COME & SIT FOR A SPELL

While I do two cards a month for my Design Team responsibilities on Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge, you would think that by the time October rolls around I would have enough cards to send out to friends and family. However, that's not the case, so I need to fill in a few more by the middle of October. Enter Sunday and this week's challenge at The Paper Players! It's the talented and lovely Anne Marie's turn to host this week and she's come up with a great sketch for us. 

The Paper Players: PP659 - A Sketch Challenge from Anne Marie

I decided to use her sketch for an additional Halloween card. I started by punching blood drips from a strip of green paper and adhering it to the bottom of a top-folded black card base. Above this went a stripe of printed paper with the sentiment and spiders in orange, green, and purple and two purple strips above. I masked off the bottom half of the card and stamped a Tim Holtz spider web. The bottom green stripe looked a bit too plain, so I added another stripe of purple, black, and white bats from the same sheet of Graphic 45 as the sentiment, directly on the green panel to balance out the purple top half. The chair is a rubber stamp from Unity Stamp Company (#IB-121 "Spooky Chair"), stamped in black and fussy cut. I attached it to the face of the card with dimensional foam and finished with punching a hole in the right side of the sentiment and threading black embroidery floss through. I would have liked a darker and clearer image on the chair because you can't see the seat has "spooky" repeated across the width of the seat. Oh well.

The rest of the team has shared some great ideas, so visit their blogs and let them know how much you appreciate them!   

AUTUMN BLESSINGS

I consider having a fall birthday to be a blessing, as it's my favorite time of the year! My birthday is Monday and I treated myself to some new fall crafting supplies and set aside some time this morning to play with a couple of the dies. I used the current Freshly Made Sketches #604 as inspiration. 

I'm really happy with the simplicity of this card and think I'll use it for my personal fall/Thanksgiving card this year. It will be really easy to replicate 30 of these. The background flourish is from an old fall set, and I stamped it with Hero Arts "Wet Cement". Then I overprinted it with a sentiment from PTI "Stylized Autumn" and heat embossed it with Stampendous Pearl Lustre "Peridot". Finally, I attached these cute toadstools from Spellbinders "Autumn Wonder" dies with dimensional foam.

So, I'm sending it over to Freshly Made Sketches: 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #604 - A Sketch by Cécile

 

IT'S JUST A NUMBER

Hello, Sunday! Today is my husband's birthday - perfect timing for this week's Paper Players Challenge #PP658 - "Sports", selected by our very talented Claire.

The Paper Players: PP658 - A Clean-and-Simple Challenge from Claire

YIKES! I didn't focus on the fact until just now that this was supposed to be a Clean-and-Simple challenge! Well, perhaps because of all of the times I've designed CAS cards when not required, I can be forgiven this one time for breaking the rules. No way am I going to start over!

My husband is a HUGE baseball fan - more specifically the San Francisco Giants. My own interest in any form of sports varies from zero to nil, but he lives and breathes baseball statistics, so I knew I needed to reflect his own statistics in his birthday card this year. I started with an orange 7-1/4 x 5-1/4 envelope that I lined with some old baseball paper given me by my daughter-in-law's sister when she was cleaning out a craft room to move residences. Not being one to ever turn down any paper, I put it into my stash for use some time later - which is now. The envelope was an odd place to start, but I followed it by finding an online image of one of the SF Giants players (Hal will know who it is, but I don't). I printed him and fussy cut him out and mounted him on a piece of the baseball paper that was matted with orange and attached all layers to a black card base. I die cut the numbers twice, layered them, and stamped a PTI sentiment in black ink above. It's disappointing that my phone translated this card as red, rather than red-orange. 

I suppose the interior of the card could be considered CAS. I computer generated the sentiment and printed it on orange paper, matted it with the baseball paper, and fussy cut one of the baseballs from the leftover scraps.

Don't follow my lead - make sure to keep your cards clean-and-simple! Check in with my fellow designers at each of their blogs and have fun with Claire's theme. 

SEPTEMBER MID-MONTH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN

It's that time again, Ghoul Friends! It's mid-month for Two Old Bats Anything Halloween September Challenge. This time around I decided to attempt a floral bouquet similar to the one in the bottom right quadrant of our mood board.

When I started out, I had not planned to create something quite so complicated - I think this is a bit over the top! I started with a black mini slimline card base and added some old scraps of paper to suggest a room with wallpaper and table runner as a background. I'm not going to go through all of the steps to get to the finished card, but I will tell you whose dies I used. The pumpkin and black twiggy tree are from Tim Holtz Halloween die sets. The vase is one of the glasses from Tim Holtz "Happy Hour". The flowers are all from Alexandra Renke "Astrella". The bats are from Whimsy Stamps and Dies. The moon is a stitched circle die from LDRS Creative.

Remember that we will have a drawing this month for these great stickers:

We still have a couple of weeks to enter our challenge and you can enter more than once. Go to our Design Team's blogs to see the additional inspirational cards!

HELLO, FALL

I know that fall hasn't arrived, but can't I wish a bit? I'm so ready for it. That's why I was delighted to see Jaydee's beautiful colors in this week's The Paper Players challenge. These colors just shouted fall to me!

The Paper Players: PP657 - A Color Challenge from Jaydee 

Sadly, once I sat down to make a card, I had a complete brain fart and really struggled with how I wanted to use them. I worked at it for hours and then just had to step away and come back to it. I made the card but wasn't particularly satisfied, so just went to bed and slept on it. It looked a little bit better to me this morning so I'm running with it. That's just how it goes sometimes.

My interpretation of "Pebbled Path" is warm gray, and I have some card stock in my stash that is a medium-toned warm gray, so I started with cutting a card base from it and attaching a white die cut stitched rectangle to the face of it. The next layer was a slightly smaller white stitched rectangle that I stamped a sentiment on from Impression Obsession #WP684 "Leaf Set" after die cutting a Stampin' Up Framelit "Chalk Talk" tag from the center. I slipped a deep teal scrap behind and die cut and colored a couple of fall leaves (no idea whose dies they are) to place over and under the opening. But it was looking too spare, so I decided to overprint an old leaf flourish (maybe Inkadinkado) with Hero Arts "Wet Cement" ink. I stamped it on both layers and then attached the top layer with some dimensional foam. Finally, I attached two leaves and some itsy-bitsy metallic pearls and went to bed. 

Now it's Sunday and I came into my office/craft room (which is complete bedlam at the moment), made a coordinating envelope, and finished up the inside with this Elizabeth Lawrence quote and more swirling leaves. 

It's now your turn and I'm sure you'll be a lot less challenged than I was yesterday. Check in with all of the Design Team members to see their beautiful responses to Jaydee's colors and let them know how much you appreciate their work. 

Added Note:

HA! I've been using this quote from Elizabeth Lawrence for years on fall birthday and Thanksgiving cards without ever knowing who she is! I actually looked her up this morning and it turns out that she is a 20th century horticultural writer who also happened to be the first woman to graduate from North Carolina State University with a degree in Landscape Architecture. Her home and garden in Charlotte are on the Historic Registry and open to the public. Consider yourselves now educated on Elizabeth Lawrence!

Elizabeth Lawrence Garden : The Garden Conservancy

TWINS' BIRTHDAYS

So here we are back around to September and the beginning of the annual family "birthday bash"! September brings in a boatload of birthdays and anniversaries in our family. It starts with the grand twins' birthdays tomorrow, although the family is celebrating tonight over dinner and the kids are each having friends parties all weekend. Hard to believe that they will be 14 tomorrow. 

I made my granddaughter's card a couple of weeks ago and this is her brother's:

I asked Colin what he wanted for his birthday, and he said, "Oh maybe just an Xbox gift card or something." I told him, "Done. But you need to act surprised." That's why the word appears on the outside of the custom envelope! This card was a bit of an engineering feat to make an opening in the face of the card so that the Xbox logo appeared from inside. I die cut a circle from the black card base, measuring where I wanted it to line up with the gift cards. Then I die cut a white stitched panel and laid it behind, marking the location for the stitched circle die, which is just slightly larger than the opening in the black card stock. I mounted this to the face of the card and stamped the sentiment with Memento "Black Tuxedo" ink and then attached the PTI die cut numbers. I stamped and colored the dinosaur and fussy cut him, laying him over the face of the card. I have had this stamp for a long time and have no idea whose it is. 

Inside I mounted a pocket I made from a gift card holder die and added the stamped die cut circle to complete the project.

The card I made for his sister is here. She had already gotten her gift, which was tickets for her and her bestie to dinner and "Footloose".

I'm sharing this card with the Tic, Tac Toe Challenge #225. It fits the center down Birthday/Die Cuts/Stamping category.

TTT225 - Featured Designer Karren - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

What the heck, I'll also share it with Less is More Challenge #491 "Anything Goes".

"Less is More": Challenge #491 - Anything Goes (simplylessismoore.blogspot.com)

I LIKE YOUR STYLE

This morning I'm hitting three challenges with my CAS card - AAA Card Challenge #248: "Add a tag or ticket", Inkspirational Word Prompt: "Clothing/Closet", and Shopping Our Stash #SOS504 "Welcome to the Jungle".

This card came about for a couple of reasons: 1) I bought a blouse a couple of months ago and I really liked the clothing tag that was attached, so naturally I put it into my stash for future use and 2) it reminded me of a dear friend whose style I really admire. I saw her last Sunday and commented on a purse she was carrying, and upon closer attention I noticed it had an Anne Klein logo on it. Also, Donna's astrological sign is Leo! How fortunate that I was able to make use of this for three challenges! I'll set this aside until her birthday next summer.

I started my card with a large piece of heavy watercolor paper that I folded into a 5x7 card base, using the deckle edge for the open side of the card. I die cut a square from a scrap of the same paper and attached it to the face of the card and then added a square of black polka dot paper - I think a mistake, and it should have been a solid black square but too late to turn back once I had glued the tag to it with dimensional foam. I stamped and gold heat embossed the Hero Arts (#CM351) sentiment and then I cut the two Alexandra Renke dies from scraps and attached them, along with some gold sequins. I lined a coordinating envelope with gold vellum to complete the project.

In this photo you can see how much texture there is on the various papers. Here are the challenges I'm entering this morning:

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenges #248: Add a tag or ticket

Inkspirational: Top Picks - Challenge #296 - and Reminder Post - Challenge #297 - Word Prompt - Clothing/Closet (inkspirationalchallenges.blogspot.com)

Added September 16, 2023:

Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge Blog: SOS504 - Welcome To The Jungle

Four-Legged Friends

Hello, Sunday! Here in the US we're mid-point in a 3-day Labor Day weekend and some additional time for crafting - if you're staying home. This week at The Paper Players is "Theme Week" and our creative Joanne has selected "Four Legged Friends" as our theme #PP656. This is a theme that I think we all know a lot about! 

The Paper Players: PP656 - A Theme Challenge from Joanne

I chose the most obvious - cats and dogs. To get a jump-start I used this week's Freshly Made Sketches #601 for a simple layout. When I see a CAS opportunity, I'm not one to resist! 

For this card I chose a black card base and added a couple of printed papers to the bottom third of the card. The next step was to die cut a stitched rectangular panel and mount it over the printed paper bands. I punched a small hole at the crease of the card and strung black twine through and tied it in a bow on the striped paper. Then I stamped a puppy from a very old Inkadinkado set with PTI "Fine Linen" and added a small sentiment in black from Hero Arts. The final step was to stamp a tuxedo kitty with black ink, fussy cut him, and attach him with some dimensional foam. I used Copic markers to color his eyes and the puppy's nose and eyes.

I think you'll have lots of fun with Joanne's theme this week - have at it! 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #601 - A Sketch by Linda

I also can't pass up the opportunity to post a photo of one of our favorite "four legged friends". Today I'm remembering Sara, our beloved Labrador retriever. I don't think a day goes by when I don't remember this sweet girl - I miss her so much. 

Sara Elizabeth Wing

1/09/07 - 5/13/21

DEAD HEADING THE FLOWERS

September at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge! We have a new mood board with the emphasis on fall colors. When I saw the lower left quadrant, I knew I had to make a card that my friend, a master gardener, would appreciate. We're all dead heading our summer perennials right now, so my mind has been on that! 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: September Anything Halloween

 

This was actually a pretty complex design, so where to start? I did start by preparing a slim line card base from black card stock. On this I mounted a slightly smaller panel of printed paper from a 12x12 Halloween pad from Park Lane - "Haunted Hollow". When PTI produced their "Friends to the End" stamp set and coordinating die I doubt that they imagined it being used for a Halloween card! I stamped and die-cut the large flowers from white card stock and colored them with my Copic markers. Then I glued on some fussy cut skulls from the same paper pack and attached the flower heads and skulls to the card front. To add some dimension to the card, I also fussy cut a bit of the foliage out from the printed beige paper and attached it to the face of the card with some dimensional foam and added the sentiment that I had created with my computer and a small tag with raffia tied on.

 

You can see that I also created a coordinating envelope with the same papers and tied it off with an additional flower/skull. I won't be mailing this but will present it directly to my friend at one of our coffee klatches. 

You're going to love what our other team members have done with this mood board! We're just under 2 months now until Halloween, but there's still time to get busy and try your hand at the latest challenge. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

AND, when we hit 25 cards entered, we have these great Halloween stickers for a lucky random winner!