Happy Halloween!

We had a fun day today. Ben's day at preschool started with the annual costume parade. Here is his whole class all decked out. They were all so cute! Ben chose this blue monster costume a while back - he was originally asking for an alligator, which we couldn't find, but he saw this one online and decided that was the one.

Our neighborhood has had a real explosion of young families in the past couple years. The last time we gave out candy for trick-or-treaters was two Halloweens ago, and I think we had five or six kids come. Tonight one family hosted a party for everyone, and there were probably ten families there with 25-30 kids! It was great fun. We got a group photo for once - Todd was dressed as a mad scientist (an annual tradition) and Sarah was a bat. She took a little convincing to get into the costume but once she saw Ben putting his on she was fine.



We were out for about an hour and the kids did really well. Ben pronounced over and over how much he loved trick-or-treating. Sarah held a flashlight in one hand and my hand in the other the whole time. We had to walk a lot between houses since our lots are about an acre each and some have loooong driveways. At one point I asked Sarah if she was doing okay and she said, "Yes. I'm feeling good." She cracks me up!

Inspiration Challenge #38: Orchard Toscana dinnerware

For this week's challenge I chose this lovely Orchard Toscana dinnerware set from Rosanna. The colors are a combination I wouldn't normally go for, so I thought I'd challenge myself today!

I felt like doing some watercoloring, which I really haven't been turning to lately. I used a Hero Arts Italian background stamp and a pear stamp from Artful Stamper - the closest I have to a lemon! For colors I chose whisper white, not quite navy, so saffron, and kiwi kiss, plus Stazon Midnight Blue for the stamping.


I first stamped the background on watercolor paper. Next I stamped the pear twice, masking as needed. I colored the darker areas of the pears with a more mustard watercolor crayon, then filled in the rest with so saffron watercolor crayon and blended the colors with my Aqua Painter. For the stems and leaves I used kiwi kiss reinker. I cut the panel with Nestabilities and mounted on a not quite navy scalloped layer.

The background uses a panel from the Ski Slope designer paper in the mini catalog - I don't think this print looks too Christmasy to use by itself and it's really pretty. I found a scrap of dot saffron paper from an old scrapbook kit - I liked this because it would be plain enough to stamp on for the sentiment. I used the "best wishes" stamp from Short & Sweet.

For mounting I cut another large Nesties scalloped rectangle and then cut one side off to use as the border on the saffron paper. (I saw this trick on one of Roxie's samples for today's sketch challenge.) I adhered the pears with foam tape and then thought it didn't quite look finished. So I added a bit of copper hardware and blue bayou ribbon. I struggled with what ribbon to use with these colors - I think the blue bayou was the best option I had, and it's really a pretty close match!

Come play along this week - the keyword for uploading to SCS is DSIC38, and as always, leave a link here so everyone can see. Thanks for stopping by today!

Pumpkin patch photos

We had a gorgeous day today and made it out to the pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins finally. Let's just say that Halloween is a big deal at our house - it's Todd's favorite holiday and he's gotten Ben very excited about it, too. So we decided to go pick our own pumpkins. Well... I think it's highly overrated. The pumpkins were actually cut off the vines already, so it wasn't so much picking them as tromping through dirt and mud looking for any that weren't rotting in the field. But Ben and Sarah had fun. Here are a few photos, and if you want more you can click here to see the whole album on Facebook.



I also got Todd to take a picture of me in my new glasses. It's not the best photo, but it should give you an idea!

Gotta be quick today

I had just enough time to do today's featured stamper challenge, with Speedystamper (Kay Kalthoff) as Beth's pick for today. What a lovely and huge gallery Kay has! I picked this card for my CASE. I kept it a Christmas card with the Christmas Classics set.

I first stamped the canvas background in river rock ink on river rock cardstock. Next I inked the holly stamp with old olive and real red markers and stamped in each corner. The sentiment was stamped in real red on vanilla cardstock and cut and embossed with Nestabilities. I layered the river rock onto a panel of retired Christmas paper (the name is escaping me) and added a strip of red grosgrain and river rock ribbon. This went onto a real red card. For final touches I stamped the stars in old olive, added a red eyelet in the centers, and adhered with dimensionals.

That's it! Gotta run - have a great day!

Fun with glitter and chipboard

I wanted to try the second sketch for today's sketch challenge. I'm not sure what I think of this card, but I'm going to post it because I worked a long time on it!

SCS is using pink in challenges this week in honor of breast cancer awareness month. I didn't use pink on the last card, but I wanted to for this one. And when I think pink, I often think of baby girl cards. I just love making them!

I decided to use some Piggy Tales Gretel papers. I have a whole bunch of these and they've never been cut into! The colored cardstock is Bazzill and I used a whisper white card base. I used the ticket corner punch for my panels, and I ended up shifting the green panel to the right a little because it just looked better that way. The large pink panel was embossed with the Cuttlebug swiss dots folder.

I can't remember how I ended up doing it, but I decided to try some chipboard, which I hardly ever use. I have a ton of it, of course! The letters are from the On Board Lots of Letters and the hearts from the Simon Upper pack (retired). For the letters I first colored them with a pink Sharpie marker, then added pink Stickles. These took a good, long time to dry. I covered the hearts with my two printed papers and then sanded the edges and adhered with sticky strip. Tip of the day: To cover a chipboard shape with designer paper, I use Tombow Mono Multi on the front of the chipboard then adhere to the back of the paper. Once it's dry, I cut around the edges with small scissors and sand the edges with a sanding block. The fewer edges, the easier this is - so hearts are pretty easy, LOL.

This is definitely a different sort of card for me. What do you think? Maybe I should make more chipboard cards - it would take a while to use up my stash!

I may be scarce around here for the next little while. I have my Christmas stamp camp coming up on November 1 and there is much to do for that. I also signed up to do a vendor fair at Ben's school on Nov. 17-18 - a pretty big time commitment, which I hadn't realized when I signed up. Oops. It's a fund-raiser, which is the primary reason I'm doing it, since I had decided I wasn't going to do any fairs this year. But now I need to make some nice stuff to sell there. And keep up with my Etsy shop as well. I'll post as much as I can, though!

Inspiration Challenge #37: Company C bedding

I always have lots of photos of bedding saved for my challenges, and I decided to use one today. This is the Verona bedding by Company C. I just love the mix of patterns and colors here.

For my color combination I chose kiwi kiss, pacific point, bordering blue, and close to cocoa, with just a little white for the stamped panel. I thought these colors looked very cool together - it ended up being a little challenging, though! That's a lot of colors to work into a single card. I loved the sketch challenge for today - Roxie gave us two sketches! This card uses the second sketch, and as soon as I'm done posting I'm off to try the first one.


I started out by stamping the Paisley background with Versamark on bordering blue cardstock, then I embossed it with clear EP. The sentiment from Wonderful Words was embossed the same way on pacific point cardstock. I used the open leaf and solid flower images from Wonderful You and stamped in kiwi kiss, close to cocoa, and pacific point.

To put the whole thing together, I used a bordering blue card base, a background panel from the kiwi kiss patterned papers, close to cocoa layers for everything, and three Making Memories copper brads. Sigh, this was so close to SUO but I just had to use those brads! I popped the stamped panel up on dimensionals.

I hope you'll come play my challenge - I'd love to see your take on this gorgeous bedding set! This week's SCS keyword is DSIC37, and don't forget to leave me a link here!

My first time being tagged!

Woohoo, isn't that exciting? :) Teresa tagged me - go check out her wonderful blog here!

Here are the rules:
1. Link your tagger and list the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog--some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of the post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

My 7 facts:
1. I spent three months of my senior year of college living in Taegu, South Korea.

2. I love word games, especially Scrabble.

3. I have a Ph.D. If you need a doctor of musicology, I'm your woman. LOL.

4. While earning said Ph.D. I lived in Paris for a month doing research. Mostly I learned that my spoken French was not very good, and that Parisians like following rules even more than I do, which is saying a lot.

5. I am a Mennonite - my heritage on both sides of my family is Mennonite and it's a very important part of my faith and identity. But living in Boston, it's not something I get to embrace much, though. :(

6. The strangest foods I have ever eaten are baby octopus and sea cucumber. (See #1.)

7. I love shopping. I can shop all day and not be tired of it. I used to do a lot more shopping for clothes, but now I mostly shop for stamps!

Hmm, now I'm supposed to tag some other people... I read a lot of blogs, but I think a lot of them are people that have been tagged a million times, so I'm just going to pick a couple people who've left me comments this week - and thanks to everyone who comments since I always love reading them! Go check out these sweet blogs:

Pam
Kathryn

I'm in a creative slump today. I tried to do the technique challenge but it just wasn't working. I'm hoping I can still get something made yet tonight, if the creativity starts to flow!

Wow, just... wow!

I was amazed by today's featured stamper challenge. Beth selected ink-e, or Emily, who is only 18! Yikes, that is not even half my age, LOL. She shows amazing talent and I know she'll be someone to watch! I picked this card because I loved the colors and the look of it. Ah, soft sky... I do still love it.

I decided to make a Christmas card today. Since I've been working on Etsy stuff I've fallen behind on that project! I chose a scrap of Basic Grey paper and a snowflake from Snow Swirled, and I kept Emily's soft sky but added blue bayou as well.

First I stamped the snowflake with white craft ink and embossed with white EP. I really wanted it to be white. I just went right onto soft sky cardstock instead of doing a resist like Emily did. I layered it with Nestabilities and added a twinkle sticker from A Muse in the center.

I used the scallop edge punch on a blue bayou panel and then put the DP on top. There was enough room for a sentiment at the bottom so I chose this cute one from Hero Arts. I added some white taffeta ribbon, three more twinkle stickers, and a soft sky card base, and that's it!

Now I'm going back into my Etsy workroom to see what I can come up with yet tonight. I'm having a lot of fun on there, and I've sold 7 cards so far, so I'm feeling good about it!

The colors of my day...

river rock and always artichoke! I don't often stick to one color scheme so exclusively in a single day, but today it just worked out that way. I used these colors (along with very vanilla) for two challenges, Jen's Sketch for You to Try and the sketch challenge from Our Creative Corner.

I'll start with the OCC card since the palm tree was the first thing I made. I intended to use it for Jen's sketch but things went awry so I set it aside and ended up coming back to it after I finished the other card.

I stamped the palm tree (Inkadinkado) in river rock on vanilla cardstock, then distressed the edges with my fingernail and sponged on artichoke ink. (I did that for all the edges on both cards, so I'll just let that be assumed from here on.) I layered the tree with dimensionals onto a panel of river rock designer paper - I think my stash of that is almost gone! The background seemed to need something simple so I just used two panels of river rock cardstock, and added three copper brads from Making Memories and a Hero Arts sentiment.

Here's my card for Jen's sketch. I ended up flipping it after I discovered the palm tree didn't fit! I used this vintage car stamp from Magenta instead. The background panels are made up of some more river rock DP layered onto artichoke cardstock. I used two jumbo antique brass eyelets with some twill tape for an embellishment. The sentiment is another Hero Arts sentiment, stamped one word at a time so that I could get the sentiment into a circle.

I've had fun with these colors today - but if I get any more creative time tonight, I think I'll move on to something different! Thanks for stopping by and thanks to Jen and the OCC crew for two great sketches today!

Back with another card

I managed to get one more card in - I think I'm running out of steam for today. This one is for Beate's sketch challenge - I haven't gotten to play too many of these since Beate started them back up, and I'm glad I had time today. I decided to make mine a standard-size card since I don't have envelopes to go with the long cards, and I guess I made my center section wider than Beate did.

The first thing I thought of after looking at this sketch was the Beautiful Borders set. I'd noticed this sitting unused last night, and wanted to do something with it. I pulled some designer paper from Imagination Project that seemed fun. It goes well with baja breeze, very vanilla and chocolate chip.

I first stamped the border twice with chocolate chip on baja breeze cardstock, leaving some space in between. I cut a 4" panel and then a vanilla panel to fit between the borders. When I layered this over the DP I thought it needed something to break up the horizontal rows, so I stamped the heart from Always on baja breeze and chocolate chip, then cut out both hearts and mounted the baja breeze one with dimensionals. To fill in the background I used the branch stamp from the same set and one of the tiny circle flowers. I colored the center with a blender pen and baja breeze reinker so that the circle wouldn't stamp.

The sentiment is from Beautiful Borders and was punched with the 1 3/4" circle punch and then layered with Nestabilities. I just realized, this card has no embellishments! But there's a lot going on so maybe it doesn't need any. I'm not sure what I think of this one... it was one of those where it didn't turn out like I envisioned. What do you think?

Overheard at our house...

Thought I'd share some funny stuff the kids have said today. I've really fallen down on the job with keeping track of these things!

I'm thinking Sarah is going to be a girly girl. When I was in Chicago I got a pedicure and I'm still enjoying my painted toenails, even though the weather is too cold to show them off. Sarah always remarks on them, though, and this morning she looked down at her own naked toenails and said, "My toes are all messed up."

She also has been growing a bit so I've gotten some new clothes, and we have to try everything on since she is hard to fit. This morning I came down with clothes to put in her backpack, and she said, "I want to try on more new clothes!" Oy, this girl as a teenager could be interesting. Or she could be just like me, LOL. Here's a photo I took of her while she was trying stuff on.

This morning Ben, for the first time, commented on a dream he had. He said there was an elevator (not a surprise if you know Ben) where the doors opened the wrong way (top to bottom) and we were in a store where we couldn't find the way out. Wow, I thought, anxiety dreams coming up already? I have them ALL the time. So I asked him how he felt in the dream when we couldn't find the way out. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "I just felt silly. It was just a dream." Well, duh, Mom.

Busy, busy, busy

Whew, this project of keeping up with my Etsy store is a challenge! I'm trying to get a bunch of cards made today that I can list. Pardon me for putting all of these in one blog post - I am just pressed for time!

Here's a quick one I did last night - it was quick because I had the tree left over from last week. It's the same chocolate chip, really rust, and more mustard colors, and I layered it with rectangle Nestabilities. I added some chocolate chip satin ribbon, background paper from the level 1 hostess patterns pack, and a sentiment from Elegant Cheer.


Next, my card for Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge for today. It was really a challenge - to use no image stamps. I decided to use the Nursery Letters jumbo wheel to make a baby card, and I pulled out some coordinating paper and stickers from Marcella by K&Co. that I'd gotten at Target ages ago. I wheeled the letters with mellow moss on blush blossom cardstock, then added "sweet" made with stickers on vanilla cardstock. I cut the large flower from one of the other paper patterns and stamped "baby" (from All Year Cheer) onto a third pattern. Finally I added some dimensional flower stickers - love the glitter centers - and peach grosgrain ribbon from Making Memories. To round the corners I used an EK Success scalloped corner punch.

Here's my favorite card of the day, at least so far! The limited supply challenge is another good one: to use eyelets and one piece of ribbon, one piece of designer paper, blue on the card somewhere, and no punches, Cuttlebug, or other embellishments. I chose a piece of American Crafts paper and chocolate chip and bashful blue cardstock to match. I stamped the butterfly from Just Celebrate three times, on white, blue, and chocolate chip, and then paper pieced the body and wings. I added my jumbo pewter eyelet in the corner and glued on a knot of blue and white dot organdy ribbon. (Is there a way to tie a knot through an eyelet?? Someone enlighten me, please, because I couldn't figure it out! Eyelets are still pretty new to me.) To fill in some of that white space I pierced around the white rectangle, and also on the blue band that crosses the center.

OK, gotta run. I may be back later - hope so!

Blog candy winner!

I'm happy to announce that the blog candy will go to...

Veronica of Artfelt Stampin'!

Thanks to everyone who visited my blog over the last week. I really enjoyed reading your comments and I hope you'll stop by again soon!

Veronica, click on my profile to email your snail mail address to me and I'll get your goodies out to you tomorrow!

Inspiration Challenge #36: Wine cutting boards

Whew, I'm really late today! Sorry about that - I had some stuff that had to be done this morning but I didn't want to miss the challenge entirely.

This week's inspiration piece is these cutting boards from Coldwater Creek. I really loved the style and the colors. But I kinda went astray once I actually started making my card, LOL. That was partly because I also wanted to do today's sketch challenge, which was, well, a challenge!


After a lot of indecision I went with the French Quarter stamps from Inque Boutique. I liked the images that fit together to make a circle since that was a major element of the sketch. Once I decided to use those stamps, I was kind of limited on color because I've found that the Memento inks work best, and there aren't as many colors available. I ended up using rich cocoa and potter's clay, with very vanilla and Bazzill textured cardstock. The bottom panel uses the cocoa ink but stamped off once first. The sentiment comes from Sincere Salutations and uses the same cocoa ink.

For the background I chose a paper also from Inque Boutique (the Memories pack) - the swirls reminded me of the cutting board backgrounds. I layered the circles (cut by hand) onto scalloped circles, which I also made by hand. I used the Fiskars clouds scissors, adjusting as I went so that the scallops were placed correctly. To finish I added three copper brads from Making Memories.

I like this card - I was pretty unsure about this sketch, I confess! I think this could even work as a masculine card - at least if you have a hubby like mine who likes elegant things!

I hope you enjoy this challenge and come play along. The keyword for SCS this week is DSIC36. Don't forget to leave me a comment with a link so everyone can see your creation. Thanks for visiting and for your patience today! And, don't forget the blog candy giveaway ending tonight at 8 pm Eastern - time is running out!

Catching up

Whew, I am happy to be home and back to stamping! I had a wonderful trip to Chicago, though. It was great to hang out with friends and laugh and cry and eat great food and get a little time away for myself!

I missed a whole bunch of great challenges while I was away. I don't know how many I can catch up on, but one I didn't want to miss was the featured stamper challenge from Sunday. The featured stamper was Anne Ryan, who is such a sweet person and an awesome stamper. She frequently comments on my cards and I always appreciate what she has to say, so I'm happy for a chance to honor her!

I chose this card to CASE. I haven't even looked at the gallery of challenge cards but I'm sure I'm not the only one to have picked it. I chose this one in part because it was Anne's card for the inspiration challenge I hosted last month. I also just liked it!

I kept the use of dots and flowers, the black accents, and the general layout. My panels are different sizes and I added the sentiment panel. I did my ribbon differently - why do I not have wide black organdy?? - and left off the charm.

This card started with the Scenic Route floral paper - I wanted something I could use with black. It was shocking to me (it probably shouldn't have been) how many florals I have with brown in them! I really wanted to resist falling back on that color. I chose a coordinating sheet of textured Bazzill cardstock and black for the layers. The background is the polka dot background stamp on very vanilla cardstock.

I had a hard time with the stamped image. I couldn't decide what stamp to use and in the end went with this image from the Just Celebrate set from the spring/summer mini catalog. It was also tough getting the right color to match the paper. I stamped in basic black and then colored the flowers with Tombow markers. The darker color is actually a blend of two markers: by coloring on an acrylic block, first with a lighter marker and then with a darker one, you can mix custom colors. You just pick up color with a blender pen and color on paper or rubber as you would with any other marker. Usually I'm pretty good at mixing and matching colors but it didn't work as well this time.

The sentiment came from Thank You Kindly. The two stamped images were cut and embossed with Nestabilities and layered onto black. For assembly I put a strip of wide black grosgrain ribbon under the center panels and then mounted everything together. Only the sentiment is up on dimensionals this time. What do you think? I am not 100% happy with the stamped and colored flowers, but otherwise I really like this card. I think I will experiment more with black and vanilla!

Sketchy

I decided to play around with today's SCS sketch challenge a little more. I pulled out some papers that I've had for a while - these are from A2Z Essentials. I had so much fun with teal and red in my IC card that I guess I wanted to keep it going!

For the first card I flipped the sketch. I colored the flower from Live Your Dream with ruby red and old olive markers, and to get the dark teal color, I used some combinations of Tombow markers. Only later did I discover I had some Versamark Pacific pigment ink that was a better match, but oh well. I used that for the sentiment. I stamped the butterfly and then cut the panel with the out of the box technique. I used several ruby red layers, some unknown organdy ribbon that matches the ruby red really well, and sahara sand for the card base and sentiment.



On this second card I made the dot paper the largest layer and used the floral print in brown this time. I stamped in craft ink for bold images with these Enjoy Every Moment stamps. The teal is the Versamark Pacific pigment ink and then I used chocolate chip and ruby red craft ink. All of the stamping was done on sahara sand cardstock. I popped up the cut-out flowers and also the word window punch. Then I added a couple vintage brads since I didn't have ribbon on this card. This is another sahara sand card base - I'm getting creative since I have no white and I'm getting a little bored with vanilla, LOL!

I've had fun creating today and I hope you have, too! Thanks for stopping by.

Inspiration Challenge #35: Japanese screen plates

I loved these plates as soon as I saw them in the Acacia catalog. I thought the combination of colors was just amazing, and I'm a sucker for Asian-themed inspiration pieces. We haven't done one of those in a while.



For my color combo I chose chocolate chip, riding hood red, very vanilla and taken with teal. I also used today's SCS sketch challenge for the layout.

After looking at my stamps I decided not to do an Asian card. Shocking, right? The sketch called for a small-scale image and I really liked the Pocket Silhouettes for this challenge. I stamped three of the images in riding hood red, taken with teal, and chocolate chip on a vanilla panel, then sponged chocolate chip around the edges. I did extra sponging on the bottom to give the appearance of ground. I layered it with a sponged teal panel and put both on chocolate chip layers.

For the background I first wheeled the Stems & Silhouettes jumbo wheel in riding hood red and covered a vanilla panel. Then I sponged on lots of chocolate chip using a paper towel to get some texture, with extra sponging on the edges. That went onto another chocolate chip panel and a teal card.

(As a side note, why is the teal so hard to photograph? It looks so much more blue in the picture. I am thinking of getting a light box set up, but if you have any tips I'd love to hear them in the meantime!)

To finish I used riding hood red taffeta ribbon and a sentiment from Sincere Salutations, stamped in teal and layered onto vanilla and red ovals. I punched the sentiment with the large oval and then trimmed the red cardstock around it, sponged both, and adhered with dimensionals.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you create with this week's challenge. Keyword for uploading to SCS is DSIC35. Have a great day, and don't forget to check back tomorrow for my 10K blog candy offering!

Today's color challenge

This card came together pretty quickly since I had all the supplies on my table already! I decided to make another Season of Friendship card for today's color challenge, which was to use chocolate chip, tangerine tango, and kiwi kiss.

I started out stamping the tree in chocolate chip, then I added the tangerine and kiwi leaves. This stamp is so large that it kind of dictates the layout - so I was trying to think of something different to do with it. I just got the petite oval Nestabilities so I decided to play with those. The tree didn't fit well inside the ovals if I wanted to use the whole thing, but then I thought it'd be kind of cool to offset it. I layered the tree oval onto a scalloped chocolate chip oval.

After the oval was cut, I thought the bottom looked bare, so what better for fall than some leaves on the ground? I stamped these and then cut them out and glued them under the tree.

This striped tangerine paper (from the pattern pack) seemed great for a background. It keeps to the clean look of the stamping. I layered it onto chocolate chip and then used an EK Success scalloped corner punch. For embellishments I used a bit of kiwi striped ribbon and some retired copper Hodgepodge Hardware, with a sentiment from Short & Sweet.

That's it for today - come back tomorrow for the inspiration challenge!

Update from here

Okay. Well, Etsy has kind of taken over my life, LOL. I'm working on some new stuff, and today I ran out of white cardstock. Completely out, except for scraps. That's not so good! So I guess I'll be on my own limited supply challenge the rest of this week.

The great news is that I made my first Etsy sale today - four cards. I was really excited! I'm listing a few more tonight and we'll see what I can get made the rest of the week. On Friday I'm off on a trip to Chicago so I'll be away for the weekend, and away from my stamps... but I'll try to play a couple challenges before I go, including my own!

The other news is that my blog is just about to pass 10,000 hits, so I'm going to offer my first blog candy. Stay tuned for that later this week - probably Thursday!

Sorry for being MIA this week

Todd has been working some crazy hours, I still feel like I'm recovering from the last cold and now thinking I'm getting a new one, and I'm also trying to wrap up an editing project. So, lots going on.

I do have a bit of news, though - I now have a shop on Etsy! This is something I've been thinking about for a long time and decided to just take the plunge. I will be making some new things but for now I just have some cards up. I'm going to try to add more on a daily basis. I hope you'll check it out!