CHRISTMAS COCKTAIL

I'm back again with my second Christmas card of the day! This time I'm playing along with The Color Hues Challenge - #137 "Black and Red." I love making black Christmas cards - especially with metallics.

My card is made with a couple of brand new (to me) Spellbinders die sets. The martini glass was cut from some silver metallic stock with their "Olive Martinis" set and the remaining festive additions was with the coordinating "Christmas Cocktails." The silver heat embossed sentiment is an old one from my stash. I love the bow in this set and I cut it out from a scrap of black and red lace printed stock from one of the old cardmaking magazines - I don't remember who had the cardstock "quads" inserted into their magazines. That just shows how long I hang onto paper scraps!

The black envelope is from my envelope stash and I lined it with a lightweight candy cane printed paper.

Color Hues: Color Hues #137-Black and Red

GRACE US WITH YOUR PRESENTS

Okay, time to start making Christmas cards so I don't get myself into a bind in December, having to scramble for enough cards for friends and family. I've gone to The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #112 to begin my cards. But Inkspirational Challenge also has a word prompt of "Christmas in July."

I've promised myself to start using up Christmas scraps and NO new papers this year! This card is made completely of scraps from some coordinating papers purchased quite a few years ago. The gift boxes had already been fussy-cut and languishing in my scrap bin, so this was very easy. I die cut a bit of the coordinating stripe with a stitched rectangular die and matted it with red cardstock. This was all glued to a white top-folded card base, the sentiment added in brown (Hero Arts "Messages for Cardmaking" #CM379), and the gift boxes attached with a bit of dimensional foam. The final step was to line a red envelope with coordinating print. That's it!

Christmas Kickstart Challenge: The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #112 Reminder - Grace Us with Your Presents

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #372 - Word Prompt - Christmas In July

IS THE MOON OUT TONIGHT?

It's mid-July and time to remind everyone that you still have two weeks for this month's challenge. I actually made this card some time ago, but it was never published, so I decided to use it this month because of the gray, black and burgundy colors and full moon of the lower left quadrant. Is that cheating? 

This Tim Holtz die set is so complex, with many layers, so it's not a quick card. I started by assembling all of the parts for the Count and then made a background from a couple of different stamp sets - the sentiment is white heat-embossed with Impression Obsession "Is the Moon Out Tonight?" and the graveyard scene from Unity "Toil and Trouble."

I made a black card base and added the dark gray background (die-cut with a stitched rectangular die), die cut moon, Count, and his bat. The envelope is a custom one made from light-weight black textured paper and lined with black/gray printed paper. 

Here's our July inspiration board for a kick-start, if you haven't started working on your Halloween project yet - also, go and check out the great cards the other ladies have made for your inspiration:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: July 2026 Mid Month Reminder

SEVENTEEN

I'm here today as the Surprise Party Guest for the next couple of weeks at Seize the Birthday, and the theme is "One or More Numbers". My grand-twins turn 17 in a couple of months, so I decided to get out ahead and make a card for Colin.

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #330-One or More Numbers

You might guess from this card that Colin's great passion is soccer, and I think this is the third year in a row I've made soccer-themed cards for him - mostly because a couple of years ago I bought several 12x12 printed soccer-themed papers (Authentique "Soccer Images") that I'm trying to use up! His younger sister, also a major soccer fan and player, has a 12th birthday coming up this fall, so there's another opportunity for these papers. 

This card was started with a black square card base onto which I attached a slightly smaller panel of green printed soccer turf. Then I trimmed a square of cardstock with black and white printed athletic numbers and a smaller square image with netting and player silhouette. I die cut the PTI numbers out of the front panel and touched up the edges with black marker before attaching the assembled and die cut panel to the face of the card base with black dimensional foam. I finished up with a custom square envelope in a coordinating paper. 

Here's a close-up image of the die cut numbers:

I used the same coordinating papers for the previous birthday cards from ages 15 and 16:

 

 

HAPPY 250th BIRTHDAY, USA!

Hello, all, I'm pleased to be officially at Simply CAS Challenge as a new Design Team member! CAS is really my favorite technique, so I'm looking forward to this.

Simply Clean & Simple: July 2026 - Birthday

Darlene has selected the optional theme for July as "Birthdays" and I wanted  to highlight July 4th as the 250th birthday for the US (hoping we can survive this year). 

 The only element of this card that is remotely current is the sentiment from Hero Greetings "Messages for cardmaking" - everything else is quite old because I haven't purchased any July 4th supplies for several years. The cupcake is from I don't know who. The sparkler is from an old PTI set. I started with a white card base and matching die cut stitched panel. I stamped the cupcake in dark blue on the card base and colored the flag with marker. I die cut a rectangular opening in the top panel, stamped the sparkler and sentiment, and lined the opening with dark blue cardstock. The top panel was attached with dimensional foam.

I do hope you will join us each month to play with CAS technique - and check out what the rest of the team has created to inspire you!

JULY 2026 TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

We've hit the mid-point of 2026 and if you've been following along with us you would be well on your way to creating all of your Halloween cards! Our July inspiration board is packed with red, white, and blue images.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: July 2026 Anything Goes Halloween

But I didn't pay one bit of attention this month to the red, white, and blue theme, because I am fresh out of ideas AND I was determined to use a couple of brand new die sets from Spellbinders - "Boos! Cocktails" and "Olive Martinis".  

Starting with a black 5-1/2" square card base and an additional 5" square panel, I stamped the Tim Holtz cobweb with white ink and heat embossed the sentiment from Whimsy Stamps "Pick Your Poison" #CWSD346a (I'm looking forward to using this stamp set in the future, as it has a lot of fun images and sentiments). I die cut the martini glass and liquid from the "Olive Martinis" set and the skeleton hand and skull from "Boos! Cocktails" and assembled all of the pieces to glue to the front of the top panel. I also stamped a centipede in black on white cardstock, colored and fussy cut it, and draped it over the skull for a truly disgusting drink. I matted the panel in red-orange and attached it to the card base.

Go to our challenge page and you'll see that the other members of the team were a bit more successful at following the inspiration board!