Yet another Halloween card...

This card was quick to make and utilized one of those $1.50 stamps from Michaels.

I started with some fun Halloween papers, a couple of bat stickers and a spider web border made with a Martha Stewart punch.

I heat-embossed my stamped image with some white embossing powder onto a stitched oval die-cut. Then I added some googly eyes and a bat sticker.

On the inside of my card, I used a Hampton Art "Happy Halloween" stamp.

I think my favorite part of this whole card is the addition of the googly eyes to the o's in "Spooky." Who doesn't love googly eyes, especially on a Halloween card!

So, have you started working on Thanksgiving cards yet? Do you even send them? I usually do, but we'll see how much time I have to get them done this year. If I can find a simple, but fabulous, card design, maybe I can get them done. Any ideas you'd like to share?

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

Super fun Halloween card...

For this card, I used both my Cricut and my Silhouette. In fact, I think I actually had them both cutting at the same time!!

My spider web is actually a Halloween doily. I love that it's orange! I used my Cricut (Happy Hauntings cartridge) to cut both the spiders and "beware." Once my spiders had been cut, I used a flower-shaping tool to round out their bodies so that I could put a small pop-dot underneath to give them some dimension.

Here's a photo from the side, and I'm hoping you can see the dimension that each of these little guys has. Creepy, huh?

My sentiment was a simple, two-layered Cricut cut, but I love how it looks with a different font for each letter.

Finally, for the pièce de résistance that makes this card extra special, I used my Silhouette and a file from the Online Silhouette Store (#66067):

Isn't that a cool pop-out? I added a couple more dimensional spiders for some additional creepiness.  I loved making this pop-out so much that I put it in several more Halloween cards, which I'll share with you in a later post.

Can you believe that Halloween will soon be here? Once it arrives, it seems that Thanksgiving and Christmas are here in no time at all. YIKES! So much to do, so little time.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

Using a wedding invitation kit...

A friend of mine recently found a partially used wedding invitation kit, which she gave to me to use for cards.  In the kit were some long blanks with a fancy-edged fold at the top. You can see that there is also a little hole centered at the top. I assumed this was to attach some sort of embellishment.

I decided to score the blank so that it looked like this:

My next step was to add some pretty papers to the new "front" of my card and to attach a pretty die-cut butterfly with a brad, using the existing hole.

I also added a little strip of coordinating CS across the bottom that I had die-cut with a dotted border die. I was actually pleased with how these turned out.

Here's a whole set of them, which I gave to my friend who had given me the kit. It was the least I could do to repay her for her thoughtfulness!

I have scheduled this post ahead of time, as we are well into our trip to the northeastern part of the U.S. I hope I have lots of tales to tell you when I return.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

Eeeek! Halloween will be here before we know it...

This was a very quick Halloween card using a stamp that came from a $1.50 bin at Michaels. I heat embossed this haunted house image which also included only one little bat. Can you tell which one it is? It's the one that has a slightly different shape than the rest.

I wanted to fill out my scalloped oval with a few more bats, so I used a tiny bat punch (Recollections) to make a few more, which I adhered to my oval with liquid glue.

The "eek!" was cut out with an old alphabet die set that I picked up at a thrift store. I'm not sure what brand it is, but I kind of like the font and the letters are a great size for cards. The set includes a bunch of punctuation marks, including the exclamation point.

The inside of my card is pretty simple. I heat-embossed my sentiment stamp (by Hampton Arts, I think) and added a few more of my punched bats.

Since this card is pretty sedate, it will go to an adult. The grandkids like cards that are a little more exciting, so I'll show you those in the next couple of weeks.

Hope you are all having a great week and looking forward to the weekend.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

A stack o' jack-o-lanterns...

I have been having fun making some Halloween cards. I've tried to use some of the stickers and other supplies that I bought last November when all the Halloween goodies were deeply discounted. Here's the first card I made using some jack-o-lantern stickers:

This card is a 4" X 8" card. I like to make this size occasionally because you can use tall images to embellish them. I first backed my jack-o-lantern stickers with some yellow cardstock. Then I cut off the stems of the first four so I could easily stack them in a haphazard manner.

I used a Fiskars grass border punch for the top edge of my piece of kraft cardstock. I inked the edges of this panel with some Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. My cat was a Sizzix stamp that I heat embossed onto yellow cardstock and then cut out with the matching die. It's popped up on double-sided foam tape. My Happy Halloween sign image is also by Sizzix and was heat embossed onto my craft cardstock.

To finish off my card, I tied a piece of raffia around my front panel. This raffia also provided a little "ledge" for my cat to stand on.

On the inside of my card, I have a computer-generated sentiment and a couple of stamped bat borders (also heat-embossed). Not sure what company made the bat border stamp, but I really like it for applications like this.

We will be traveling for the next several weeks, so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post. Because we had company for the past six weeks (they just left yesterday), I really haven't had the time and focus to get future posts written and scheduled. I'll be taking my computer with me, so I'm hoping to be able to post some on the road. Keeping my fingers crossed, anyway!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

Let's Craft and Create Challenge #117: Spots or Stripes..

Today begins a new challenge over at the Let's Craft and Create challenge blog. It's "Spots or Stripes," and who doesn't have some spotted or striped DSP in their stash?

We're also starting something new this month. Half of our Design Team members will provide some inspiration for you today (definitely worth taking a look at all the awesome projects), and the other half of the DT will post their projects on the 19th of the month for some additional inspiration and to remind you that the final day to submit your creations is coming up.

I decided to pull out a Lori Whitlock Silhouette Design from the Silhouette online store and give it a go. I needed a card for my stepdaughter's birthday, and I thought this design would be perfect!

This is design #142226 in the Silhouette Design Store. It takes a little time to figure out how all the flower layers go together, but I thought the end result was really fun. I changed up the placement of my clouds a bit. I like that you can do this so easily with Silhouette designs. Cricut images are often cut with lines showing the exact placement of layers, limiting you to putting them exactly where they have designed them to go.

I love the retro-style bicycle that is included in the design. My stepdaughter often rides bike, so this was a great embellishment for her card.

You can see that the top layer of the bicycle basket has been dry-embossed (Cuttlebug EF) and inked to give it some dimension.

Here's a peek at the interior of the card, so you can see how it is all put together. This type of card could definitely be cut by hand and assembled. In the future, I hope to make one without using my Silhouette. When I do, I'll share the card and all the dimensions of the cuts with you here on my blog.

I also printed out--with my Silhouette and a black sketch pen--the sentiment that is included in the design. For fonts like the one used for the word "Beautiful," the Silhouette just draws an outline. I filled in the letters with a glitter pen, so it looks like it was meant to be that way. You could also color it in with a marker, but since I needed to add a little bling, I did it here.

In this rather cock-eyed photo, I was trying to show you that I stamped and heat embossed "Happy Birthday to you" on the inside brown strip of the pop out. The picture is so dark in that area, that it's difficult to see.

There was room to sign our names on the adjacent strip with the red and orange flowers.





Here's a final look at my card in a mostly-closed position. It really was fun to make, even though it was a tad putsy.

Now you need to hop over to Let's Craft and Create and look at the other amazing creations. You'll love them! Then--QUICK!--get to your crafting space and create a card with spots and/or stripes and post a picture and a link on the LCC site.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl