π = 3.14

Pi Day! Today is my husband's nephew's birthday and the family always gets together to celebrate with pie. This morning it's a pie brunch! And, as always, I do a pie/pi birthday card for him - and how fun that I can also enter it in the current Shopping Our Stash Challenge #569 - I'm Counting on You", in which we are challenged to use numbers on our card!

This is supposed to look like a freshly-baked pie, but I had to make do with whatever circle dies that I have available to me. The background came from the internet and is part of the numerical value of π that I copied and printed in gray tones on beige and die cut into a stitched rectangle. I glued the panel to the face of a kraft wood-grained card base. I cut the various circles in silver and beige, hand-cut a pi symbol into the center, wiped a bit of kraft-colored ink at the edges, and layered together.

 

The die cut sentiment is from PTI, as is the one on the interior of the card.

Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge Blog: SOS569 - I'm counting on you

GO GREEN!

Today I gave myself permission to play a bit, and play I did! This is my second card of the day. It's always fun when more than one challenge can be entered with a single card. I was inspired by Karren's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches to begin my card. Some years ago I made a similar card, but this one is more CAS and cleaned up than the old one.

I started this card with a 5-1/2" square card base I made of watercolor paper. I cut a second square slightly smaller and mounted each of the 3 units to it. The white pieces were die-cut along one edge with a stitch die. The vertical piece is patterned paper that I over-printed and gold heat-embossed with a very old shamrock stamp that I stamped in a vertical row. 

I die cut a tag and gold heat-embossed it with an old St. Patrick's Day sentiment. Using a wrap of white twine, I tied on the tag and a gold shamrock charm to finish off.

Freshly Made Sketches: Sketch #726 A Sketch by Karren 

Color Hues: Color Hues #128-Green and Gold

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #813 - Die Week

WE COULD ALL USE A BIT OF PEACE ON EARTH...

Seeing the beautiful green mood board over at Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge has inspired  me to try my hand at the current challenge. But, where to start? All of the images are so gorgeous! Okay, I decided on green candles, gold, and stars. 

I started this card with scraps from my stash. The gold rectangular panel was in my metallic gold scraps drawer already die cut with the stitched circle. I die cut a scrap of dark green card stock with one of the dies from Tim Holtz's "Snowy Stars", backed it with a scrap of metallic gold, and attached it to the back of the gold panel. I die cut an Avery Elle star wreath from the same gold scraps and glued it to the face of the panel, matted the panel with dark green cardstock, and glued all to a white card base and stamped the sentiment with PTI "Pinefeather" ink.

The candles and evergreen  sprig were constructed from Tim Holtz's "Vault Festive Wreath" die set with a bit of help from colored pencils and white gel pen. The flat light today didn't assist in showing that this card is metallic.

Peace On Earth Christmas : March 2026 Peace On Earth Challenge #107

MARCH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are at the beginning of a new month! Our March challenge always features green, but I can never quite get the tone of green blue enough, and my card always looks like it's black and yellow. Looks like I need to invest in some new green cardstock!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: March 2026 Anything Goes Halloween

While there are no zombies in this month's inspiration board, I used the black and green as inspiration - well, sort of!

My card started with a top-folded black card base. I white heat-embossed the Tim Holtz sentiment, masked it off, and added yellow-green heat embossed splatters (also Tim Holz). I die cut the "EEK!" layered dies with yellow-green glitter paper, black, and white. I stamped the zombie face and hand on pale gray card stock, fussy-cut it, and colored it with Copics. I glued the EEK, hand, and heat to the face of the card.

Inside the card I trimmed a piece of yellow-green printed paper to a square and black heat-embossed the second part of the sentiment and splatters. I had a black square envelope and I heat-embossed the "BUUUURP" (Whimsy Stamps) on the back flap.

You're not bound to just what is suggested by the inspiration board - in our challenge, you can share any Halloween project. March is a couple of days longer than February so, there's plenty of time to enter the challenge! Also, check what the other ladies have provided as additional inspiration.

TIME OUT CHALLENGE

 When I saw the current card challenge at Time Out Challenges: Challenge #307, I knew exactly what I wanted to use this great idea for. Kim Heggins of Running Stitch Designs has offered up one of her wonderful handmade bags for both inspiration and prize. 

I decided to take the challenge literally and make a coin purse from Spellbinders "Gorgeous You Makeup Bag" cutting die set. This one is hinged on the left to open, revealing slots for a gift card. At Christmas I made one of these for my granddaughter and included a Sephora gift card. It was a great hit!

I had some lavender polka dot cardstock and some scraps of a rainbow-striped paper. I started this card by die-cutting the polka dot cardstock 3 times - front and both sides of the inside. To make the stitched and scalloped edge for the stripe, I used Spellbinders "Winter Borders" detailed cutting dies and then used the purse outline die to trim out the bottom portion of the bag, which I glued over the front. The metal edge and tag were cut from silver metallic card stock, and the final step was to trim the bag with a bit of satin ribbon. After I finished the card and photographed it, I realized I had forgotten to add a label like Kim's bag - oh well!

This was fun and easy! I think I'll set this aside for my youngest granddaughter's 12th birthday in October.  

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #307

Added March 12, 2026:

TWO OLD BATS MID-FEBRUARY CHALLENGE

My mid-month inspiration card for Two Old Bats Anything Halloween Challenge is a take-off from our mood board's lower right quadrant - a bouquet of  long-stemmed skulls tied with a red bow. The closest image I had in my stash was Whimsey Stamps "Happy Halloweeds".

I decided to do a monotone card with the emphasis on the red bow die from Tim Holtz's "Vault Festive Wreath". The original image of the stamp is the jar and 1 scull and 1 pumpkin. I stamped the image on white card stock and fussy-cut it, cutting off the pumpkin. I then stamped two more skulls on white, fussy-cut them, and layered them into the vase. I mounted the jar and sculls on the face of a gray die-cut rectangle that I had stamped with a spider web and sentiment and mounted to the face of a black card base with two additional mats. The final addition was a double red bow and red dots in the Os of the sentiment.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2026 Mid Month Reminder

There's still plenty of time to re-erect your Halloween supplies and join the fun! 

EMBRACING MY WEIRDNESS!

This morning I was inspired by the challenge over at The Paper Players CAS Challenge "Birthdays and Balloons". Great idea, Stef! As it happens, my younger brother turns 78 in just a couple of weeks. 

I started this card with a sheet of kraft wood-embossed cardstock, making a card base and then due-cutting a rectangle from the back of the same stock so that I could stamp on it. I love these animals with attitude from Whimsy Stamps "So Weird" #CWSD473 and knew I wanted to use one of the images and sentiments for a BD card for my brother. I stamped the bull directly on the kraft panel with black ink and touched him up with a bit of white gel pen. I stamped a spatter of stars and confetti with black ink on a white scrap and then over-stamped Tim Holtz's balloons on a white scrap. I colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them. I glued the yellow one directly on the panel and attached the red-orange one with a bit of cardstock behind for a bit of dimension. Using the white gel pen, I added strings from the balloons down to the bull. The final step for the front was to attached the sentiment after white heat-embossing it on black cardstock and cutting it with a die-cut strip.

Inside the card is very simple - sentiments stamped in black and the splatter with red-orange. As a finishing touch, I inked the outside edge of the card with my black ink pad.  

The Paper Players: PP773 - A CAS Challenge from Stef

And because I used a couple of simple dies on this card, I'm also sharing it over at Seize the Birthday!

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #320- CAS with Dies

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

 

This year, for the first time in at least a decade,  I didn't make a single valentine! Everything conspired against me, not the least of which was a general lack of incentive! I did manage to make the annual chocolate-dipped espresso shortbread cookies for the grandchildren. Thankfully I had enough left-over valentines from previous years to go around for the family and hubby.

So, what have I been doing with all of my spare time? For the past year I've been working on a final interior design project before my retirement. Yes, I've tried retiring now for about six years, and keep being called back into service. But this really is the LAST PROFESSIONAL PROJECT! It's a small corporate office space that has been so much fun to work on - good budget and great client - and we're in the final stages of construction. So my attention has been primarily focused there for the past month, with daily calls from the jobsite to take a look at one thing or another for final approval. I've been telling all of the contractors and subs that this is my swansong and in an undertone the architect beside me keeps saying, "No it's not"! But it really is. Hubby is retiring at the end of this school year and we're planning to start doing some traveling.

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

It's February 2nd and time for a new challenge at Two Old Bats. The ladies have a fairly creepy mood board as inspiration for us!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2026 Anything Goes Halloween

When I saw the above board the first thing that caught my eye was the really creepy heart-shaped creature in the lower left quadrant. EEEK! With all of its little spidery legs I immediately thought about a Katzelkraft rubber stamp set of whimsical bugs in my supplies. 

I'm not sure what this Kratzelkraft character is supposed to be, with all of his eyes - something quite disgusting! I stamped him with black ink onto a deckle-edged light gray panel and colored him with Copic markers, Prismacolor pencil, and white gel pen. I masked him off and over-stamped the gray cobweb and splatters from Tim Holtz. I attached the panel to a black card base. I white heat embossed the sentiment from Impression Obsession "Is the Moon Out Tonight?" on printed cardstock, trimmed it down, punched the blood drips, and attached it with dimensional foam.  

Here's a close-up of my long-legged beastie:

Head over to the blog to see what our other creative designers have come up with to inspire you with hearts and skulls!

MID-WINTER NIGHT

This  morning when I opened my computer, the screen wallpaper was a beautiful evening photo of a snowy village in a valley of the Alps. It was predominately blue, and it inspired me to enter three of the current challenges, using my favorite tiny house dies from Alexandra Renke. I'm entering Time Out Challenges #305: Favorite Card Making Technique; Color Hues #125: Blue and White; and Inkspirational Challenge #359: Shades of Blue. WOW!

My favorite card making technique (besides CAS) is constructing tiny landscapes using layers of dies and paper scraps. I've done many of these miniature scenes over the years and I have a special fondness for tiny houses. The background of this scene is a last small scrap of a favorite Christmas paper that I've been hoarding to use for the perfect winter sky - when I say 'small' I really mean it! This scrap barely filled the opening of my 1-5/8" x 2-7/8" rectangular die. The layered trees are from a Tim Holtz "Forest Shadows" die that I cut and pieced.

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #305

Added February 14, 2026:

Color Hues: Color Hues Challenge #125 - Blue and White

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #359 - Visual Prompt - SHADES OF BLUE

VICTORIAN CHAIR VIGNETTE

It's been a minute! Sure, I've posted a couple of Halloween cards since Christmas, but those were done in advance, and I've been taking a bit of time off to get other things done. I haven't played over at Just Us Girls Challenge for quite a while and have been looking at their interesting mood board this week. I really enjoy mood boards because they can be so open to interpretation. It appears that this week's mood board is really more of a collage of winter/holiday images, but I went with the fashion magazine covers and changed them to shelter magazines by-passing the holidays - once a decorator...!

I'm not really sure that I like this card much, but I'm putting it out there. I die cut an ornate frame, cut an opening in it and inserted a montage that I cut from a magazine and inserted it for a background for the stamped, fussy cut, and Copic-colored Victorian chair (Stampendous "Damask Chair"). I white heat embossed the sentiment on black cardstock and die cut a small tag, which I then tied to the chair. I used dimensional foam to attach the chair and tag to the face of the card. 

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls Challenge #806 - Moodboard Week 

HAPPY HAUNTS

We're at the mid-point for our January Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge. If you haven't started a project yet, there's still plenty of time!

My second card this month is a continuation of the top right quadrant with the creepy house, trees, and pumpkins, but with the addition of a ghost, as in the lower left quadrant.

I had this idea to, instead of using a full background paper and making a scene to place the pumpkin and ghost against, that I would use the background paper to die cut a Tim Holtz haunted house and 2 trees. I placed them against a solid black panel to get the same feeling of a dark Halloween night. The sentiment is white heat embossed on a stitched die cut rectangular panel (Newton's Nook "Spooky Street") that I glued to a black card base. Then I layered the house, trees, pumpkin mug, and vellum ghost on the front of the card. You may recognize this mug that I used last month for a Christmas card! It's from Trinity Stamps "Boo Brew". 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: January 2026 Mid Month Reminder

Now, your turn!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm not sure how 2026 came so quickly, but here we are nevertheless! As we come into the new year, Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge is offering up a new January challenge and here is the inspiration board prepared by our beloved blog owners, Diane and Darlene:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: January 2026 Anything Goes Halloween 

Snow and pumpkins! So, here's my response to the rather creepy photo in the upper right hand corner. I'm not going to take you through all of the steps of this card - it got way too complicated with all of the layers, but the bulk of the images are from a fairly new-to-me stamp set from Newton's Nook Designs (Spooky Street), although it has a copyright date of 2014. Also included are several images from other old sets. I started it with a gray card base onto which I stamped the house, moon, trees, and snow. The tree in the foreground was stamped on the same gray card stock and fussy cut. The pumpkins were stamped in orange on yellow cardstock and fussy cut and the sentiment was stamped in orange and black.

Let's start out the year with some fun Halloween projects, because to participate at Two Old Bats Challenge you can do anything Halloween and you have all month to do it! Check on the spooky cards from the other ladies, prepared for your inspiration.