TWO OLD BATS MID-FEBRUARY CHALLENGE

My mid-month inspiration card for Two Old Bats Anything Halloween Challenge is a take-off from our mood board's lower right quadrant - a bouquet of  long-stemmed skulls tied with a red bow. The closest image I had in my stash was Whimsey Stamps "Happy Halloweeds".

I decided to do a monotone card with the emphasis on the red bow die from Tim Holtz's "Vault Festive Wreath". The original image of the stamp is the jar and 1 scull and 1 pumpkin. I stamped the image on white card stock and fussy-cut it, cutting off the pumpkin. I then stamped two more skulls on white, fussy-cut them, and layered them into the vase. I mounted the jar and sculls on the face of a gray die-cut rectangle that I had stamped with a spider web and sentiment and mounted to the face of a black card base with two additional mats. The final addition was a double red bow and red dots in the Os of the sentiment.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2026 Mid Month Reminder

There's still plenty of time to re-erect your Halloween supplies and join the fun! 

EMBRACING MY WEIRDNESS!

This morning I was inspired by the challenge over at The Paper Players CAS Challenge "Birthdays and Balloons". Great idea, Stef! As it happens, my younger brother turns 78 in just a couple of weeks. 

I started this card with a sheet of kraft wood-embossed cardstock, making a card base and then due-cutting a rectangle from the back of the same stock so that I could stamp on it. I love these animals with attitude from Whimsy Stamps "So Weird" #CWSD473 and knew I wanted to use one of the images and sentiments for a BD card for my brother. I stamped the bull directly on the kraft panel with black ink and touched him up with a bit of white gel pen. I stamped a spatter of stars and confetti with black ink on a white scrap and then over-stamped Tim Holtz's balloons on a white scrap. I colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them. I glued the yellow one directly on the panel and attached the red-orange one with a bit of cardstock behind for a bit of dimension. Using the white gel pen, I added strings from the balloons down to the bull. The final step for the front was to attached the sentiment after white heat-embossing it on black cardstock and cutting it with a die-cut strip.

Inside the card is very simple - sentiments stamped in black and the splatter with red-orange. As a finishing touch, I inked the outside edge of the card with my black ink pad.  

The Paper Players: PP773 - A CAS Challenge from Stef

And because I used a couple of simple dies on this card, I'm also sharing it over at Seize the Birthday!

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #320- CAS with Dies

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

 

This year, for the first time in at least a decade,  I didn't make a single valentine! Everything conspired against me, not the least of which was a general lack of incentive! I did manage to make the annual chocolate-dipped espresso shortbread cookies for the grandchildren. Thankfully I had enough left-over valentines from previous years to go around for the family and hubby.

So, what have I been doing with all of my spare time? For the past year I've been working on a final interior design project before my retirement. Yes, I've tried retiring now for about six years, and keep being called back into service. But this really is the LAST PROFESSIONAL PROJECT! It's a small corporate office space that has been so much fun to work on - good budget and great client - and we're in the final stages of construction. So my attention has been primarily focused there for the past month, with daily calls from the jobsite to take a look at one thing or another for final approval. I've been telling all of the contractors and subs that this is my swansong and in an undertone the architect beside me keeps saying, "No it's not"! But it really is. Hubby is retiring at the end of this school year and we're planning to start doing some traveling.

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

It's February 2nd and time for a new challenge at Two Old Bats. The ladies have a fairly creepy mood board as inspiration for us!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2026 Anything Goes Halloween

When I saw the above board the first thing that caught my eye was the really creepy heart-shaped creature in the lower left quadrant. EEEK! With all of its little spidery legs I immediately thought about a Katzelkraft rubber stamp set of whimsical bugs in my supplies. 

I'm not sure what this Kratzelkraft character is supposed to be, with all of his eyes - something quite disgusting! I stamped him with black ink onto a deckle-edged light gray panel and colored him with Copic markers, Prismacolor pencil, and white gel pen. I masked him off and over-stamped the gray cobweb and splatters from Tim Holtz. I attached the panel to a black card base. I white heat embossed the sentiment from Impression Obsession "Is the Moon Out Tonight?" on printed cardstock, trimmed it down, punched the blood drips, and attached it with dimensional foam.  

Here's a close-up of my long-legged beastie:

Head over to the blog to see what our other creative designers have come up with to inspire you with hearts and skulls!