Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! No card today as its a busy busy day of activities plus making sure costumes and make-up are ready for later this afternoon.

Here's a pic of my beauties after they decorated the house a couple of weeks ago. I'll be back tomorrow with a pic of them in their costumes and the house all lit up with the carved pumpkins. Hubby and the girls love carving the pumpkins and I'm usually on clean-up duty.



Have a Spooktacular day,
Maria

Humble Pie Sketch Challenge

Here's my DT card for this week's sketch challenge over at Humble Pie. Checkout the rest of the DT's wonderful creations here. Try out the sketch and you could be the lucky winner of $10 in Humble Pie Maggie Money to spend on Humble Pie stamps of your choice.



This is the last of my Halloween cards as tomorrow is Halloweeen and there's a buzz in my house as my girls and hubby are counting down to when they can put on their costumes.

Witch Maggie image can be purchased from Phebe at the Town Scrapper. Card is a 6x6 and the base is black cardstock layered with Imaginisce ~ Hallowhimsy - Velcome Inn ~ DP from last year. I cut the green cardstock accent per the sketch, stamped the Stampabilities sentiment and then put it through my spiderweb CB folder ~ love my CB. I used one of the Petite Oval Nestabilities from the large set and cut out the image using the uber talented Rach's Out of Frame Nestie Technique. If you're interested, Rach's awesome tutorial is here. Be sure to check her blog out by clicking on her name above ~ she is one super talented lady and her colouring OMGosh Wooooow!

Image was stamped with aTuxedo Black Memento on Beckett Expression CS with Copics (E000, E01, E21, R20, C00, C13, C5, C7, C9, E35, G14, G20, G21, G82, G85, V01, V04, V05 & Blender). I masked Maggie and sponged SU So Saffron ink around her so it looks like she's sitting in the sky with the moon behind her - ok I know the moon is round but it's Halloween so it can be wonky ~ lol. I also sponged just the edge of the oval moon with Tuxedo Black Memento ink so it stands out a bit more. I then pop dotted the image for dimension and voila. I was going to add some floral embellishments but decided to keep it simple and added the light purple ribbon instead. Picture is not great as it was taken at night so the ribbon doesn't look purple and Maggie hair is not as green as IRL.

Happy Friday ~ Hugs,
Maria

Halloween Treat Holder

This week's Humble Pie Challenge is to create a Halloween Themed non-card item (anything but a card). My design is this treat holder I cased from Sue Nelson's design here. I made some adjustments to the template so I could add the ribbon handle.



I've used Witch Maggie, from the Humble Pie Line of stamps, as my focal point. Maggie can be purchased directly from Phebe at the Town Scrapper. She's super sweet to deal with so give her a shout. She carries an assortment of stamps and crafting accessories.

I cropped and then coloured Maggie with Copics (E000, E00, E21, R20, C3, C5, C7, E31, E33, E35, YR04 & YR15). I used 3 Martha Stewart punches (Spider web, Bat, & Boo) and Spellbinder standard circle dies for the main image. I sponged SU So Saffron ink around the image so it looks like the moon is behind Maggie. Papers, removable glue dot to close the holder and ribbon for the handle were from my stash.

Come and checkout the rest of the DT's wonderful creations here. Join in, get inky and play along with us. You could be the lucky winner of $10 in Humble Pie Maggie Money to spend on Humble Pie stamps of your choice.

TGIF ~ Hugs,
Maria

My Bunniest Friend

Here's my submission to the Scrapmagasinet challenge. Check out the DT cards and this week's wonderful sketch. I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping to be the lucky winner of a beautiful personalized stamp.



I used a digital image for this card and am loving digitals right now for their ease of use and storage. This digi is part of Scrapmagasinet's My Furriest Friends set I purchased from the wonderful Nikki's store Bunny Zoe's Crafts. I printed the image on my Beckett Expressions paper and used a combination of Copics (E000, E00, E21 & R20) and Prismas (928, 929, 993, 1070, 1072, 1074, 941, 947, 1082, 903, 919 & 1086) with gamsol. I'm sure you can tell I need loads more practice with Prismas but overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. DPs are Basic Grey ~ Phoebe ~ and flowers are Prismas. The ribbon peeking through is from my stash and I've used pop dots to raise the image. I also used an EK Success punch for the side border.

Here's a close-up.



I don't usually part with my cards, but this card is in the mail to a dear dear friend to wish her a happy belated birthday.

Thanks for taking a peek and enjoy your day,
Maria

Bella Baby

Quick post today as my girls need a little more TLC what with sniffles and coughing so I'll have to catch up on blogging another day. I made this card for my youngest daughter's old SK teacher. She's having a baby girl in a couple of weeks so I whipped this up during the wee hours when I couldn't sleep. Darn, I forgot to take a close-up of the card.



I love this Whipper Snapper stamp "Bella" and have kept the card fairly simple. I used my Swiss Dots folder with my Cuttlebug ~ my absolute fave tool for embossing ~ and a MS punch for the doily lace border. The image was super easy to stamp with Tuxedo Memento Ink onto my new favourite paper, Beckett Expressions. I coloured the image with Copics and for a small image used 8 colours ~ E000, E00, E21, R20, R81, R85, RV10 and W0. I just love how my Copics glide onto and blend so well on the Beckett Expression white cardstock. I want to thank the super talented Sue Nelson again for introducing me to this great cardstock. It's great with Prismas and gamsol too. DP, velvety ribbon and pearls are from my stash. Oh yes, almost forgot, I sponged the outside edge of the main circle with SU's Pretty in Pink ink pad.

The photo of the card is crisper and bigger in blogger than usual thanks to Crissy. She was kind enough ~ she is such a sweety ~ to post a tutorial on how to do this here. Thanks Crissy ~ big hugs and a wave! Grab your coffee, tea and munchies when you visit cause you'll be there a while as Crissy's one super sweet, uber talented lady and her creativity will leave you ooohing and aaaahing.

Have a great inky day,
Maria

WoooHoooo...My News and a Card

I am doing a happy dance as I got some awesome good news this week. I've been invited to be part of the Design Team for Humble Pie. I am so excited to be working with such a great group of ladies/Bakers and to create with the Humble Pie line of stamps and images. Thanks for the opportunity ladies and for your warm welcome. I've added the names and links to the DT members on my sidebar so click their names to stop by and visit.

Check out the Humble Pie Blog for the latest news and join in on the weekly Friday challenges. This week's challenge calls for Buttons and Bling and because the stamp line is new the use of a Humble Pie stamp is NOT REQUIRED for this challenge. So get inky and participate in the challenge, you might be the lucky winner of $10 in Humble Pie Maggie Money to spend on Humble Pie stamps of your choice. Phebe, owner of the Town Scrapper store, also has a large selection of stamps, including her Humble Pie line, along with an assortment of beautiful papers and other wonderful crafty accessories.

Here's my first DT card and I've used Maggie with Flower from the Humble Pie line ~ isn't she's a cutie. I'm not a big button person so I enlisted the help of my girls who love collecting buttons and bling ~ lol! My little princesses never steer me wrong when it comes to bling so they had a little private talk amongst themselves ~ so cute ~ and then provided me with the blingy button from their shared collection. I don' think they realized it came from one of their very own sweaters. I added this sparkle of a gem to the centre of the flower and tied it with some Martha Stewart twine I've had for a while ~ I knew it would come in handy one day ~ lol. What do ya think?



I stamped the image with Tuxedo Black Memento ink on Beckett Expressions white cardstock and coloured the image with Copics (E000, E00 E21, R20, C1, C3, C5, C7, C9, RV13, RV17, E29, E31, E33, E35, E39, V000, V01, V04, V12, Y00, Y21, Y23, Y26, Y38, YG05, YG11). Let me know what you think of the hair....it only took me 7 tries before I was happy with how it turned out. The card is a 5.5 x 5.5 and I used SU's Green Galore cardstock for the background and layered it with Kaiser DP (Playtime Giggle & Laugh). I also added some blingy rhinestones to the top corner of card and to the swirl flourishes I made with my EK Success punch. Prima flowers, rhinestones and ribbon came from my stash.



Today is a gorgeous Fall day in Ontario and the sun is shining. But we're starting to layer on the sweaters and jackets. I'm not ready for the winter jacket yet but it's still chilly so it won't be long. Thanks for stopping by to visit and for any comments you leave which are always very much appreciated.

I'm off to take my girls on a Fall walk. Enjoy your weekend and all the fall colours the season has to offer. Hugs,
Maria

Kraftin Kimmie's Stamps are Almost Here

I attended one of Kimmie and Andrea's Classes a few weeks ago at Scrappin' Great Deals and got to play with some of the fall CC Design images. Well you know what they say about time flying when you're having fun. The class was a blast! Kimmie and Andrea are a riot! Everything was pre-cut and pre-stamped with a layout to follow so all I had to do was colour and glue. Oh if only it were this easy all the time. 4 cards in under 4 hours ~ what a dream! Here's the line-up of cards I made that day.

My oldest daughter and I are off to attend Kimmie's Launch Party today at Scrapping Great Deals. We can't wait to meet her gang of Krafty Girls, including one of her uber talented artists Crissy. So this promises to be a fun and exciting day.

Have a great Sunday,
Maria

Wags 'n Whiskers Rubber Stamps

A new stamp line by some wonderful ladies will be coming your way on October 9th. Checkout their blog Wags 'n Whiskers here and be sure to join the blog hop on October 9th as well.

The very talented Nikki Fairbairn and Lacey Stephens have joined forces to create their own Stamp Company called Wags ‘n Whiskers Rubber Stamps!! Their images will be based on their children and their furry pets. And the artist bringing these images to life is none other than the uber talented Crissy Armstrong!

I can't wait to see this new line of stamps so stay tuned and check out their blog.