Sites of the week

Happy Halloween crafty friends! Pumpkins…check; candy…check; costumes…check; kid who still refuses to wear hat that goes with Yoda costume…check. Nic is now going to be Anakin. The cloak is the same and we are just adding a light saber to the whole get up and hoping he won’t whack too many kids over the head with it!

Friday’s playdate was lots of fun! Here are a couple pictures…

Gotta love ideas snagged from Pinterest!

Nic and friend having cupcakes…or at least some frosting!

Ellie helping a friend make her spider hat {Ellie has hers on}.

All in all, it was a lot of fun! I’m already getting the itch to do another at Christmas {shhh…don’t tell Tony!}.

What’s a Halloween blog post without a Halloween project? Today I am sharing a card that was inspired by THESE TAGS that I made a couple of weeks ago. I knew that I wanted to use the 3D pumpkin on a card and I love the way that it paired with the “Trick -or- Treat” sentiment from the new Verve set, Boo to You…

Yep, I said **new** set. It wasn’t part of the last release because of some manufacturing hiccups, but it is now available. I love the images and fonts…so elegant and cute at the same time! I used them in combination here on the sentiment panel…

The black panel behind the sentiment panel is a die cut of the Vintage Oval die that I cut it half to make larger. I love the curves of this die!

Detail shot of the 3D pumpkin with leaves from the Bloom and Grow set {cut with the Elegant Leaves die from Verve}, tulle and a button tied off with linen thread…

That’s all for me today, friends! I hope you have a great Halloween and your kids have a blast trick -or- treating tonight!

TGIF Friends! I’m pretty excited about today! I’m hosting the “Cupcakes and Crafties for Kiddos” playdate/party that I mentioned earlier this week. I’ll have 15 kids ranging from 3 months to 5 years invading my house…eek! We are making a spider hat and a toilet paper tube mummy for our crafts and will have lots of yummies to fill our lil’ monster’s tummies. I’m doing a photo booth like I did for Ellie’s birthday, so I should have some fun pictures to share soon!

This week’s TCP Tuesday is hosted by the super sweet and talented, Julie. She is challenging everyone to use acetate on their card. WOW!…I think it’s been awhile since I broke out the acetate. Now that we are wrapping up the Halloween craftiness, I am moving on to winter/holiday, so I thought that it would be fun to try out an acetate snowflake paired with the oh so cute SHEEPISH set from The Cat’s Pajamas…

Detail of acetate snowflake cut from the TCP Snowflake CutUps die…

I had to add a little something to the snowflake. I cut a red felt heart from the Heart Trio CutUps die. I love the warm texture of the felt to go along with the paper pieced {Echo Park paper} sheep image…

Want to play along? Be sure to check out THIS post on the TCP blog for all the details how you can win the next release in its entirety. I’ve seen the next release and OMG is it ever cute! So, get to stamping and good luck!!

While this doesn’t fit in with the challenge, I still want to share another TCP card that I realized that I had not posted yet from the current release.

This first card uses my favorite lil’ bunny taking flight in OH CHUTE…

This card was so fun to paper piece. If you’ll recall, I am NOT a technique-y person, and paper piecing is about as messy as I prefer to get. I really like how you can piece the whole parachute or each segment. Gotta have options!!

Alright friends, I gotta run and get ready for mayhem! LOL!!

The new releases continue to come at ya from YOUR NEXT STAMP! Today is extra special because there is a fantastic prize up for grabs! You may recall that YNS just started their newest product line…YOUR NEXT DIE! Karen, owner of YNS, is giving the HAPPY HOLIDAYS stamp and coordinating die set to one lucky commenter.

My project today, a tag, is in combination with this week’s YNS Challenge: ABC {Anything But a Card}.

You can find all the info, including PRIZE details, HERE on the YNS blog. I love ABC challenges, because anything goes! Tags, bags, boxes or anything you can come up with…as long as it’s not a card. Have fun with this one and let those creative juices flow! Think of it as a jump start on all those holiday crafties that you have been wanting to do…at least since you saw them on Pinterest, right?!

Here are a couple of detail shots. The Santa is from the new SEASONAL ICONS set and the awesome word block is from the HAPPY HOLIDAYS set {the one that is up for grabs…along with some seriously cool dies to one lucky commenter today!}…

I added some white Flower Soft to the Santa hat for some added visual interest and texture.

Word block embellished white itty bitty rhinestones and partially colored with Copics…

Ready for **YOUR** Next Stamp? Check out these details…

1. Karen’s got a little *early bird* special–Free surprise gift with every purchase PLUS Free Shipping to Canada and the US for orders over $30 (code is YNSHolidays) starting October 21st and ending Nov 2nd.

2. All the stamps and dies will be available for purchase at the YNS Store the day they are released and the full release will be available on November 3rd.

3. Be sure and check out the YNS blog and Facebook page daily for all the new stamp reveals and PRIZES!

Are you all ready for Halloween? I think we are over here! I finally have all the peices to Ellie’s costume. She is going to be Mary Poppins and we went on a hunt to about 5 or 6 stores all over town to get all the bits and pieces to the ensemble. All I have left to do is hot glue some daisies and red berries to the hat. We got a Yoda costume for Nic, but at this point in time he refuses to wear it, so it looks like he will be attending the trick or treat festivities in his Elmo jammies…some things are just not worth the battle!

Other than that, candy and pumpkins are purchased and all craft kits for my “Cupcakes and Crafties for Kiddos” are complete. As for my crafties, I have a Verve-y Halloween card to share today…

Detail shot…

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I used a combination of 2 Verve sets for this card. The sentiment comes from the HAPPY FALL set, which has the perfect sentiment set for all things fall. Then, I used the frame from LOVE NOTES and cut it with the coordination CLASSY LABEL die from Verve. You’ll notice that I used the dotted lines from that frame behind the bats, too! I love the kraft pattern paper that I found at my LSS recently. It’s from Canvas Corp. When I was all done with the card, I kept looking at it and thinking that it needed “something.” That “something” was the black rhinestones that I added to the pattern on the left. That really made a difference…at least to my eye!

ETA to answer a question…The bats are punched out and then covered with black Stickles. The Stickles are still a little wet this pic, so they are not quite so slick looking.

I want to share some pics from the trip to the pumpkin patch this past weekend. It was a lot of fun, until we realized that Ellie was probably allergic to all the hay that we were playing around in!

I used {the free version of} Picnik online photo editing software on this one…

Nic picking up his pumpkin {you’ll have to click on it for full size}…

In case you missed the expression on Nic’s face in that last frame…

Have you heard the news? The YOUR NEXT STAMP new holiday release is happening NOW! What’s even better, you can grab all the new releases and put them in your cart as they are being shown from NOW {yesterday, actually} until Nov. 2…at a discount {sweet!!}.

Today, I get to show you the new Hello Birdie, Snowman…

When I started coloring the snowman, I wasn’t sure what my final project was going to be…a card, a tag or AN ORNAMENT! I was looking through some of my crafty hodge podge {a basket where the stuff doesn’t really have another home} and came across some plastic snowflake ornaments {perfect or altering} that I picked up on super clearance at Target. I’m pretty sure I got 4 for $.25!

Then, I just started to layer and alter to come up with my finished ornament that has both the image and sentiment from the set, as well as a Martha Stewart mini doily, jingle bells, rhinestones, rhinestones {small, medium and large!} and, of course, some glitter! My desk was a royal mess after this…LOL!!

Detail shot…

There’s no such thing as a release from YOUR NEXT STAMP without some PRIZES!! Be sure to check the YNS Facebook page TODAY for your next chance to win! There will be more random days from now until the release with chances to win! Be sure to check out the YNS BLOG each day for prize and release info, as well as lots of DT inspiration!