Happy Halloween!!

I haven't fallen off of the planet, just haven't been crafting much in the past 2wks.  I had a wee bit o' surgery the other week and while it wasn't major and recovery is pretty easy, I still haven't felt fantabulous and I picked up Beast's cold on top of it.  I've sat down at my craft table a few times but just haven't felt any inspiration beyond cleaning up the table and room a bit... which it desperately needed so maybe it wasn't a bad thing.  :)  However, I've got a GD project to do for Top Tip Tuesday so I need to get back on the ball this week. 

Anywho, enough about all of that.  If you're up north, I hope you're with power.  If you're without power, I hope you get it back quickly.  And to all that Halloween, hope it's a great one full of fun and yummies!! 

Happy Halloween all!!

"What you can't live without" LO

The 1st challenge of Oct. over at Better Living Through Scrapbooking is "what you can't live without."  Took me a while to think about that.  Junky candy?  I'm in the process of proving to myself that I can live without it (or at least without as much as I usually have.)  Hubby and Boy?  Yeah.  Definitely but I wanted something else other than them (sorry boys.)  Crafting?  Yeah but I wanted something more tangible.  Then I realized I've always had cats in my life, always will and the few years I was without, I visited cats of my friends.  Some cats are friendly.  Some aren't.  Some like to be held and cuddled.  Others, not so much.  However, I always like having cats around.  When the world's just not fair, sometimes you don't want to go to a person to grunch but a cat.  Cats don't tell you where you're wrong (or occasionally right).  They don't judge.  They're great listeners (until they get bored, irritated or hungry) and usually petting them makes both parties happy.  So.  I decided I couldn't live without cats.  And no.  I DON'T want to be the crazy cat lady in another 10-40years, thanks for asking!

I found the sketch over at Sketchy Thursday and loved it so I had to squeeze it in this week.

Ingredients:
Paper: (Kraft- Haunted) My Mind's Eye, (White, Aqua & Turquoise) Stampin' Up,
Misc: (Sticky Borders) Close to My Heart, (Calico White, Heirloom Blue, Bonny Blue Mr. Huey's) Studio Calico, (Masks) Tim Holtz

Challenges:
Better Living Through Scrapbooking: What you can't live without + 2 of the following 4:
1. Use a small picture (no bigger than 3×5) as the main picture on the layout   Almost but I used 3 pictures
2. Use misting (glimmer sprays, ink sprays, etc)
3. Journal around the edges of your page
4. Use only paper embellishments, no fabric, metal, plastic, etc.

Sketchy Thursday: 10/13 Sketch:

GD Kiddie Kicker LO for GHWI

In English, that's Guest Designer Kiddie Kicker layout for Getting Hippity with Ippity.

Aletha sent me a sketch for this project and I needed to use the set I picked out from my previous win - I chose The Best.

Sketch:                                                   My Take:
 

Now you'll notice that there's NOTHING on that sketch that indicates it's a layout and not a card.  It was actually intended to be a card but for some reason, I saw LO and never even considered card.  I didn't figure it out until I saw it publically posted with some inspiration pieces.  Well DUH Jen!!!  Luckily, Aletha was happy to have something different so it was all good.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (The Best) Unity
Cardstock (Ballet Blue, Bashful Blue, Whisper White) Stampin' Up, (Jet Stream) Core-dinations
DSP (Soccer paper) Karen Foster Designs, (Hostess sampler pack) Stampin' Up
Ink: (Black) StazOn, (Faded Jeans, Walnut Stain Distress Inks) Tim Holtz, (Ballet Blue) Stampin' Up
Misc: Transparency sheet, (Jack & Jill alpha stickers) Doodlebug Designs, (Crochet thread) DMC

Pancakes with Santa

PageMaps had a great sketch up last week.  I generally don't have a lot with only 3 or 4 photos but there are a few and our Santa Breakfast the other year was one so it worked nicely.  I've been wanting to get into my LYB Christmas Magic materials- they've been around for close to a year and I've only used a smidge of them.

Man.  I GOTTA find a better way to get photos of layouts.  They look curved, the photos get light-marks on them... blech!  Suggestions? 

Ingredients:
Rub-on letters: October Afternoon
Everything else from Little Yellow Bicycles' Christmas Magic 12x12 Tablet and 8x8 Paper and Punch-Out Tablet.

Challenge:
PageMaps: Studio Purge Sketch Contest
Top Tip Tuesday #55: DSPs and Handmade Flowers

Glowing Hours Halloween card

Another stamp I LOVED and HAD to get when I saw it at CKC the other month.

Ingredients:
Cardstock White, Kraft, Purple?: SU
DSP: Haunted: My Mind's Eye
Stamps: Glowing Hours: Unity
Ink: Basic Black, Concord Crush, Eggplant Envy: SU
Misc: Bling, Ribbon, both unknown, Y15 Copic

Challenges:
Unity: WCMD #2: Halloween
Sweet Stamps Challenge #35: Anything Goes
CREATE: Halloween card
Simon Says Stamp: Things with wings (the bats may be small but they're there and I love 'em!)

I'm thinkin' Christmas

I've been wanting to give some Christmas cards a test run for this year so I gave one a try today.  I first made it with vellum but didn't have much luck distressing it.  Sanding it just left it icky and unevenly scratched.  Trying to rough the edge really didn't do anything.  I still liked the overall look but wanted to try to see it distressed so I made it with CS.  I sanded the CS and it just looked paler and when I added some walnut distress ink, it lost the sanded look. Unsurprisingly, the edge roughed very nicely.  In the end though, I like the vellum more- the crisp edges of the trees and the shade of the kraft paper coming through look better to me- a lot more depth.

Vellum                   Cardstock 

Ingredients:
Paper: Garden Green, Kraft Cardstock, Old Olive Vellum (SU)
Stamp: Silhouette Song Bird (Unity)
Ink: Cranberry (SU), Walnut Stain (Ranger)
Misc: Embossing folder (Tim Holtz), Music paper (Chopin Waltzes for the Piano), Button, Hemp Twine

Challenges:
Scrapbookers' Paradise #35: Distressing
Paper Players #66: Something musical 
Stampendous Oct: CAS 

A new way of working

This sounds silly but I've always wanted to try making a simple card.  My cards tend to always include hand coloring or fussy cutting or, more frequently, both.  I've been wanting to try something nice and simple, quite possibly with a felt accent on it.  Within the past week, I've gotten a few great kicks in the butt to do so. 
1. I received a FABU goodie box from my Write.Click.Scrapbook birthday party win this summer, many thanks to the talented Lisa Kisch.  There were some great felt pieces in that package.
2. A few weeks ago I won a SRM sticker package from a Scrapbooking News and Review giveaway and I really wanted to try to use some of them- I've never used stickers except a few rare alphas.
3. I saw some really fantastic simple cards from Piradee Talvanna in an American Crafts Studio blog post.

I definitely CASed Piradee's 2nd card- these didn't come naturally to me but I want to make a stash of these for birthdays and such.  I like the ice cream cone card more than the flower but I'm just happy that I made these two.  :)

Ingredients:

Cardstock (Stampin' Up)

DSP: ?  These were from a stack of random cut 6x6's I received from someone

Stickers: SRM

Felts: Flower (Pebbles?), Ice Cream Cone (Joann's)

Challenges:

SRM: World Card Making Day

Glitter Dragonfly Card

I picked up this ENORMOUS dragonfly stamp at CKC.  I saw it, liked it, saw it was $5, yeah, $5 (and there are a few other stamps on the sheet), and it was mine.  I wasn't sure how exactly I'd use it but this is pretty close:

I wasn't quite sure how I was going to finish up the card until I saw the CropStop challenge for including "friend" or "friendship" on a card for World Cardmaking Day.  I tried stamping the F/Friends in blue on blue w/ and w/o Crytal Effects and/or glitter "friends", blue on white, blue on silver and finally silver on blue.  Silver on blue seemed to work the best.  The card still seems to want a little something but I haven't figured out what yet.  I tried a bit of ribbon and cord but they didn't get it done.

Ingredients:

Stamps: Dragonfly (Tattered Angels), Friends (Stampin' Up)

Ink: Black (Staz-on) Silver (?)

DSP: Little Yellow Bicycle

Cardstock: Stampin' Up

Misc: Glitter (Martha Stewart), Plastic sheet (packaging from who knows what), Sharpie Pens

Challenges:

CropStop: Stamp your sentiment + Friend/Friendship
Whimsical Wednesday: Anything Goes
Frosted Designs: Fussy Cutting