MID-JANUARY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

It's mid-January in the first month of our 2025 Halloween Challenge at Two Old Bats! It's snowing in the graveyard and the ghosts are venturing out of the graves to take in some of the winter scenery.

This card was made mostly from scraps in my Halloween bin. I started with a couple of gray pieces that I stamped the graveyard scene on with black ink (Unity Stamps "Toil and Trouble).I trimmed out one of the pieces with a stitched rectangular die. I used Tim Holtz splatters with Hero Arts "Unicorn" pigment die and matted it to a black and orange scrap. Then I attached that to a side-folded white card base. The two ghosts were lingering in my scrap drawer and I glued them to the face of the card and layered the second fussy cut graveyard scene over them with a bit of dimensional foam. I added a couple of  pumpkins from a printed cardstock and then took a white gel pen to them and the graveyard images. 

You probably remember that this is the mood board from the first of the month that we could use for inspiration (or not):

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: Two Old Bats January 2025 Mid Month Reminder

And if we can get 25 of you to wrap your brains around the idea of Halloween cards in January, you may be rewarded by winning the drawing for these cute little space aliens from Whimsy Stamps:

MASCULINE VALENTINE

A couple of the current challenges looked like they were perfect for making a valentine for my hubba - Color Throwdown #824 - "Black, White, and Gray" and Just Us Girls #757 Word Week, "Masculine".

I fumbled around a bit and finally settled on an old PTI stamp from their "Love & Marriage" set that I think I've used only once before - I love this image, but forget that I have it! I stamped it twice with black ink - once on white card stock and again on gray cardstock - and die cut a heart (also PTI) from both images. I overprinted the tiny sentiment with silver heat embossing. Then I layered the gray heart over the black and white image with some black dimensional foam. I trimmed out the image with stitched rectangle and matted it with some of the gray stock. Before adding the various layers to a black card base, I edged the gray mat with silver embossing and added a tiny heart to the gray heart.

I think you can see the dimensional heart and silver embossing a bit better with this close-up photo:

Color Throwdown: Color Throwdown Countdown #824 

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #757 - Word Week

 

NAUGHTY KITTY

I'm sharing my bit of morning fun with a couple of my favorite challenges - NBUS Challenge #79 and Color Hues Challenge #TCH1010 - Red and Kraft. 

This is my second outing this month with Color Hues Red & Kraft. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had received a new die set - Tim Holtz #666290 "True Love, Colorize" that I hadn't broken into yet, but I thought I would play with it later this week. Well, here we are. This is a really complex set of dies, so I didn't do the full box of chocolates. I just played with putting together the bottom box and three of the chocolate variations. And I just could not resist doing something with one of my beloved Tim Holtz Snarky Cats! Especially since naughty kitties were on my mind this morning as one of mine was on the dining room table raiding small pebbles out of the bottom of one of my pillar candle holders.

As usual, I had problems with photographing this card - my cellphone does not like red. I tried adjusting the color in my photo editing application, but couldn't quite get to the colors on the card. Suffice it to say, they are variations of red and kraft with a bit of brown thrown in.   

I started with a dark red 5-1/2" top-folded card base. I added a band of bright red to the lower part of the card and started assembling the box and some chocolates. I stamped my naughty cat and the sentiment with dark brown ink on kraft, colored the kitty with Copic markers and white gel pen, and fussy cut him. I trimmed the sentiment into a strip and adhered it above the red strip and glued the box of tampered with chocolates over, trimming the left edge. I attached the cat with a bit of dimensional foam and added some splatters here and there. The final step was to create a coordinating envelope that I lined with a bit of dark red vellum.

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #70

Color Hues: Color Hues Color Challenge #101 - Red & Kraft

QUILT BLOCK

I'm taking a break this morning from putting away Christmas decorations (such a chore) to do a quick response to a challenge that caught my eye - Inkspirational Challenge #332 "Pretty Quilt".

I have a set of dies that actually make a quilt square, but I decided to take a different approach for this birthday card for a friend. I think I'll also get out the quilt dies and play with them a bit for a Valentine's card later in the week.

In the meantime, the idea was to piece together several papers, stamp on some hand-stitching, and emboss the square to make it look quilted. I started by stamping an old PTI set ("Stitches and Swirls") on the lower corner of a 5-1/2" square card base with PTI "Enchanted Evening" ink. Then I die-cut a square out of the a slightly smaller white square, inserted a gray-green square, and stamped the stitched image again. I colored the leaves and flower centers with colored pencil and embossed the entire panel with a large Cuttlebug embossing folder ("Decorative Tile"). I attached this to the face of the card base. The final step was to heat emboss the sentiment with navy, trim it out with a square die and mat that with navy paper. This square also got a bit of blind embossing, using a smaller square die. I lined a white square envelope with a coordinating gray-green printed paper.

I came across an old card recently that is similar to this one. I made it some years ago, but wasn't really pleased because it didn't look clean. I liked the idea, but didn't like the execution. So this is a re-do of that old card. 

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #332 - Designer's Choice - Pretty Quilt 

 

SISTERHOOD OF SNARKY STAMPERS CHALLENGE #258

As the reigning Queen of Snark since December 10th, I'm guest designing on their first challenge of the year - an auspicious beginning, just saying! This challenge's theme is "NBUS". We all know what that means - Never Been Used Sh*t.

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #258 - N is for NBUS (Never Been Used Stuff)

There's a bit of a back story on this card. Four old colleagues (3 interior designers and an architect) started meeting last year on the 4th Tuesday of each month to taste wine and swap stories. I call our group the "4th Tuesday Whiners Club". One of our members is my former business partner of several years until she retired, and she has a birthday coming up in less than a month so I'm taking this opportunity to use this card for her birthday.

The NBUS things are, 1) sentiment from Unity Stamps, 2) background paper from Alexandra Renke, and 3) a technique I haven't tried before. I started with a square panel of Alexandra Renke printed paper that has a copyright date of 2017 (have I really been hoarding it that long?). The technique I started with was to stamp the wine bottle outline (Unity Stamps "Age Gets Better with Wine") directly onto the printed panel and color it in with my Copic markers. I was very surprised that I could get such good coverage because it seems like sometimes the inks on printed papers interfere with marker coverage. The wine label is from a local vineyard that is one of our favorites - Cliff Creek Cellars. I printed it from their website. This particular grape (Syrah) is one of my friend's favorite wines from this vineyard and my plan is to accompany this card with a bottle of the wine.

Once the wine bottle was completed, I masked it off and stamped the wine glass twice - once in place and a second time on white cardstock. I colored and pieced the wine glass over the image after coloring in the glass part with white Prismacolor pencil. Before gluing the glass in place, I stamped wine splatters over the area where the sentiment would be stamped. Even though I used black heat embossing on the sentiment, I'm wondering if I should have used white on it instead of black. I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of clarity of the sentiment. 

On a Personal Note: As I worked on this card today, I just couldn't resist photographing our two kitty brothers while they cuddled and slept in a chair by the living room window. This is Tux and Tiger and they are Chloe's boys.

FIRST VALENTINE OF 2025

Inspired by two challenges - Freshly Made Sketches #667 and Color Hues Challenge #101 - Red & Kraft, I set out this morning to make my first Valentine of the year. I love making Valentines almost as much as I love making Halloween cards! 

I started by creating a 5-1/2" square card base and cut two additional smaller square panels in white and kraft cardstock. I die-cut the top layer of Birch Press Design "Folk Art Heart" from the center of the white square and matted it with the kraft square, slipping a piece of red cardstock between the layers as the background for the layered heart. Then I die cut two additional layers of the pattern in kraft and a lighter color of red and glued them all in place, adding the final layer - the white top layer I had originally cut from the white square. I attached the layers to the face of the card and added a white heat-embossed sentiment on a strip of black cardstock and a double bow from Tim Holtz "Vault Festive Wreath". The final step was a tiny bit of bling with some small rhinestones. I'll make a coordinating envelope at a later date. 

I don't think I'll use this design for this year's edition for a couple of reasons - 1) it's too complex for an edition of 30, and 2) it's square and too expensive to mail out. I'll save it for someone special and hand deliver it. 

Here are the links to the two challenges:

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #667 - A Sketch by Cécile

Color Hues: Color Hues Color Challenge #101 - Red & Kraft

JANUARY 2025 TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Oh my goodness, how did we ever make it into 2025 - and is everyone as happy as I am to see the end of 2024? 

And so the Halloween cards continue...

We have a new inspiration board! The obvious imagery for this month is snow - and oh, pumpkins. Generally by this time each year we would have had a bit of snow here in the Rogue Valley, but not this year. It has rained non-stop since Christmas and I would really welcome a respite from the damp.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: January 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

The main image on my card - the snow and tree outline - is a Christmas die with a snowman. I thought to just add a die-cut pumpkin head on top, but the scale was wrong, so I cut the snowman off and placed two ghost pumpkins (Tim Holtz) to the right corner. I blind-embossed snow from a Darice folder and glued it to the face of a black card base after slipping in a printed paper with eerie pairs of eyes in the night. I also cut out some of the eyes to use in the pumpkin's eye openings. The sentiment is cut from a piece of vintage Halloween paper. 

Let's get this year started!! Let's see what you can do with the new inspiration board - or whatever Halloween project you would like to share with us. Last month was understandably quiet, but if we can get to 25 entries this month, the random drawing will bring someone these really cute Whimsy alien dies:

  

2025 ARRIVES

And it's noisy and chaotic and I'm feeling the need to spend a couple of moments in reflection.

My husband gifted me a smart watch for Christmas. I had wanted one primarily to track my physical activity, but it does so much more than that. I'm not accustomed to paying a lot of attention to my heartbeat, so this is a bit of a change. One really interesting thing I've noticed is that my heartbeat drops by at least 10 beats per minute while I'm here in my craft room making cards! 

I don't have to think very deeply to come to the realization that for me making cards is truly an act of love. It calms me and keeps me in the moment - it's a very small thing, but it ripples outward in ways that I can only begin to sense.

From the beginning of this little blog (March 22, 2019), I've made a conscious decision to leave politics out of my posts and make this place one of peace and creativity and I will continue to do so - however, it's hard to think about leaving 2024 without some mention of our global chaos and how it tumbles out into our atmosphere in erratic and destructive patterns. If a small moment of calm and loving activity can break some of these patterns, that has to be huge.

So, for anyone who may find his/her way to my little blog, I wish the best for you in what will no doubt be a very challenging year. I hope you'll join me in setting aside time each day to perform or create a small calming act of love. It sounds silly to suggest that handmaking cards can solve the world's problems, but hey, we have to start somewhere, using the gifts we have!   

MID-DECEMBER REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

We're now nearing the end of 2024 and this is a reminder to get your projects finished up for the December Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge. Halloween, you say? Yup, we're crazy about Halloween at this challenge and make Halloween projects or cards all year long - even during other holiday celebrations!

I'm continuing with my second parody of Christmas sayings, as promised. This aligns with the lower right-hand quadrant of our December mood board. I used the second sentiment from my creepy Park Lane "Haunted Hollow" stack, coordinating it with one of the pages with large coiled snakes and spider webs. Depending on how you feel about snakes, this one is actually creepier than the one I made for the first card of the month.

I started by cutting a 12x12 sheet in half and then folding it into a 6x6 top-folded card. I cut out the sentiment and layered it over a filigreed rectangular die, using the backside of the paper, then matting the two layers with a scrap of taupe-toned paper. I fussy cut a coiled snake from a coordinating paper in the stack and slipped it between the layers with some black foam dimensional tape. The final step was to line an existing black square envelope with the same side of the paper as the card base.

  

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: December 2024 Mid Month Reminder

We still have these cute Whimsey alien dies to give out if we reach 25 cards or more.

BEAR-Y CHRISTMAS!

This is the next card made with the small images from my Hero Arts #CM386 "From the Vault - Winter Joy" stamp set. I still have one more image left, but I'm running out of time! I'm sharing this with the current Peace on Earth Anything Christmas Challenge.

I was really pleased with this card until I photographed it! I obviously used a different white card stock for the top sentiment layer. I swear that the color difference between the layers is only visible in the photo. Starting with a top-folded white card base, I die cut a stitched rectangle, embossed it with my snow embosser, and cut an oval from the center. I stamped the image twice - once on white that I colored with my Copic markers and a second time on iridescent blue vellum with white heat embossing for the sky and snowflakes. I fussy-cut the little guys and layered them over the blue panel. Then I added another layer of snow that I had stamped the sentiment on and all layers were die cut with a stitched oval die and mounted in the center. Beware the yellow snow!

Over at Peace on Earth the vehicle images are all gas-powered, but my little guys prefer a bear-powered sled to move through the snow. 

Peace On Earth Christmas : Peace on Earth Challenge #78

PERSONAL CHRISTMAS CARD

If this looks familiar, it's a simplification of the card in the previous post - cut down to an A2 size and fewer layers so that it would be easier to duplicate. I added a silver heat embossed edge around the coral printed paper.

The interior is equally simple, using an old sentiment from my stash and Tim Holtz splatters.

I'm sharing this with Christmas Kickstart before the current challenge ends:

Christmas Kickstart Challenge: Challenge #93 - Reminder

JOYOUS HOLIDAY

I'm sure I'm not alone in starting out with an idea for a card and ending up with something completely different! I've been mulling several ideas around in my head for our 2024 personal holiday cards. After several tries I ran this one past my husband and he likes it enough to request it as the main one we'll send out. I started by wanting to participate in the Tic Tac Toe Challenge that just posted today. My first choice was to do a White on White/Frame/Metallic (top across), but as I played with it I felt compelled to add a bit of one of my favorite colors. This threw me into one of the diagonal choices - Metallic/Embossing/Die Cuts - where I landed. 

I used a pre-made Strathmore card base with matching A7 envelopes. I haven't designed the inside yet but will work on that this week. By the time I work with this a bit there may be some changes to make it a bit more simple for a production of 25 or so cards. I'll post the completed card in my Christmas Gallery when it's ready.

I can hardly resist using my Alexandra Renke "Winter Village" dies each year for at least a couple of my cards. I die cut several of the buildings and trees from the same paper as the card base and mounted them onto a printed rectangle of dark coral card stock (the other side of this paper is rows of gifts with bows - I love both sides, but especially the coral side) that I had added some Tim Holtz spatters in silver heat embossing. I matted it with a couple of layers of additional rectangles and attached it to the face of the card. The sentiment was also silver heat embossed and the final layer was an old star cluster die that I have used many, many times.

TTTC262- Featured Designer Betty - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

Our very busy and productive friends Diane and Darlene have a challenge that I wasn't aware of (who can keep up with them?!) specifically for CAS projects. I am SO there! This will be my first entry into their challenge - Thank you, Darlene, for calling it to my attention.

Simply Clean & Simple: Simply Clean & Simple December 2024 Challenge

PEACE ON EARTH

Hello, all! Today I'm offering up a big wish for Peace on Earth. I know that's a big ask, but it starts with the individual and ripples from there. Diane and Darlene have the right idea with their Peace on Earth Challenge, and I'm joining them today. They gave us a great mood board for inspiration, but I'm taken by their lovely blue and white mast head and wanted to follow that with my entry.

I'm also continuing with playing around with my Hero Arts  #CM386 "From the Vault - Winter Joy" and the tiny images on this set. I think I have now used three of them and have a couple more left. I particularly like the one I used today with it's 1-1/4" square postage stamp. I stamped it with PTI "Enchanted Evening" ink and cut it out with a square die. Then on a 5-1/2" white card base I mounted a series of white die cut frames with the matching card stock and placed the postage stamp in the center opening. The final step was to layer a silver metallic star from Tim Holtz to the face. 

Peace On Earth Christmas : Peace On Earth Challenge #77

And I'm continuing to share these little images with the group at NBUS because they are all never before used:

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #69