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.

Stampin Queen's Sketch Challenge #9

Wow, Sunday again.  This week has gone by in a flash.  There's so much happening in the next few hours that I decided I better get this card posted before I ran out of time............ what's new.  Today's Sketch Challenge was created by guest designer Pam Staples, and consists of lots of layers and embellishments.  Here's her sketch:

Since we're celebrating birthdays today I thought I would use this sketch for  my friends Jerry and Carol's birthday cards.  Jerry's birthday was actually yesterday and Carol's is on the 26th. 

We always buy scratch and win tickets for our friend's birthday cards, so I've incorporated a little holder for these tickets on the inside of the card.  Okay here is Jerry's card and I'll post Carol's later in the week after her big day!  Shhhhhhhhhh she turns 65.

Mojo Monday 211

I really liked the sketch put out on October 17th  by the Design Team for Mojo Monday  this week and I decided to play along.  This would be a great sketch for just about any occasion including  birthday, wedding or sympathy. 

There wasn't a  theme for this sketch designed by Julee Tilman so you could pretty much do anything you wanted.   I decided to continue with my Halloween cards so I would have one ready for Shirley Sumption's Monday Monster Mash Haloween Count Down blog hop on Monday. 

Here's the card I made.  Once again I was able to use the Haunting Jumbo Wheel which I pick up for a super price on the Stampin' Up! Clearance Rack .  Let me know if you like it. 

 

I'm A Monkey Princess...........Whoo Hoo!!!

I had some exciting news today when I was checking out the A La Card Monkey blog site for this weeks sketch challenge.  I received a "Princess" recognition for my My Spooky Cute Sketch 78 entry.  Not only that, but I'll be invited to be a guest designer for an upcoming challenge!  WHOO HOO!   What excitement........see me dancing like this little princess.  A La Card Monkey DT has made my day!  I'm sending a great big thank you to the Design Team at A La Card Monkey for choosing my entry and for encouraging me every week to participate in their awesome challenges.  Such Fun! 

Okay so enough braggin rights I'm heading off to work on this week's challenge.  It's another awesome sketch.  Make sure you drop by the A La Card Monkey site and check out the other entries in week 78.  They were all really great.

And, if you haven't already played along with one of these sketch challenges join in, they're fast and fun, and don't usually require a ton of layers and other embellisments.  Oh and the design team is

awesome too!  Hope to see you there.

Colourful Impressions Meeting

Kristina Koch, Stampin' Up Mentor held her quarterly meeting event for members of her Stampin' Up! Colourful Impressions group of demonstrators. We get together to share creative & business ideas with each other, and it's a couple of hours filled with great demonstrations, swaps, project displays, overviews of promotions or business topics, recognition, door prizes, refreshments & lots of FUN!!

Monday night's meeting was no exception!  It was wonderful to get together with so many old friends, meet new demonstrators and hear all about the successes our group has accomplished in individual sales and activities during the past two months. 

So you get an idea of what we do when we get together, I thought I'd share some of the wonderful projects demonstrated and swapped by members of our very talented team.  If you are interested in joining my team, you too will be able to participate with this group.  Call me for more information.

Jo-Ann Unrau demonstrated a technique called Border Braiding and provided us with a template for left or right handed cutting.  The template is available for Colourful Impressions members on our team blog site under Jo'Ann's files.  Here are some pictures showing projects completed with this fun and easy technque.

Napkin Ring andCutlery Holder sample.

Here the Braided Border Technque is featured on the side of a card and it looks absolutely stunning.

Used as a center panel on a card this technique adds lots of texture on this Spice Cake Designer Paper  background.

Here is a close up of the braiding detail.  This is accomplished by making a series of long and short cuts on a paper template, and then folding the cut sections back and tucking them below

This was one of the Make and Take projects we made later in the evening featuring this great technique. 

 

Jo-Ann also demonstrated colouring basic rhinestones with Sharpie Markers.  Lots of ooooooohing and ahhhhing was going on during this demo. 

The green and purple rhinestones were coloured with alcohol based markers (Sharpies or other brands).  This is a great way to customize Stampin' Ups! beautiful basic rhinestones to match your cardstock and DSP.

Our next demonstration was by Julie Ramsay.  Julie showed us a card and some special occasion treat boxes made with the new Bigz L Die called Peekaboo Frames (pg 36 of the Holiday Mini #124587) and the Stamp set called "25 & Counting" (pg 37 of the Holiday Mini #123794(c) or 123792(w)).  The large box actually fit over top of a treat container so it easy for little hands to get at the treats.  The Halloween box is made by covering a square tissue box with Halloween DSP.  Both examples were very unique and beautifully constructed. 

This tall box fit over the top of a treat container.  It was really awesome and all the little Peekaboo Frames had neat surprises stamped behind them. 

This Halloween treat box was made by covering a tissue box with Halloween DSP.  This box was still being completed and Julie was going to stamp small Halloween images behind the little black doors.  Really cute project and fairly easy to do.

This is a card using the Peekaboo Frames concept.  Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of the card with the frame open.  It looked really good in the silver glimmer paper.

Following the demonstrations we broke into smaller groups and completed two Make and Take projects.  Here is the first project we made which was demonstrated above:

The second project was a Telescope Card.  Once again this was a fairly quick project to make using the Big Shot Machine.

Isn't this little face adorable!  This card will actually fit inside a standard card envelope.

Here is a view of the telescope card opened up. 

Another event during the evening was a card swap.  Check out these gorgeous cards.  Unfortunately I didn't get the names of the gals who swapped them, so if you're reading this post, send me an email with your name and I'll give you credit below the card.  They were all awesome!

This card was made by Sandra Farrell using My Digital Studio.  It was simply awesome.

This card was made by our very own Silvermo - Maureen!  She also demonstrated how to cut the beautiful border using the double border punch.  Great card Maureen!

Thanks for dropping by today and I hope you enjoyed looking at all these great projects and cards!

Monday Monster Mash Blog Hop Week Ten With Haunting and Ala Card Monday Sketch 78

Can you believe how fast October is zooming by?  Counting today there are only 3 more Mondays until the big event............. Halloween!  Almost every blog you visit these days has some kind of Halloween post, whether it's a blog hop or a project someone's made for the occasion. 

For this week's entry in Shirley Pumpkin's  Monday Monster Mash Blog Hop Week Ten I decided to use the wonderful sketch from A La  Card Monkey 78.  What a Spooky Sketch.  Here's my take on it.   

I used Peach Parfait In Colour Card Stock for my base and layered it with DSP from the "Pick Your Poison" Designer Series paper (124001 Holiday Mini), mounted on Basic Black Cardstock.

Here's a closeup of the Halloween image I used from the retired Jumbo Wheel "Haunting" (which I recently purchased from the Clearance Rack #112480 $4.19CDN).  This jumbo wheel has witches, bats and monsters and I thought this little Grim Reaper image was really "Spooky". 

 On a background of Peach Parfait cardstock I stamped the Grim Reaper in Versa Mark and Basic Black inks and then over-embossed him with Black Embossing powder.  By holding the heat gun a little closer and for a tad longer time the image "bubbles" over giving it a really rough and scary looking finish, which I call "over-embossing". This layer was punched out with the 1 3/4" circle punch and distressed with black ink around the edges.  To complete the motif  I layered the Peach Parfait piece on a 1 3/8" circle punched from Rich Razzleberry, and finally mounted it on a 2 3/8" scalloped circle in basic black.  A trim of basic rhinestones coloured with purple ink from an alcohol based marker pen.  This was mounted onto the fence using dimensionals.  

For the Graveyard Fence I punched out images from the Jewelry Tag Punch (117190) and evenly spaced them across a strip of Basic Black Cardstock. I wove a thin strip of Basic Black cardstock through the "fence posts" for some added dimension. The tab above the fence is made by layering a piece of Peach Parfait and Rich Razzleberry from the end of the Decorative Label Punch and mounting these pieces onto a piece of Basic Black cardstock that has been punched out using the retired Designer LabelPunch. The image "Wicked" from the Wicked Cool set was inked up with BB Marker and stamped onto the Peach Parfait piece. I embossed it for some extra colour and texture.

The sparkly strip along the bottom of the graveyard fence is done by applying a thin strip of sticky strip in a straight line and then sprinkling it with black glitter. If you don't have any black glitter you can make your own by adding a tiny drop of black reinker to dazzling diamonds and mix it up.   

The inside of my card is very basic.  I used the Two Tags punch on Basic Black Cardstock and mounted the tag sideways on the inside of the card.  I then added a 1/38" Peach Parfait Circle punched from the images on the Haunting Wheel.  I added a "Wicked" tab on the side. 

Here's a last look at my card.  Hope you enjoyed it.  It really looks better in real life but then don't we all!  LOL!  Happy Stamping and I hope you join in this blog hop today. 



"Haunting" Jumbo Wheel # 112480.  This retired wheel is currently featured on the CLEARANCE RACK for $4.19 CDN.  This is a fun wheel and great for gift bags, cards and other projects where you want a host of scary characters.  Visit my on-line store to check it out.  Click here for Online Store.

Jewlery Tag Punch #117190, pg 210 Idea Book and Catalogue.

Here are the rules:

1. It has to be Halloween, 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 (posted below) in your post and a link back to her blog copy this URL:  http://www.lookatmycutestuff.blogspot.com/
5. Add your card to the blog hop then see instructions for putting 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 is every Monday for 12 weeks. Shirley picks a favourite every week for 12 weeks and then out of the 12 picks 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.

When you post Shirley’s badge please add a few words about 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 we wise to mention there are rules or copy them to my post like I did.  Okay so now I’m excited to see your entry.