PARADE OF HAUNTED HOMES

For my A Blog Named Hero post today there is a tour of haunted houses to visit - all have a resident ghost and lots of bats flitting around especially for your Halloween enjoyment!!

The minute I saw this wonderful haunted house die in the current Hero Arts Holiday Catalog, I knew I had to have it.  Love making cute Halloween cards for my family and friends and this die fit the bill perfectly.  Basically, just used a different background for each house and had five cards done pretty quickly. 

 

For this card I made an alcohol inked background - for that moon I just put a blob of gold metallic alcohol ink on my paper and sort of messed around with it until I had a circle.  The house, bats and fence were cut from black glitter paper.

 

The background is some patterned paper I've had for ages.  Before adding the die cuts I stamped an old spooky tree from Hero Arts that was perfect for some added interest.

 

Next up is another alcohol inked background with some blue foil added.  I also added some Spectrum Noir clear for some shine.

 

Next home on the tour is a distress inked background.  I cut a circle from post-it tape to mask off the area for the moon.  Then spattered drops of water for some drizzly rain. 

Your last visit home has a watercoloured background and more spooky stamped trees.  Don't you just love that little door that opens for the ghost to fly out of??

I backed all the window areas with gold or orange paper - made a template of the house using the die, cut it a bit smaller and used that as a pattern for cutting out the window area.  The extra layer makes the house stand out a bit also.

Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.

AUTUMN LEAVES

For awhile my mojo took a little vacation, but my friend Cat told me to try some challenges and see if my little friend would come back to the craft room.  And low and behold, she was back this past weekend.

My first card fits into several challenges - leaves, gold, vellum and watercolouring.

My background was made after I had done some stenciling with gold Nuvo mousse.  There was some mousse left on my work surface and not wanting it to go to waste I sprayed it with some water and did some smooshing - technically not watercolouring - but I did use lots of water!  The oak leaf was cut from some gold paper and backed with vellum.  Added some gold thread for a little extra something along with the sentiment and done!   Entering this card in CAS on Sunday "thank you", Paper Players "leaves",  Just Add Ink "vellum" and Happy Little Stampers "gold" challenges.

Made a shaker with a maple leaf die for my second card.  Die cut the outline of the leaf for the shaker part and then the leaf from some copper paper.  Will enter this card into the Paper Players trees and leaves challenge.

Thanks for stopping by today and love to read your kind comments.

 

WCMD CHALLANGE

My blog friends, Greta and Cat, and I decided to do a little challenge of our own for World Cardmaking Day which is today.  The challenge was to use something someone else had sent us and to create a fall or winter card.

For my first card I used a flower stamped in copper that Cat had sent me.  Watercolored it with distress inks for a fall card.

My second card uses a die cut background that Greta sent me - added some snowflakes and a few gold sequins for a Christmas card.

Cat created a Halloween card with a bat that I sent her and a die cut panel from Greta.

Greta used some embossing powder and a die sent by two other friends.

Greta's second card uses a floral bouquet from Cat and the gradient stripe background from me.

 

This was all Cat's idea and I certainly had fun doing it - it kind of reminded me of the old 90 minute challenges on the HA Flickr group.

I linked my cards to Simon's challenge for today also.

Happy WCMD to everyone.  Thanks for stopping by.

MONOCHROMATIC AUTUMN ICON

A Blog Named Hero has a fun challenge this month - Monochromatic!!!  I played around with quite a few ideas because I wanted to use fall leaves and really wasn't coming up with anything that I really liked.  Then my Deco Pattern Stencil arrived, got out my Autumn Icons dies and some Nuvo mousse and it all came together quickly.

I used a very thin layer of the mousse with a palette knife to create the background.  Die cut the ginkgo leaf from gold adhesive backed paper and also from fun foam and put them together for some extra texture.  Added the little sentiment and done!!

Be sure to enter your monochromatic card in our challenge by 10 October for a chance to win great prizes - a $50 and a $25 gift certificate from Hero Arts!

I am also entering this in the SSS Wednesday Challenge which is "anything goes" and featuring Hero Arts.

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your comments - they make my day!

GOLDEN LEAVES

Recently, I purchased a few new items for my ever growing stash of dies and other needful things - and, of course, being anxious to use them, came up with a couple of cards for Darnell's Twofer Challenge.

My new die is the maple leaf and the new papers came from a gorgeous pad I found at Target (in the so-called $1 section) a few weeks ago.  For the card on the left, I simply die cut the leaf in black cardstock and also black fun foam.   Glued the two together and placed on that beautiful patterned paper.  Added that to a black card base along with a little sentiment and done.  Also replaced back into the die cut leaf some of the bits.

At first when I bought this pad, I thought the background was black, but it's really a lovely shade of navy and matches the SU cardstock (Night of Navy) really well.  Made a shaker from this piece - couldn't get it to photograph very well, but it's so pretty in real life.  There is matching striped paper also in the pad, so cut a small strip to use for my sentiment.  There you have it - two different cards with the same die, using the same pad of paper and for two different occasions. 

Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.