DOUBLE DOUBLE TOIL...

. . . AND TROUBLE! This is my second card clipped from the same old brown envelope as the first one this month. We're reminding you that it's mid-point in our last two weeks before Halloween, and you still have plenty of time to share your cards or projects.

This time around the only thing this card has in common with our mood board is a green creepy face on the main character. I had an extra A7 red-orange envelope so I decided to start there and made a 5x7 top-folded black card base. On this I added a red-orange light-weight paper panel. I used an old PTI "Fancy Flourishes" stamp to make vapor coming from the witch's cauldron. I stamped it with VersaMark Watermark Ink and sprinkled on both bright green and white embossing powder. I then overprinted the sentiment (Unity Stamps "Toil and Trouble") with black embossing and added Tim Holtz splatters with gray ink. I attached the fussy cut cauldron and raven. The witch and cauldron originally had a purple background so I decided to add a scrap of purple forest with bats matted with a bright green scrap and glued them all to the right side of the card.

The witch was attached with dimensional foam - you can clearly see where her hat fell on one of the folds of the original envelope. I should have snapped a shot of the envelope before I disassembled it!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: October 2025 Mid Month Reminder

 

The ladies will be giving away these fabulous stencils and embellishments in a random drawing:

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

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

My card has a story. I didn't think I had a single scrap of Halloween paper or supplies that featured Frankenstein. Digging through some bits and pieces I found an old brown envelope made with double-sided printed paper that I made quite a few years ago. I opened it up and lo-and-behold, there was old Frankie! I salvaged enough scraps from the inside of the envelope to make this card and the next one you'll see on the 16th.

I fussy cut Frankie, the moon, the pumpkin, and his bat friends out of the inside of the envelope. (You may see a crease across his chin where one of the envelope folds was.)  I made a card base and coordinating envelope out of a 12x12 sheet and some scraps of purple printed cardstock. I glued the moon and bats to the face of the card and added a couple of layers of stitched die cut waves to provide a ground for Frankie to stand on. The layered sentiment is from LDR Creative "Large Word Halloween" dies. I attached Frankie to the face of the card with dimensional foam and glued the pumpkin to his hand to hold his candy. I think if he came to my door I would give him all of the candy he wants!

Watch on the 16th for the second part of this story where I show you what else got cut out of the inside of that old envelope!

And here are all of the items for October's drawing, regardless of how many entries we get!

 

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!

The first thing I did was to stamp my three Tim Holtz felines with black ink on a die cut stitched rectangular panel and colored a bit of green in their eyes. Then I created a 5"x5" folded white card base and stamped a spider web in black. I cut a printed paper square, glued it to a larger black mat, layered that over the white card base, and stamped the cobweb again. I attached the white cat panel and over-stamped the web a final time, masking the eyes of the middle cat. Finally, I glued the cup in place with dimensional foam and tied a sentiment tag to the cup handle with some baker's twine.  

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

And remember that we don't have to get to 25 entries (although, this close to Halloween we probably will), for a chance to win these great supplies:

And here's the link to the additional inspirational challenge:

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #792 - Word Week - Container

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

LOOKING FORWARD TO FALL

After a hot summer, the temps are dropping a bit and making it easier to be outside. I'm now definitely ready for fall and we have some challenges that are leaning in that direction! I went to Freshly Made Sketches #702 this morning and was inspired by Cecile's layout. However, I took some liberties with her sketch by rotating it about 90 degrees.  

I had a black A2 card base sitting on my desk and decided to use it for my background. I die cut a wreath base from Tim Holtz out of a metallic gold cardstock. I cut it twice - once for the wreath and the second time for the center fill. The center fill is a scrap of gold printed Japanese rice paper that I've had for years. This pattern reminded me of ginkgo leaves, so I pulled out a Spellbinders "Autumn Wonder" die and die cut the ginkgo leaf twice with two different metallic cardstocks. I layered everything onto the black card base after gold heat embossing the sentiment and slipped in a fussy cut gold-printed rice paper flower. The final step was to add 3 small black enamel dots. 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #702 - A Sketch by Cécile

 

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

Our favorite ghoul friends Darlene and Diane have a great mood board for us this month - I'll bet you can't figure out which quadrant I chose for inspiration for the next two weeks!

I started with some orange card stock and black ink and stamped an old Impression Obsession background cover (#CC141 C-A-C "Spider Web"). I trimmed the image down to a rectangle using one of my deckle-edged dies from Tim Holtz. I like how the spiderweb above is highlighted with white, so I used my white gel pen to add a bit of interest to one area of the image. I mounted a black rectangle (cut from black spiderweb embossed cardstock) onto the face of an orange card base, edged the deckle panel with some black Copic marker, and mounted it to the front of the card. I added the die-cut "EEK!" (new-to-me Whimsy Stamps #WSD567 "EEK! Word and Shadow Die Set" and a fussy-cut spider from some printed Halloween card stock. I had some fun with the spider by fussy-cutting a tiny skull from a scrap of printed paper and adding it to her butt and a couple of tiny orange gems as eyes. 

AND LOOK! We have new items for the drawing - and this time there will be no minimum entries! Get your project in and win a chance at these great prizes!

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

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. 

For the layout, I rotated the sketch 90 degrees and used an old PTI birthday die as the columns on the FMS sketch. Starting with a white card base, I attached a die cut stitched rectangular panel. The birthday dies were cut twice and layered in black, silver, and gray card stock and attached to the face. The final "greetings" sentiment was heat embossed in silver, cut in a strip, and attached with black dimensional foam to stand out from the face a bit.

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #701 - A Sketch by Jen B

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #312-Black and White

Added 9/12/25:

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

Added 9/20/25:

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

I've been pretty much MIA for the past couple of weeks. It's been crazy busy, with the ending of summer and the beginning of the school year. My husband teaches at a local private college prep high school - he's going into his 40th year at the school and he'll be retiring at the end of this school year, in June 2026. It feels like this summer has been socially busier than in the past and we've also been working in the garden and preparing for retirement. I'm hoping things will return to some sort of normalcy after this long holiday weekend. It was great to take my coffee into the craft room/office and actually work on a fun challenge. 

I'm slipping in to the end of the August Peace on Earth Challenge #94. Each of the quadrants of the ladies' inspiration board features Christmas sheet music and that caught my eye.

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. 

Here's the great inspiration board:

Peace On Earth Christmas : Peace on Earth Challenge #94

HAPPY HALLOWEEN - EEEK!!

Hello, all of you ghoul lovers! This is our reminder that we still have 2 weeks left on our current August Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge. 

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.    

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: August 2025 Mid Month Reminder

We're still hoping to get 25+ challenge entries so the ladies can have a drawing for these Whimsy Stamps alien dies, and the last time I checked it seemed quite possible:

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