SEPTEMBER TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

It's the beginning of September and we're starting the countdown toward Halloween - just 60 more shopping days left! If you've been following along with us all year, you have nearly all of your Halloween cards or projects completed.  

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: September 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

Our favorite ghoul friends Darlene and Diane have a great mood board for us this month - I'll bet you can't figure out which quadrant I chose for inspiration for the next two weeks!

I started with some orange card stock and black ink and stamped an old Impression Obsession background cover (#CC141 C-A-C "Spider Web"). I trimmed the image down to a rectangle using one of my deckle-edged dies from Tim Holtz. I like how the spiderweb above is highlighted with white, so I used my white gel pen to add a bit of interest to one area of the image. I mounted a black rectangle (cut from black spiderweb embossed cardstock) onto the face of an orange card base, edged the deckle panel with some black Copic marker, and mounted it to the front of the card. I added the die-cut "EEK!" (new-to-me Whimsy Stamps #WSD567 "EEK! Word and Shadow Die Set" and a fussy-cut spider from some printed Halloween card stock. I had some fun with the spider by fussy-cutting a tiny skull from a scrap of printed paper and adding it to her butt and a couple of tiny orange gems as eyes. 

AND LOOK! We have new items for the drawing - and this time there will be no minimum entries! Get your project in and win a chance at these great prizes!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN - EEEK!!

Hello, all of you ghoul lovers! This is our reminder that we still have 2 weeks left on our current August Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge. 

For this card, I had some bits and pieces from a previous attempt that I never used and they've been languishing in my stash for a couple of years. I love it when I can use up old scraps and reorganize them! I started with a printed image that I had fussy-cut from some really old printed cardstock. It seemed appropriate for this month's challenge, although it is a bit creepier than the skull and flowers our leaders have included in the mood board.  I thought it would be fun to stamp the sentiment onto a band of red-orange paper and thread it through the eye socket - YUCK, creepy! I prepared a side-folded pale gray card base and then picked up some of the colors of the bird/skull image - mauve textured die cut stitched rectangle, aubergine die-cut filigree frame, and red-orange mat. The skull, raven, and sentiment were attached to the card front with dimensional foam.    

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: August 2025 Mid Month Reminder

We're still hoping to get 25+ challenge entries so the ladies can have a drawing for these Whimsy Stamps alien dies, and the last time I checked it seemed quite possible:

AUGUST TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

It's always hot here in southern Oregon in August, so it's a good time to stay inside and make more Halloween cards. Our two favorite 'old bats' have provided some cute images this month to give us a kick-start. Of course you're not required to use the mood board, but I generally like using it for at least one of my cards each month. Let's see what you come up with:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: August 2025 Anything Goes Halloween 

I was drawn to the haunted house in the lower left corner and loved all of the green, pink, and purple tones. 

My card has so many layers - I started with a green card base and a matching panel from the same card stock. I stamped a Newton's Nook tree, a couple of Tim Holtz bats, and the sentiment with black ink on the green panel. Then I started layering moon, die-cut stitched clouds, and foreground, continuing to over-stamp the tree and bats with black ink. Once all of these layers were completed, I trimmed the panel with a stitched rectangular die, matted it with black cardstock, and mounted all of the layers to the face of the card base.

The haunted house (Tim Holtz) was die cut from some aubergine card stock and backed with a scrap of bright pink paper that I stamped a couple of partying zombies on in purple. My last step was to fussy cut a couple of tiny ghosts to join the zombie party.

If you've come here first, go over to the TOB blog and see the wonderful cards our Design Team is offering up for your inspiration. 

AND...we still have these cute alien dies from Whimsy Stamps to give out if we reach 25 entries:

 

JULY MID-MONTH TWO OLD BATS REMINDER

Here we are half-way through our July Halloween challenge and this is a reminder that there's still plenty of time to enter your projects. And remember that your project can be "anything Halloween" - our mood board is for inspiration that you can follow - or not.

My project is a completely different direction from the mood board, although I guess one could say that the colors and tone of the card is similar to the lower left quadrant.

I've had a black filigree die cut frame hanging out in my Halloween stash for a couple of years and was determined to use it finally, although I wasn't sure where I was going to go with it. I ended up making a card from a scrap of two-sided printed spider web stock and attaching the frame at an angle. I glued a rectangle of some bat printed paper to the frame - these papers are from a 12x12 stack from Park Lane ("Haunted Hollow") with lots of somber-toned prints that are a bit on the ghoulish side, but I love them! The front of the card seemed like it needed more than just a framed panel with bats, so I decided to add a torn vellum strip that I white heat-embossed the sentiment on, attached it, and added a mauve twine tie and black die cut bat. The custom envelope is also from the same paper stack.     

To make the treat box, I used the same materials. I didn't have mauve twine, so I made it by passing a length of off-white twine under the wide end of a BV23 "Grayish Lavender" Copic marker.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: July 2025 Mid Month Reminder

 

JULY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are in July and our favorite Ghoul Friends have a new inspiration board for us at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge - actually, you're not required to use the board. It's there for your inspiration, but I usually like using it to get myself jump-started.

 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: July 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

I think you can see from my card that I definitely went with the lower right quadrant of the board! 

I die cut a deckled rectangle out of gray cardstock and then started assembling the scene with a variety of manufacturers' products. Using black ink from Memento I stamped a grassy knoll from Whimsy Stamps "Zombie Party" and a leafless tree from Newton's Nook "Spooky Street". I overlaid a moon that I had created from Tim Holtz's "Halftone Halloween" by stamping with grayish tones on  tan cardstock and then blending and die cutting it with circle die. I glued it to the face of the gray deckled rectangle and stamped the tree again. The bat is from Newton's Nook "Spooky Street" and the cat and pumpkin are from Unity "Toil and Trouble" - I stamped and colored them, fussy-cut them, and attached them to the face of the card with black dimensional foam. Finally, I attached all of this to a black card base and created a coordinating envelope, adding a sentiment and cat from LDRS Creative "Wicked" to the flap.  

It's now your turn! If we get to 25 entries the ladies can finally reward someone with the alien dies from Whimsy Stamps that have been hanging about for months!

And as long as we're on the subject of cats: Here are Tux and Tiger. Would you believe that these two boys were litter mates? It's hard to believe as they are so different - born to Chloe our calico a couple of years ago.

JUNE MID-MONTH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Back again with our mid-month reminder at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge!

This time around I used up the scraps of a page in the 12x12 Halloween stack that I made a card from at the first of the month. The main things in our mood board brought forward as inspiration are bats, cat, and witches.

I started by die cutting a circle from the printed orange paper, laid it over a rectangle of purple cardstock, and trimmed out the two layers with a stitched die cut rectangular panel. I black heat embossed the sentiment and the cat and matted it with the last bit of printed orange cardstock. I glued it to the face of a black card base and added the die cut Whimsy bats and witches. I used the same purple two-sided card stock for a coordinated envelope.

You still have 2 weeks to get your Halloween projects completed and shared with us:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: June 2025 Mid Month Reminder

Are you getting a bit tired of seeing these same cute Whimsy dies that the ladies have been trying to give away if we get at least 25 projects? I know I am. Well, let's get with it!

JUNE TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

WOW! The 6th month of 2025 has arrived, along with a new June mood board with some very cute images for your inspiration.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: June 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

You know how you can start a card with an idea and then end up with something completely different? That's what happened here - I was working on a card influenced by the top right quadrant of this month's mood board and the only thing that survived of the original idea was the colors!

In my final iteration, I started with a 12x12 printed sheet from  an American Crafts stack called "Boo Crew". I cut the sheet up, using only part of the overall printed image of a haunted house and nearby trees. I trimmed out a 5" square with the moon and attached it to a 5-1/2" side-folded card base and then overlaid the trees and pumpkins with black dimensional foam, adding more fussy-cut pumpkins and bats. The final addition was a die-cut sentiment from LDRS Creative (#8321 "Large Word Halloween") cut from the darkest orange portion of the sheet, and a custom envelope from a coordinating two-sided cardstock in the same stack. 

The ladies are still trying to award these cute dies from Whimsy Stamps if we can get 25 or more entries:

HOCUS POCUS

It's mid-May here at Two Old Bats and this is our reminder that you still have a couple of weeks to join in with my silliness.

You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about... You do the Hocus Pocus and you turn yourself around. That's what it's all about!

I know those aren't the correct lyrics, but when I started putting this card together, this is what I thought it looked like these guys were doing - either that or spelling out YMCA! Since I decided to use a new word die - Hocus Pocus - I've taken the liberty to change the lyrics to meet my silly mood.

I started this card with a horizontal A2 black card base. I added a rectangular bright pink printed cardstock and layered the printed skeleton paper over the top of that. I added the die cut LDRS Creative "Large Word Halloween" #8321 that I had cut from the pink cardstock and backed it with the black. The final step was to add a couple of googley eyes, a side-tied  bow of twine, and a coordinating envelope and treat box.

We haven't given away the cute Whimsy Stamps dies, so those are still available if we hit 25 or more entries - let's get with it!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: May 2025 Mid Month Reminder

Since this card features a large die cut sentiment, I'm going to share it with the others at the Word Power May Challenge:

Word Power: Word Power May 2025 Challenge

MAY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

May has arrived here in Blogland and our favorite ghoul friends have posted a new inspiration board that is sure to interest you! Here we are back at a pink theme, but this time I came armed! 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: May 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

I was drawn to the cupcakes in the lower right quadrant - especially since I have a brand new-to-me stamp set from Newton's Nook Designs (#NN2008S07 "Spooky Roundabout") that I got to play with. I used a black 5-1/2" square card as my base. I trimmed a piece of pink card stock to 5-1/4" square and stamped the "roundabout" image on it with black ink. I stamped the same image a second time on white heavy paper and fussy cut all of the ghosts and skeletons from it and glued them to the pick card, The rest of the images in the circle were colored with Copic markers. The final layer of the card is a black 5" square with a circle die cut from the center and laid over the pink square. The sentiment was white heat embossed onto a strip of orange and magenta striped print paper and inserted into the side of the die-cut circle. I used a bit of white gel pen for bats' eyes and the tips of the candy corn. The "cute & creepy" was a white heat embossed afterthought.

I made a custom square envelope with black heavy paper and lined it with the same orange and magenta stripe I used for the sentiment.

Today's treat box is  brought to you by the color pink! The ghost is a sticker that I adhered to a scrap of cardstock and fussy cut. I die cut a couple of circles (black and the orange/magenta), attached all to the box plus a couple of die cut bats, and tied off with magenta and orange twine from my stash.

Additionally, over at Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge, one of the diagonal choices from the Featured Designer Jeanie is "Die Cut/Patterned Paper/Treat Holder". My little Ghirardelli Halloween treat box certainly fits within that with the die-cut bats and circles - one with patterned paper.

TTTC269 - Featured Designer Jeanie - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Speaking of pink, how about this Oklahoma Red Bud tree in my front yard? As I've often commented about here on my blog, we tore out a lot of grass in our front yard and replaced it with a smaller patch and native pollinator plants. It was finished last summer and this year the grasses and shrubs from last year are starting to bloom. This is the second year of our red bud tree and it's been glorious! We also have purple sage and paprika-colored yarrow just about to open up - can't wait to see it all in bloom at once!

APRIL MID-MONTH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here's our mid-month reminder for the TOB Halloween April Challenge. If you've been planning to play along with us this month but just haven't had the time to get your project (card or anything Halloween) entered, you still have two weeks!

Inspired by the lower left quadrant of our mood board (see below), I used a witch and cauldron image  that I haven't used before - it's from Unity Stamps ("Toil and Trouble"). I've used other images and sentiments from the set, but not this one yet. I started with a rectangle of printed paper as a background and mounted a large orange and yellow moon over a white one that was already on the paper. I mounted it to an orange and yellow mat and glued all three layers to a black card base. Then I stamped the witch with black ink on a white scrap, and colored and fussy cut her. I stamped the sentiment and three Tim Holtz bats and attached the witch with dimensional foam.

I finished off with a custom envelope with cauldrons printed on one side. And here are this month's coordinating treat boxes:

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

And our cute Whimsy Stamps alien dies for the drawing if we get 25 or more entries in the challenge:

APRIL TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

 Here's a brand new inspiration board for April, and it's full of orange, black, and yellow "witchy" images! And look at all of the moons!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: April 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

My card for this beginning of the month challenge is a sort of composite of more than one of the quadrants presented by our challenge leaders.

I die cut circles from two coordinating  orange and yellow card stocks and inserted the yellower one into the orange one to make my moon - I'll see if I can use the additional orange circle on the next card! Then I cut a wide strip of orange and yellow diagonal striped card stock and glued both the moon panel and diagonal panel to a black square card base and added the strip of Graphic 45 "Fright Night" with black cats and sentiment. Then I added a Tim Holtz Halloween die-cut church and scraggly tree, positioning the church so that one of the black cats is peering at us through the church door. I die cut a picket fence from black cardstock from one of my village die sets and added two die-cut bats from Whimsey Stamps. The envelope is custom-made from coordinating card stock.

Here's my coordinating treat box built with black card stock, and I added die cut tags from the orange and yellow papers and a strip of Graphic 45 bats, die cut Tim Holtz cat, Whimsey die-cut bat, and black & white baker's twine. I'll make another box when we're at our mid-month reminder.

 

AND our Whimsy Stamps dies are back to haunt us until we get 25 or more entries in our challenge!

MARCH MID-MONTH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

I thought we were finally entering spring, but here we are mid-March and we woke up yesterday to snow, and it's been rainy and cold since. 

I started this card with a medium gray rectangular panel onto which I heat-embossed green and black splatters before adding the sentiment on a die-cut circle of printed card stock (You may recognize that paper from my card at the first of the month). The sentiment and witch's hat are both from a Unity rubber stamp set ("Toil & Trouble"). The circles around the moon and bats are both Tim Holtz dies from various collections. I pieced a bright green hat band on the hat, matted the panel with green and black/gray card stocks and mounted all of the layers to a black card base.

I can't begin to tell you how much trouble I had trying to balance the colors on this photo! The green printed paper kept presenting itself as yellow - you'll have to just believe me when I say that it is decidedly green!

 

Here's another shot of all of this month's treat boxes:

  

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: March 2025 Mid Month Reminder

We're still hoping to give these dies away! If we can get 25 or more entries we can have a drawing to give these away and move onto some new products. There are still two weeks left for your projects. 

 

MARCH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

SPOOKY!!

We're heading into March now, with all things green - the beginning of spring, St. Patrick's Day shamrocks, and our new inspiration board here at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: March 2025 Anything Goes Halloween

This week's card is a CAS version of our inspiration board. I liked the house and green moon at the lower right hand corner and decided to use a very old creepy house stamp that I've never used, along with a brand new sentiment stamp set (LDRS Creative "Wicked"). I stamped the house twice with black ink - once on a gray scrap and again on a piece of printed green Halloween paper. I die cut a circle from the green image and pasted it over the image on the gray paper. Then I framed it with a black square, stamped the sentiment on a white stitched rectangle that I had die cut a slightly larger square from. I stacked all of the layers and attached them to a white card base. The final addition was one of my favorite Tim Holtz's ghosts - glued with a piece of dimensional foam.

I made a coordinating envelope and then, because our challenge is 'all things Halloween',  started having all kinds of fun with treat boxes - each of them will hold 3 Ghirardelli chocolate squares.

I've been playing around with an old idea that I worked with some years back - Halloween treat boxes for Ghirardelli chocolate squares. I originally made them for Valentine's Day, but I thought it might be fun to produce a bunch of them as I go through the Halloween year and make them coordinate with my card. By the time Halloween comes around, I could have quite a pile of them in lots of different colors. I couldn't remember exactly how to make them,  so I turned to YouTube and found the following tutorial:

                                          Ghirardelli Treat Box Tutorial                                                       

I think Diane and Darlene are probably getting anxious to give away these sets of Whimsy dies if we get 25 challenge entries, so let's not disappoint! Get out those green and black Halloween papers and get with it!