Monday Monster Mash Halloween Count Down Blog Hop - Week Eleven

                                      Only two more posts to go until the big day!  Wow I've actually made it through this far in Shirley Pumpkin's awesome Monday Monster Mash Halloween Count Down Blog Hop. 

Today I'm posting a few things since I thought I better step up the process a bit here and make up for the two weeks I wasn't able to post.

To begin with I'm sharing a card I actually made for Mojo Monday 211, however when making it I had this blog hop in mind.  You can see my previous post for all the details and more pictures.  For now though here are a few views of my card.

I just love these ghoulish sneaks as they make their way through the graveyard on the way to collect their Halloween Treats!  This image is from the Haunting Wheel that is for sale on Stampin' Up's Clearance Rack.  What a bargain and what a hoot for Halloween!

Here's my full card using the sketch challenge from Mojo 211.  I really like the bow and the layers on this card.

I couldn't resist showing this spooky scene one more time.  I've used one of the gorgeous papers from the Pick Your Poison Designer Papers series for the background.  It's a perfect scrapbook page for those scary shots and also for highlighting this spooky card! 

I've been busy making treats for company and friends for the upcoming festivities.  Can you guess what this is? 

Right now I'm in love with making these Lollies and have been putting them on everything, including my treats! 

These two beautiful little gifts are quite simply dressed up Cadbury Chocolate bars.  No kidding! They're fun to make and certainly don't look like plain old chocolate bars when they're dressed up in this finery.  For something that takes very little time and supplies treats like these make a big impact.

I thought I'd show you just how simple they are to make.  To begin with just remove the outside wrapper from your chocolate bar and measure it to get the width of paper you will need.  Once you've got your measurement just cut out pieces of DSP to use for the wrappers.

 Before wrapping the bars, score lines to make it easier to wrap the designer paper around the bar and then secure by overlapping ends with sticky strip.

 Here's what they should look like before you add your embellisments. They look really pretty just as they are!

And voila the finished product on display.  I love the way these turned out and my plan is to make a  whole bunch of them for the grownups............... providing my husband and I don't eat the chocolate bars first! 

So that's it for this week of Monday Monster Mash Halloween Count Down.  Have you decided to play along yet?  There's still time to get your name in Shirley's draw for $25.00 in free product from the Holiday Mini catalogue.  Here's some rules for you to make your playing along easier........... hope to see you in this week's postings.

Here are the rules:
1. Whatever your entry is it has to be Halloween - either a card or 3D item.
2. It does not have to be 100% SU 80% is ok.
3. Yes using Retired is OK...
4. Use Shirley’s Monster Mash Badge/Graphic in your post and a link back to her blog.
5. Add your card to the blog hop then put the code on your post.
6. You can enter as many times as you like, it just has to be a new card and post.

The Blog Hop started a few months ago and is now in week eleven.  Shirley picks a favourite every week during the 12 weeks and then out of the 12 weekly winners will pick a Grand Prize winner. The Prize is $25.00 in new cool stuff from the new Holiday Mini, and the lucky winner will be announced on Halloween.  How cool is that!

When you post Shirley’s badge please add a few words about the blog hop on your blog. Shirley had to delete a few entries a while back because they didn’t follow any of rules.  Might be wise to mention there are rules or copy them to your post like I did.  Okay so now I’m excited to see your entry.

Monkey 71 - I Missed it!

Okay so last week I had lots going on, but I really wanted to do the Monkey 71- Fall Sketch.  I'd dutifully saved the picture of the sketch to my challenge file, printed out a copy of the sketch so I knew what I was making.  Because I have a very limited number of Fall stamps, seasonal sentiments and designer papers I was really feeling stumped about what to make.  A few days passed and then one afternoon towards the end of the week when I was walking Murphy around the lake, a lightening bolt of inspiration hit me.  Here I was walking through these beautiful woods and all about me golden brown and rust leaves are falling and gathering at my feet.  At that moment I knew what I was going to design and so I ran home, dragging poor Murphy behind me so I could get at this card.  This is what I came up with, but alas it was too late!  The Monkey 71 linky was closed.  Oh well I decided I loved the card and was going to post it anyway.  So here you are: 

I remembered a tutorial on watercolouring with blender pens that Ann Schach made last fall that used the Autumn Spendor set and the simplicity of her techique and her beautiful finished card really impressed me.  So, before starting my project, I  went back and viewed her video and I was really happy I did.  Because I often feel challenged in the watercolouring department and Ann made this technique look so easy, I think viewing the video really helped make me make these leaves look real.  If you want to check out Ann's video and blog post click here. 

The card base is Always Artichoke, topped with a layer of River Rock that's been texturized with the ever popular Square Lattice Embossing Folder.  The rectangle is made with layers of Always Artichoke, Cajun Craze, and River Rock.  The leaves from the Autum Spendor stamp set were stamped on River Rock and cut out by hand.  I used a blender pen to colour them using Cajun Craze, Old Olive and More Mustard inks.  I've used glitter (non SU) to accent the leaf veins. 

Three artichoke buttons are tied with teeny little stips or Cajun Craze cardstock.  The "Many Thanks" sentiment is from a retired Stampin' UP! set called "Of the Earth" that I simply can't part with, and it was stamped in Cajun Crase on River Rock cardstock and then punched out with the Decorative Label punch. 

The inside of the card has a Lacey Border punched from Cajun Craze and a layer of River Rock for the base layer.  The sentiment again from the "Of the Earth" set was stamped in Cajun Craze too. Okay that's it.