Spook-tacular Cards and Podcasts

I know you are probably tired of hearing about it by now, but it was yet again another frantic week. Now before you roll your eyes and say Mercedes, isn't that always your excuse? And while it often is, this week it is for a fantastic reason; I recorded my very first podcast! I have to tell you I was terrified when I sat down to record with Billiam of SomewhatNerdy.com, Big D, and A.J., but after a few minutes with the group I was totally at ease. The podcast is going to be the Greatest Of All Time List, or the GOAT List. This podcast is going to be a bi-weekly podcast where myself and my fellow pod casters sit and talk about why a particular movie is the Greatest Of All Time... Except the movie isn't the greatest, not even close. We'll discuss all the cheesy goodness in our favorite B List Movies and then talk about why we love it and why it made our list. The first episode won't be up for a week or so, but when it is I will post a link for those of you who are interested in listening.




Now on to what you really came here for... The cards! I'm back again, with another Halloween card combo. This week I decided to use the same stamp sets and basic design idea to make two different cards.

Stamp Sets Used: BOO - by Waffle Flower Crafts, Fab-BOO-lous Friends by My Favorite Things
Paper: Canson Watercolor Paper, Stampin' Up! Basic Grey, Lawn Fawn Polka in the Dark
Ink: Archival Black, Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors, Oxide Distress Inks (Black Soot, Faded Jeans, Wilted Violet, Spiced Marmalade, Fossilized Amber, and Iced Spruce), VersaMark, Spectrum Noir Glitter Marker, and Sakura White Gelly Roll
Accessories: Lawn Fawn Scalloped Box card pop-up dies, Lawn Fawn Puffy Cloud border die, Die-namics Stitched Sentiment Strips, Die-namics Stitched Circle Stax, Detail White Embossing Powder, and Neat & Tangled Like Magic Sequins


These two cards all started with the idea that I wanted to use my Distress Oxide Inks to creat a spooky twilight (time of night, not the movie) background and see if it would work in different sizes.

I started by blending my inks lightest to darkest on my watercolor paper (sizes: 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" and 3 1/4" x 2 1/4"). My smaller piece was run through my Cuttlebug with one of the panel dies from my Lawn Fawn Scalloped Box card pop-up dies and the larger piece was left as is. I now had two almost identical backgrounds in two different sizes. I then stamped, watercolored, and fussy cut out my images from the Boo Stamp Set. I set everything aside and ran the Lawn Fawn Scalloped Box card pop-up dies through my Cuttlebug with Stampin' Up! Basic Grey cardstock; then I got to work assembling my pop up box card.

Once I put my box card together I embellished with some Neat & Tangles Like Magic sequins, embossed the sentiment from Fab-BOO-lous Friends by My Favorite Things and voilà. I love the way the box card came out and am popping it in the mail this week to a really great friend.

As a side note, I bought a new light box to test out since I wasn't happy with my pictures. These are a little better, but I am still figuring it out so please be patient with me! 

If you remember from like a paragraph ago that I wanted to use the same background, just in two different sizes, so my second panel was attached to a card base and I built up from there. They layout is almost identical except the position of the ghosts. I embossed my greeting using a sentiment from Fab-BOO-lous Friends by My Favorite Things. 

I don't normally do "Halloween" cards, but I have just loved the sets that have been coming out so I have had to change my stance. What about you all? Do you make Halloween cards or do you use your Halloween stamps for something else? Let me know!

Overall I have to say that my little experiment worked out and I love, love, love how these cards make me feel like Halloween is here. 

That's all I have for now. If you're at all interested in know when the podcast gets published leave a comment!

Until next time Keep on Craftin'

Never too soon for Halloween

It seems like every year goodies for certain holidays start showing up sooner and sooner. I know that this can make many people roll their eyes, but not me. I love the first signs of Halloween goods popping up in stores, because that means fall is upon us. This for me starts the most magical time of the year. We start with Halloween, all the adorable costumes, and all the spooky movies. So it should not come as any surprise that my cards for this week are Halloween themed.

I picked up MFT Stamps Witch Way Is The Candy by Birdie Brown a couple of years back and did nothing with it until this year. Honestly, I used to have a job where I was on call 24/7 so as much as I love crafting, I never have time for it. These days though I have a set schedule and much more time to do what I LOVE!

This week I made two Shaker Cards using Witch Way Is The Candy.

My first shaker was easy enough to make. I used Stampin' Up!'s Summer Sun Cardstock for the frame and base of the card because I thought it went really well with the patterned paper from my stash. I die cut some clouds out of white cardstock using Lawn Fawn's Puffy Clouds Border Die and inked it up with some black soot Distress Ink. I threw in some Doodlebug Sequins and BAM, shaker was done.

I didn't run into any issues until I went to color that precious witch. My hubby recently surprised me with a full core set of the Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. While they are similar to Copics, they don't blend quite the same as Copics do. There's definitely a learning curve to them, but they are great markers and a truly sweet gift from a fantastic hubby!

My second card using that cutie put up a little more of a fight.I knew I wanted to put a shaker tag onto a card front and started working on the tag first. My first tag ended in Utter Disaster. I am not saying this to be dramatic, my first tag warped, my sequins fell out due to the warping, it was not pretty. The only thing I managed to salvage from that first tag was the sequins.

Creating my second tag went much smoother than the first. The sentiment is embossed onto black card stock and comes from the HSH Halloween Additions set by  There She Goes. I used some patterned paper from my stash for the background of the tag and sponged some Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide Ink onto some white paper and die cut it out for the top of my tag. I finished the tag off with some Lawn Fawn Gold Sparkle Cord, black ribbon, and some gold Pretty Pink Posh sequins.

My tag ended up just a little bigger than I originally intended so I made a 5x7 card base out of Canson watercolor paper. I used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi to watercolor the base with black and gold and put it all together.

My question to y'all is, are excited to see Halloween stuff already or do you wish they would wait until closer to the actual holiday?

Until next time, keep on craftin'!

Sketch Challenge

Hi all I'm back? Did any of you miss me?

While I have been crafting, I haven't posted anything in quite some time. I have gone through a lot of personal stuff, but I am back. I thought it was time to get back on the horse and start posting again. Please be kind as I am a little rusty.

This week, I wanted to participate in my first ever MFT Stamps Card Challenge #340.

I realize it is only July, but for this Sketch Challenge I opted to use MFT's Witch Way is the Candy? Stamp and Dies. I absolutely LOVE this adorable witch. I used the sketch as a guideline and made a shaker card.

I remembered to take a picture as I was working with Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink in Fossilized Amber, but didn't take any of all the other work I put into it. I know, I dropped the ball!

I hope you like this card and much as I liked making it.