Tricks, Treats and Happy Halloween!

This week has been so busy. Not much time for scrapping or stamping. Here are some of the goodies I have been busy with this week.

You can't trick or treat with a plain bucket, let's decorate it!

My little baking girl all dressed up in a pumpkin apron and even a pumpkin spatula courtesy of her Grammy!


She always volunteers to lick the beaters!

The best philly cream cheese sugar cookies. YUM!

It's not Halloween without Jack Skeleton's head on a plate.

I also made some yummy sticky bat and pumpkin pretzels that I will share with you tomorrow! Not all of my "creations" involve paper, scissors and glue!

"Dazzling" Halloween cards

I had a few moments here and there last week to play with some new Die Cuts and finish the rest of my Halloween cards. I will tell you all about Close To My Hearts November promotion "Dazzling Die Cuts" next week. These were just some fun cards I put together using some of the frames, shapes and letters contained in these wonderful die cut packages.







The scary black cat card features B&T papers from Game On and the circle frame is from the Autumn die cut. The black cat is from the October Word Puzzle stamp set and I embossed the Green cs with distressed stripes (cuttle bug). Twill ribbon and black brads are CTMH.




Spooky Star card features the star die cuts along with star dimensional elements that also came in the package. They are self adhesive and so easy to use. {no cutting} I must point out that the background paper behind the stars in actually Hydrangea purple. For some reason my camera makes it appear more blue. Either way it represents the night sky, I sanded swirls intentionally to give it more appeal. The phrase "spooky" is from October Word Puzzle Stamp. Misc. ribbon and brads finish it off.




I really like how this card turned out. There's something about adding bling and liquid glass to projects. The "H" is the die cut and I used some older B&T paper. Stamps used are October Word Puzzle again and Hallow-scream. Misc. ribbon.



Finally, I pulled out some older stamp sets that are still on wooden blocks...Yikes!... I know, but just look at how cute these characters are! I colored them in with watercolor pencils and blended them. The sunflower yellow frame is the die cut and I mounted on black and placed over the purple cs. The orange cs was embossed with swiss dots (cuttle bug). The "Trick or Treat" phrase is from October Word Puzzle. Finally I finished with some bigger brads and misc. ribbon.

Spooky Delights!

I was able to snap a photo of the goodies I made for my Friday Night Club Members. It is October and Halloween is around the corner, so I wanted to create a spooky atmosphere for the gathering. I greeted everyone at the door in a black witch hat and some of the ladies dressed in spooky attire earning them free tax on their orders. I prepared some yummy skull cupcakes and decorated their water bottles with the Ahoy Matey stamp set and October Annotations stamp.

Thankful Flip Card

I have posted a couple of "flip" or "never-ending" cards now. This card will be the one that the ladies will learn how to make in November. I had a few request how to make the flip card and thought it would be fun to do a fall or thanksgiving theme. Some are still intimidated by this type of card, but I hope their fears will be eliminated once they see how simple the assembly is. I used the November Word Puzzle stamp and Thanksgiving Day (I believe is retired). The pattern paper I chose is Magic Moments. All product is CTMH.

Spooky Outdoor Decor!

I finally got around to taking some pics of my spooky outdoor decor. My daughter even got in on the fun. We have noticed cars slowing down or coming by for a second look.

In the daylight:

At night:

November Scramp Club Project

Every month I hold a Scramp Club. I try to give the ladies a variety of projects, but every once in awhile I will make just page layouts. This month I wanted to show them how to add additional protected photo's or journaling. This is a great technique for adding to your pages without having to remove the entire page from the sheet protector. Perfect for those of us with little kids that adore flipping through the pages of our scrapbooks.

In this photo you will see that I have also used a random stamp resist technique. Using the Nature's Vein MyAcrylix I stamp randomly in clear ink then heat emboss with a clear embossing powder. I continue stamping leaves now in fall ink colors. Final step would be to sponge a brown ink all over the base page. This technique makes a soft, warm textured background paper that is easy and fun.

I stamped the base and vein of the leaf on solid cardstock, cut them out, then lightly crumpled them to create a real looking leaf. I embellished them all together with some clear buttons that have solid cardstock liquid glassed behind them and thread with floss.

November Word Puzzle

Here is the entire photo of the November Word Puzzle pages I posted earlier this month. The ladies that attend this workshop are very excited to make these pages. They were somewhat surprised by the color choice for fall pages. At first it was hard to adjust to the Perfect Day Papers but the cocoa cardstock really grounds them and makes it really work well! Other than the November Word Puzzle stamp set I am having them trace and cut out some Dimensional Element letters to create the "Fall" title. It's super cute and super simple!

October's Annotations

As promised here are a few more projects I completed using October's Stamp Of The Month (SOTM), Annotations.



These are treat bags that I picked up at Walmart last year on clearance. I got 30 bags for only .50 cents. My daughter and I filled them with goodies from the dollar section at Target. {gotta love that dollar section!} We also stuffed them with candy and cookies. I used the frame from the Oct. SOTM to make a tag and stamped the bat from the October Word Puzzle stamp in the center. My daughter stamped a "happy halloween" sentiment on the back and signed her name. Then we tied them all up, ready to go to her class~mates for Halloween.

I was also able to create a few cards using the SOTM and some of the new Perfect Day Papers. This stamp set is really versatile. If your thinking about purchasing it, remember that it's only available during the month of October!

Looking to the sky

I had to share this photo I took last night. As I was making dinner I happened to look to the night sky through my back windows. There was the most amazing full moon rising up above the gorgeous purple mountains. Living in the dessert makes you long for greener pastures, but I would really miss the west for the purple and blue mountain scenery. We also have the most amazing sunsets bursting with reds, oranges and hot pink colors. My camera didn't quite capture how full and bright the moon was. I assure you that it was simply awesome!

Hallway Halloween Decor

This friday I will be holding my monthly workshop where the ladies will be making the "Happy Halloween" table decor that I posted previously. I wanted to decorate a hallway shelf with the same project, but further embellished it. Here is how it turned out.

Birthday Treat Holders

Being a parent volunteer at your child's elementary school takes time and creativity. For my daughter's leadership group they decided to take turns celebrating each other's Birthdays. If the student is not celebrating their birthday for that month, then they bring a little goodie in for the birthday guys or gals that are celebrating. As I drove home from the school I thought and thought about a cool little treat. Once home I begin my search through magazines and internet sites. Big thanks to another talented Close To My Heart consultant for showing her Halloween treat holder plus tutorial video. I completely simplified them though since I will be making a total of 35 or so before the school year is up. I chose boy and girl colors and it worked out that I was able to use some of the retiring colors as well.


As you lift the front flap the mini hershey bar will pop-up from the inside. I tried to show this in these pictures. It really was easier than I first suspected!



Ta~Da....candy time!

Cardstock and stamp is all Close To My Heart. Don't you just love that label stamp? It's the stamp of the month for October. I will be posting more artwork using this stamp set, stay tuned!

Fun with Halloween cards!

Here are just a sample of some fun Halloween cards I will be mailing out to friends and family. As you can see I did not make any cards the same. I'm just having too much fun playing with both new and old stamp sets. The stamps are all Close To My Heart as is the papers and embellishments used on them.

Holiday Workshop

This year's Holiday Workshop is Merry & Bright! Attendees will be making this darling mini-accordian album using a portion of the Merry and Bright card kit. By adding some cardstock and a few embellishments they will complete an entire mini album along with a box to store it all in. Perfect to keep your own Holiday memories in or great to give as a gift to someone this season. Workshop guests will be amazed at how fast, simple and easy it is to create this lovely little album.

Halloween Decor

I'm a big fan of Halloween. As a child I can remember looking forward to dressing up and trick or treating with neighbors. I can even recall one year when we hosted a big Halloween party with several in attendance. After the trick or treating, bobbing for apples and the massive food fight with popcorn balls flying, my parents never hosted another Halloween party again. I picked up the tradition years later when I had children of my own. Our family members would come over for hot bowls of chili, sugar cookies and trick or treating. A few years ago we moved a town over and started the tradition of visiting Disneyland on Halloween. The entire park is decorated, characters are in costume and they completely transform the Haunted Mansion into The Nightmare Before Christmas theme. The kids even dress in costume and we have so much fun. My children get excited every year now for Halloween and so do I. They get a kick out of how I decorate the house and this year I added some fun new stuff. Check out these before and after pics of my fire mantle. Oh, and stay tuned as I will show you my outdoor decorations soon.

Before:


After:

I used some books found around the house and covered them in some Close To My Heart background and texture papers.

The power of black and white photos

I wanted to share some pages I recently completed with black and white photos. I used the Perfect Day papers from the new Idea Book and several new embellishments also containing the new colors. I love this paper as it is, but the colors in my photos did not coordinate. Therefore I chose to print them in black and white. You really can't go wrong with the classic look of black and white photography. Now my eye is drawn to the gorgeous papers and the precious faces of my daughter with her darling cousins!