W IS FOR WINTER

I was inspired to make a "winter" themed card based on the latest challenge at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #247 "W is for Winter". I made the card a couple of days ago and then encountered many technical glitches - we ended up with no internet for a couple of days and my photo software just quit working. I'm not very good with technology, so it's been a bit frustrating to get here with this photo!  

Having said all of that, this project started with a white top-folded card base on which I attached a gray embossed panel with swirls. I added some white gel pen to the dots on the embossed panel. I used a bunch of the zombie silhouettes from Whimsey Stamps #CWSD388 ""Zombie Party" and stamped a row of them in Memento "London Fog" across the center of a gray panel and then over-stamped four more figures with black ink. The snow was added with Tim Holtz splatters from a Halloween set and the sentiment is from Impression Obsessions #CS1082 "Zombie Sayings" - both the splatters and sentiment were white heat embossed. The panel was then die cut with a deckle edge and matted with black. I love this sentiment and have used it several times over the past couple of years! 

 

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #247 - W is for Winter

Added March 5, 2024:

MID-MONTH FEBRUARY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here it is mid-month already and this is our reminder that there are two weeks left to enter your projects for February. I showed this card to my husband and he just rolled his eyes - he thinks we at Two Old Bats are mostly nuts! Halloween is not his favorite holiday. He better be careful - he may get this in October when we celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary!

I was looking at the heart-shaped wreath with two skeletons in the top left quadrant when I started this, but I don't have any large heart dies in my stash, so opted for a round wreath.

I started with a 5-1/2" square black top-folded card base, then die cut a circle opening into the center of a smaller square black panel. I cut a piece of Park Lane "Haunted Hollow" printed cardstock and mounted one skull to the top left of the circle opening and glued it from the back before mounting the square panel to the face of the card base. Then I attached a larger circle cut from the printed stock and fussy cut a second skull to overlap the circles. I die cut several stems of PTI foliage from both sides of the printed card stock and arranged them with some black "witchy" threads and enamel dots. 

Inside I die cut a couple of Stampin' Up "Chalk Talk" tags and white heat embossed a PTI sentiment and XOXO - I layered these on to the inside and added some fussy cut bones.

This has been a fun month of combining Halloween and Valentine's Day imagery! I hope you find it as interesting and join us in our rather morbid enjoyment! If we get to 25 or more entries, there will be a drawing for this great die:

 

Join us here:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2024 Mid Month Reminder

VALENTINE'S DAY!

I'm hoping everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day. I'm headed over to deliver my annual heart-shaped cookies that the grandkids love so much and ask for at Christmas and Valentine's Day. I didn't take photos this year, but this photo is from a previous year.

These are Chocolate-Dipped Espresso Shortbread cookies and they are always a hit. The year this was taken, I had wrapped Valentine's Day paper around Trader Joe's coffee cans, decorated the tops, and filled them with the cookies. 

I'll leave you with another big hit from past years - these little boxes I filled with Ghiardelli chocolate squares that were so much fun to make and decorate:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

AAA CARDS CHALLENGE #258 - SKETCH

Today I have the honor of being Guest Designer at AAA Cards Challenge #258 "Sketch"! This is my 4th time as Guest Designer at AAA Cards Challenge - it's always such a treat! I decided to use this challenge for a Valentine's Day card. Here's a link to the challenge and the sketch:

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenge #258: sketch

  

I mulled this around in my brain a bit before finally starting on the card. It looked like the intent was to predominantly use 1/3 of the left side, balanced on the right by the sentiment. I chose to use one of my old standby die sets from Impression Obsession (DIE169-R "Hollyhocks") - I love this die set and don't seem to get tired of using it. For this rendition I decided on using some very old Valentine's printed 2-sided paper - green and black floral on one side and coral and red pattern on the second. I cut the hollyhock stems from both sides of the paper and fussy cut and glued the blooms from the coral side to those on the green side. Then I went in search of some paper that worked well with those colors - I thought this warm gray was perfect. As I started laying out the hollyhock stems, I felt I needed a bit more green and a subtle background to anchor the stems. I cut a gray panel with a stitched rectangular die and stamped a PTI flourish on the left with Hero Arts "Wet Cement" ink (another favorite). Then I stamped the sentiment with PTI "Ocean Tides" and glued the panel to the card base. I determined I needed a couple of extra branches to balance the hollyhocks and die cut them from Birch Press Design #57529 "Budding Twigs Contour Layers", without using the buds, and glued all of this onto the face of the card. The final addition was a couple of coral die cut hearts to extend the images upward.

I custom made a coordinating envelope and lined it with lightweight gray-green paper.

Thank you, AAA Card Challenge for letting me play along this month as Guest Designer!

TWO OLD BATS FEBRUARY

Granted, our mood board doesn't make any reference to zombies, but what's Halloween without them - and there is an image with a couple of pink hearts in the top right quadrant (see below) that look a little like candy hearts. So I took some liberties with my card! As long as it's a Halloween card, you can also take liberties. 

I started with a black square card base and added a panel of printed paper with tree branches in black and gray. Then on a square gray panel I stamped and masked a couple of Tim Holtz images from a Halloween rubber stamp set - I've never used either of these images before. I colored them in with Copic markers, added a Whimsey Stamps sentiment with white heat embossing, and fussy cut a pink heart from some Valentine paper. I matteded the gray card front with some additional pink and white printed Valentine paper.

  

Now it's your turn! Remember that you can enter more than one card and, while the mood board is there for inspiration, you really don't have to follow it as long as it's a Halloween creation!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2024 Anything Goes Halloween