MID-MARCH REMINDER - TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

It's mid-March and it's a perfect night for Two Bats Halloween Challenge! My cell phone camera didn't like the bright green I used on this card and to line the envelope - they came through decidedly yellow. 

This time around I was inspired by the lower right quadrant of the mood board - a skeleton and some drippy branches. Using some laurel branches upside down from an IndigoBlu rubber stamp set ("Laurel Leaves" designed by Kay Hallowell-Sutton), I heat embossed with Zing! "Leaf" onto a stitched rectangular panel of black card stock. Then I white heat-embossed a very old sentiment. The skeleton is an old friend I've used many times. I stamped him on white card stock and fussy cut him, adding some green Copic markings for reflection on his old bones. I heat embossed an additional spray of leaves on black and cut it out to add to his hand with a bit of black dimensional foam. All of this got attached to a black card base.  

Time for you to get out your green supplies and make a March Halloween project - although it really doesn't have to be green. Diane's moodboard is for inspiration, and you can use it or not. I personally am fond of this month's board because there's so much there to play with!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: March 2024 Mid Month Reminder

HOME SWEET HOME

Today looks like the first day of spring - the sky is absolutely clear and the plum tree blossoms are ready to pop! I haven't worked in my craft room for more than a week. I looked in on Tic Tac Toe Challenge #243 and see a perfect opportunity for a bright spring-like card! I decided on the center down choices - Yellow/CAS Design/Pearls or Sequins.

This is also a new design for my son's real estate business - he gives out my handmade cards to his clients when they close on their new homes. I've spoken about this previously here and here. 

This card started as a white 5-1/2" square card base. I trimmed a piece of yellow cardstock down to 5x5 and die cut a square out of the center. The sentiment is from a small Hero Arts stamp set #DC225 and I stamped it with Memento "Tuxedo Black before attaching the yellow square to the face of the card. Then I die cut Birch Press Design's "Honeycomb Mini Tile Later Set" #56125 from several yellow and ochre scraps, glued them together, and centered them in the opening of the yellow square. The final step was to stamp, color, and fussy cut a bee from Hackney & Co. "Tell the Bees" set and mount her to the card with a bit of dimensional tape. I dug through all of my stash and found three honey-colored sequins to complete the challenge.

The coordinating envelope is from a pack of square vellum envelopes I picked up a couple of months ago at Michael's. I decided to line it with some bee printed paper I have in my New Home stash. 

I realize that everything on this card - the honeycomb die, the sentiment, and the queen bee are all elements that I've never used before, so I hear NBUS Challenge #60 beckoning to me!   

TTTC243 - Featured Designer Silke - Tic Tac Toe Challenge  

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #60 (mynbus.blogspot.com)

MASCULINE BIRTHDAY

I've been fascinated by cards I've seen on Pinterest that look like a man's suit or shirt and thought to attempt one myself for a dapper friend of mine who's having his birthday today. I really had no idea where I was going when I first started, other than that I wanted to have a pocket to slip a tag into that resembled a handkerchief.

I started with a black 5x7 piece of cardstock for a base to attach all of the other elements. It took me hours to make this and I really don't know how to describe the whole process, other than to say it was a complicated series of trials and errors! I found this black embossed paper in my stash that seemed like it would make a perfect jacket and I started with the collar by folding a strip of beige cardstock and attached it to the top of the black panel, overlapping it slightly above the panel and a bit off-center so that I would have space on the right side for a pocket. I added a piece of beige below for the rest of the shirt. Then I constructed a tie by folding a striped printed paper into roughly the shape of a tie with a Windsor knot and gluing it to the card base under the collar. The next step took the longest because I had to figure out just how to make the lapels. I attached the left side first, gluing it to the card base and trimming the edges. The right side was more complex because I had to construct a pocket by slitting a line across the jacket front and adding a pocket behind it before I attached it to the right side of the card and trimmed it. I cut a strip of paper and die cut some stitching on two edges before attaching it to the jacket front. The final step was to make a button from solid black cardstock and pull some thread through the buttonholes and attach.   

WHEW! As I said, it was a complicated procedure - similar to a tailoring class I once took! The "handkerchief" is a tag cut from a coordinating printed stock with a beige square attached and black heat embossed sentiment. Before slipping the tag into the pocket, I tied on a strip of black silk ribbon.

I'm really proud of this card, so if Alex doesn't make a big deal out of it, I'll be very disappointed!
 

ST. PATTY'S DAY

As I write this on Monday morning, it's been snowing off and on since Friday night/Sunday morning - just as it was starting to seem like spring was around the corner. I pretty much stayed in all weekend and worked in my craft room. One of the results is this card that hits a couple of challenges -  Shopping Our Stash #SOS516 - "It's Not Easy Being Green" and NBUS #60 (Never-Before-Used-Schtuff). This is the very beginning of thinking about St. Patrick's Day cards. I'm not sure I'll put in the effort this year - we'll see. At the very least, I'll make cards for the immediate family.

I picked up this little dragon a couple of years ago and this is the first time I've used him. He's from Whimsy Stamps ("Bart on St. Paddy's Day" #C1106). I stamped him with black onto white cardstock, colored him with Copic markers, and fussy cut him. I colored an additional shamrock and glued it over the top of the others for dimension. I know I wanted to use this ancient sentiment in my 3/17 stash and I white heat embossed it onto a scrap of green cardstock. Then I just played with both images for a while until I hit on the idea that Bart and the sentiment would work best in this case on a square card. So I prepared a 5-1/2" square card base and added two additional square panels. Rifling through my dies, I came across a filigree-edged rectangle that I've never used (I have used a smaller version of this rectangle, but not this particular one). I trimmed the sentiment and attached it to the die cut rectangle as a frame and attached them to the card front. I attached Bart with some dimensional foam, overlapping the sentiment. That's it! I found the bright green square envelope in with my St. Patty's Day papers.  

Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge Blog: SOS516 - It's Not Easy Being Green

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #60 (mynbus.blogspot.com)

MARCH TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE - EEK!

The beginning of March (how did we get here so fast?), and it's a new Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge! I love this month's green mood board - lots of inspiration for you! I went with a combination of the upper right and lower left quadrants for this card - a Venus flytrap in a jar of spiders. My Venus flytrap is eating a spider right out of her web!

You can see from this photo that I started with a stamp from Whimsey Stamps with a jar of eyeballs and other stuff. I stamped it with black on white cardstock, colored it with Copic markers, and added spiders, and fussy cut it, excluding the skull and pumpkin. I white heat embossed a spider web  and "EEKs" onto a stitched panel of gray printed card stock and glued the jar and some additional fussy cut poison jars to it. I then set about creating a Venus flytrap by drawing and coloring and cutting out and gluing to the top of one of the stems. I also added some die cut PTI leaves and a fussy-cut spider. This I mounted to a bright green polka dot panel that I border punched with drips. It was a fairly complex process, but it was fun! 

Here's a closer look at the images: 

It's now your turn with this fabulous mood board! If you can't find enough inspiration here, not to worry because you can enter any Halloween project. Check out the great cards the Design Team is sharing.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: March 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

BIRTHDAY FISHES . . .

. . . FOR MY FAVORITE PISCES!

My brother's 76th birthday has caught me a bit off-guard this year - I've been really busy planning a surprise 40th birthday for the guy who runs the non-profit organization where I volunteer weekly. His birthday is the 8th and my brother's is the 7th. So I decided to cheat a bit by restyling an old card from July of last year. I've had this card from a previous challenge and I thought to CASE my own card, but laziness got the best of me!  I just added a new sentiment over the old one. Is it cheating to offer up an old card with a new sentiment at the current AAA Cards Challenge #259 CAS "Anything Goes - Optional Twist Birthday"? I guess I'll find out!

The new sentiment is a Penny Black set - #30-846 "Birthday Fishes". I white heat embossed it on black card stock, trimmed it, and rounded two of the corners with a Fiskars quarter-round punch. I attached it to the card with black dimensional foam. The original top-half description is HERE. The custom envelope is stamped with a silly rubber stamp "Sealed with a Fish" 

So, we'll see if AAA will accept my cheatin' card!

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenges #259 Anything Cas goes (Birthday Card)

W IS FOR WINTER

I was inspired to make a "winter" themed card based on the latest challenge at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #247 "W is for Winter". I made the card a couple of days ago and then encountered many technical glitches - we ended up with no internet for a couple of days and my photo software just quit working. I'm not very good with technology, so it's been a bit frustrating to get here with this photo!  

Having said all of that, this project started with a white top-folded card base on which I attached a gray embossed panel with swirls. I added some white gel pen to the dots on the embossed panel. I used a bunch of the zombie silhouettes from Whimsey Stamps #CWSD388 ""Zombie Party" and stamped a row of them in Memento "London Fog" across the center of a gray panel and then over-stamped four more figures with black ink. The snow was added with Tim Holtz splatters from a Halloween set and the sentiment is from Impression Obsessions #CS1082 "Zombie Sayings" - both the splatters and sentiment were white heat embossed. The panel was then die cut with a deckle edge and matted with black. I love this sentiment and have used it several times over the past couple of years! 

 

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #247 - W is for Winter

Added March 5, 2024:

MID-MONTH FEBRUARY TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here it is mid-month already and this is our reminder that there are two weeks left to enter your projects for February. I showed this card to my husband and he just rolled his eyes - he thinks we at Two Old Bats are mostly nuts! Halloween is not his favorite holiday. He better be careful - he may get this in October when we celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary!

I was looking at the heart-shaped wreath with two skeletons in the top left quadrant when I started this, but I don't have any large heart dies in my stash, so opted for a round wreath.

I started with a 5-1/2" square black top-folded card base, then die cut a circle opening into the center of a smaller square black panel. I cut a piece of Park Lane "Haunted Hollow" printed cardstock and mounted one skull to the top left of the circle opening and glued it from the back before mounting the square panel to the face of the card base. Then I attached a larger circle cut from the printed stock and fussy cut a second skull to overlap the circles. I die cut several stems of PTI foliage from both sides of the printed card stock and arranged them with some black "witchy" threads and enamel dots. 

Inside I die cut a couple of Stampin' Up "Chalk Talk" tags and white heat embossed a PTI sentiment and XOXO - I layered these on to the inside and added some fussy cut bones.

This has been a fun month of combining Halloween and Valentine's Day imagery! I hope you find it as interesting and join us in our rather morbid enjoyment! If we get to 25 or more entries, there will be a drawing for this great die:

 

Join us here:

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2024 Mid Month Reminder

VALENTINE'S DAY!

I'm hoping everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day. I'm headed over to deliver my annual heart-shaped cookies that the grandkids love so much and ask for at Christmas and Valentine's Day. I didn't take photos this year, but this photo is from a previous year.

These are Chocolate-Dipped Espresso Shortbread cookies and they are always a hit. The year this was taken, I had wrapped Valentine's Day paper around Trader Joe's coffee cans, decorated the tops, and filled them with the cookies. 

I'll leave you with another big hit from past years - these little boxes I filled with Ghiardelli chocolate squares that were so much fun to make and decorate:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

AAA CARDS CHALLENGE #258 - SKETCH

Today I have the honor of being Guest Designer at AAA Cards Challenge #258 "Sketch"! This is my 4th time as Guest Designer at AAA Cards Challenge - it's always such a treat! I decided to use this challenge for a Valentine's Day card. Here's a link to the challenge and the sketch:

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenge #258: sketch

  

I mulled this around in my brain a bit before finally starting on the card. It looked like the intent was to predominantly use 1/3 of the left side, balanced on the right by the sentiment. I chose to use one of my old standby die sets from Impression Obsession (DIE169-R "Hollyhocks") - I love this die set and don't seem to get tired of using it. For this rendition I decided on using some very old Valentine's printed 2-sided paper - green and black floral on one side and coral and red pattern on the second. I cut the hollyhock stems from both sides of the paper and fussy cut and glued the blooms from the coral side to those on the green side. Then I went in search of some paper that worked well with those colors - I thought this warm gray was perfect. As I started laying out the hollyhock stems, I felt I needed a bit more green and a subtle background to anchor the stems. I cut a gray panel with a stitched rectangular die and stamped a PTI flourish on the left with Hero Arts "Wet Cement" ink (another favorite). Then I stamped the sentiment with PTI "Ocean Tides" and glued the panel to the card base. I determined I needed a couple of extra branches to balance the hollyhocks and die cut them from Birch Press Design #57529 "Budding Twigs Contour Layers", without using the buds, and glued all of this onto the face of the card. The final addition was a couple of coral die cut hearts to extend the images upward.

I custom made a coordinating envelope and lined it with lightweight gray-green paper.

Thank you, AAA Card Challenge for letting me play along this month as Guest Designer!

TWO OLD BATS FEBRUARY

Granted, our mood board doesn't make any reference to zombies, but what's Halloween without them - and there is an image with a couple of pink hearts in the top right quadrant (see below) that look a little like candy hearts. So I took some liberties with my card! As long as it's a Halloween card, you can also take liberties. 

I started with a black square card base and added a panel of printed paper with tree branches in black and gray. Then on a square gray panel I stamped and masked a couple of Tim Holtz images from a Halloween rubber stamp set - I've never used either of these images before. I colored them in with Copic markers, added a Whimsey Stamps sentiment with white heat embossing, and fussy cut a pink heart from some Valentine paper. I matteded the gray card front with some additional pink and white printed Valentine paper.

  

Now it's your turn! Remember that you can enter more than one card and, while the mood board is there for inspiration, you really don't have to follow it as long as it's a Halloween creation!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

VALENTINE'S KISSES

In December I won a challenge over at Time Out Challenges in which I was given a gift certificate for Birch Press Design and I couldn't pass on using it toward this charming "Folk Art Heart" layered die (among others!) and I've been wanting to play with it. The die is actually 3 layers, but I only used Layers A and C for this Valentine's Day card. I wanted to do a CAS card for AAA Cards Challenge #257: Anything CAS goes (Valentine's Day) and Tic Tac Toe Challenge #239. Sadly, I'm not sure I'm going to really get any Valentines mailed this year, but I will make a couple for family members.

This card was started with a 5-1/2" square white card base and a 4-3/4" square white panel. I die cut Layer C from the center of the smaller square panel and backed the opening with some PTI printed paper in "Blush". The tiny sentiment was stamped from "Hero Greetings" #CM351 with PTI "Hibiscus Burst" ink. Layer C of the die was cut from PTI patterned stripe in "Hibiscus Burst" and layered into the heart opening of the smaller panel and the final white cardstock layer went over that. I added a tiny die cut heart from PTI to accent the sentiment and pulled through some dark pink thread and a couple of clear crystal beads to embellish it.

When I opened the package from Birch Press Design, they had also included some beautiful bonus envelopes!  The one in these photos is a 5-3/4" square iridescent bright pink one.

AAA Cards: AAA Card Challenges #257: Anything CAS goes (Valentine's day)

For the Tic Tac Toe Challenge I am entering this card for the diagonal row: Punch or Die Cut/Patterned Paper/Pink.

TTTC239 - Featured Designer Jeanie - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

PAPER HUG

We lost a close friend this past week and I've struggled with sympathy cards for his daughter's family. I thought I would like to send a separate card to his young grandchildren because they were such loving troopers through a two-week hospice period. His youngest granddaughter (9) brought her sleeping bag to his bedroom and slept in his room every night, while the others (14 and 16) visited every day and played their musical instruments and sang to him and held his hand. Surrounded by such loving company he passed peacefully. 

I had wanted to participate in the Moodboard challenge at Just Us Girls #710 because I loved all of the comforting images. Honestly I hadn't intended to make this challenge into a sympathy card, but as I worked on it, it occurred to me that it would be very appropriate in this instance for our friend's grandchildren. 

I started with a dark gray textured card base on which I mounted a white textured and die-cut stitched rectangle. The little stuffed animals are from AALL & Create (#249 "Dog Toys") and I stamped them on gray patterned paper, colored over them with Copic markers, and fussy cut them to attach to a dark gray panel. I also stamped the body of the little guy in front with a stripe pattern and layered it over him and also stamped a stitched heart from the same stamp set. Then, there was the sentiment included with the set and I added it and a messy stitched Tim Holtz image with white embossing powder. I also added some Tim Holtz splatters in black behind the stuffed toys.

I finally bought some white card stock last week at Michael's and I'm not happy that it isn't really white. It looks like I'll have to go online and find some pure white 110 lb. stock. At any rate, here is a link to the challenge:

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #710 ~ Moodboard Week (justusgirlschallenge.blogspot.com)