APRIL MID-MONTH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Time for the April mid-month reminder at Two Old Bats Anything Halloween Challenge.  

https://twooldbatshalloweendt.blogspot.com/2020/10/april-2024-mid-month-reminder.html

This time I decided to go with a "witchy" theme, but you'll also see some pumpkins with black cats on these great coordinating papers by American Crafts ("Boo Crew" and "Happy Halloween").  

I love pocket cards and wanted to play around a bit with the idea of a witch upside down in a pocket. I started with a single 5x7 piece of black cardstock and added a couple of  printed papers to the face of it. The envelope is a die I have for gift cards and I cut it from two-sided printed paper, tied it with a couple of pieces of orange and black twine, and attached it to the face of the card.

For the insert tag I partially die-cut Tim Holtz's witch feet from a piece of black cardstock and trimmed it to the correct size. I added colored paper for socks and white heat-embossed the sentiment. I fussy-cut some of the images from the papers and glued them to the tag. 

Trick-or-Treat, pull my feet...

Now it's your turn!

LIVE/LOVE/CRAFT

Today's offering is a combination of two challenges: Time Out Challenge #261 "Inspired by Words" and Inkspirational Challenge #313 "Fold".

The sentiment and image are from Hero Arts #CM366 "Handmade Happiness" stamp set. I started with a black top-folded card base. Using a two-sided printed stock from American Crafts, I die cut a stitched rectangle, cut a slit across it, and folded it back to show the backside of the paper. Once I knew the location of the opening against the black card, I white heat-embossed the sentiment and attached the printed rectangular panel to the face of the card. I stamped the hand/scissors image on a piece of white cardstock and colored it with Prisma pencil and Copic markers and fussy cut it. You can't really tell from the photo, but I also fussy cut the blades of the scissors from silver metallic stock and glued them over the colored image. After attaching the hand and scissors, the final step was to punch a hole in the face of the card and tie on orange and purple twine.

Here are the two challenges - yes, the fold is a bit simple, but a fold never-the-less!

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #261 IBW "I'm a romantic! I live for long, dreamy walks down the craft aisle"

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #313 - Word Prompt - Fold (inkspirationalchallenges.blogspot.com)

Added April 27, 2024:

NAUGHTY KITTY

I felt like dabbling a bit this morning in my craft room and I had two inspirations: AAA Cards Challenge #262: Sketch and our loveable but naughty lynx-point kitty Tiger.

I created this card in a horizontal format because of the size of the Tim Holtz Snarky Cats images. I started by computer-generating the sentiment directly on a piece of white cardstock, followed by stamping the ball of yarn with blue ink. I masked off the yarn and stamped the orange cat and colored him in with Copic markers. I then trimmed the panel with a stitched rectangular die and attached it to a very narrow black mat and the face of a white card base. The final step was to stamp the naughty kitty on a separate piece of white cardstock and fussy cut him out before attaching him with dimensional foam.

This is the AAA Cards sketch that inspired the layout:

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenges #262: Sketch

And this is the naughty kitty that inspired the idea:

 

F IS FOR "FOLD IT"

Here I am at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers for a repeat Guest Designer slot! This month Challenge #249 is "F is for Fold It". You can see that Edna has made herself a hat to wear for this challenge. Do you suppose it's lined with tin foil? 

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #249 - F is for Fold It

I won't pretend that this challenge was easy! I started with a completely different idea (you'll find that at the end of this post), but scrapped it because it felt like it had too few folds. I knew I wanted to start using up these paper dolls from Tim Holtz that had been languishing in my stash for a couple of years. I use one once-in-a-while, but wanted to use a bunch of them. There are a total of 19 people + a dog, so there's only a handful of them left - stay tuned! 

I'm not sure what this fold is called, but I've played with it a couple of times - maybe a standing accordion fold? When compressed it's approximately 5" square. It took 3 sheets of chocolate paper trimmed to 5" strips to complete all of the folds. The sentiment is from AALL & Create (#771 "DEE Quips"). The envelope is a custom one.

The card I made initially for my husband is a much simpler fold. I folded an 8-1/2" x 5-1/2" card base in half with the fold on the right, then turned back the right side. I added tan panels to both layers and glued on the figures so that they slightly overlapped.

When opened, the second part of the sentiment (AALL & Create #771 "DEE Quips") appears with a pile of wine bottles (Unity Stamp Co.). This card was so hard to photograph. Showing the fold really distorted the image. 

APRIL TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

April Fools Day and a new challenge from Two Old Bats! We have a new mood board for your inspiration - or you can submit anything Halloween.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: April 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

I came across a couple of new 12x12 pads of double-sided Halloween paper at Michael's just shortly after Christmas and it was love at first sight! The images are all contemporary and the colors are intense. My Halloween cards are generally more somber, but with these new papers I can see a whole new movement of brightly-colored cards and envelopes starting up! This card and envelope are using the papers at American Crafts "Happy Halloween". 

I was drawn to the lower left quadrant with the giant moon and turquoise sky with bats and stars, and then I diverged to other scary images. I had intended to do a "witchy" card, but the card had other ideas! I started with a black card base and attached a slightly smaller rectangle of orange dotted paper. I black heat embossed the sentiment (Impression Obsession's "When Life" #CL306) onto a gray die-cut circle and smudged up the edges and interior a bit with some gray ink, then attached it to the turquoise and black bats and stars paper and die cut both layers with a deckle-edge rectangle. This I glued over the orange panel and dug out an old Tim Holtz haunted house that was in my stash and attached that. I fussy cut some little ghosts from one of the papers and glued them to the windows of the house. The final "topper" was a die cut bat from Whimsey Stamps ("Dracula Going Batty" Die Set #WSD406). I really like this card - what do you think?

We would love to have you join us on this challenge! We still have a really cool die to give away if we get 25 entries: