"D" IS FOR DRINK

This is my second post of the day - I can't let the month end without spending a bit of time with The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers! The November SoSS challenge is "D is for Drink", but I suppose it could also be "D is for Drunk" if one decides to use alcoholic beverage for the main topic.

I started my card with the idea of using a new-to-me rubber stamp from Unity Stamp Company "Corks & Giggles". I stamped it in black onto a white deckle-edge die cut rectangle and over-stamped the splats from my Halloween stash. The balloon wine glasses are Tim Holtz and I die cut them from a couple of layers of  vellum and some burgundy-colored card stock. I stacked a couple of extra mats in gray, burgundy, and black and glued all to the face of the card.

It was very nice of Tim Holtz to include a pinot noir/burgundy glass in his "Happy Hour" die set. My husband is a HUGE pinot noir fan and will not drink it out of any other glass than one of our burgundy glasses! I showed him this card and he said, "Oh, pinot noir"! Any of you who are in the "wine-o" class will know that Oregon has excellent pinot noirs!

Here's Edna at her favorite bar. She's holding a white wine bottle in her left hand, a large glass of rose in her right hand, and dripping pinot noir or merlot down her chin - it appears that she's surpassed the above mentioned 2 glasses of wine! 

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #268 D is for Drink

Added December 10, 2025:

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS!

Except at our house - I have a hard time with the crowding of Christmas into Halloween and Thanksgiving. I just can't bring myself to think about Christmas until Thanksgiving has passed by a couple of weeks. I don't start decorating until about the 2nd week of December. But I do, however, think about Christmas cards. The mail service is so poor these days that cards have to go out earlier than before.

So, we got all of the Thanksgiving dishes cleared away - it took 3 dishwasher loads - and I cleaned up my craft room and started on Christmas cards. I'm looking for ideas that are easy to make in volume and also can be mailed with standard postage. That means no dimensional foam or brads or enamel dots. CAS it is! 

My first holiday card of the season is in response to Freshly Made Sketches #714 - A Sketch by Cécile.

For this card I dug deep into my stash to the very beginning of my cardmaking to some old Anna Griffin printed paper I had been hoarding for more than 20 years. I could just never bear throwing any of it out! I started with a top-folded A2 card base I made with heavy watercolor paper. I die cut a stitched frame panel and opening from the same paper and silver heat embossed the sentiment (Hero Arts CM379). I slipped a small scrap of the ochre colored swirl coordinating paper behind the opening and glued the panel to the face of the card. The ornament was fussy cut from two leftover ornament images on scraps of the Anna Griffin paper and layered. The one new thing is this beautiful layered bow from Recollections that came as a die set with other bows, and I die cut it from textured silver metallic paper. This year I'm really into layered die-cut bows, so you'll no doubt be seeing some more of them in the next couple of weeks!

I finished the card with a bit of silver metallic thread and 5 tiny silver sequins. I made a custom metallic silver envelope to match. 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #714 - A Sketch by Cécile 

Added December 2, 2025:

I hope it's okay to use this old badge!

THIS YEAR'S THANKSGIVING CARD

Lest you think that I only create Halloween cards...

I had a couple of things I wanted to accomplish with this Thanksgiving card - 1) participate in the current Time Out Challenge #302, and 2) use up a boatload of kraft paper and envelopes from my stash.

This card started out quite a bit simpler than it ended up. I had this idea to use a Sizzix embossing folder I had never used. I thought the mums were a good fall background image on which to build a wreath. I cut a double circle from the lower right area of a panel of kraft paper, embossed the remaining part, and attached it to a kraft card base. I stamped the sentiment in dark brown on the smaller of the circles, glued it to the card, and added a die-cut Tim Holtz wreath (I wasn't crazy about how the kraft paper took the ink). The other dies are from Spellbinders "Autumn Wonder". I die cut the various elements from white watercolor paper and ivory and brown cardstock and arranged them all on the wreath. I thought it needed a bit of sparkle, so added some dark brown sequins. 

I made 30 of these, which was quite a task, but got them all out the door over the weekend. Hopefully they'll all arrive at their destinations before Thursday!

The 2 words I picked from the challenge were "Emboss" and "Corner", but I suppose the sequins also add a bit of sparkle. 

 

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #302

GHOSTLY GREETINGS

Here's our November Mid-month Two Old Bats Challenge reminder! You have until the 28th to complete your projects.

I had a new die set of mini envelopes that I wanted to try out - Altenew #ALT10697 "Fun Little Envelopes" and had fun combining one of the envelopes with a postage stamp outline die. I constructed the envelope with printed cardstock and white heat embossed the sentiment. I attached the postage stamp at an angle on a black card base after stamping the corner cobweb, bat, and "31". I glued on the mini envelope and inserted a couple of  vellum die cut Tim Holtz ghosts into the envelope. I also die cut an aqua Tim Holtz cobweb, inserted it under the edge of the postage stamp, and tied on a black and white baker's twine bow. I think this is one of my favorite Halloween cards this year.

Here's our November inspiration board:

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

And how could I not enter this in Time Out Challenges #301 - "Your Favorite Holiday to Celebrate. I love Halloween!

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #301

Added November 27, 2025

NOVEMBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

And here we are the day after Halloween (for me here on the west coast). I hope everyone had a spectacularly fa-boo-lous time last night! But, don't go away - stay around for a whole new annual 365 day rotation of Halloween cards and projects! Our new mood board features lots of black, white, and gray with some orange. I'm anxious to see what all of our followers make of it. 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: November 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

My card is a take-off from the top right quadrant with a misty, foggy forest scene and witch in silhouette - except that I substituted the witch for one of my favorite Halloween dies from Whimsy Stamps, Count Dracula. When I started working with the layout I determined that it would work best in a square format and started with a dark warm gray card base. I added a panel of black and white printed branches matted with black and attached both to the face of the card. To obscure the background, I added a slightly smaller square panel of vellum to give it a "foggy" cast and slipped in an additional vellum moon between the layers and over-stamped a couple of Tim Holtz bats in black. The woodland scene was done with a couple of layers of birch trees from Impression Obsessions dies, cut from black and dark warm gray card stock.