Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween

I hope it's spooktacular!

 In the spirit of Halloween share the chocolate.

**********

The fun black cats howling at the moon are from

Penny Black.

The moon was cut from a piece of  So Saffron

sponged with Fall colors.

**********

Glad you could stop by for a minute.

Have some cyber-chocolate.

(It's calorie free. Ha!)

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Spooktacular (Michaels $1 bin)

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper:  Neena Solar White, So Saffron, Black Glimmer (SU)

Other:  FeLine Die (PB), Circles Collection Framelits (SU)

Autumn Woods

I am really enjoying the Fall colors.

I love looking out the window and seeing the yellow, oranges, reds and even browns
of the falling leaves.

Sweeping them up is another story.

I've been enjoying translating some of these colors onto paper.

The trees were embossed with the Woodland Textured Embossing folder and 

lightly sponged with ink.

I have stamped the leaves from the Vintage Leaves set by Stampin' Up!

by inking with a base color and "rock and rolling" a couple of other colors,

spritzing with water.

Then I used an Aqua Painter to move the colors around and

add more color from the lids of the ink pads.

I used a Sahara Sand Marker to lightly draw veins and

used the Aqua Painter to soften the lines.

I splattered some diluted Soft Suede re-inker and a paint brush

over the leaves and pretty much the whole table.

There is a die for these leaves so I die cut with my hand cranked Big Shot

and added a bit more color along the edges.

The leaves have been shaped with a stylus and my fingers and adhered with Dimensionals.

I am loving these leaves!

Cuttlebug Mania

Trees

Used a hand cranked Big Shot.

and

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge

Throwback

choose a previous challenge

I chose Autumn is in the Air 

and

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge

Everybody's favorite

ANYTHING GOES

Does Simon have new glasses?

I do and I think we chose the same frames.

Or maybe I can see better and just noticed his glasses.

and

Pixie's Snippet Playground

with my snippets of watercolor paper.

I'm so glad you stopped by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Vintage Leaves (SU)

Ink:  Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, Soft Suede, Sahara Sand (all SU)

Paper:  Delightful Dijon, Very Vanilla (SU), Watercolor Snippets (Various brands all 140 lb.)

Other:  Aqua Painter, Leaflets Framelits, Woodland Textured Embossing Folder, Stampin' Sponge,   Linen Thread (all SU)

October Rudolph Days

There's a couple more days left to enter at

Rudolph Days

I thought I'd take these fun Penny Black birds over.

Edited to add:
In my haste I forgot I could take this to
Pixie's Snippet Playground
for another round of play.

Gotta run.

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Winter Wonderland (Penny Black)

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper:  Real Red Textured, Whisper White (SU)

Other:  Grand Merry Christmas (Memory Box), Copic Markers

Christmas Lights for Merry Monday

It's Merry Monday time

Here's my card for this week.

Wendy chose our challenge this week

My friend Jan had lent me a Sizzlit that had a Christmas tree light on it.

I'd say that was serendipitous!

I cut them from different snippets of colored paper,

smacked them with VersaMark,

sprinkled some Heat and Stick Powder on them,

heat and sprinkled Dazzling Diamonds.

I cut some snippets of foil with the base of the lights

and did a little bit of scoring.

Strung them on some of Stampin' Up!'s new gold twine (love it),

and I was done.

Now it's your turn.

I hope to see you at Merry Monday.

I haven't been to visit at 

Pixies Snippet Playground

for quite awhile.

So I'm off to see if they'll let me back in.

and

Christmas Card Challenges #47

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps: Mixed Christmas Messages (Happy Little Stampers)

Ink:  Cherry Cobbler (SU)

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Garden Green (SU), Gold Foil (SU), Various snippets (SU)

Other:  Stitched Mats Rectangles (Lil' Inker), Sizzlit Die (Sizzix), Heat and Stick Powder, Dazzling Diamonds (SU), Gold Twine (SU)

Happy Little Stampers New Release Blog Hop

We're now into the second release at

Happy Little Stampers

Woot!

Comment on the Happy Little Stampers Blog then hop along to all the bloggers
for a chance to win.

Here's the list
Happy Little Stampers
Kylie 
Loll 
Joyce 
Gloria 
Tanja 
Susan 
LesLee
Gail 
Carol 
Melissa 
Linda 
Birgit 
Kim 
Valentyna
Sue T.
                     Bonnie  (you are here)
Toni
Chrissie
Anita
Carol
Ingrid

If you lose your place just go back to the Happy Little Stampers blog to find your way.

The blog hop runs from October 26th - October 31st, 2015.

Grand prize is a $50.00 gift certificate to the 

Happy Little Stampers Store.

Four lucky commenters will win a mystery prize.

(All prizes will be random draw.)

Here are my cards....

MADE WITH 

FUN BIRTHDAY SENTIMENTS and THINKING OF YOU

MADE WITH
THINKING OF YOU and BUTTERFLY BIRTHDAY 

MADE WITH

THINKING OF YOU and BUTTERFLY BIRTHDAY

Hop along and see what the rest of the Designers have done.

Don't forget to comment on each one for a chance to win.

Glad  you stopped by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card 1 Recipe

Stamps:  Fun Birthday Sentiments, Thinking of  You (HLS)

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Whisper White (SU), Basic Black (SU), Watercolor (Arches)

Other:  Brusho Crystals, Tiny Crystals

Card 2 Recipe

Stamps:  Thinking of You, Butterfly Birthday (HLS)

Ink:  Distress Ink (Antique Linen, Crushed Corduroy), SU Inks (Tangerine Tango, Wisteria Wonder), VersaMark, Distress Marker (Stormy Sky)

Paper: Soft Suede, Very Vanilla (SU), Solar White (Neena)

Other: Black EP, Aqua Painter (SU)

Card 3 Recipe

Stamps:  Thinking of You, Butterfly Birthday (HLS)

Ink:  Antique Linen (Distress), Crumb Cake (SU), VersaMark, SU Marker (Tangerine Tango)

Paper:  Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Solar White (Neena)

Other:  Black EP, Aqua Painter (SU)

The butterflies have been fussy cut.  Hoping for dies in the 3rd release?

Ghostly Pumpkins

I recently met a fellow blogger who lives in the same town I do.

We had a lovely lunch and talked for 3 hours!

I'm so glad we met and can't wait to get together again.

Next time we'll have stamps in hand.

Her name is Nance Salkeid and she's on the Design Team at

The Challenge

I saw the inspiration photo for this challenge 

and had this card that I really wasn't going to post.

It kind of reminded me of the prompt.

Black, white and orange are covered.

I've mentioned before about the fact that I don't like messy chalkboards.

This is pretty messy and gives me the heebie jeebies!

That's Halloweenish, isn't it?

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps: Jack of all Trades, Wacky Wishes

Ink: Whisper White

Paper:  Tangelo Twist, Basic Black 

Other: Chalk Marker

All supplies are Stampin' Up! 

Framed for Merry Monday

It's Merry Monday time.

Sue brings us the challenge this week.

Our Guest Designer is Susan Powell.

I can't wait for you to see what she created and the rest of the Design Team too.

You are bound to be inspired!

For this card I pulled out an already painted design from my UFO box.

I used a frame left over from cutting a stitched rectangle from 

watercolor paper, stamped it with my Sanded Background stamp

and added a brown wash.

I found this little Joy sentiment to stamp among the branches,

scored the edges of a folded piece of watercolor paper,

and popped the design on top.

I'm going to take this over to 

Addicted to Stamps

where it's

ANYTHING GOES

Now, I hope you'll create a Christmas card with a frame

and join us at

Merry Monday.

Thanks so much for stopping by to take a peek.

Enjoy!

    *********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Beauty of the Season (retired SU), Sanded (retired SU), Christmas Sentiments (Kaisercraft)

Ink:  Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, SU Markers

Paper:  Watercolor (Strathmore 140 lb. cold press, Arches 140 lb. cold press)

Other:  Aqua Painter, White Gel Pen

Journey to the Sweetest Sound

Edited to add:

I am honored and humbled that this card was spotlighted at
Simon Says Stamp


 **********

Let me tell you a tale of the making of a card.

This card.

Have you ever had one of those cards that kept going wrong?

And this was over a span of a couple of days!

The idea was to color the stamp with markers, spritz with water

and stamp on some watercolor paper.

That actually went well and I used my Aqua painter to move the color.

Then, I wanted to add some embossing.

So, I stamped the word love (this is to be an anniversary card)

above and to the left of the image.

I wanted to emboss a square frame around the word.

The die rearranged itself and the embossing was nowhere near

where it was supposed to be!

#*&*#

So I cut the offending embossing off.

Had to do it at a slant to keep the painting intact.

You can see how I dealt with that.

Saved!

Then...

Monday, Jack spent the day with me.

He wanted to go upstairs and play.

He loves the studio!

While he was busy with markers and a wet paint brush,

I thought I'd finish up this card.

I needed to get the love back on there.

Fortunately it was small and fit well in the bottom corner.

I turned the piece over to add adhesive,

flipped it back to stick to the card and

THERE'S A SMUDGE OF ORANGE INK ON THE EMBOSSED PIECE!

#@&)(%

Fortunately, I was able to pull the embossed piece off without 

destroying the painted image.

Bless his heart, Jack wanted to help and he took a baby wipe

and tried to get the ink off the previous embossed piece.

He was very disappointed that it didn't work.

But since I had it all fixed we were good.

THEN I NOTICED ANOTHER ORANGE SMUDGE ON THE IMAGE!

#%(*$*#

So the smaller branch came out and I inked with markers, spritzed, 

stamped over the smudge and blended.

If you see any smudges on this, please don't let me know.

I had stamped a second image back when things were going smoothly.

Jack thought he'd help me fix that one.

He did good didn't he?  It has pink (his favorite color).

And can you see how he highlighted the birds?

I will treasure this fix forever.

and this sweet boy.

This journey started because

The Penny Black Saturday Challenge for October 

asks for

EMBOSSING

and

The Penny Black and More Challenge

is

*****WARM AUTUMN COLORS*****

and

Virginia's View Challenge #19

has color

and

Simon Says Monday Challenge

WONDERFUL WATERCOLOR

If you're still with me, thanks for sticking it out.

I promise not to be so long winded next time.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  The Sweetest Sound (PB),(Not sure where the sentiment came from)

Ink:  Cajun Craze, Markers (Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie, Cajun Craze, Soft Suede (all SU)

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Watercolor (Arches 140 lb. hot press), Whisper White (SU), Gold Foil (SU)

Other: Square Lattice EF (retired SU), Aqua Painter

Note:  I didn't ink all the tails on these birds to make them look a bit like a Carolina Wren. I decided not to try to get that streak on their faces.  Sometimes enough is enough!

A Grand Merry Christmas

I have way underused this wonderful Memory Box die.

It works wonderfully with some of that hoard stash of decorative paper

that I need to whittle down.

I simply die cut from Whisper White, embossed a strip below and

added a Spellbinder's poinsettia that I've sponged color on.

Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge for October

and

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge

CLEAN AND SIMPLE CHRISTMAS

Thanks for stopping by.

    **********

Card Recipe

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), DSP, Whisper White

Other:  Grand Merry Christmas (MB), Poinsettia Die (Spellbinders), Delicate Designs EF (retired SU), Evergreen Punch (MS), Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding (SU), Gold Micro Beads (stash)

Moseying Merry Monday Moose

Good Merry Monday morning, my friends.

As you can see, our Nina chose this week's challenge.

I took the inspiration picture quite lieterally and used the 

only moose stamp I have.

I was happy with how it turned out.

Now it's your turn.

First, you need to check out the rest of the Design Team's cards.

They are fantastic!

You can find them at

Merry Monday.

Hope you'll join us this week!

Thanks for the visit.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  The Pines (retired SU), Mixed Christmas Sentiments (Happy Little Stampers)

Ink:  Baked Brown Sugar, Smoky Slate, Whisper White (all SU)

Paper:  Naturals White (retired SU), Cherry Cobbler, Vellum, Real Red (SU)

Other: Woodland EF (SU), Stampin' Sponge, White Embossing Powder (SU), Cherry Cobbler BAker's Twine (SU), Birch Die (IO)

With a Heavy Heart

My heart is heavy with sorrow for a dear blogging friend,

Brenda (Friends Craftin' with Friends) and her family, 

who are mourning the loss of their husband and father.

Dwayne fought a hard battle with his cancer.

And Brenda has been beside him every step of the way.

They can use our love, prayers and positive thoughts.

Another stampin' friend called last week to tell me that
her daughter had passed away and shortly after, her brother passed too.

It's so hard to say goodbye to those we love.

Sadly,