2017 CAT LOVERS HOP - Card 1

Hello crafty friends,

As you know I'm playing along with other fun cat loving people at ...

and here's the first card I will be entering/submitting:

Yes, it's a Halloween card, but you know how much I love Halloween and you know how much I love cats... and it this October, just one week away from Halloween (four away from my bday, in case you wanted to know). 

I started this card by printing my digital cat stamp from Tiddly Inks (Pumkin Juice) onto water color card stock and coloring it with my Zig Brush Pens and my Wink of Stella.  I fussy cut my colored image and set it aside while I worked on my card's background panel. 

One square piece of card stock inked with Distressed Inks (purples and black).  For the moon, I used watered down black distressed ink and the white patches were made with white matte gelso.  I added some black glitter glue around the cards edge for a grungy look. 

Thanks for stopping by... until next time, meowie halloween!

2017 CAT LOVERS HOP - Day 2

Hello crafty friends,

Day 2's prompt is to share something cute or funny one of your cats does.  So I thought I would share Rusty's preferred method of drinking water. 

He will stand next to the sink and meow at you until you give him water like this and you can't rush him... he takes his time :)

2017 CAT LOVERS HOP - Day 1

Hello crafty friends,

I just found out about this blog hop and I'll be making a card or two for it this weekend.  Now the cool this about this blog hop is that we can take part is three different ways.  click on the above image to go to their site and read all the details, but one of the ways to win, is to play their daily games.

Their game today (day 1) is Kitty Roll Call, where you basically leave a comment letting them about your cats.  Here's what I wrote:

We had five cats in total.  A few weeks after we got married, my husband told me about a co-worker who had kittens. We ended up taking two brothers who we called Rascal and Domino. We later learned they were born on our wedding day! Domino was my lap cat and pillow cat. He just liked being near me. Rascal was more independent, but still very friendly. We all lived for 3 years in an apartment and later moved into a brand new house miles away.  Rascal passed away at the age of 12, but Domino was with us for 19 years.  He was the cat we introduced to our baby son in 2000 and the cat who had the run of the basement in our next new house in 2002.  After Domino passed, we were pet-less for several years, until we adopted Rusty.... an orange, tan and white tabby.  He is the most laid back chilled cat I have ever known.  He loves people, loves to be held like a baby and his purr has this little broken whistle sound to it.  When Rusty was two we adopted Bear.  Bear is my black slick panther.  When he was a kitten he would run around our family room without touching the floor, just flying from one piece of furniture to the next.  He is now two and much calmer.  He loves to sleep under the blankets and purr... he is a very long purer.  He does not like people and will hide when we have company.  But he loves hanging out w/me in my craft room.  He will nap right next to me when I'm making cards.  Well, that brings me to oct2017 and our newest kitty, who we were told was a girl, but is not and therefore went nameless for two weeks until we all finally decided on Storm as a name.  Storm is gray and white and looks like a husky.  He is also fearless and was ninja jumping his older brothers on day one even though he was a fraction of their size.  We are trying to break him of his biting habit.  Thanks for letting me talk about my boys.  I will have pictures of them on my blog.

Here are some pictures:

Rusty (nov2015)

Bear (dec2017)

Storm (Oct 2017)

from back to front:  Rusty and Bear (dec2016)

from left to right:  Rusty, Storm and Bear (oct2017)

from left to right:  Bear and Storm (oct2017

Thanks for stopping bye today.  Until next time...

Encouragement Squad - Oct 2017

Hello crafty friends,

I have to admit that I had to give this Inspiration board some extra thinking, because of the colors.  When I think of October, I think of Fall and Halloween... oranges, black and purples, definitely not pinks.  But sometimes it's good to step outside our normal...

I picked the dark brown (which I later found out was actually black... LOL) and the light pink as my colors.  Using the largest leaf from the Pretty Posies stamp set and letters from the Flower Alphabet  stamp set I created this card:

Basically, I die cut a panel, stamped my leaf several times at the bottom of it and then I cut openings into it each of the leafs w/a craft knife, so that the pink of my background paper could be seen.  Next, I added my sentiment and as a finishing touch some sequins.

Thank you for stopping bye today.  Please consider submitting a card to this month's challenge.  Until next month... take care.  

Scrapy Land Challenge #76

Hello crafty friends,

For Scrapy Land's Challenge #76,  I went with a very simple design.  I wanted to create the look of a Fall sunset in the woods.   I used a birch tree die for my "woods" and a frame die to give the card a finished look.  The sunset, I created by bending distress inks.

I used the Taylored Expressions Birch Tree die, which is currently not in stock, but Scrapy Land has these other two similar dies that would work just as well:

Frantic Stamper Vertical Birch Tree
Sue Wilson Woodland Collection Birch Tree Forest

For the frame, try the Frantic Stamper Elementals 16 Stiched Rectangle Frames. 

Thanks for stopping bye.... please join us for this challenge.  The winners... one selected randomly and one selected by the Design Team will both receive a $10 gift certificate to Scrapy Land.

Until next time... take care.

Trick or Treating

Hello crafty friends,

I got both my digital and physical stamp loving friends cover with these projects.  The digital stamps I got from MMedelIllustrations, but you can find some of her designs in physical format at Brutus Monroe.  

Working with digital stamps is so easy... I love that I can size them to my needs.  And you can see that on my print sheet I only printed the heads on some of the characters.  I was thinking wobble heads when I printed them, but changed my mind later.

 Once printed... I cut them out using my scan&cut2 or color them:

I used Frankie, Wolf boy, and Mummy Girl on this card,  

which I started by stamping houses in the background high up, so they would look far away.  Next I drew in the houses walkways... keeping in mind where my three kids would stand.  Once the background was gone, I add my kids.  The girl mummy I glued directly to the background, the boys I popped up w/foam tape.   I finished the card by added the white "stars" with my white glaze pen.

Since I had extra characters and an art journal layout in need of filling,

I used some of them on it and I love how it's looking.  But it's still a work in progress.  It needs more details and the house needs colors. 

Thanks for stopping by today, until next time... take care. 

Scrapy Land Challenge #75

Hello crafty friends,

For Scrapy Land's Challenge #75,  my Halloween  2017 series continues with this cute cat card:

This was so very easy to put together.  I die cut 4 dark grey cats and arranged them on my card panel.  I added the die cut sentiment, which is included in the die set.  For a pop of color I added orange glitter paper bow ties die cuts... also in the die set (LOVE this die set) and a few Ripened Pumpkin Nuvo Crystal Drops... sadly they weren't include in the die set.
 
I made a Halloween card using Cheery Lynn Designs' Whimsical Halloween Cat, but you can easily turn this card into a birthday one by replacing the Happy Catiween w/Happy Birthday.  And the little spider on the cat's tail can be easily snipped off.  Here are a few cat die sets that would work all year long:

Cheery Lynn Designs - Friendly Felines

Frantic Stamper - Dies - Large Mod Cat

Thanks for stopping bye.... please join us for this challenge.  The winners... one selected randomly and one selected by the Design Team will both receive a $10 gift certificate to Scrapy Land.

Until next time... take care.

Halloween Series - Brutus Monroe

Hello crafty friends,

Have you visited the Brutus Monroe shop?  If you haven't, go take a peek.  They have some really cool, edgy stamps that I'm drooling over.  I found them this summer and ordered the City Sidewalks - Chicago and the Chuck Carson Collection - Mummy stamp sets to try out:

Here are two cards I made for my Halloween Series with the Mummy selfie stamp:

For the first card (my favorite of the two)... I tried to created a wall portrait by layering three mummies inside a raised window.  Think open shaker window.  I trimmed the selfie stick and cellphones for the green and purple mummies, so that only one of them was taking the picture.  As a finishing touch, I added googly eyes and a sentiment from the stamp set w/a messy handwritten year.

For the second card...  I created a flat window on my card and added the mummy on foam tape to give him dimension.  Since I used a strong pattern background paper, I thought the white background winder would allow the mummy to stand out.  As a finishing touch, I added a simple "smile" sentiment from the stamp set and googly eyes.

Thanks for stopping by today, until next time... take care. 

Double the Shaker Fun

Hello crafty friends,

Made this card last night for the  Impression Obsession You're Invited Challenge, which ends on Tuesday, October 3rd at 7 p.m.Central Time:

It's a Halloween invitation using the following IO products:

1. All Hallow's Eve #CL284
2. Ghost die set #DIE121-E
3. Small Circle Shake It Pouch #SHP04
4. Large Circle Shake It Pouch #SHP02
5. Best Party Ever #D14590 (on card's inside, sorry no photo)

I started by getting my shakers ready.  I stamped my shaker backgrounds, added the sequin and topped them with the self adhesive pouches to seal.  These pouches make creating shaker elements a fast and fun thing.  My stash of them is getting really low, so I have to remember to get some more soon.

Putting my card together was super easy.  I die cut the glitter paper piece for my larger circle shaker and positioned it on my card slightly to the left.  I die cut a thin circle frame from the same orange glitter paper for my smaller circle shaker and position the element over the larger one.  I used foam tape under the smaller circle shaker.  

My finishing touches were to add a ribbon, some Nuvo drops and three die cut ghosts.  On the inside of the card I used the Best Party Ever stamp and added my party details.  This card is going to my parents :) everyone else gets an e-invite. 

Thanks for stopping bye and wish me luck in the challenge :)