Sites of the week

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…

As you may have a read on her blog, my friend Carole recently lost her mother unexpectedly. As much as I wish she lived right here and I could give her a big hug, she doesn’t and I couldn’t. What’s a crafty girl to do?…Make a card to let her dear friend know that she is being thought of from miles away. Carole, if you are reading this, you know I {heart} you and my heart goes out to you and your family. <3

Making a sympathy card for a friend is just about one of the hardest {crafty} things to do! Like the card for AJ, I wanted it to be perfect. I don’t know that I would classify it as perfection, but I do like the outcome…

To create this card, I used the Verve set FANCY FLORALS REMIXED…definitely an oldie, but a goodie! I paired it with the new LOOPY BLOOMS die set with a stamped leaf flourish from BLOOM & GROW {matching leaf die can be found HERE}.

Detail shot of the felt flower and bling…

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only sympathy card that I had to send out this month. As grateful as I am that Verve has some wonderful sympathy sentiments, I really don’t like to have to use them all that often!

I don’t think that I would surprise any of y’all if I said that I love all things fall…especially, creating fall inspired projects. It’s the time of year when you really start paying attention to packaging and little details for gifties to give to family, friends, neighbors and teachers. I love looking at the different shapes and styles of packaging, as well each and every adornment.

I’ve really been into making tags lately, as it seems I am every year around this time {plus, I can’t put down my Tagged Rectangle Die}. I am planning on doing some food gifties {I’m thinking apples & homemade caramel sauce and banana bread} this year for Ellie and Nic’s teachers and wanted a cute tag to attach to each.

Verve has a sweet lil’ fall themed sentiment set called HAPPY FALL {currently on sale for just 6 bucks!} that I used in conjunction with the large leaves from BLOOM & GROW {stamped on pattern paper}…

The pumpkins were created by taking five 1.25″ circles, folding them in half and adhering them together. Be sure to leave 2 of the halves unattached to each other so you go glue it flat to your project.

Each tag “by its own self” {Ellie verbage}…

Here’s a different angle so that you can see the dimension of the pumpkin…

Anyone thinking these could easily be turned into Christmas tags? Me too!! I’ll be back with some of those in a few weeks…stay tuned!

Welcome to your next stop along the October Verve Diva Inspirations Blog Hop…whew, that is a mouthful! Yep, it’s a hop, so be sure that you start at Julee’s blog. She also has a the full list of hoppers there, just in case you get lost along the way.

The best man from our wedding and his wife are expecting the arrival of their first baby soon. I had a lot of fun shopping for some itty bitty baby boy clothes the other day with Nic. Nic did more running around the displays and licking the floor to ceiling mirrors than actually helping me shop, but it was fun nonetheless. Yes, that’s my kid that you see and ask “Where is his mother!?” Ahhh…boys!!

Of course, I couldn’t send a gift without a card! Here’s what I came up with using the latest Mojo Monday sketch as a bit of inspiration {flipped and loosely interpreted} and the TO THE MOON stamp set from Verve…

Buttons are my go to embellishment of choice these days. I couldn’t let a baby card go without a slew of coordinating buttons…

The “Snips & Snails” sentiment is stamped on a Tagged Rectangle die cut and I added the “Oh Boy” sentiment cut with my SU! circle punches…

Detail shot of the ribbon treatment…

I’ll keep ya hopping along now! You are off to Lynda’s blog for some more fabby Verve inspiration. Don’t forget to leave a comment at each stop along the way for a chance to win a $30 gift certificate to the Verve store where EVERYTHING is currently on sale and 10% of proceeds will be donated to Susan G. Komen.

That’s how long I have been married Tony. Yep, yesterday was our 8 year anniversary. We went out the night before, but last night was spent on the couch with a pizza and watching our shows…my kind of mid-week date night!

This lil’ Verve card is inspired by love/anniversary…

Detail shot…

This card uses one of my favorite color combos in conjunction with the set You and I, which pairs with the I Heart U die set.

Of course, I couldn’t just use one of the Verve dies when all the others were screaming to be a part of the card, too! I let the Jotted Heart and Tagged Rectangle dies come out to play, as well.

I gotta make this short and sweet since I have a big girl needing some guidance on her Kindergarten homework and a lil’ man begging for some attention from his “Maaaaaaa.”