Scary On

I'm the hostess this week at Tic Tac Toe Challenge and I hope I have a fun board for you.  I'm finally in the mood for fall and Halloween cards!  Okay - I'm ALWAYS in the mood for Halloween cards, but not fall cards.  So it's up to you which way you wan to play this board.  I chose Embossing, Spooky and Ink Blending.

 

I actually had no idea what I was going to do when I created the board but thought it might be Halloween.  Then I thought about making this card for something else and realized it was perfect for this challenge!

I heat embossed the kids first using a black super fine detail embossing powder.  I like this powder because I really do see a difference when compared with regular embossing powder.

I used the first of the Layered Full Moon Stencils for my moon.  The set comes with four layers to give you a very detailed and realistic full moon.  However I needed to get this done and realized I'd probably want to play around with colors to get that just right....so I kept it simple and used just number 1.

The stencil also comes with a mask so you can mask off your moon and do the rest of the sky. I also created a mask from cardstock for my Hills & Drifts stencil since I also need the negative.

When all was blended I used a soft cloth and a damp Q-Tip to clean off my embossed trick-or-treaters.  With just a bit of planning this is a simple card to create.

Products used:

• Stamps / dies: Stampin' Up! Scary Cute and Scary Silhouettes (Scary Cute Bundle)
• Ink: Versamark, Distress Oxides - Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Milled Lavender, Wilted Violet, Chipped Sapphire, Black Soot, Forest Moss
• Stencils: Spellbinders Layered Full Moon, MFT Drifts and Hills
• Accessories: Ranger Embossing Powder Super Fine Detail Black, Stampin' Up! Gingham Ribbon and self adhesive stars (retired)

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Double Challenge Tuesday - Too Cute to Spook

Today is a double challenge day - one for the sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches and the other for the color challenge at Splitcoaststampers.    My cards this week will also start off one of my favorite card making themes - Halloween!  Some people are Christmas card people or Valentine's Day.  For me - it's Halloween!  And I don't really send many Halloween cards.  I just like making them.

 

I will admit right up front I messed up a bit with the sketch.  After making the card I realized that the sentiment should have gone in the center.  That's what I get for not having the sketch right out in front of me when I made the card.  

The colors are a bit non-traditional for Halloween but I do like them - Pale Papaya, Soft Suede and Pear Pizzazz.  I like the softness of them with the very delicate look of these stamps.

This is a new set from Ellen Hutson.  This cute little ghost can be dressed up in various costumes but I left him as is for this scene.  Although it looks simple there was quite a bit of masking involved to get it all on one layer without die cutting.

To color, I used blender pens with the markers on an acrylic block.

Be sure to come back Thursday for another Halloween card!  And next month I'll have a new one every Friday (and possibly more for the weekly challenges - I'm challenging myself to make as many as I can!)

Products used:

• Stamps: Ellen Hutson - Essentials by Ellen Spooktacular by Julie Ebersole and Ghost Costumes by Julie Ebersole
• Dies: very old inside out circle dies (I think by The Stamps of Life)
• Ink / Markers:  MFT Hybrid Black Licorice, Stampin' Write Markers - Soft Suede, Pear Pizzazz and Pale Papaya

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Pumkin Kisses Color Challenge

Happy Tuesday!  My card today is for the color challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.  The colors at first reminded me of Christmas but I thought I'd go for an autumn theme.  I'm not quite ready for holiday cards yet!

To get the variety of colors on this stamp I used markers and my stamping platform.  I colored the stems first and stamped.  Then I cleaned the stamps and used the coral and then the merlot.  It is not a difficult technique with the help of a stamping platform but you need to use regular water based markers.  Alcohol ink dries too quickly to stay wet on the stamp.  and with regular markers if the ink does start to dry you can breathe heavily on the stamp to reactivate the ink.  (Yes I looked a little weird breathing on my stamp!)

Products used:

• Stamps: Fun Stampers Journey Pumpkin Kisses, Martha's Pumpkins (with matching dies)
• Dies: Queen & Co. Simple Borders
• Accessories: Stampin' Up! Timber 3D Embossing Folder

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Ghouls Just Wanna have Fun

My card today is for the color challenge at Splitcoaststampers.  The colors this week are Melon Mambo, Granny Apple Green and Highland Heather with "sparkle" for dessert.

I admit that I completely CASE'd this card from the Queen and Co. site.  It did take me awhile to finish though.  Since it was for a color challenge I couldn't add colors which limited my patterned paper selection.  And no orange for Halloween can be hard!

I have a tip for creating the shaker.  Queen and Co. has shaped foam shapes for their shakers.  This is great but the white of the foam can be pretty obvious depending on the colors of the shaker.  To avoid this you can color the edges with a marker.  Here I used a black Copic to color the edges.

Products used:

• Shaker kit: Queen & Co. Spooktacular
• Dies: Queen & Co. Foundations 8
• Paper: Variety of Queen & Co. and Stampin' Up!
  
• Accessories: Queen & Co shaker elements and buttons

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Happy Day with Lawn Fawn

This week's challenge from Team O at the Tic Tac Toe Challenge has lots of fun opportunities for fall and Halloween themed cards.  I decided to go with the left hand column down and use a new (to me) pumpkin die from Lawn Fawn.

 

I coupled the pumpkin with some of Lawn Fawn's mice.  They just say "JOY" to me whenever I look at them.  These two are clearly having fun on the pumpkin.

To make the card I die cut  the pumpkin first and shaded it with some Distress Oxide inks.  The mice are colored with Copic markers.  The background seemed fairly pain, so I searched my embossing folders and found this one of falling leaves.  I think I would have preferred an all over design as many of the leaves are lost behind the pumpkin, but we go with what we have!

I toyed with making my pumpkin plaid to get that element in, but ended up doing just the banner.  I may try this with a plaid pumpkin.  Keep an eye out!

This is also for the Can You Handle the Pressure challenge to use embossing folders!

Products used:

• Dies: Lawn Fawn Pumpkin House, Fall Tiny Tags
  
• Stamps / Dies: Lawn Fawn You Autumn Know
• Cardstock / Paper: Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede, Mossy Meadow, a mystery blue from my scraps, Pink & Main
• Inks / Coloring: Distress Oxide Vintage Photo & Ground Espresso; Copic Markers W00, W0, W1, W3
• Accessories: Stampin' Up! Leaf Fall 3D embossing folder
  

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Color and Sketch Challenge Tuesday

Happy Tuesday!  Today I've combined the sketch challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches with the color challenge at Splitcoaststampers.  The colors this week are Soft Succulent, Evening Evergreen and Rich Razzleberry with Nature as dessert.

I admit I was a bit stumped at first with all the green but decided to go with some adorable cacti from My Favorite Things.

I colored the cacti with an under layer of Stampin' Blends in Soft Succulant Light and then added shading with Prismacolor Pencils.

The right panel is dry embossed with an old Stampin' Up! embossing folder.

Products used:

• Stamps: My Favorite Things Let's Stick Together
• Dies: Seasonal Labels
• Coloring Mediums: Stampin' Blends Soft Succulent Light, Ric Razzleberry Light; Prismacolor Pencils PC1020, PC1021, PC907, PC995
• Accessories: Stampin' Up! retired embossing folder, linen thread
  

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Color Challenge Tuesday

It's a new month of challenges at CAS Colours & Sketches and we have a great color combo to start off the month.

These bright colors made me think of flowers and birds.  Since I just got this fun birdie die from Spellbinders I decided to go with a feathered friend so I could use  my new stuff!  I cut everything form white cardstock and used the ink colors to add shading to the pieces.

I added interest to the background by using a woodgrain embossing folder.  The sentiment from a pre-printed sentiment pack from Simon Says Stamp.  These can make putting together a card extremely easy!

I'm also entering my card in the current Sisterhood of Crafters challenge to "Frame It".

Products used:

• Dies: Spellbinders Sweet Birdie, MFT Single Stitch Rectangle Frames
  
• Ink: Polished Pink, Gorgeous Grape, Mango Melody
• Accessories: Glossy Dots Assortment, 3D Timber Embossing Folder

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Apple-solutely Awesome

Hi everyone - I'm back after taking a week off.  I had a large event on the 27th and just didn't have time to make cards that weekend or schedule posts for the week.  But I'm back with a fun pop-up card using some new Lawn Fawn goodies!

This card is for the color challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week.  The colors of Crushed Curry, Poppy Parade and Garden Green with "Fall" for dessert seemed made for these stamps and dies.  I used Copic markers to color match the challenge colors along with allowed neutrals of browns and navy.

For pop-up boxes and cards like this I color a lot of elements and then play with their placement after I construct the box.  If I have extra I just keep them with the stamps for later use.

Here are some additional views of the box.

 

Products used:

• Stamps / dies: Lawn Fawn Apple-Solutely Awesome, Dandy Day
• Die: Lawn Fawn Platform Pop-Up and Platform Pop-Up Add-On
• Cardstock / Paper: Garden Green, Crushed Curry, Poppy Parade, Regals DSP
• Markers: Mice - W0, W1, W2, W3, R20; Tree - E31, E34, E35, E37; Apple & Leaves - R20, R22, R24, R27, YG61, YG63, YG67; Cider - Y21, Y26, Y19; Overalls - B34, B37; Basket - E21, E23, E25, E27, E29

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