HOW DOES MY GARDEN GROW?

At the Seize the Birthday Challenge #342 we've been called to "Make a Spring Garden", so I had an opportunity to use a Memory Box die that came free with an order sometime last year. It's a fairly ornate die and not really my style, but I didn't use the border and opted for the center circular garden gate, which had been already cut from white cardstock and languishing in my stash.

I made a square white card base and cut a circular opening from a slightly smaller card panel and attached it to the face of the card base. On a scrap of pale blue card stock, I stamped this wonderfully whimsical garden with PTI "Pinefeather" ink and colored it with Copic markers and white gel pen, trimmed it out with a circle die, and attached it to the center of the opening on the card. I added about a hundred tiny pieces of dimensional foam to the back of the circular gate, tied on a PTI "Tiny Tag" with white heat-embossed sentiment, and glued it over the pale blue garden I had created. Having done all of that, it's now time to go out into my real spring garden and do some weeding!

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #324-Make a Spring Garden

I'm also entering this card in the current Tic, Tac Toe Challenge #290, using the center down row - Embellishment/Free/Circles:

TTTC290- Featured Designer Rosanne - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

SENDING LOVE

This morning I was inspired by the sketch at Inkspirational Challenge #365 - Visual Prompt. I have a new-to-me die set with the cutest tiny envelopes from Altenew ("Fun Little Envelopes") that I've been wanting to use. I used one of the envelope dies for a Halloween card back in the fall, but the whole set is wonderful and unused!

I started with a 5-1/2" square card base and two smaller square panels attached to the face of it. I die cut the 4 tiny square envelopes and attached all of them to the front of the card, lining one of them with black and white printed paper. The sentiment was white heat embossed on black cardstock and attached to the front panel, slipping it slightly under the flap of the lower left envelope. Finally I added a couple of hearts and a postage stamp from the die set. The smaller hearts were from another die set. All fairly easy!

 Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #365 - Visual Prompt - Sketch

GHOSTLY GREETINGS

It's already mid-April, and there's still time to play along with us at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge! We love cards, but you can share any Halloween project that you wish.

This time around I was inspired by the lower right quadrant photo of our mood board, with the candelabra and pumpkins. As anyone who follows me knows, I love making little miniature scenes. I started with a die-cut rectangular panel of white cardstock and die cut an opening with a stamp outline die. The sentiment is from a set of small images and words from LDRS Creative "Wicked". The cobweb, spider, and candelabra are all from various stamp sets and the pumpkins were fussy cut from printed Halloween paper. I added a bit of white gel pen to the candles and yellow Prisma pencil for some glow. These were all stamped and glued to a warm gray scrap, and everything mounted to a white card base.

Check out the inspirational cards prepared for you by our design team - you still have 2 weeks left on our rainy April challenge!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: April 2026 Mid Month Reminder

APRIL TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

It's April and time to get out the umbrellas - and your Halloween crafting supplies! Diane has a great 'stormy' mood board to inspire us. 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: April 2026 Anything Goes Halloween

The minute I saw this inspiration board, I knew to go straight to my Tim Holtz trick-or-treaters stamp - the only one I have with an umbrella. I dug through my stash and found very old Halloween paper from the very first 12x12 paper stack I ever bought, and I don't have a clue who manufactured it oh so many years ago. I thought it looked like it was raining ghosts on these poor kids and their cat!

I started with a top-folded black card base and glued panels of the ghosts and bubbles paper, then over-stamped the trick-or-treaters with black ink. It didn't cover very well, so I had to go back in with a black marker to fill in everything. This very simple card was finished off  with a layered die cut sentiment from LDRS Creative "Large Word Halloween." The custom envelope has been knocking around in my envelope stash for a very long time, waiting for the perfect time to use it.

You should go over and check out the rest of the ladies' umbrella cards for further inspiration! Remember, you can create 'anything' Halloween.