Happy Halloween👻

Happy Halloween! As you can see my two lads had fun carving pumpkins today.



It feels like forever since I posted but as I got a little inky for Halloween I thought I'd put my bits and pieces here.

First up is a card I made for my good friend Linda - thanks again Linda!



A couple of years ago she sent me some gorgeous Halloween papers that I hoarded until now. I used a Sizzix flip it die set which made it so quick and easy to make this type of card.



I used the sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Trick or Treat mini set. On the flip side of the sentiment piece I used the witch image from Hero Arts Ghostly Greetings set.



I again used Hero Arts Ghostly Greetings set for the little tag on this Halloween treat that I put together for my sister.



The trick or treaters here have finished for the night and we had a lots less callers compared to any other year. So we've got a mountain of treats left - I might just have to put the kettle on for a cuppa and have some chocolate treats with it.

Trick or Treat

I love Halloween but here in Ireland we don't send Halloween cards to each other so I suppose that's why I have only two Halloween stamp sets - as for my Christmas supplies, now that's a completely different story! My friend Linda recently sent some fun die cuts that I used along with Hero Arts Ghostly Greetings set on today's card.

I started by stamping the sentiment on a square of card and added the pretty die cut wreath Linda had sent me. To decorate the wreath I used glitter bat die cuts, again from Linda, and some orange sequins I picked up when shopping with Linda during the summer.

Dies (Hero Arts) - Halloween Trimmings Stamp & Cut & My Monthly Hero September Kit
Stamp (Hero Arts) - Ghostly Greetings (sentiment)

Even though I have a huge jar of googly eyes, I discovered the little ones either had brown or pink eyes, so the bats ended up being brown eyed.

I'm submitting the card into Hero Arts Holiday Challenge and Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge.

Our clocks went back at the weekend so in an hour or so it will be dark and the trick or treaters should start arriving. I'm looking forward to seeing what all the kids are dressed as and moving a lot of the mountain of tempting treats out of the house! Hope you have a wonderful Halloween!

Batty Halloween Wishes

CAS cards are something I really struggle with, so today I thought I'd have another go a making one for Halloween. I wanted to join in on Lawnscaping's Texture Challenge so added bits of texture here and there on my card.

I started by stamping the sentiment in spiced marmalade distress ink on a panel of white card.

Stamps - Trick or Treat (Lawn Fawn) & Ghostly Greetings (Hero Arts)

After stamping and cutting out the bat, I coloured it with ProMarkers and added a couple of googly eyes before adhering it to the panel with foam pads. The panel was layered on orange textured card and I added a piece of baker's twine for some more texture. I added the panel to the card with foam pads. Well that's one thing about CAS cards - the descriptions are pretty short and sweet! Enjoy the rest of your weekend:)

Happy Halloween

The day our younger son has been eagerly awaiting with much anticipation has finally arrived, and now he's wishing away the hours until it gets dark enough to go out spooking! Meanwhile I need to run into the town to get some more cobwebs. With all the windy weather we've had recently there was no point in decorating outside until today, otherwise we would have had cobwebs, gravestones and creepy creatures blowing around the neighbourhood!

As usual I was up early so I thought I'd make a quick little Halloween picture.



Stamp (Hero Arts) - Ghostly Greetings

The background is another piece of Core'dinations card that my friend Linda had sent me. I love embossing and sanding these to see what will be revealed. The sentiment was embossed and I just added a baker's twine frame. The little owl ghosts/witches represent our two boys who, each year, over the years have gone back and forth deciding what to wear for Halloween. So I thought I'd have the little owls trying to make up their minds about what they wanted to dress up as for Halloween. It's hard to see in the photo but I added gold pen and some stickles to the little buckles on the hats.

I also have to share another Halloween project, made by Linda. She sent me these super cute treat bags for the lads - I just love them and so do the lads! Thanks again, Linda:):) Here you can find details of all the supplies Linda used to make these fun bags.



Hope you have a fun Halloween!

Splatter Ghosts

When I was playing with images from the Brush Strokes set from Hero Arts, the bigger splatters reminded me of the fingerprint ghosts my boys used to make in school when they were younger. So I thought I'd make a Halloween card using these splatters.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Ghostly Greetings & Brush Strokes

I embossed the splatters on black card and cut eyes and mouths out of black card. After adhering these to the ghosts I applied a layer of glossy accents for some sheen. It's impossible to see from the photo but I also stamped some cobwebs in black on the background. The sentiment was also embossed and I popped up the little ghost on the sentiment panel on a foam pad. To finish I just added a few gems and baker's twine.

I'm submitting this card into the current Hero Arts Challenge as the card was inspired by the super cute Halloween card (splatters on the background and popped up ghost) on page 28 of Hero Arts' Holiday & Stamp Your Story catalogue. Edited to add - I've just found out that Lisa Spangler made the card in the catalogue. You can see more on her fun card here.

Hope you are having a fun and inky weekend!

Spooky!

My last post was a Christmas one, but today I'm thinking of another fun time of the year - Halloween. Much and all as I love Halloween, there really isn't a tradition of sending Halloween cards to each other here. But this card is for a sweet girl in the US, whose mum is a friend of mine. The card and some Irish spooky trick or treat goodies will be winging their way to her in October.


Stamp - Ghostly Greetings (Hero Arts) Die - Geometric Shapes (Hero Arts)

I started by die cutting the hexagons and clear embossing the spider webs on the black card. The sentiment was also embossed. Then I stamped and cut out the ghost owls, added them to the hexagons and stacked them on the card.



To finish, I added some googly eyes. Lol can you tell I sorted out and stuck on the googly eyes at night, in the dimmer light of energy saving light bulbs? It was only this morning that I noticed my mistake - two of the owls have different coloured eyes! Oh well, I've seen this in people and animals in real life so I just left them this way!

I'm submitting this card into the current Hero Arts Challenge as the stamp set and die are from the Holiday catalogue. The card was inspired by this card by Jennifer McGuire - the geometric shape framing the character, the stamped background within the frame and also the added embellishment to the eyes.

Flying Scramble

Last night Jayne hosted a fun and challenging scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr group.

Jayne was inspired by baseball in picking the theme for her challenge and went for a triple play. I haven't a clue what that means in baseball terms but our scramble card had to include a triple play of trends - 1) use a photo frame 2) have at least one element on a slant and 3) have a metallic element.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Magical Background, BAM! & Ghostly Greetings

I haven't had a chance to play along in the scrambles in quite a while and had forgotten how quickly those 90 minutes whizz by! The fact that about 20 minutes of my time was taken up searching for my craft knife didn't exactly help, lol! I had tried cutting the photo frame with a scissors but it looked so bockety that way! I've seen YouTube videos of people completing a card in 10 minutes - lol I don't think I'll ever be capable of that!

For the background I stamped the Magical Background on blue card using faded jeans distress ink. I stamped the rocket twice, coloured and layered in parts for some extra dimension. To complete the metallic element part of the theme I added gold stickles to the flame from the rocket and silver pen to the rivets and piece protruding from the rocket nose.



Yikes got a bit splodgy with the stamping but that's what happens when you're scrambling! The next scramble in the group will be hosted by Janet on 28th July. If you'd like to join in on this scramble you'll find more details here.

Flying By To Say Hi

I've been wanting to ink up some of my new stamps and today had a little time to get inky - bliss! I was inspired by Cath's Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World - love the mix of colours and also the pattern. So I partially used the cutting pattern and added a lot more colours than I usually do to my cards.



To start with I stamped the Map of America and used circle Nestabilities to cut the map into rings.


Stamps - Hero Arts (Map of America, BAM! and Ghostly Greetings)

Then I coloured the map with ProMarkers and adhered it to a panel of black card. The embossed sentiment is from a Halloween set but I thought it would work here. I decided to leave the rocket uncoloured and just popped it on foam pads. To finish I added a trail of gems from the rocket and a heart gem to the centre of the map.

I'm also submitting this card into the current Hero Arts Challenge.

Itty Bitty Hi

Cath over at Moxie Fab World has lots for fun challenges for the 75 Creative Card Challenges Week. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to play along until today, which also happens to be the last day for submitting entries! So when I had some spare time this morning I decided I'd join in on the Make an Itty Bitty Card Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. Lol little did I realise that making a tiny card would take nearly as long as making a normal sized card. Of course having butter fingers this morning and dropping all of the fiddly bits didn't exactly help!



Card size 1 1/2 inches x 2 inches

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Looped Circle Pattern & Ghostly Greetings

As you can probably tell from the photo it's a lovely sunny day here today and after all the rain we've had recently everywhere is looking very green. So as I'm thinking of Spring I decided to make a green background by applying mowed lawn distress ink to white card and spritzed it with water. When the panel was dry I embossed the sentiment and added some machine stitching.

To make the flower I embossed the Looped Circle Pattern on vellum and cut out three of the flowers to layer.

I just added a raffia string stem and bow and a little pearl to finish.

I won't get a chance to play along in the other challenges Cath has set but will definitely give them all a go in the future.