AAA Cards Challenge Game #296 "Sketch" and Tic, Tac Toe Challenge #276.
I started this card with a white A2 card base. I die cut an oval out of a piece of tissue to provide a mask and taped it to the front of the card, stamping the Hero Arts sun image in black. Using my Copic markers, I colored the sun and sky. The PTI sentiment was over-stamped and black heat embossed. That's it! I'll just lay low for the rest of the day and stay inside.
Here are the challenges:
AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenge #296: Sketch Challenge
Added August 24, 2025:
For this challenge, my card will fit into a couple of these rows - right down, CAS/Sentiment/Embossing and middle down, Summer/Free/Single Layer.
TTTC276- Featured Designer Design Team X - Tic Tac Toe Challenge