UMBRELLA

I've been thinking about joining my friends over at the Simply Clean & Simple April Challenge all month and finally got off my duff this morning to slip through at the very end of the month before the challenge ends.

The April optional theme is "Umbrella", and the first thing that came to mind was cocktail umbrellas - what does that say about how my brain works?!

I started today's card with a pale pink side-folded card base and I wanted to use some heat embossing in a champagne tone to sort of match the purpose of the card. I found a scrap of iridescent rose-gold vellum to use for the mat of the pink top layer. I die cut a pink stitched rectangle and then die cut a Tim Holtz "Happy Hour" glass for a reverse image. I lined up the pink and rose-gold layers and heat embossed the sentiment and the edges of the rose-gold layer and glued them all together. Before gluing them, I added a flourish in champagne embossing. The umbrella (also Tim Holtz "Happy Hour") was die cut from bronze scraps and glued to the top layer before adding some tiny bronzy pearls. The photo is a bit of a disappointment in that it completely misses the iridescence of the rose-gold vellum behind the reverse die cut glass. 

I like some things about this card, and some things not so much. I think it bears another attempt - maybe as a shaker card in brighter colors. I like how the sentiment just happens to fit perfectly with the shape of the glass - I think it may have come from one of the inexpensive stamp sets by Park Lane that Joanne carries. June is a big birthday month in our family, so I think I may take another run at this idea.

     

Simply Clean & Simple: Simply Clean & Simple April 2025 Challenge

APRIL MID-MONTH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here's our mid-month reminder for the TOB Halloween April Challenge. If you've been planning to play along with us this month but just haven't had the time to get your project (card or anything Halloween) entered, you still have two weeks!

Inspired by the lower left quadrant of our mood board (see below), I used a witch and cauldron image  that I haven't used before - it's from Unity Stamps ("Toil and Trouble"). I've used other images and sentiments from the set, but not this one yet. I started with a rectangle of printed paper as a background and mounted a large orange and yellow moon over a white one that was already on the paper. I mounted it to an orange and yellow mat and glued all three layers to a black card base. Then I stamped the witch with black ink on a white scrap, and colored and fussy cut her. I stamped the sentiment and three Tim Holtz bats and attached the witch with dimensional foam.

I finished off with a custom envelope with cauldrons printed on one side. And here are this month's coordinating treat boxes:

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

And our cute Whimsy Stamps alien dies for the drawing if we get 25 or more entries in the challenge:

TIME OUT CHALLENGES

WHEEEEE! I get to be Guest Designer over at Time Out Challenges this next two weeks - I feel blessed! The new challenge is one of their "Pick 2" selections. You can see the choices on the badge here: 

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #286

This challenge is sponsored by Gina K. Designs and there's a wonderful prize for the winning card! Visit the challenge website to see what is being offered and to take a look at the Design Team's inspirational cards.

I decided on "water" and "spots", and challenged myself to create some water made from various scraps of papers printed with spots, in a CAS style.

I started with a stitched rectangle of navy/aqua spotted cardstock. Then I die cut the same rectangle in three other papers and die cut an upside-down scallop on each of these and glued all but the top layer together. On the top aqua layer I white heat embossed the sentiment and the school of fishes from Penny Black's "Birthday Fishes" stamp set. I attached the top layer with dimensional foam to give the final image a bit more interest. This glued rectangle then got attached to a slightly larger white die cut stitched rectangle, and this in turn was attached to a 5-1/2" square white card base. My final step was to add some spots to the fishes with a white gel pen where their eyes would be.

I found an aqua square envelope in my envelope stash and lined it with the navy/aqua printed paper.

I started second-guessing myself after I finished this card - I chose "spots", but used papers with "dots". I went to my dictionary to double-check if there is a difference between a spot and a dot. A dot is a round spot, so technically these are still spots. I suspect that "spots" might be a bit more randomly-placed than dots, but I'm sticking with what I did!

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: We were surrounded for a week by men painting the outside of our house, which was last done 30 years ago, I'm embarrassed to say! They finished up yesterday and I'm trying to get everything pulled back together. The garden is roaring back and I can hardly wait until the California poppies explode. By the looks of things, that should be soon. By this time next week the covered patio will be ready for use and I think we'll celebrate with friends and wine. I'll take some photos and show off the place!

APRIL TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

 Here's a brand new inspiration board for April, and it's full of orange, black, and yellow "witchy" images! And look at all of the moons!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: April 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

My card for this beginning of the month challenge is a sort of composite of more than one of the quadrants presented by our challenge leaders.

I die cut circles from two coordinating  orange and yellow card stocks and inserted the yellower one into the orange one to make my moon - I'll see if I can use the additional orange circle on the next card! Then I cut a wide strip of orange and yellow diagonal striped card stock and glued both the moon panel and diagonal panel to a black square card base and added the strip of Graphic 45 "Fright Night" with black cats and sentiment. Then I added a Tim Holtz Halloween die-cut church and scraggly tree, positioning the church so that one of the black cats is peering at us through the church door. I die cut a picket fence from black cardstock from one of my village die sets and added two die-cut bats from Whimsey Stamps. The envelope is custom-made from coordinating card stock.

Here's my coordinating treat box built with black card stock, and I added die cut tags from the orange and yellow papers and a strip of Graphic 45 bats, die cut Tim Holtz cat, Whimsey die-cut bat, and black & white baker's twine. I'll make another box when we're at our mid-month reminder.

 

AND our Whimsy Stamps dies are back to haunt us until we get 25 or more entries in our challenge!

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

I wanted to pop over to Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge #84 before it closes for the month. It's full of Christmas gnomes - while I'm not a huge gnome fan, I do have this cute paper I bought last year (after promising myself not to buy any more Christmas paper until I made a serious dent in what I already have) and it has gnomes, pick-ups, and trees!

I started with a square aqua card base and die cut a square from the red side of the paper and matted it with the aqua side and white. I white heat-embossed the sentiment (Impression Obsession #CL971 "Holiday Words") and added some heat-embossed snow flurries from Tim Holtz. I die cut a small rectangle from the aqua side of the paper, capturing one of the trucks with a tree on top and attached it to the red square. All of the layers were glued to the card base and I lined an aqua envelope with the red HO HO HO printed side of the paper. 

 

Peace On Earth Christmas : Peace on Earth Challenge #84

MARCH MID-MONTH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

I thought we were finally entering spring, but here we are mid-March and we woke up yesterday to snow, and it's been rainy and cold since. 

I started this card with a medium gray rectangular panel onto which I heat-embossed green and black splatters before adding the sentiment on a die-cut circle of printed card stock (You may recognize that paper from my card at the first of the month). The sentiment and witch's hat are both from a Unity rubber stamp set ("Toil & Trouble"). The circles around the moon and bats are both Tim Holtz dies from various collections. I pieced a bright green hat band on the hat, matted the panel with green and black/gray card stocks and mounted all of the layers to a black card base.

I can't begin to tell you how much trouble I had trying to balance the colors on this photo! The green printed paper kept presenting itself as yellow - you'll have to just believe me when I say that it is decidedly green!

 

Here's another shot of all of this month's treat boxes:

  

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: March 2025 Mid Month Reminder

We're still hoping to give these dies away! If we can get 25 or more entries we can have a drawing to give these away and move onto some new products. There are still two weeks left for your projects. 

 

LUCKY

I was Inspired this morning to combine several of my favorite challenges - AAA Cards Challenge #285, Color Hues #105, and Simply Clean & Simple: March. I love it near holidays or seasonal changes when more than one of the challenges incorporates similar themes or colors!

You can see what is on my mind today - we have a beautiful clear day (for a change), and when I'm finished with this I am on my way out to work in the garden. I had this idea to frame a bunch of clover and found a scrap of white paper onto which I had previously stamped and colored this image. When I actually could not find the rubber stamp it came from, I decided to just use it, fussy cut it with scissors and Xacto knife, and slipped it partially behind a die cut frame opening.

I started with a bright shamrock green card base. I stamped the sentiment from Impression Obsession #CL627 "Lucky" with Memento "Cottage Ivy" ink onto a white die cut rectangular piece of cardstock. I attached this to the face of the card base, added a pale green background behind the ornate die cut frame. I mounted the frame, background, and clover/shamrocks to the card, and finished with a custom white envelope lined with pale green printed shamrock paper. 

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenge #285: Anything goes

Color Hues: Color Hues #105 - Green and White

Added March 16, 2025:

Simply Clean & Simple: March 2025 - Shades of Green

Added April 3, 2025:

 

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Today is my "little" brother's 77th birthday! I'm throwing in a photo of the birthday card I sent off to him earlier in the week.

Fortunately my brother is a good sport, so he puts up with the rude cards I send him on his birthday! This card makes use of a brand new rubber stamp set from Unity Stamp Company ("Purr-ty Cats"). And, given that his last name is Poe, I frequently use this Whimsy Stamps sentiment on the outside of his envelopes: 

 

FOUND CRAFTING OBJECTS

Today I went digging in some drawers that I haven't investigated for quite some time, in search of an idea for the latest Inkspirational Challenge #336 - CAS with an optional twist to use stickers, rub ons, or ephemera. 

In one drawer full of envelopes, I found this small ivory envelope lined with dark gray printed paper. I think I might have made this envelope quite a few years ago and then couldn't figure out how to use it. In another drawer I found these dimensional butterfly stickers. I stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts "Hero Greetings" #CM351, using a dark gray ink on the envelope. I also found an iridescent pocket card I thought to use for the card base and I cut off the pocket to make a standard card. Surprisingly I found a matching piece of the same iridescent stock that I die cut with a stitched rectangular die. I glued the envelope to the face of the card and stuck on the butterflies.

Looking at this up closer, I think you might see that the stickers have a bit of iridescent aqua on the top layers of their wings. Finally, I lined an ivory envelope with a scrap of ivory and charcoal printed paper - that's it!

 Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #336 - CAS (Optional Twist - Use Stickers, Rub Ons or Ephemera)

NO PEEKING

When I saw the new challenge at Peace on Earth Christmas March Challenge #83, I loved the green and ivory gifts in the lower left quadrant and knew I wanted to wrap some Christmas packages to place under the tree.

I still have quite a few sheets of this old BasicGrey "Jovial" printed paper that I promise myself ever year to use up, but somehow it doesn't happen. To give you an idea about how long I've had it in my stash, the lower edge of it is dated 2010! I think the best solution, as I did here with this card, is to also make a coordinating envelope. 

I used a black 5-1/2" square top-folded card base and glued on a 5" square of the printed paper. I cut a square of ivory heavy textured watercolor paper, using the deckled edge for the bottom of the top panel. I die cut one of Tim Holtz's trees from the same ivory stock and glued it to the face of the top panel after stamping the sentiment with PTI "Ripe Avocado" ink. I glued the top panel to the card face and added the packages that I had fussy cut from the printed paper, using some dimensional foam with the the top package layers for some dimension. For the final "wrap-up", I added some avocado twine to the top edge of the card, which also serves to hold a folded vellum page inside the card. 

  

Peace On Earth Christmas : March 2025 Peace On Earth Challenge #83

GO GREEN!

It's coming up on St. Patrick's Day, so it's time to get my green on! The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is offering up the perfect opportunity with their Challenge #260 - "G is for Green". 

I started my card with a sentiment left over from my personal St. Patrick's Day cards a couple of years ago - #RWD-995 from Funny Bones by Riley & Company. I top-folded a white card base and attached a full panel of green plaid printed paper that I die-cut with a stitched rectangular die. I die cut a deckled rectangular panel from avocado card stock, stamped splats of spilled beer and party debris with VersaMark watermark ink, and overprinted the sentiment in black. I matted the green panel with a bit of white cardstock and attached both layers to the plaid card face. The beer glasses were die cut (Tim Holtz #664435 "Happy Hour") in vellum for transparency and filled with beer - oh, whoops! spilled one of the glasses!

I'm not suggesting that I'm a sloppy drunk, but I talk with my hands, and have knocked over many a beer or wine glass! 

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: Soss #260 - G is for Green

Added April 12, 2025:

MARCH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

SPOOKY!!

We're heading into March now, with all things green - the beginning of spring, St. Patrick's Day shamrocks, and our new inspiration board here at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: March 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

This week's card is a CAS version of our inspiration board. I liked the house and green moon at the lower right hand corner and decided to use a very old creepy house stamp that I've never used, along with a brand new sentiment stamp set (LDRS Creative "Wicked"). I stamped the house twice with black ink - once on a gray scrap and again on a piece of printed green Halloween paper. I die cut a circle from the green image and pasted it over the image on the gray paper. Then I framed it with a black square, stamped the sentiment on a white stitched rectangle that I had die cut a slightly larger square from. I stacked all of the layers and attached them to a white card base. The final addition was one of my favorite Tim Holtz's ghosts - glued with a piece of dimensional foam.

I made a coordinating envelope and then, because our challenge is 'all things Halloween',  started having all kinds of fun with treat boxes - each of them will hold 3 Ghirardelli chocolate squares.

I've been playing around with an old idea that I worked with some years back - Halloween treat boxes for Ghirardelli chocolate squares. I originally made them for Valentine's Day, but I thought it might be fun to produce a bunch of them as I go through the Halloween year and make them coordinate with my card. By the time Halloween comes around, I could have quite a pile of them in lots of different colors. I couldn't remember exactly how to make them,  so I turned to YouTube and found the following tutorial:

                                          Ghirardelli Treat Box Tutorial                                                       

I think Diane and Darlene are probably getting anxious to give away these sets of Whimsy dies if we get 25 challenge entries, so let's not disappoint! Get out those green and black Halloween papers and get with it!

FEBRUARY MID-MONTH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are at the half-way mark of February and yesterday was Valentine's Day. Despite all of my best intentions, I didn't get Valentines cards into the mail this year. 😞 Instead, I spent the time I would be making Valentines painting the window trim around three very large windows in my living room. The 20-year-old blinds crashed a couple of months ago and I ordered replacements. But I didn't want to hang the new blinds before I re-painted the trim - no easy task with 6 cats watching my every move and wanting to participate!

Here's my contribution for this 2-week period at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge.

For the background, I had a scrap of old Valentine's Day paper and I stamped tiny spiders everywhere that a white dot was on the paper. I trimmed it out with a stitched rectangular die and mounted it to the face of a black card base. The little lovelorn ghost, mug, mug contents, and little dangling spider are all from a die set by Trinity Stamps - #TMD-088 "Boo Brew". I decided the mug needed to sit on a tabletop so I constructed a doily out of a couple of die cut circles and added some hand stitching with a Sharpie. I glued this to the card face and wrapped the front with black and white baker's twine and a white heat-embossed sentiment tag. I added tiny die-cut hearts to the ghostie's eyes and assembled the mug and its contents (I punched out some black drips for the edge of the mug) and added it to the face of the card with dimensional foam.   

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2025 Mid Month Reminder

Remember that this is an anything with Halloween challenge and the inspiration board is just a suggestion. If we get 25 entries we'll be awarding the following dies using a random drawing and you can add a couple of other entries if you wish. You have until the 28th!

MORE SPARKLE, LESS STRESS

There's still lots of snow on the ground, so it seemed appropriate to do a snowy Christmas card today. I've been planning to participate with the ladies at Peace on Earth Christmas because they have a new inspiration board up. The stag in the top left quadrant with his antlers completely decorated gave me a chuckle, so that's where I went!

Here's what went through my head as I worked on this card: "Norman loved decorating for Christmas so much that his forest friends just didn't have the heart to tell him that he was over-dressed for the annual winter party."

I started with my favorite deer die (from My Favorite Things), and I die cut him and his antlers from two different colors of kraft card stock. I mooshed some brown ink on him and touched him up with white gel and black ink pens. I die cut part of the metal plate from PTI's "Birthday Bash" and attached it to a side-folded card base. I wanted some sparkle in the sky, so I cut a small portion of the same die out of my very last scrap of white sparkle card stock, popped out some of the circles and stars, and glued them into the openings in the top panel. I stamped the sentiment (Unity "More Sparkle, Less Stress"), heat embossed it with Red Tinsel embossing powder, and die cut the top with a stitched wave, and mounted it over the lower front of the card. I attached my little deer to the card and then had loads of fun searching out sparkly red and green card stock scraps for the foliage and cardinal he wanted in his antlers - plus an additional bough to chew on! After decorating his antlers, I added a couple of gemstones for some additional shine in the sky.

The sparkle of the sentiment doesn't show up very well - here's a closer look. And to see the green and red glitter card stock of his antler decorations, here's another close-up.

Here's the link to the challenge. (I always do a bit of a double-take when I see this referred to as the POE challenge - Poe was my maiden name!)

Peace On Earth Christmas : February 2025 Peace On Earth Challenge #81

Added February 15, 2025: