OCTOBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are in October, and if you've been following us all year, you probably have between 12 and 24 Halloween cards (or projects). Our new inspiration board has some great ideas to play with. I decided on the lower right quadrant.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge

I've been really wanting to use this mummy paper from my stash, and this month's board offers me the perfect opportunity! These are all coordinating papers from a 12x12 pad I purchased several years ago. I trimmed several of the papers, plus a red-orange solid square and layered all of them on a black square card base.

I had fun using a gift card envelope die that I cut from double-printed paper, and I tucked into it a die cut 3-piece word die from Whimsy Stamps. I attached it to the other layers of the card face, and the final step was to fussy-cut a couple of the mummies. The custom envelope features both sides of the mummy paper.

Go to the blog and take a look at the great inspiration provided by all of the Design Team, and let them know how much you appreciate them!

ONE OF MY PEEPS!

It's the first Friday of October, and you know what that means - a new challenge announced at Simply CAS Challenge! Diane has selected "Something TINY (Keep it Little)" as this month's theme.

Simply Clean & Simple

I dug through some of my stamp sets and came up with Simon Hurley's "Spring Chicken" to work with. I'm not sure why I didn't follow Diane's lead and make a Halloween card, except that I've been wanting to do a card with these cute little chicks.

I started with a 5-1/2" square watercolor paper card base and a slightly smaller square matching panel. I die cut a circle for a stencil and blended sky with clouds and over-stamped the three chicks with brown ink. I stamped them a second time on matching paper, colored them with Copic markers, and fussy cut their bodies. I stamped the sentiment and additional egg with a tan-toned ink. The little guy near the sentiment was pasted on first and the die-cut fence added. The final two chicks were glued over the fence and the panel attached to the card base with dimensional foam. I added a bit of fence under the panel to continue it to the edge.

Let's see what you come up with! Just remember to keep it clean and simple.

SEPTEMBER MID-MONTH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are mid-point in September and crushing toward Halloween!

I liked the image of the 3 witch hats hanging on a door. I mounted 3 die-cut hats (from Spellbinders "Boos! Cocktails") with colorful hat bands and buckles on a scrap of old printed paper, edged it with a black marker, and matted the panel with an orange die-cut rectangle. I glued this to a black card base, tied it with a double baker's twine bow, and attached the double die-cut sentiment from LDRS Creative "Large Word Halloween".

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge

Because the sentiment on this card is so prominent, I'm also sharing it with my friends at the September challenge of Word Power:

 Word Power: Word Power September 2026 Challenge

WITH SYMPATHY

Unfortunately, I'm tasked this weekend with making two sympathy cards for friends who passed away within a week of each other. My decision was to make both of them nearly identical and at the same time - sympathy cards are not my favorite form of expression. I made one similar a couple of months back, so wanted to stick to a familiar formula.

I started by making two A2 card bases from watercolor paper. Using an old rubber stamp with a row of flowers, I white heat-embossed the image onto a scrap of black cardstock and die cut two small deckle-edge rectangles from the same piece. I die cut a couple of additional black card stock rectangles to add dimension to the images and then matted them each with plain rectangles from the watercolor paper scraps, with the plate marks showing. I stamped the sentiment (from Hero Arts #CM317 "Color Layering Sea & Sky") with black ink and glued the matted rectangles to the face of the card. 

WHAT'S UP?

The new September challenge at Simply CAS Challenge, that's what's up! This month the challenge presented by Darlene is "Jungle Animals". 

Simply Clean & Simple: September 2026 - Jungle Animals

This was quite a stretch for me this month, since I had to really comb through my supplies for a single image of a jungle animal. Well, this is it - a couple of monkeys from an ancient acrylic stamp set with a copyright of 2006. I bought it in 2011 for a 2nd birthday invitation for our grand-twins - that's how old this is! This will probably be the last time I use this stamp because it's starting to break down.

For the background I stamped a white card base with green inks with an upside-down vine from an old leaf stamp set of PTI's, to suggest a jungle environment. I stamped the monkeys on the face of the card and die cut a Stampin' Up tag from it and colored them with copics and blended a bit of light green under them. I tied on a piece of fine linen thread that I colored with inks and mounted it over 3 additional layers of tags for some dimension, after adding the tiny sentiment. 

If you haven't been there yet, head over to the SCAS blog to see the fun projects with jungle animals from the rest of the design team!

SEPTEMBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

We have a new inspiration board for September at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge, and we're quickly sliding into Halloween!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: September 2026 Anything Goes Halloween

HA! I just realized, looking over at my TOB Halloween Challenge badge, that today is my 4th anniversary with the challenge! It's been great fun! If I multiply 2 cards each month times 4 years, I come up with 96 cards!

I was attracted to the books and candles in the lower right quadrant and got out my Whimsy Stamps #CWSD427 "Poe Boy" stamp set to make a Poe arrangement. I think one of the reasons I love Halloween cards so much is that my maiden name was Poe! But you already knew that.

I started by stamping the row of books with black ink and adding a Tim Holtz cobweb in white. Then I colored the books with Copic markers. I trimmed the front panel with a deckle-edged rectangular die and edged it with black ink. This card stock is textured, so to get a clean inking I turned the paper over and inked the raven/scull/candle and open book on the backside of a scrap. I had an old paperback book that had Edgar Allen Poe in the index and paper-pieced that page to the book image and attached it to the front panel. It wasn't in great shape, so I decided to add some gray splats over the book and panel and over-stamped the sentiment (LDRS Creative "Wicked") in black. I paper pieced the skull to the raven image and fussy-cut after touching up with a bit of Copic markers. Finally, I attached the raven and skull to the face of the card with a bit of dimensional foam tape. 

You have 28 days to come up with your September Halloween project - check in over at the blog to see the wonderful inspirational cards made for you by all of my Design Team pals!

STAYIN' ALIVE!

I couldn't resist naming this post "Stayin' Alive" because the new challenge over at AAA Cards Challenge is #322: "Disco Inferno"!

How fortuitous that I have this Whimsy Stamps "Zombie Party" stamp set with the silhouette images of zombies partying! Starting with a square white card base, I orange and purple heat embossed the sentiment on a smaller white square. Then the splatter was over-stamped in green and the stars and confetti in orange. The final steps were to add the zombies, mat the square in purple cardstock, tie on some twine strips. and attach to the face of  the card base. The square envelope was custom-made to coordinate.  

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenge #322: Disco Inferno

HAPPY SEVENTEEN

Next week our grandtwins will be celebrating their 17th birthdays! I used the opportunity of a couple of challenges to make my granddaughter's card - Seize the Birthday "No Stamps Dies Only" and Tic,Tac Toe Challenge. Her brother's card is HERE. 

I wanted to do a card that was dramatic color-wise and decided on black with white and bright pinks - I already had a 6" square bright pink irridescent vellum envelope in my stash that I wanted to use, so I started with that. I made a 5-1/2" square card base with black cardstock and a slightly smaller square panel. I used a 1" wide embossing strip on the top panel to add some dimension and to ground the numbers (PTI die set that I always use for the birthday numbers on my grandkids' cards). I attached this panel with a glitter cardstock mat to the card base. To make the numbers I selected a black and white printed lightweight paper that I glued to heavier stock, die cut, and ayyached them to the card. The Spellbinders bow was die cut twice with two colors of glitter bright cardstocks and layered over the numbers, along with a die cut "Happy" from my stash.

The final step was to line the existing pink vellum envelope with the black and white printed paper to tie everything together.

The glitter cardstock shows up a bit better with this enlarged photo above.

For the Seize the Birthday Challenge, there is no stamping on this card - only dies!

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #333-No Stamping Dies Only 

Added September 9, 2026:

And for Rosanne's Tic, Tac Toe Challenge, I selected the top row across - Letters/Numbers, Dimension, and Sparkle/Shine.

TTTC300 - Featured Designer Rosanne - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

AND SPEAKING OF CATS (which we weren't), I just changed the number of cats listed in my Profile from six to seven. This is getting a bit insane and I think perhaps I've passed the threshhold for how many cats you can have to qualify as a "crazy old cat lady"!! Last fall one of our kitties, Tux, ran out of the house and joined the other 11 feral cats in the feral cat community that we feed. Once out of the house, he would have nothing to do with us and seemed perfectly happy to stay outside - even through some pretty extreme temperature changes during the winter. While he was lodging himself on our patio, another cute little black character showed up and boldly came into the house to disrupt everything. We named her Bon Bon and had her vaccinated and spayed and she is now a permanent part of the household. Fast forward to yesterday, and Tux has been taking more interest in looking into the house and letting us pet him. Last night he finally came back in and this morning worked his way back into the morning inside cat-feeding frenzy. He appears to be sticking around for a while - at least until the next time he decides to take a runner. So we are now officially living with seven cats - YIKES!

"A" IS FOR ANIMAL

Here's a bit of silliness for my friends over at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers. We're challenged with "A" is for Animal.

I used a freebie stamp set from My Favorite Things sent to me in August 2018. I've never used it. I think this is a donkey. I stamped him onto white cardstock and then masked him out and overstamped with a green field of flowers. After coloring him with Copic markers, I blended some green ink and glued on a strip of sentiment that I had computer generated (with apologies to whomever created the old Halloween witch meme). I cut his mouth and inserted some fragments of green baker's twines for grass, trimmed the panel with a stitched rectangular die, and attached it all to a white card base. Quick and dirty!

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: Challenge #277 - A is for Animals 

 

BOO!

We're at the mid-point for the month! That's the signal that you still have plenty of time to get your Halloween card or project completed and shared with us. The Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge closes on the 28th.

My card borrows from the general overall black and tan tones of our inspiration board, with a specific nod to the top left Haloween door wreath and bats on the right. I started with a black card base and die cut the elements from various die sets I own. The circular die is cut from kraft wood-embossed card stock using Tim Holtz's Christmas wreath ("Vault Festive Wreath" #666715); the branches in three colors of textured papers are from a couple of Spellbinders seasonal dies; and the bow is from "Christmas Cocktails" by Spellbinders. The ghost of course is my favorite Tim Holtz Halloween ghost that I've used hundreds of times.

Before assembling all of the parts I rough cut a circle from a bat printed paper scrap and white heat embossed the sentiment. I lined a kraft A2 envelope with the remaining black and tan circle printed paper to coordinate with the wreath's bow. Check out the great inspirational cards from my fellow designers:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: August 2026 Mid Month Reminder

A NOTE OF THANKS

 It's August and time for a new Simply Clean & Simple Challenge! This month's theme is "Mother Nature", which brings to mind a lot of options for representative images. Our challenge is always "anything goes" as long as it's CAS, and I decided on a thank you card.

Simply Clean & Simple: SCAS August 2026 Challenge

I might have pushed the limit a bit on this card, as CAS is minimal layers. But it seemed that if the layers were the same color/texture as the background, that might be okay. I made this card with watercolor paper - the A2 base and slightly smaller front panel. I cut an opening in the front panel with a rectangular die (love the plate mark watercolor paper leaves) and stamped the sentiment in olive green ink. The image is a scrap of printed paper that I trimmed out with a deckle edged rectangular die and attached a narrow kraft mat. I die cut one of Tim Holtz's floral stocks and some tiny butterflies, added a panel of green behind the opening, and layered it all together.

Come and join us in our CAS challenge! You have until the 28th to enter your project. And check out the inspirational cards designed by the team! 

AUGUST 2026 TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

It's August and starting to close in on Halloween, so come and join us at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge! We have a brand new inspiration board with some great images - or you can create your own Halloween images. You also don't really need to make a card, because this is an 'anything goes' challenge - so, bring them on!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: August 2026 Anything Goes Halloween

I'm CASing it for this 2-week period and using a favorite postage die and new-to-me Whimsey Stamps "October 31st" #CWSD457 stamp set (with black witch's hat). The sentiment is white heat embossed from Newton's Nook "Spooky Roundabout." The envelope is custom made from a sheet of double-sided paper in my stash.

I made this card quickly and early, because as our challenge goes live I'll be attending a 63rd high school reunion! 63rd, you say? My class of 1963 has reunions every year now because we're all in our 80s and losing a couple of members a year. Our class was a small one and started the first year of a brand new school. When there are only 142 in a class, all of the missing ones are noticed, so we pay tribute to them. Our gatherings are very casual, meeting for lunch in the banquet space of a pizza parlor that we all enjoyed in high school. Meeting every year is a nice way to keep contact with each other. The class is spread out over the state and country, so not everyone can attend each year, but for me it's only a 2-1/2 hour drive.

CHRISTMAS COCKTAIL

I'm back again with my second Christmas card of the day! This time I'm playing along with The Color Hues Challenge - #137 "Black and Red." I love making black Christmas cards - especially with metallics.

My card is made with a couple of brand new (to me) Spellbinders die sets. The martini glass was cut from some silver metallic stock with their "Olive Martinis" set and the remaining festive additions was with the coordinating "Christmas Cocktails." The silver heat embossed sentiment is an old one from my stash. I love the bow in this set and I cut it out from a scrap of black and red lace printed stock from one of the old cardmaking magazines - I don't remember who had the cardstock "quads" inserted into their magazines. That just shows how long I hang onto paper scraps!

The black envelope is from my envelope stash and I lined it with a lightweight candy cane printed paper.

Color Hues: Color Hues #137-Black and Red

Added August 1, 2026: