BECAUSE YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH HALLOWEEN CARDS...

Even though I am part of the Design Team at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge, and I create 24 Halloween cards a year for the challenge, I'm still about 6 cards short for my total 2024 mail-out. So I decided to start working on some other challenges using Halloween themes. My first effort here is for Inkspirational: Challenge #325 - Word Prompt - "Headwear". 

This was so much fun - but then, aren't Halloween cards always?! I started with this cute black cat wearing a witches hat from some printed papers last year that I still have in my stash - Park Lane "Boo!". I fussy cut her from a larger sheet and then cut an additional hat and added a colored band, die cut purple bat, and black feather with bead. I stamped and black heat embossed the sentiment from Impression Obsession #CL553 "Is the Moon Out Tonight" on 3 different papers and pieced them together for strips of color. This I added to a black card base after matting it with red-orange dotted paper. I glued kitty to the face of the card and added her hat with black dimensional foam and bent the bat's wings a bit.

It wasn't until I copied the Inkspirational badge here that I realized it has a feather on it like my kitty's hat!

Inkspirational: Challenge #325 - Word Prompt - Headwear (inkspirationalchallenges.blogspot.com)

Added October 12, 2024:

SEPTEMBER BIRTHDAY CARD #3

Continuing with the run of September birthday cards, here's #3, my dear husband's card for his birthday tomorrow. I always do something that is specific to the interests or personalities of my loved ones when I create a card. In this case, my husband was a wine wholesaler before I met him and he has kept up with his active interest in wines over the years. We're fortunate that we live in a great wine-growing region here in southern Oregon.

As additional inspiration I went over to AAA Card Challenge #274: Sketch, where we are challenged to use overlapping images with a bit of transparency.

I used a new Unity Stamp Company rubber stamp collection: "Age gets Better with Wine" that I purchased a month or so ago. I find I can never have enough wine-related stamps in my stash!

On a 5x7 white card base I started with some red wine-colored spills and splotches and some PTI "Scarlet Jewel" ink. Then I stamped the left hand bottle and the spilling glass in black ink, masked the first bottle, and over-stamped a second bottle. I colored them with Copic markers so that they appear to be empty (as they would be, if they're anywhere near us!). Then I went in search online to find two of his favorite southern Oregon red wines, scaled the labels to fit these bottles, and fussy cut the labels to add to the bottles - he'll recognize them immediately. I wanted to add another scattered background in gold to match with the sentiment, but first I stamped it in Memento "Bamboo Leaves" so that it would look like the bottles were in front of it, and then later over-stamped and gold heat-embossed it.

The inside is made up of two other Unity Stamp Collection - "Let's get 'Sip' Faced" and "Drink & Cuss". 

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenges #274: Sketch

I'm also participating over at Inkspirational - Designer's Choice, "Make Your Mark":

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #324 - Designer's Choice - Make Your Mark (inkspirationalchallenges.blogspot.com)

SEPTEMBER MID-MONTH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Generally I follow the inspiration board our leaders have provided for us - but, in this case, I went off on my own because I have a brand new Tim Holtz die cut set that I wanted to try out. Plus, there's this lab beaker paper that I haven't used before and it seemed like a good choice with my "The Count" changed to a mad Dr. Frankenstein, as seen on Pinterest. I'll save the Count for another time. 

At any rate, I did use some of the same colors on this card as on the top right quadrant of our inspiration board. This Tim Holtz #665557 "The Count" die set is not for the faint-of-heart die cutters! There are so many layers, but I made it harder by changing him to a mad scientist. It seems like I either do my Halloween cards as CAS or very complex - very few in-betweens. 

Because of the vertical orientation of the die cut I chose to go with a slim-line card and coordinating envelope. After assembling the scientist I opted for using a turquoise background that looks like damask wallpaper and cutting a strip of the lab beakers paper, combined with a strip of "Fright Night" sentiment from some random scraps, which I glued to a strip of purple card stock that is trimmed out with a drippy border punch. This I placed over the turquoise background and matted with some diagonal coordinating paper. Before I attached this to the face of the black card base, I added a stamped spider dropping toward the shelf of poisonous beakers. I fussy cut some additional beakers and added them to the shelf with a bit of foam dimensional tape and glued Dr. Frankenstein to the face of the card.

The final step was to construct a slim-line envelope and add a strip of "Fright Night" sentiment to the flap. WHEW! Not an easy card to make and I think it's a candidate for a hand-delivered card, since I'm not sure it would survive the postal service.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: September 2024 Mid Month Reminder

 

SEPTEMBER BIRTHDAYS #2

In case anyone is interested, this is a follow-up post of the second twin birthday card. If it's not apparent by this card for my grandson, he's a HUGE soccer fan! He's currently playing on the varsity soccer team for his high school (not bad for a freshman) and next spring he'll continue on the local travel team where he's been playing for the last two years.

I knew I wanted to make a soccer-themed card for him, so had to go in search of a special stamp set or paper. I found this collection of  Authentique "Soccer Images" card stock with several coordinating 2-sided papers. I started with one of the images of the ball in the net, knowing I wanted to use it in the center of the card as the primary focus and the #15. I used PTI's numbers to die cut the numbers and stacked them with 4 layers of green paper and matted it with the same green (backside of one of the papers). Then I layered that a couple of more times with coordinating squares and attached it all to the face of a black square card base. Then I layered over die cut 'happy' (Hero Arts ) and 'th' and 'birthday' (PTI). The final step was a coordinating custom envelope.

The '15' doesn't show well on this photo, so here is a close-up:

Since this is all new 'schtuff' I'm sharing a second time at the September challenge for NBUS:

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #66 (mynbus.blogspot.com)

  

On a Personal Note:

It's hard to believe these two are twins - they're so different in appearance and personality. Colin was born 5 minutes after Alexis, and my son's joke is that it was the quietest 5 minutes of Colin's life! This is a photo of their "Moving Up" ceremony from 8th to 9th grades in June. Also present, their little sister.

SEPTEMBER BIRTHDAYS

This is birthday month in our family and I'm scrambling to catch up with all of the cards I need to turn out by the end of the month. I need all of the help I can get, so I turned to the challenges for a jump-start on the first card. Using the current Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge #255, I selected the center down - Birthday/Rectangle/Die Cuts. I'm also playing over at The Paper Players #705 "A Theme Challenge from Joanne" - Spots or Stripes and combining the two challenges, which I always enjoy doing.

On Monday my grand-twins will turn 15, a fact that has me really scratching my head - how did this happen so fast? I was thinking about how my granddaughter is really emerging into a lovely person and I thought to use butterfly images and bright colors on her card. 

I started by constructing the butterfly by stamping my Kaiser Craft "Butterfly" three times - twice with Memento Tuxedo Black and once with black heat embossing. Then I colored all three versions with my Copic markers, fussy cut them and layered them together for dimension. On a white card base I layered a bright pink polka dot paper. Using a rectangular stitch die for the top layer of the card base, I die cut a smaller plain rectangular opening and stamped the sentiment from Hero Greetings "Mini Messages" #CM351 - I love these tiny sentiments! I inserted the butterfly and attached everything to the card base, folding up the wings and antennae for dimension. I added a teal rhinestone because my granddaughter likes a bit of bling, finished the inside, and lined an envelope.

Now I have to get busy with her brother's card. Later in the month the family is heading off to Europe to meet up with their grandfather, who's celebrating his 80th birthday. This birthday will be travel-themed, so I'm tucking Euros into their cards and buying them a couple of travel necessities that they may or may not really appreciate, although they will enjoy the Euros!

Here are the links to the challenges I'm entering with this card:

TTTC255 - Featured Designer Karren - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

The Paper Players: PP705 - A Theme Challenge from Joanne

Added 9/07/2024:

SEPTEMBER TWO OLD BATS HOLLOWEEN CHALLENGE

We've arrived at September, my favorite month of the year (many family birthdays and anniversaries)! Just look at the images for our Two Old Bats inspiration board - lots of bright colors.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: September 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

I particularly like the top right quadrant with the three trick-or-treaters and the moon, so that's where I decided to go.

Often, easiest is best. For this brand new September challenge, I opted for easiest since I have SO MANY birthday cards to make this month. I trimmed down some red-orange paper with printed moon crescent and bats and matted it with a coordinating diagonal striped paper from the remains of my Park Lane "Boo!" 12x12 stack (I still have quite a few bits and pieces left in my stash but very little large ones). I die cut 3 witches from black card stock (Whimsey Stamps #WSD488 "Monster Parade") and laid them over the paper after I had white heat-embossed the sentiment and attached all to a black card base. 

The fun part (for me) was finding appropriate jack-o-lanterns to fussy cut from other paper scraps for the witches to carry their candy home in. The final touch was to fussy cut one of the bats from a coordinating paper, glue him to the card, and bend his wings for dimension.

We had a great showing last month, so let's keep up the good work! We have two new fabulous prizes for the drawing if we reach 25 entries - and there's no reason why we won't, since we're drawing nigh to our favorite holiday. 

GO GET 'EM!

 

And because I've never used this witch die before, I'm sharing my card this  month with NBUS Challenge #66:

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #66 (mynbus.blogspot.com)

AUGUST TOB MID-MONTH REMINDER

Mid-August and time for the reminder that we are half-way through our current Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge. If you aren't already working on your Halloween project, there's still plenty of time.  

For my entry, I once again selected the lower left turquoise quadrant as my inspiration - I love this color, although it's a bit unexpected on a Halloween card. 

I die cut an old circular graveyard die (don't remember whose die this is) with black cardstock and laid it over a turquoise circle that I had stamped Hero Arts clouds onto and blended white ink along the edges. Then this circle was matted with a larger white circle and glued to a black top-folded card base that I had white heat-embossed with a sentiment from Impression Obsession #CL553 "Is the Moon Out Tonight?" The white border around the sentiment was added with a white gel pen. Finally, I attached one of Tim Holtz's ghosts die cut from white cardstock. The coordinated envelope was custom-made from some of my favorite two-sided printed card stock.

Here's the link to our challenge:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: August 2024 Mid Month Reminder

There's so much to be inspired by with this month's challenge mood board. But remember that you can enter anything Halloween!

We've had a good turnout this month, so it looks like the ladies will be able to have a drawing for those great gifts - watch this space!

 

'S' IS FOR SUMMER

WOW, two days in a row with new cards to share! Today I'm inspired by the ladies over at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers. A lot of the challenges are featuring summer and summer travel right now, but I'll just stay with the snarky ladies because I'm not sure the other challenges would appreciate my sailor's mouth on the inside of my card!

I was thinking about a couple of years ago when three other lady friends and I went off to a week in Kauai, leaving our spouses behind. I would have loved to have this card at that time to send to my husband back home holding down the fort.

I used a new sun stamp I found in a sale when I went searching for tropical images for the cards from yesterday. I masked off a horizontal line on a piece of white cardstock and stamped the image (Hero Arts #H6356 "From the Vault Etched Serene Sun") with PTI "Orange Zest" ink and colored the image with yellow and orange Copic markers. The next step was to create the water with Hero Arts #CM316 layers, using several gray and blue tones. Then I went over the waves with a bit of blended yellow and a bit more blue and blended a sky. I over-stamped the sentiment with some dark gray and glued my creation to the face of a top-folded square card base. I die cut a frame from the same card stock and attached it over the image with dimensional foam.

Inside, I generated the sentiment on my computer, die cut it with a square die, blended a bit of blue for sky, and added birds from the same stamp set as the waves. I double-matted the square with a bit of lighter orange scrap and white cardstock and attached it to the inside. Finally, I fussy cut a couple of empty Adirondack chairs and glued them to the inside.  

So, here's where this card is headed:

  Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #253 - S is for Summer

TROPICAL THANK YOU

It's been a while since I made a card that isn't a Halloween one! 

The organization that I volunteer for regularly had its annual luau last week and I agreed to make some thank you cards for the groups that performed for us - a hula dance group, Samoan dancers, and a Hawaiian ukulele player. The entertainment was terrific! I had absolutely nothing in my stash that was remotely tropical or Hawaiian so I had to hit a sale at my local crafts store to come up with appropriate images. 

I started with this lovely American Crafts printed paper ("Tropical Garden") that I die cut with a stitched rectangular die and attached to the face of a top-folded white A2 card base. Then I die cut a Hero Arts #D1649 "Leaves & Vines Fancy Die" from the same white card stock and attached it over the face of the printed paper. The sentiment was white heat-embossed on a turquoise scrap and die cut with a stitched tag and tied with orange raffia. I glued the tag to the face and fussy cut and layered on an orange hibiscus blossom from the printed paper. I'm pleased with the outcome.

I think there are a couple of different places I can share my project:

All of the above is using completely new-to-me and never before used, so I'm sending it over to the NBUS Challenge #65 for August.

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #65 (mynbus.blogspot.com)

And since I used some pretty printed paper, I'll add this to Diane and Darlene's new challenge blog:

Love Those Pretty Papers Challenge: Love Those Pretty Papers August Challenge  

 

AUGUST TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Well, it's August and we have a brand new challenge at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge! I know I say this every month at this time, but how did it get to be August? The ladies have a great inspiration board for us, but you can do anything Halloween if the board doesn't inspire you. Generally I stick with something on the board, and this time is no different - I love the turquoise colors of the lower left quadrant and the upper left quadrant with the skeleton sitting on a pumpkin. The only thing missing here is a cat, unless you count the two that tried to photobomb while I was shooting my pics! 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: August 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

I started this card with a side-folding black A7 card base. On a turquoise spider damask printed paper I stamped and black heat-embossed the tail of an Inkadinkado witch to make it look like steam coming out of the die-cut pumpkin cup, adding a black sentiment. I also heat- embossed the swirl with white and orange on the same background paper and fussy cut stars, pumpkins, and skulls from it to paste over the black swirl. The skeleton is one of my favorite often-used images, stamped with black on white, fussy-cut, and tucked behind the cup.

I added a couple of Whimsey Stamps bats and black twine. Finally I added some candies, fussy-cut from the printed paper I used for the coordinating envelope.

Last month's challenge entries didn't get quite up to 25, so we still have these great goodies for a drawing:

JULY MID-MONTH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Mid-July and we're still looking for your Halloween Anything Goes projects here at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge - you still have two weeks left to play with us! This month's mood board features a couple of ideas using red, white and blue but you're not bound by that as long as your card is Halloween-related. I chose to be inspired by the witch hats in the lower right quadrant.   

This was started with a top-folded A6 white card base. The sentiment is from Unity Stamps with the witch cut off. I stamped the sentiment with black ink, die cut it with a deckle edge rectangle and matted that with black and white printed paper. The opposite side of that paper features the witch hats and I fussy cut one, glued it to the face of the card, and added some bat trim on the hat band. I finished with a coordinating custom envelope - very easy.

Remember that we have a couple of special gifts for a drawing if we get 25 or more entries!

AND

Here's the link and our mood board:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: July 2024 Mid Month Reminder

SEIZE THE BIRTHDAY!

Today I'm popping in as Surprise Party Guest at Seize the Birthday. This is the first time I've had the honor of participating in that capacity at this challenge - one of my favorites! The current optional theme is "Fruits".

                                        Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #287- Fruits

It's times like these that I discover the real "holes" in my supplies. Fruits seem to be something I don't navigate toward when purchasing new products. So I headed off to my favorite craft store in search of something featuring some sort of fruit. With all of the fancy papers, stamps, dies, and other crafts available at their large inventory, I could only find two stamp sets - one featuring cherries and one featuring strawberries, and no fruit patterned papers. I settled on "Simple Vintage Berry Fields" #20120 from Simple Stories.

Once I had my choice of fruit stamp sets, I won't pretend I didn't struggle with this card! It took me hours to work out a design, and then I just ended up using only two of the stamp images and none of the sentiments (but now I have some more berry/Mason jar images to use in the future). Well, that's how it goes sometimes - I'm sure that much of my struggle was related to performance anxiety and having to come up with something that was worthy of the challenge at Seize the Birthday!

I started with a Strathmore A7 card base and matching envelope. I stamped the strawberries each twice - once with red on white card stock and once dark green on green card stock. Then I blended with red ink and Copic markers, fussy cut the berries and stems and glued them together. So, once that was done, what to do with them? After several attempts to come up with a way to use them, I finally decided the more CAS the better, and opted for layering them with an old filigree boarder die (probably Hero Arts) and die cut it from some old green and white printed paper from my stash. I stamped the sentiment from PTI's "Tea for Two Addition" in their "Pinefeather" ink. I dug through the supplies to find some red and pink printed papers and settled on two very small scraps of PTI paper and had to piece the stripes together to make a wide enough piece to stretch the full length of the bottom of the card. Whew! I layered everything together with some dimensional foam and added some pink sequins.

  

After all of the struggle, I'm happy with the final product. My experience is that the more cards one produces, the more easily the ideas flow. That should be a lesson to me not to cut back my production as much as I have this year!

On a personal note: As I write this on Monday, the entire west coast of this country is hotter than hell this week. There are something like 17 wild fires in California and we sit just 30 miles from the California border. It was 111 here in Medford yesterday and the day before and expecting the same for the next couple of days. We've been getting out early to water veggies that I have in pots - and there's our little community of feral cats that are all struggling with the heat, sleeping most of the day. We're replenishing the water a couple of times a day, and last night the raccoons dropped by to help themselves. I think they're picking up dropped small plums from our flowering plum tree and rinsing them in the water before eating. The water was almost mud on the last filling about 10:00 last night!   

JULY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

We're back with a brand new Halloween challenge for July! While you can submit anything Halloween, why not use our new mood board as a fun jumping-off place?

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: July 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

I think my submission this month is a bit obscure, giving new meaning to "jumping-off". Looking at the top left quadrant, I was taken by the creepy sign post and remembered a Tim Holtz rubber stamp that I had never used, with a vulture sitting on a sign post. It was quite a small image, so I constructed a scene combining a bunch of small images. 

The moon, bats, and sign post are all Tim Holtz from various Halloween sets and the gnarly tree was a really old image from my stash that I've used several times over the years. I started this card with a gray top-folded 5-1/2" square card base. I stamped a cobweb background on a piece of white card stock, cut it down to 5" square, and attached it to the face of the card. Then, using a 4" square piece of gray card stock, I stamped the moon with Hero Arts "Unicorn" pigment ink. When that dried I over-stamped the trio of bats and the tree. To get the sense of grass across the lower part of the card, I used a Whimsey Stamps grass stamp from their "Zombie Party" set. I stamped the vulture/sign post with black ink on white card stock and fussy cut it out, attaching it to the face of the card with some black dimensional foam. The next step was to white heat emboss the sentiment on a strip of black card stock that had been cut with a stitched curve die and attach it to the bottom of the square with dimensional foam. And because I have this "thing" for ties and simple embellishments, I punched a hole in the top right and pulled some black and white baker's twine through it. After adding a black mat, all was attached to the face of the card.

The custom envelope was made from some two-sided printed paper from Park Lane's "Haunted Hollow" pad. It seemed that paper with creepy animal skeletons would work okay with my card.  

By now, if you send out July 4th cards (I'm not this year) they're probably all finished and in the mail. So, time to start thinking about Halloween! Get out your supplies and join us Wacky Old Halloween Bats with a card of your choice. Remember that if we get 25 or more entries we have a special drawing!

AND