Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween my fellow readers.  I woke up this morning with sleepy eyes and a numb thumb and forefinger which makes for interesting typing.  Yesterday was pumpkin carving day at our house.  We love to carve and usually end up buying way too many pumpkins each year.  I thought you'd enjoy our selection for this year.


Having 2 young kiddos, we are big on the Dreamworks/Pixar/Disney deal here.  So a montage of this year's character winners in our house.


Current favorite movie: How to Train Your Dragon.  Toothless is just plain adorable and how could you not like Hiccup.

Next up: Monsters vs. Aliens   It's such a hard choice between the characters because we love them all but B.O.B. is highlarious.  Next year, we may have to do Dr. Cockroach...because his Mwah ha ha cackle is just perfect for Halloween.

But so far, our all time house favorite is Ice Age 3 and the one oft most quoted.  It was the original intention of this carver to do Buck, but he was too many shades of white to work well in Pumpkin Carving...at least for my current set of skills.  So we have our second favorite...Scrat aka Crazy Squirrel.

Next up, my dear daughters' pumpkins.  They got to pick their pattern choice this year and this is what they came up with.


Conversation with my youngest:
Me: So, you're picking a Spooooky Ghost.
Youngest: No Mom, he's a friendly ghost.  See, he's smiling!

Oldest: Not quite sure yet why she picked a skull but it's the one she wanted.  So here it is.

And finally, I was going to attempt another Twilight themed pumpkin this year.  But my plans were thwarted when one of my friends was trying to guess what my How To Train Your Dragon pumpkin was and she guessed, in jest I hope, Jon Bon Jovi.  LOL  Um....No.  So I decided in honor of her to do one JBJ just for her.  Enjoy!!

Hopefully, I'll get some Halloween layouts up soon!!  Be safe tonight and please watch out for the kiddos!!

Babies are brewing in a Tea for Two Baby Shower

What a fun yet busy weekend.  I was a shared hostess of a double baby shower.  And truly this was unlike any other shower I've been too.  When it involves my Diva Buddies, whom I've scrapped about before on here, then you know it's going to be a good time.

To start off with, my friend Jeannine is a world class decorator.  Here are some of the Martha Stewart-y decorations she and her sister came up with.

Some blinged out pumpkins for the coming babies.

I made a set of teapots for the a guest drawing.  Brown and pink for the girl team and brown and blue for the boy team.  More details on the teapots/teacups below.

Each Mommy-to-be received a baby buggy for their baby rooms at home.

 

We had a Onesie Decorating Station for the guests to make for the babies.  Here are two I made for them.

And the greatest station at the baby shower.  The Cara-tini and Tina-tini stations.  Ha ha ha.  The Mommies-to-be couldn't join in but all the guests were able to toast to the coming bundles of joy.  

Truly, it was great fun and I had a wonderful time helping with the decorations.  Below is a closer look at what I made.

The Pink buggy was made using the DCWV Luxury Stack.  The borders are Martha Stewart border punches.  The buggy template is from My Time Made Easy.  The Brown/Blue buggy was made using the DCWV Linen Stack.

The teapots were also made using the same DCWV stacks.  Both teapots, cups and phrases were all from My Time Made Easy.

The flower design is Tim Holtz's Grunge Flower technique that I used with paper instead of grunge board.  I also used his Alterations Flower Sizzix die .

The cups, designs and phrases are digital elements from My Time Made Easy.  I colored the cups with Copic Markers.  After completing the cup, I traced a second cup on paper, glued only the edges to the Colored cup and inserted a Gift Card in the slot at the top.  They made great gift card holders for the Guest prizes.

So that's what I did this weekend.  How about you?

Birds of a Feather.....

I cannot begin to tell you how much my girls make me laugh.  And it's a good thing, because it certainly helps them out big time when they're supposed to be in trouble.  Anyway, this day below, was their 2nd visit to the dentist's office.  Thankfully, their first visit was incredibly fun and they don't have irrational fears of dentists like my husband someone I won't mention.  Now, a quick background point for all my readers:  My husband is a musician and as we all know, musicians usually beat to a different drum.  Often times their sense of fashion goes hand in hand with their creative musical flair.  So, I must submit, that my two daughters incredible sense of fashion comes from their Daddy. ; )

Isn't this how EVERYONE dresses up to go to the dentist?  Do notice that my youngest carries a penguin in her purse instead of the requisite yippy dog.  THAT, she got from me and it makes me proud.  So looking at how my two birds of a feather flock together...I now know that I have years of interesting outfits and fun times to look forward too.

Now on to the deets. I picked up the Cosmo Cricket Togetherness Deluxe Kit, from Lil' Lambs Boutique for this one.  It is a very whimsical line with birds, butterflies, clouds and kites.  I used all paper for this layout and will use the embellies, Glimmer Mist and Flocking Powder for my next project....coming up soon. 

The edges all have faux stitching inspired by one of my favorite scrappers, Mireille.  The look is quick and easy. First, punch holes around the edge of your piecing with a hole piercer.  Second, with a black marker, run around the edges of your piecing over top of the punched holes. Third, use a white marker (Sharpie Fine Point used here) to draw tiny white lines in between the punched holes.  And there you go, easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Happy Fall everyone....my favorite season of the year!!!

Sketchin' it out with Halloween

More Halloween goodness up tonight....or this morning.  I picked out the sketch from today on the I heart 2 Stamp blog for this card.  Whenever you run low on mojo, go for the sketches.  There are so many wonderful sketch artists out there.  I picked up the Honey Bear from my Inkadinkado stamps.  Isn't he a cutie?  I worked on more shading techniques for the Copic Challenge #35 going through September 30th .

For the background squares, I used Fiskar embossing folders to dry emboss spider webs.  The spider web at the bottom is a Tim Holtz mask rubbed over with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

I wanted to create a white border around my stamped image and am usually unsuccessful at keeping the embossed edge of my nestabilites clean when I try to free hand it with my Copic markers.  So tonight, I decided to keep the image nested inside my die and color my shaded background.   After completing all the shading work, I popped out the image and had my white border.

Copic Sketch Markers 
Bear: E11, E21,E33, E53, E25, E29, R20
Bear Clothes/Hat: C1, C3, C7, C9, V04, V06, V09, YR21, YR24 white highlights, colorless blender 
Honey/Pot: YR21, YR23,YR24, R22, R24, E09, white highlights, colorless blender
Label Edge: E00, E21, YR21, Walnut Stain Distress Ink
Card Paper: Basic Grey Fusion Line
Spellbinders Nestabilities: Large Scalloped/Large Standard Circles, Large Labels
Distress Ink by Ranger: Walnut Stain, Black Soot, Tea Dye Stamps: Inkadinkadoo
Mask: Advantus Tim Holtz
Embossing Plates: Fiskars


One more fun Halloween image coming up soon.  Stay tuned!

Boo! Popping in for a card challenge or two.

It's been a few weeks since I've done a card challenge.  So I thought I'd pop in today with a Halloween card for you since I've been posting so many Christmas projects.  I was walking through my local craft store on a construction paper mission for my girls.  Get in...get paper...get out.  Curses...the store employees had to stick these adorable Inkadinkadoo Halloween stamps in the aisle on my way to the cash register.  Honestly as I was walking past the end cap, my basket bumped the edge and into my basket the stamps fell.  Clearly I was meant to have them.


Copic Creation's Challenge #35 - Shading in or around images: There was no doubt I would enter this one since it's the Copic skill technique I'm trying to improve...and have plenty of room for improvement too.  ; )


Flutter by Wednesday's Challenge #123 - All winged things: It's a perfect time of year for the butterfly/fairy/angel rule to be relaxed.  For you can't have Halloween without little winged bats, right? I did an emboss resist of little bats in the upper right corner (a wonderful trick I picked up from Mr. Holtz himself).

 To create an emboss resist image on your project, you need the following: Image Stamp, Clear Embossing Ink, Clear Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Distress Ink Pads, wet paper towel.
1. Stamp your image using clear embossing ink. (Distress Embossing Ink used here but you can also use Versamark ink).
2. Sprinkle with clear embossing powder and heat emboss using your heat tool.
3. Use a make up sponge and rub your colored Distress ink over and around your image in a circular motion.  You will see your image pop up through the ink.
4. After you have completed your colored distressing, take a damp paper towel and gently rub across your embossed image to take off any Distress Ink left on top.  You have now have an embossed resist image on your project.

Here's a close up of my Inkadinkadoo Kitty cutie.

Copic Sketch Markers 
Pumpkins/Leaves: YR12, YR21, YR23, E25, YG03, G21, G82
Cat: C1, C3, C5, C7, C9, R85, white highlights, colorless blender 
Cat Hat: V04, V06, V09, YR24, E5, white highlights, colorless blender
Label Edge: YR00, YR12, YR21, YR23, V00, V04, V06, C1, C3, C9, colorless blender
Card Paper: Cosmo Cricket, black cardstock
Spellbinders Nestabilities: Labels 1
Punches: Martha Stewart Iron Gate Around the Page Combo
Distress Ink by Ranger: Concord Grape, Spiced Marmalade, Walnut Stain, Black Soot
Stamps: Inkadinkadoo

I'm worse than the Grocery Stores!

We haven't even had Halloween yet and I have my Christmas stuff out already.  It always irked me when the day after Halloween, ALL the Christmas candy started coming out in the grocery stores.  And now they just have an aisle for Halloween and an aisle for Christmas at the same time.  It also really annoyed me when Christmas decorations were displayed in shopping malls before we even had Thanksgiving finished.  Ah, the joys of marketing.  Anything to get you to panic and start shopping because surely, Christmas is just around the bend!!

So look at me doing the same thing. Ha ha ha.  I guess I'll have to forgive the retail industry and if not forgive, at least understand.  For as all we scrappers know, the Christmas lines have been released on the scrapping world and woo boy are there a bunch to choose from this year.  Let me introduce you to the Tis the Season line by Kasiercraft...yes, the company that makes all the wood mdf projects we love to alter.  Tammy, from Lil' Lambs Boutique, created a wonderful Deluxe Scrapping Kit with this paper line.  So after receiving my kit, I went in search of some Christmasy goodies to go with it.    I'm sure most East Coasters will remember the blizzard of 2010...my girls certainly did.  And even though it was way past Christmas, it did not bother them to keep wearing their favorite Christmas outfits.  The photos below were taken from a "dress up" day where they were Santa's Helpers during our blizzard that caused cabin fever to set in.  It's a bit hard for 3 1/2 foot kids to play in 5 feet of snow.  But in this case,  I took them outside and captured a little North Pole action with all the snow.

My first step, since I wanted to pick up the red of the dress in the photograph was to cut the tan background off the sheet with the scrolling die cut.  I cut around the edges and used a dark red background to replace the old one.  The edges of the red cardstock are inked with the Mudslide Colorbok pad included in the kit. 

TIP: Since the Colorbok pad is ink instead of Chalk ink, you can dab a makeup sponge onto the ink pad and use the sponge to ink your edges for more of a brushed and softer look.  Using the ink pad directly on the edges of your paper can give harsh, dark lines that do not give an aged look to your project.

Next, I created a Christmas tree of sorts by cutting out wavy triangles out of the green damask paper and distressing the edges with the Mudslide ink using the tip above.  I wanted the scrolling die cut to work as a frame, so I used my Swivel Exacto knife to cut out an edge on the inner part of the die cut...this is known as fussy cutting.  I set my Christmas tree inside the cut and removed any green edges sticking out the other side.

The mat for the bigger photo was created using the Martha Stewart Deco Fan around the page punches.  I only did two sides since I was tucking the photo behind the tree and another cut edge of the die cut at the bottom.  The snowflakes are made with the St Nick/Newspaper sheet and Joys of the Season Cricut cartridge. 

To give the snowflakes a more vintage and finished look, I inked the edges with the Mudslide ink.   I used both sides of the St Nick paper to create the snowflakes.  The fatter ones above were made with the Newsprint side and the skinnier ones were made with the St Nick side. I used Mudslide over the skinny snowflakes to darken them up a bit to contrast with the fatter snowflakes and yet still keep the design visable underneath.  My next step for all the snowflakes was to coat them with Rock Candy Crackle Paint.  While the paint was still wet, I grabbed some translucent sparkly embossing powder between my thumb and index finger, and gently rubbed my fingers together over the snowflakes as it lightly dusted them with the powder.  Using your fingers to rub the powder over top of your snowflakes will keep it light and even.  I used my heat gun lightly over the snowflakes to just melt the embossing powder so it wouldn't leave a milky sheen on the snowflakes and Crackle Paint, then I let the rest air dry to create the crackling effect.

So now I feel obligated to go buy some Halloween and Christmas candy today.

May we never forget!

I'm going to post a throwback today.  I know I have quite a few crafters from all over the world and if you'll permit me some leeway, today I'm bringing it close to home.

9 years ago this day, almost any American you ask will know down to the detail what they were doing and where they were.  Me, I was standing in the lobby area, on the 28th floor of my work building, watching in disbelief and then horror as two planes hit the two World Trade Center buildings.  We all watched stunned, for what seemed like forever, but in reality was only about 15 minutes, and then finally walked back to our offices.  I sat down in my chair and looked out my window over the District of Columbia and thought, "Could that happen here?"  Not moments after I had those thoughts I heard loud running all over the floor of our building.  For although our building had a wonderful front view of the District of Columbia, it's stunning architecture and beautiful monuments, the backside of our building now had a horrific view of a plane that had just flow into the Pentagon.  Amazing that one building can produce two amazingly different pictures depending upon which side you stood.   I, to this day have never seen a building clear so fast, as we grabbed purses, bags and friends and flew out of the building.  My friend and I traveled away from DC that day, watching numerous fire engines, police cars and ambulances heading the opposite way into chaos.  How eerily quiet the trip home was.

I remember sitting on my couch trying to get through to my husband, that was still in DC.  No use...phone lines clogged.  After 2 hours, I was able to finally reach worried friends and family and assure them that we were okay.  My Mother worked in the building immediately up the hill from the Pentagon and she ended up walking halfway home and then finally was able to catch a bus the rest of the way.

It was a sad day, a scary day and one that will certainly be forever etched in my memory.  I will be able to tell my granchildren someday, "I remember when..."  But, that's not then end of the story.  I also remember that day watching story after story of heroic effort and incredible feats of one American after another helping each other.  9/11 was a day where there was no racial boundary or strife.  9/11 was a day when Americans all over the country turned back to the God they often forgot and prayed for their fellow man.  9/11 and the days after did not contain a country that was split in political strife.  There was not a Democrat and Republican party...there was the American party.  American flags flew off the store shelves in a show of human solidarity unlike I have ever witnessed before.  The rich elite and the common man were on equal ground.

Out of the rubble of 9/11 rose countless heroes.  Countless stories of selfless actions and reactions.  May their stories never die.  A couple years ago, I put my feelings into my art and created this tribute to those men, women..fellow Americans that gave us all a reason to cry and yet hope on such a tragic day.  May we never forget.... that we as a country can unite in one Spirit in a bond that cannot be broken.  We've proven that we can.  May it not take another tragedy to prove it again.

May God bless this country and extend His gracious hand over us.

Not done yet...more this week.

I've been knee deep in tax numbers and photographing all my huge amount of extra scrap supplies that are starting to creep out the Guest Room door.  I can't hold it all back any longer.  I've a couple more auctions up tonight with these items below.  You can find them here.

And hopefully, I'll post a few more tomorrow or Wednesday.  I promise, promise, promise, I'll get back to scrapping.  My tax deadline is this week and I'm auctioning out a path to my scrap table.  Heh heh heh.

I have more Christmas projects that I'm working on and also the new Togetherness line by Cosmo Cricket.  So keep an eye out for later on in the week.  I'll be a scrapping fiend!!

Boy ~ Girl ~ Kid grouping of tag, stickers, rub-ons, etc.  

All Occasion tags, definition labels, quotes, flower rub-ons, etc.

Regularly scheduled scrapping coming soon!!

But wait...there's more...

Okay all you newbie scrappers that need a kickstart to your new Scrapbooking addiction.  I've just added more auctions tonight...all starting at 99 cents!!!  Scrapbooking hoarders...you are also welcome to peek in.  Ha!

You can find all the current running auctions here.

Tonight's listings include:


Another huge lot of My Mind's Eye papers (Wild Asparagus collections)

Technique and Idea Books

Cardmaking Quotes

Happy shopping!

Cleaning Out my Stash.....

I'm cleaning out my stash before I get lost in my craft room and never able to find my way out again.  I'll be listing new lots of scrapbook items on eBay all week.  All auctions starting at 99 cents!!!  If you or anyone you know is looking to fill out their scrapbook supplies, just send them along to my auctions here.


Here are some of things I have listed currently.

There are close up pictures in my auctions.