Mr. Bones' Halloween Spook Out & Mojo Monday # 257

I checked out the Mojo Monday Blog for the first time and decided to use that sketch for another card for PTI and the Mr. Bones' Halloween Spook Out Blog Hop... GO HERE FOR THE MOJO MONDAY SKETCH.

I used 2009 Halloween tags for the spider with the web...and the little spider that is creeping along the top is from Tiny Treats:  Halloween.  The paper is all PTI...rustic cream, simply chartreuse, melon berry, and smokey shadow...a little bit of black polka dot washi tape above the chevron die...I embossed the spider and sentiment with Hero Arts silver embossing powder.

Here is the sketch:

Mr. Bones' Halloween Spook Day 3

This card took many twists and turns in the making...I first thought I would be leaving some hexagons blank and stamping in the center...and also cutting away some of the frame...it kind of took a life of its own and evolved into this and a few errors along the way and I am just calling it good...I don't think my 93 year old aunt will notice my little "bloopers"!!  the cat and pumpkin punches were just something I found in my "punch" drawer and decided to use them...the tag is from 2009 Halloween Tags.  I went with the black and orange theme this time with a pop of white for the cute little ghost!

Mr. Bones' Halloween Spook Day 2

I still had some cut pieces of hexagon from my first card, so I thought I would use them up, but change things a bit too.  Here I used a black card base and die cut the hexagon with kraft paper...then I filled in with my scraps...I stamped a spider hanging from a web and that is a Recollections wood mounted rubber stamp.  the Happy is from Think Big Series # 12 and the Halloween is from 2009 Halloween Tags...the spider and sentiments are embossed with silver Hero Arts embossing powder....it looks great in real life...icky spider!!

And if you want to join in all the fun for this Mr. Bones Halloween Spook day Blog Hop, then go HERE to play along!

Mr. Bones' Halloween Spook Out-Papertrey Style

Halloween will be here before you know it and in honor of this fun & festive holiday Papertrey Ink is joining Heather Nichols in a special inspirational event.  The Mr. Bones' Halloween Spook Out begins today and will continue every day for the next five days!  
Heather will be posting a new project featuring Mr. Bones each day, as well as revisiting some of her previous favorite Halloween projects. 

In the meantime, there is also a special Blog Hop being held at Paptertrey that you will not want to miss out on!   You have from now until September 5th (11:30pm EST) to add a Halloween themed project to the InLinkz on the PTI blog.  This could include spooky treat packaging, creepy cards, terrifying tags or anything else you can scare up!  Play along with us over the next five days and you will have an opportunity to win one of ten $10 gift certificates (since October is the 10th month of the year!).  So join us each day for all the Halloween fun & inspiration and get a head start on your projects for this spooktacular holiday! Go to Nichole's blog to check it all out.

So here is the first card I made for this blog hop.  If you are followers of mine, then you know that I send three cards out to my elderly aunts every month...these will be going to them!  And maybe I will have to add a couple more to my list!  I do have a 100 year old friend so I definitely think she deserves a special card for this occasion!

I used Happy Hexagons and die cut some random paper from PTI and the striped is just a random scrap I had from past Halloween's card makings...the tag is from 2009 Halloween Tags, I added some Dimensional Magic to the top of the cat to give it some dimension and added shine!

Natural Beauties

I was playing around with different color combinations for the Natural Beauties stamp set...I used lemon tart with summer sunrise, hibiscus burst with scarlet jewel, and finally spring rain with blueberry sky.  I hand cut the flowers, die cut the leaves from Turning a New Leaf and the sentiment is from Botanical Silhouettes.  All mounted on a spring moss card stock...oh and some gems for the center of the flowers!

Wildflower Garden....

Just a couple of cards for the stash...Wildflower Garden from Papertrey Ink

A lot more Floral Foliage

This is such a cute little $5 stamp set...I stamped it on Soft Stone paper and I used a lot of different color inks, the trunk is kraft ink...then I layered either the heart border die or the vine die and used an assortment of sentiments.  I added glossy accents to the center of many of the flowers, sure looks shiny in real life and makes the flowers pop...I noticed the scarlet jewel is especially pretty with the glossy accents.  I adhered the stamped paper to a kraft card.  And I even added another paper inside for the writing and used the cluster of three flowers that comes with the set all along the side...I think this will be the perfect size to wrap up as a gift set...not too big, just the right size for a sweet note inside (these are all 3.5 x 5 inch cards...I just ordered some envelopes for this size).  What do you think?

A Special Birthday Card....

I have mentioned before that my BFF and I have been friends for 55 years...her family was my family and vice versa...we spent a lot of time at each other's homes...I would stay with her one weekend, she would stay with me the next...so really her parents became my parents...her father is Hispanic...his family originating from Spain ...and one thing that he ALWAYS said to me was:  "I need a paintbrush to paint your blue eyes brown"!!...I suppose then I would "belong" in the family!  ha ha...still have those blue eyes and he is still hanging on...he will be 92 on the 29th of this month...WOW!  I had to make a special birthday card for him...and I guess I don't know how special this really is, but I pulled out Make A Wish stamp set and also  Script Sentiment...I die cut some layers of a 'cake' and one layer HAD to be chocolate (for me and his two daughters, at least!!)...I think he will like this card.  I think it has a masculine feel to it, what with the brown and melon berry colors!

So since he does NOT have a computer, I can post it now and he will not see it before it comes to him in the mail!

So to my 'second father', Happy happy Birthday!  Love, col

Another Simple Sunflower Card

I used lemon tart paper and stamped the flowers with the same ink for the background.  I added a strip of aqua mist bitty dot from the pattern pack paper.  I die cut the notebook from rustic cream card stock and stamped the flowers with both lemon tart and aqua mist.  The sentiment is from Script Sentiments.  All products are Papertrey.  This is the last card that will be mailed out to my aunts who all live in the Seattle, Washington area.  I will of course include a lengthy letter telling them about the family and what everyone is doing.  They especially like to hear news about their brother, my dad who will be 91 in two months!

Simple Sunflower....love that stamp!

I saw the Retro Sketches from a few weeks ago and decided to pull out my sunflower stamp and get busy...I basically followed the sketch, but did turn it on its side and reversed a few things too...and I had a wonderful assortment of colors for the sunflowers...I was thinking more along the lines of the painted daisies!!  Here are the four cards I made...it is time to be sending some cards to my aunts, so I think these will be the ones that will be mailed to them.  I saw one aunt this last weekend at a family reunion...she is 93...what a doll...just the cutest little old Italian lady in her "mumu" dress!!  I love her!

And my sweet little Auntie Elvera!

The Sweet Life...

Hot, Hot, Hot today...so what is one suppose to do?  Stay inside and play!!!  I cleaned up a lot of things on my desk and then pulled out The Sweet Life and the Mega Vases and played around...This is what I came up with:

I embossed with clear embossing powder a small "flourish", then I rubbed the antique linen distress ink over it, then I cut it out with the die...For my flower I used pure poppy stamped off once for the first layer, then stamped again and finally the third layer is stamped with scarlet jewel ink...I wanted a red rose and I have achieved what I wanted...

Girl and boy Party Invitations

While my BFF, Linda, was here for the SAF we brainstormed some ideas.  I had made some party invitations using the Card Base-ics # 1 Die for my grand daughter who turned 5.   So Linda took that idea and made 10 invitations for boys using the Tremendous Treats:  Birthday with hot air balloons and Heart 2 Heart Balloons...we packaged them up in a glassine bag and tied it off with some twine from the Twinery.  She made both sets...one for a girl, one for a boy.  Then about a week later my daughter said, "I need to come up and get some thank you cards, mom".  And I had a light bulb moment!  I took a card stock and cut into into four equal pieces thinking these could just be "postcard" thank you's!!  So this is what I came up with:

I used the Label Basics for the address portion, stamped off the little "princess in the bottom corner and on the back side, I stamped the same hearts that were on the face of the invitation.  Then I stamped a "thank you" at the top.  Plenty of room for the hand written thank you and for the little one to sign their name.

And this is the set for the boy invitations.  I was asked to bring some of my cards to a little shop that opened about a month ago close to where I live.  So I brought my box of cards and the owner picked through them and kept 150 cards...we showed her the sets we made from the SAF Lunch Sack Gift card set and she loved them and wants us to make more.  These invitations are going to her store also...the postcard "thank you's" are in a clear sleeve and I will include the postage stamp for mailing.

I am now making some baby shower invitations in the same way and will again include a post card thank you.  These are fun and easy to make and I hope they sell!

Floral Foliage

This is a cute little $5 stamp set...love the sentiment!  And the tree looks great in a lot of different colors...not your standard "green"!  I went with the smaller size card...3.5 x 5 inches...now to find some envelopes ...

My first card on the right I used spring moss to "ground" the tree...then when I was thinking about the second card and the sentiment, I thought I would use a strip of the heart border die in simply chartreuse (mainly because I already had that cut!!)  But I like it only part way across the card and then I kept the same color, berry sorbet for the sentiment...Hard to see in the picture, but I did use some Glossy Accents in the center of the bigger flowers on the tree...looks nice in real life!

Another Natural Beauties Card

Last one for the night...my mojo was really going strong today...now watch, I will have NOTHING tomorrow!!

I stamped the background with PTI Background Basics:  Tin Types and stamped the little flower randomly in the squares...the little flower is part of this Natural Beauties set.  The leaves are from Turning a New Leaf.  the sentiment is from Embellishments...my die is the heart border die from PTI!  Thanks for taking a look!  This card was just for fun!!

More Sweet Life Roses

Wouldn't we all love a bouquet of roses from our spouse or a special someone...so I thought it fitting to use this sentiment.  The roses were stamped with lemon tart, summer sunrise and orange zest.  The leaves were stamped with spring moss and new leaf.  The mega gracious vase was inked first with spring rain, then I inked the edges with blueberry sky.  I die cut all the flowers and leaves and adhered them with dimensional tape and also DOTS from here.  The paper and card is rustic cream, and layered with spring rain.  Thanks for taking a look, I am finally getting the hang of these roses and liking them a lot...now the smallest in the group is pretty hard to see for these old eyes, anyways!!  But I have used them for the inside of the card and also for the corner on the envelope!

The Sweet Life ...continued

It is official, today was 102 degrees (38.888 for my celsius friends in the Netherlands) so I stayed in my craft room getting inky all afternoon and occasionally my husband would call me in to watch some Olympics...

Here is my second card using the beautiful roses from The Sweet Life...I used the technique from Betsy Veldman that she showed during SAF, you can see it on the video HERE, just scroll down until you get to Betsy's card set using a lunch sack.  I took the cluster of three roses and die cut it from a 2 inch piece of melon berry dotted pattern paper pack, I also die cut a three leaf stamp..

I used sweet blush for the solid image, and melon berry for the next two layers, just stamped off once for the second layer so it would be a little softer...my sentiment is from Beautiful Butterflies and it is stamped with memento 'london fog' ink.  I love this technique and think it is a gorgeous card with these roses...hmmmm, I may be trying this with other colors now!!

The Sweet Life

Today it is 95 degrees...time to stay inside and play with new stamps...the first time I have had a chance to ink up The Sweet Life...love those roses and the many layers to get the depth of color!  I used the watering can from Garden Variety and inked it with kraft ink.  The roses are a blend of sweet blush and hibiscus burst (stamped off the first time and then full strength the last time).  The leaves are stamped with spring moss and simply chartreuse.  The sentiment is also from Garden Variety.  Silly me...I hand cut those little leaves totally forgetting that I had the dies...now I might need to pop up a flower!!

Natural Beauties

I showed this card to my husband and he starts singing:  "Happy Birthday to me"...it is not his birthday!  The second thing he ALWAYS does is open the card...ha ha, I very rarely have a sentiment inside!  Then he really looks at the card and says:  "this is an 'old fashioned' kind of card"...and I said, "yes, I guess it does look like that" and then I tell him this was the stamp I had to spend $100 to get for FREE!! And his response:  "of course you did, and it is not like you have any other flowers".  To which I replied:  "Yes, but NONE like this...it is a one of a kind and can NEVER be purchased again!"  We both laughed!

So yes, this is the Natural Beauties from the fabulous SAF by Papertrey, Ink.  And really the $100 I spent  was for paper that I was running very low on, and then a few other essential items, like the star border die that I have been coveting since it's release, and the Harvest Berry Die after seeing what Betsy did with it during the SAF day...so it is all good stuff, KWIM??!!

another Rosie Posie card

Nothing special...just used three of the stamps from Rosie Posie...used aqua mist, hawaiian shores, lemon tart and summer sunrise for the ink...the sentiment is from Script sentiments

Sunshine and Lovely Layers

Rays from the Hello Sunshine stamp set...fillable frames # 5, sentiment from Verve...all embossed with gold filigree on terra cotta tile paper...

Lovely Layers stamped on red and embossed with white filigree powder...the vellum is embossed with Zing pink glitter finish embossing powder.  The background is a Hero Arts Lattice Cling stamp...a few Turning a New leaf dies and a sentiment from Inside & Out: Birthday...a little bit of red poppy satin ribbon and two little pearls.