random reflections

Happy Halloween (Part 2)

Halloween has never been a favorite holiday of mine, probably due to the fact that elementary school students (regardless of grade level) were rarely very attentive on Halloween--or the day after. I do, however, enjoy making Halloween cards for my grandchildren. When I took these down to my granddaughters last night, I was very pleased to discover that the oldest has kept many of the cards I've given her. I never thought they'd last much beyond a day or so, but she ran upstairs and came down with about 20+ cards for various occasions. The Halloween pile was, in fact, the largest. Here's this year's edition:

Just about everything on these cards came from The Stamp Market. I purchased just one die set this year, the Shaker Ghost, and also bought the sequin mix for the shakers. The "eek" was part of last year's stamp & die set, Happy Halloween. 

The orange cardstock is The Stamp Market's Melon, and the cardbase was made with Spellbinder's Brushed Black which has a subtle shine. The eyes and mouth were die cut from some black glitter paper in my stash. These were fun to make and all three girls seemed quite pleased with them (as well as the small cash enclosure.)

There's still one challenge open for Halloween cards--especially ghosts: Inspired by Boo! I'm also sending this over for the last day of the NBUS site since this is the ghosts' first appearance. 

We rarely get many trick-or-treaters--our street has no street lights, few sidewalks, and is a dead-end street on both ends. I hope the tinies that live on the street show up again this year. They were absolutely adorable last year and arrived as one group with all the parent in tow. 

 

The October Woodblock Wednesday

It's very clear that I missed the Wednesday part of this challenge, and once again, I benefited by Amy's extended deadline.

I actually created the cards on Thursday but was away all day Friday and again most of today. But finally tonight, I had a chance to get the cards photographed and the post written. This month I chose two Christmas Stamps, a winter scene by Memory Box and a simple sentiment by savvy stamps.

I actually made two cards--one stamped in Dark Indigo ink (Papertrey Ink) and one in black. There's always a chance stamping with a woodblock stamp will result in a less than perfect result. As you can see in the card on the left, I had to white emboss the sentiment on a piece of Dark Indigo to cover up the sentiment where I didn't get a clean result.  

I decided on a square format and a simple matting that matched the ink I used. Another two CAS Christmas cards in the stash! 

Thanks, as always, to Amy for hosting these opportunities encouraging me to get out my wooden stamps!

 

Halloween: Part I

The first two Halloween cards have been created and will go in the mail today. There's just one week for them to reach their destination. Wisconsin doesn't seem so far away, but the time for delivery of a letter or card varies widely. I try to make sure there's at least a week before the event.

The first one is for Caleb, and the color choices came from The Addicted to CAS Challenge: Black, Purple, and Green. I hope the spider web doesn't disqualify the card from being CAS, but I enjoyed using those colors regardless. I'm also sending this off to the Festive Friday Challenge where I used: Black, Spider, and Ghost from the list.

I started with a Royal Purple card base (Simon Says) and added a black web from Papertrey Ink's, "Caught in the Web." Last year I bought these creepy spider stickers by Jolee, but never used any of them. I decided Caleb would enjoy it. The ghost is from the only new Halloween set I purchased this year, Ghost, from The Stamp Market. The sentiment cut from a green scrap is also from that set.

I die cut a larger ghost for the inside and stamped my sentiment from PTI's Sentiment Staples: Halloween.  I gave this ghost some green eyes

Hannah's card uses the more traditional orange and black colors. 

I used a lot of different products to create this card: the ghost is from Ellen Hutson's Ghost Hugger. The ghost is holding a pumpkin stamped, fussy cut, and shaded with Copic markers from Grateful Home by right at home. The card base is my favorite orange-Orange Zest by PTI to which I added a Circle Cover Die by Reverse Confetti in black. 

I added some dimensional tape behind the pumpkin so the ghost's "hands" also had some dimension. The cute die cut sentiment is from PTI's To Die For Sentiments: Halloween. 

I used two stamp sets for the sentiment: Happy Halloween from The Stamp Market and Sentiment Staples: Halloween from Papertrey Ink. The little ghost is also from the Happy Halloween set.

 I'm sending both cards to another challenge: Inspired By: Ghosts. 

The Flower Challenge's 7th Birthday

Considering how many flower-themed cards I create, you'd think I'd have a card in each and every gallery for The Flower Challenge. Alas, not so. No explanation for it, either. However, I was determined to enter a card for their 7th birthday challenge. I didn't have a lot of crafting time over the weekend, and I was disappointed with the one card I made, so I started a new card last night and finished it today.

For this card, I pulled out one of my favorite Pinkfresh Studio florals, Magnolia Background, and it's accompanying set of stencils. On Saturday, I received the ink cubes for their new sets of color and was anxious to try them out. I knew I would love the Napa Valley set--a beautiful set of purples, and I also used two of the colors in the Green Gables set.

I decided to try a "spotlight" design, cutting the center from the card, adding a narrow gold frame and repositioning it with some dimensional tape. It's the first time I've tried this, and I think it worked very well. The stamping was gold embossed so I chose a gold embossed sentiment from Pinkfresh's Perfect Sentiments.  

In addition to The Flower Challenge, I'm adding this to the Just Add Ink Challenge: Spotlight Technique. 

 

World Card Making Day

World Card Making Day was October 7th, and we were already on the road to Sarah's. Fortunately for me, Pinkfresh Studio's link-up doesn't end until tonight. Thus the reason for two blog posts in one day! I knew exactly what I wanted to do. When I was cleaning out my craft room I came upon a hot foiled panel I had made previously. It was foiled in gold on black cardstock, and right before we left I acquired the Christmas metallic watercolor set by Iuile. So last night I sat down to watercolor the panel, and I am so happy with the way it turned out.

This beautiful design is Lush Leaves by Pinkfresh Studio. It is definitely in my top ten Christmas themed products. It's beautiful even when it's just foiled on the paper without the watercolors. However, I do love these metallic watercolors, and they are so easy to use.

The sentiment was also hotfoiled in gold on black cardstock. It's from another favorite Christmas product, Pinkfresh Studio's Perfect Sentiments: Holicay. Getting good photos of metallic papers or paints is always a challenge, but I think you can see some of its beauty here.

My intention is to get one card made everyday. I have a lovely box of unused stamps and dies on the shelf behind me, and I need to get crackin' with my Christmas cards! I'm sure there will be days when I'm not home long enough to get a card completed from start to finish, but that's certainly what I hope to do!

 

It's Pumpkin Season

There are multiple challenges now focused on pumpkins and fall themes. We've just returned from an 11 day road trip to visit Sarah and her family. On our way, we visited with my cousins in Cleveland. The granddaughter of one of my cousins and her husband hosted ten of us for dinner. I wanted to send them a special thank you note, and chose a pumpkin theme for my card.

Last month, I pulled out the Pretty Pink Posh Fall Basket dies to fill a pick-up truck. This time everything on the card is from the Fall Basket set except for the sentiment. I started out with a group of already die cut shapes and added some Distress Oxide shading to them. I "filled" the basket with leaves (you can see them peeking through the slats as well as poking out from the top.  

The sentiment was also previously stamped (so long ago, that I don't remember which stamp I used.) I have a whole set of these sentiments stamped on different colored strips. The card design is the result of a mistake I made at the very end of the first card design. I cut down that card, framed it with some orange cardstock and added it to a card base created with some Simon Says woodgrain cardstock that arrived while we were away. The truth is the card is much improved because of the mistake--not the first time that's happened!

I'm entering this in four challenges all of which feature pumpkins in their inspiration photos.

Just Us Girls: Word Week-Pumpkin,

the Double D Challenge-also looking for pumpkins,

Color Throwdown: Orange, Yellow, Green (I hope  the neutrals are OK)

The Four Season Challenge where "anything fall" goes. 

Color Hues #74

It's mid-October already and Hannelie has gifted us with a new color combination for the Color Hues Challenge:

When I sat down to create a card for this challenge, a new leaf die from Pinkfresh Studio was sitting on my desk. The Fall Leaf felt like a good place to start. I have to admit that the rest of the elements took a lot longer to create than I anticipated, but when they all came together, I was quite happy with the card. I tried some ink smooshing for the first time in a long time, adding three different yellows to the mix, and letting the watercolor paper dry between the layers. 

From the start, I wanted to incorporate The Greetery's Woven Cane Background.  I ended up smooshing a piece of Classic Kraft in a mixture of Classic Kraft and Honey Nut inks. Being standard cardstock, it didn't take as well to the well ink smooshing, but worked out fine when die cut with the Woven Cane Bakcground and used behind a Pierced Oval Frame from Papertrey Ink cut with Classic Kraft.

I tied the leaves together with a piece of gold metallic thread from Altenew and added a tiny gold pearl to the bow. 

The sentiment is gold foiled from The Stamp Market's Foiled Card Phrases. 

I know you'll find lots of inspiration from the Design Team, so click through and check out the amazing variety of cards. Hope to see yours in our gallery!

I'm adding my card to the mix at the Four Seasons Challenge where the challenge is Anything Goes for Fall. The challenge always posts an Inspiration Board to get you started, but it's not required that you take anything specific from it. Other than two of the colors in the bottom right photo my inspiration really came from the color challenge and the fall leaf die on my desk!

Surprise Party Guest for Seize the Birthday

I was honored to have my card chosen as the winner at Seize the Birthday recently, and I'm now honored to be the Surprise Party Guest for the current challenge.

The current challenge is a color challenge: Hot Pink and Lime.

Luckily for me, I purchased a pack of Paper Source paper called Brights a few months ago, and it included both pink and lime. I used a design technique I've often seen, but never tried before, adding strips of colored cardstock to create a background.

I wanted to add a bit of sparkle to the mix, so die cut some strips of metallic silver paper as well. I used three sets of dies to cut the strips: The Stamp Market's 1/4" Quick Strips and Ellen Hutson's Color Me Strips-Large which includes two dies of different widths. Then it was just the process of deciding how many, and in what order, to put the strips of paper.

The bold sentiment by Simon Says, It's Your Birthday, was die cut three times and stacked for some dimension. I cut down the piece enough to have a narrow border and added it to a black card base with dimensional tape. (Hard to see in the photos.)

Finally, to add a bit more sparkle, I added three Pinkfresh Studio black jewels. 

Thanks to the Seize the Birthday team for the honor of being the Surprise Party Guest! It was so much fun.

Hello, Sweet Friend

It's not often I post twice in a day. If you're looking for the Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt post, it's right below this one

The Time Out Challenge hosts an annual Cancer Awareness Challenge.

This card is for a dear friend who has been battling pancreatic cancer for over two years. She's outlived her prognosis by over a year, and never wavers in her positive attitude and good nature. 

Recently I commented on a friend's card on Instagram that used this beautiful Round About Fall Foliage die from The Greetery. Marcia kindly die cut several and put them in the mail to me. (Many thanks, Marcia!) I used some finger daubers and some Distress Oxide Inks to color it. Although I'm happy with the end result, I learned a few things about using both for ink blending. I have a much heavier hand than I need! 

The die cuts just one half of this wreath, so I glued the two together and added them to a cardbase of Ellen Hutson's Woodgrain cardstock. Now that Ellen is retiring, I need to find a new source for woodgrain paper. 

   

The sentiment (just perfect for the recipient) is from The Stamp Market's Foiled Card Phrases.  I added a few Pinkfresh Studio gold pearls as a final accent. 

I'm also adding this to the gallery at Addicted to Stamping and More where the challenge is to use a die cut or a stencil and to The Card Concept: Country Style. I used both the wreath and three of the colors (although my red is quite muted) as my inspiration from the photo. As usual, I think my card fits their "Clean and Simple" category the best. 

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt-Final Post

Today's the day to post the rest of the photos for the SPSH kindly hosted by MaryLou of Patio Postcards.  I got a late start, but only had three photos left to take after the last posting which is here. I had several ideas for #3 Something Netted or Webbed but finally caved on these avocados in netted bags at the grocery store.

There's no excuse for the next photo: School. All summer I planned to drive by the school where I taught for 35 years to take a photo. Never did, so at the last minute on our way to dinner at a friend's house, we drove by this parochial school, and I got the photo. Have to say, I'm disappointed with myself over this one.

The last photo was one of the alternates (which I didn't need) but gave me an excuse for one more chocolate almond ice cream cone which is definitely "a favorite summer taste." When Sarah was here with our family we made multiple trips to Abbott's for her favorite ice cream, period!

Thanks again to Mary Lou for creating the list and hosting our results!