Last Halloween Card?

I think this is my last Halloween card for the year, but you never know... ;) 

It was fun dressing up these cute little ghosties from Lawn Fawn! I especially like the Mrs. Frankie hair. It was one of those days where I just didn't feel confident stamping the teeny tiny cat's whiskers, so I drew them in with a black glitter pen instead. The ghosts are popped up on a blue and purple ink-smooshed background, with a few silver-embossed stars just for fun.  
I'm going to double the fun and add this to both Monday and Wednesday Simon Says Stamp challenges, Halloween/Spooky. This may be a little too cute to spook, though! 

Supplies: Neenah white & American Crafts textured purple cardstock, Canson watercolour paper, Lawn Fawn Booyah & MFT Frightfully Fun Halloween stamps, VersaMark, Lawn Fawn jet black, chipped sapphire, shaded lilac & wilted violet distress inks, Ranger clear & silver embossing powders, Copic markers, Gelly Roll silver and black glitter pens, MFT wonky stitched rectangle die, foam tape

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Fall Foliage

It's time for a new challenge at Seize the Birthday! 

Our optional topping for your card this week is FOLIAGE. As always, you can be inspired by the theme or choose to make any birthday card and link up with us. And while "foliage" can be interpreted in many ways, a number of the design team were inspired by autumn colours, including me: 

This leaf stencil seemed like the perfect basis for a foliage card. It helped that I recently bought two more distress oxide inks, so in addition to the yellow and green I already had, I could add gold and red to the mix. After using a thumb dauber to randomly add the colours, I misted the cardstock, lifted the stencil, then blotted with a paper towel. I didn't want to take away from the leaves, so I picked a small, scripty sentiment and embossed it antique gold. Die-cutting the panel and adding it to the orange card base was all that I had left to do! 

I'm entering my card into the current Back to Basics and Beyond Challenge #14: Stencils or Masks and CAS on Friday challenge #144: Make a Fall or Halloween card. 

I encourage you to visit the Seize the Birthday blog to admire the beautiful cards the team, as well as current surprise party guest Marianne, have created! And as always, I also encourage you to make a birthday card of your own - with or without foliage - and join us! 

                                       

Supplies: Hero Arts mandarin layering cardstock, Canson watercolour paper, Essentials by Ellen Wish Big stamp, Versamark, fossilized amber, wild honey, bundled sage & festive berries distress oxide inks, Simon Says Stamp antique gold embossing powder, CUTplorations Autumn Falling stencil, Winnie & Walter Katharine cutaway die

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It's Getting Close!!!

In less than two weeks, November begins. (wait, what?) And with that, so does Tracey McNeeley's annual extravaganza, 25 Days of Christmas Tags! And yippee, I'm on the design team again! Come to think of it, I'm not sure I really gave Tracey any choice, I've been asking about it for months. 😂

And what is 25 Days of Christmas Tags, you ask? Well, Tracey lines up an amazing list of participating sponsors, enough to actually cover 26 days of inspired tag-making! (But of course, 25 sounds way more Christmas-y...) For the first 26 days of November, you will see an assortment of tags from both the sponsors' design team and the four of us pictured above. Make a tag and post it to Tracey's event post, or comment on the designers' tags, or both - and you may win one of the prizes on offer! 

In an attempt to whet your tag-making appetite, I made an advance tag to share: 

Tags can be simple or as ornate as you want, and I went with simple today. I acquired this sentiment from Ardyth yesterday (don't worry, she knows... 😉) and think it's the perfect size to stand on its own for a tag. I stamped and embossed the sentiment on white cardstock, and backed it with a mat of green before adding it to the patterned paper base. And since the paper is double-sided, I simply added another rectangle of white to the back so both sides have some decoration. 

Tag back, ready for writing

Quick, easy, and I have a first tag for this year's gift-giving! Also used up a few scraps of cardstock, paper and ribbon, which is just another reason tags are a fine thing to make. Only several billion more scraps to go... 

The fun starts November 1st! Hope to see you there. 

Supplies: white & green cardstock, Little Yellow Bicycle patterned paper, Simon Says Stamp Peace on Earth stamp, Memento Luxe love letter ink, Ranger clear embossing powder, CUTplorations manila tag die, scrap ribbon and elastic thread

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Skulls!

Hello Saturday! Have you ever seen Edna look quite so creepy? The things she'll do to promote The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - and yes, our new challenge is S is for Skulls! 

I don't have a ton of skull-related items in my crafty stash (unlike sister Donna 😉), but I do have some fun 3D stickers! 

And look! Some skull patterned paper in the one Halloween-themed paper pad I have. I added some tiny candies, a trick or treat sentiment, and a little "spooky" tab. 

I really don't think your Halloween will be complete until you craft something with skulls on it! 💀 For further skeletal inspiration, be sure to visit our challenge blog, where my sisters in snark, as well as current Queen and guest designer Tammy, have many more creations to delight you. 

Supplies: white & black cardstock, Pebbles Thirty One patterned paper, My Favourite Things Frightfully Fun Halloween, Avery Elle Monsters & Unity/Echo Park Fright Night stamps, Versafine onyx black, Colorbox mango tango & hickory smoke distress inks, Hero Arts sparkly embossing powder, K&Co skull sticker, Spellbinders circle die, Copic Markers, foam tape

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Muse: ChristmasVisions

My turn to be your inspiration at Muse: ChristmasVisions! It's now definitely not too early to start thinking about making Christmas cards, so I hope you can find something to inspire you. I decided to make two versions of my card for today: 

For the first one, I used one of my all-time favourite embossing powders, verdigris, for these arty Christmas trees. I bordered the tree panel with a strip of gold pearl paper to play off the gold flecks in the trees, then embossed the sentiment in gold. 

This time, I used three different metallic embossing powders for the trees, but still kept the gold for the border and the sentiment. Apart from taking time to make sure I aligned the three trees correctly (it's a wood block stamp, so I had to go back to my trusty Stamp-a-ma-Jig instead of using my MISTI), this was a quick an easy design. 

You have two weeks to come and play along! 

Supplies: white cardstock, gold pearl paper, Artful Stamper tree & Technique Tuesday Jingle All the Way stamps, Versamark ink, Wow verdigris, copper pearl, pale gold pearl, silver & pirate's gold embossing powders, fun foam

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Seizing the Birthday

Happy Thursday! It's time for another Seize the Birthday challenge, and this time it is truly an Anything Goes challenge — as long as it's a birthday card, we'd love to have you join us! 

With all opportunities open, I went to my Pinterest techniques board for inspiration. I decided to give this technique from Jennifer McGuire a try. 

I stamped a cloud background in white pigment ink, let it dry while I inked up my bird, then sponged the cloud panel with a couple of different blue distress inks. My white ink did not resist the distress inks the way it did for Jennifer (hey, I already knew I'm no Jennifer McGuire), but I like the resulting effect anyway. I gave the bird a branch to perch on, and added a birthday sentiment. 

Now it's your turn! Share your birthday card creations with us, and while you're there, check out the terrific creations of the rest of the design team and our surprise party guest, Marianne.

Supplies: Neenah white linen & DCWV textured brown cardstock, Bienfang white bristol, Hero Arts Colour Layering Bird stamps & dies, Paper Smooches Nirvana & Clearly Besotted Say What stamps, Versafine onyx black, Memento espresso, Catherine Pooler tiara, sauna, mandarin spice & tumbled glass & broken china distress inks, Ranger clear embossing powder, MFT blueprints 27 stitched rectangle, Memory Box woodland branch & Spellbinders circle dies

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Time Again for Pink Halloween!

It's that time of year again...

Yes, the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is once again combining the season of Halloween with the month of Breast Cancer Awareness, to end up with P is for PINK HALLOWEEN! 

You'd think having to put pink on a Halloween card would automatically lead me to a snarky card, but it's not always so. Mine ended up more cute than snarky this year: 

I returned to the plastic wrap technique for my background, using a combination of pink, orange and mauve distress inks. The pumpkin was stamped both on the background and separately, so I could watercolour him with the same orange and piece him onto the main panel. I stamped the sentiment directly on the panel and used white gel pen to colour it in. 
Lots of pink inspiration on display by all the sisters on the Snarky Stampers blog! I hope you'll add some pink to your Halloween creations and join us! 

Supplies: black cardstock, Canson watercolour paper, Pebbles ThirtyOne patterned paper, Unity (?) and Craft Smart Boo stamps, Versafine onyx black & carved pumpkin, picked raspberry & shaded lilac distress inks, holographic embossing powder, MFT Blueprints 24 stitched rectangle & Stitched rounded rectangle STAX dies, Gelly Roll white gel pen, black fun foam

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