Happy Halloween!

BOO!!



I hope you all are having a fantasticly frightful Friday!! I know a lot of you are Trick or Treating tonight, so stay safe & have fun!!

Since our Trick or Treat was Sunday, & our school parties were yesterday, I've moved on to Thanksgiving :) I used an Inky Antics stamp that had never seen ink ~ I think these turkeys are adorable!! I know, not many people send out Thanksgiving cards, but the Mr. & Mrs. were just too cute to pass up!


I used my Prismas & gamsol to color the image, & my Nesties for the scalloped mat. That's Cranberry Crisp, my favorite In Color from last year. I added some shine to the hat, shoes & apples with my Sakura clear glaze pen. I had some of this GREAT paper in my stash from Reminisce, they go pretty well together, don't ya think? Added some frayed ribbon & a button, & some Dew Drops in the corners (even though I realize now you can't really see them). I faux stitched all around with a black marker. I swear, I really am practicing my REAL sewing, but until it's perfect, I just can't do it on a card!


Here's the inside ~~ again, it took me about 20 shots to get one picture that wasn't too blurry. I just used my Martha Stewart branch punch to punch 2 Cranberry Crisp leaves, & added some Stickles. Nothing too fancy :)


What are your plans for the weekend?? It's actually pretty balmy here ~~ about 50 ~~ so we ARE going to fnish putting our stuff away in the shed. We have a table to dismantle & store, & lots of bikes & scooters to find room for! There's just never enough storage space, is there??

Penny Black kitty

Good morning everyone!! Wow, did we have some storms here last night!!! Cracks of thunder & lightning, & some very loud rain made for a sleepless night for me! With all the flooding last month around here, I'm sure all that rain was the last thing some folks needed!!!

I did get to finish my card last night. Nothing special, just another adorable image from Penny Black. I actually picked this one up at a rummage sale at my LSS earlier this year. I love *all* Penny Black critters, & I'm usually lucky enough to find one or two at this rummage sale that they have twice a year. I used LAST weeks sketch from the Friday Sketchers blog, of course now they have a new one posted today. I'm usually a week late :) Click here to see *this* week's sketch. I love sketches ~ the hardest part of making a card for me is coming up with layouts, so I appreciate the people who take the time to post sketches on their blogs, the people who create sketch blogs like Friday Sketchers, & of course SCS, which has a sketch challenge each Wednesday.


Since I'm still trying to figure out how to make my pictures larger when they are clicked (I did try uploading them a different way today), I included a close up of the embossing I did. I used Colorbox black pigment ink to stamp the image onto watercolor paper, then embossed it with Ranger clear Embossing Powder. I generally will emboss the image if I plan on watercoloring it. And watercoloring for me means using my SU markers & blender pen. I canNOT color with ink refills, nor can I use that darn Aquapainter. I always get too much water! I even tried stuffing the end with a small piece of sponge like some recommended, but I still get wayyyy too much water. If I want to use water I will use a regular old paintbrush dipped in water. But I like my blender pen, I'm able to control it a lot better.

After coloring it I punched out a bunch of flowers with different punches using Bazzill Bling paper, one of my very favorite papers. Put them all together, added some Dew Drops in the lower left corner & added some Stickles to the flowers. All done!!!

And lookie what I woke up to ~~ an email from Inky Antics announcing the July special. Does the card of the week look familiar??????

Ok, I'd better get started on my day. I am getting my older son's room ready to paint & we have to take everything out. He's been busy for the last few weeks putting all his junk.......I mean, precious belongings.......into bins. Today we have to fill about 2 more bins, take stuff off the walls & start taking furniture out. He will bunk with my younger son for the next week or so.......I'm envisioning a few giggly, sleepless nights in the near future!!!!

Summer CHA!!

First, let me say that I am FLOORED that my blog has over 1,000 hits already!!!! In just over a week!! Mom, are you visiting my blog 50 times a day???? Thank you to everyone for your friendship, support & all of your comments!!!! I appreciate all of you!!!!

Summer CHA is just over a week away, how exciting for those of you who get to attend!! I've heard so much about it, & have seen many pictures on other people's blogs ~ I can only imagine what it's like to attend such a show! I, of course, am not going, but I have some cards that will be there!!! Jackie Lewis, founder of & now art director for Inky Antics, & I have become friends over the last 2 years. I'm a member of the Inky chat forum, where I started chatting with Jackie, & got to meet her in person when she came to my city for a stamp show. She's so sweet! Last winter she contacted me, & asked if I would like to make some card samples for the CHA ~ of course I said yes! I ended up doing 14 cards for them & even had a picture of one of my cards on the SCS CHA blog!! Nobody knew I had made the card, but I still felt famous, lol!! (That's my card, underneath the picture of Jami Sibley & Ronnie Walter).

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Jackie emailed me & asked if I would like to do more samples for the Summer CHA. This time she wanted a total of 28 cards ~~ 14 designs, 2 of each. Now, I'm not good at creating duplicates. It bores me. Which is why I don't participate in many swaps. But I would do anything for Jackie, so I got to work. I did all 28 cards & even got them in the mail BEFORE the deadline!!!! I wanted to share a couple of those samples with you. I had to keep them a bit more simple than what I usually make, due to the amount of cards I did.


These samples are using the Well Seasoned line of stamps found here. Aren't they adorable??? They are created by Ronnie Walter, a fabulously talented artist who has done many other lines of stamps for Inky Antics. If you've never shopped at Inky Antics, hop on over there right now. They run specials each month, & for the month of July it's FREE watercolors!! You'll receive a set of free pearlescent watercolor set with an order of $45 or more. Go check it out!! And for those of you attending the CHA, lucky you!!! Stop & introduce yourself to Jackie, you will love her. Maybe you'll even get to meet Ronnie!! Oh, & say HI to my cards!!!!!