Happy Owl-lo-ween!

I so wanted to do at least one more Halloween project with The Cutting Cafe file Halloween Around. This little owl is darling! I had a special request for a Halloween Owl tag and I knew just where to get the perfect image! I also used the scallop circle cutting file (love it!). I colored and popped up the owl and added lots of ribbon and a cute felt flower.
Happy Owl-lo-ween!

And thank you, thank you to City Crafter Blog for choosing my Fairy Bride card as a spotlight card for last week's challenge!

Pixie Dust Paperie

What is Pixie Dust Paperie? It's a new kit club started by Kirsty Vittetoe. A lot of you may recognize her as the founder of the City Crafter Challenge Blog whose challenges I've been participating in lately. And I'm so excited to tell you that she invited me to be a part of the design team! How wonderful is that? I was even more amazed to have been asked when I realized the fabulousness (is that a word?) of the rest of the team:

Lauren Bergold

Jessy Christopher

Emeline Seet

Zielonooka

The October Kit, Fall in Love, is gorgeous: chock full of pretty papers, ribbons, the prettiest lace, buttons, beautiful stickers.... It goes on sale October 5th. You will certainly want to write that date on your calendar, because you are going to want this kit! Here is just a little teaser of one of my projects to be revealed at a later date:

Kirsty is going to start showing the designer projects beginning October 1st. My first project will be shown on October 4th. Your going to love the design team projects. From what I can tell, there will be a lot of inspiration! I'll be excited to see all of the projects revealed throughout the month. Check the Pixie Dust Paperie Blog every day to see a different creation.

Kirsty is offering a special promotion if you buy a kit between the October 5th opening and October 10th. Any purchase made within that time frame will qualify for ONE of the following:

Pixie Dust November Kit (which is out of this world fabulous)

Pixie Dust Paperie $30 Gift Certificate

Pixie Dust Paperie $20 Gift Certificate

Pixie Dust Paperie $10 Gift Certificate

Pixie Dust Paperie Seam Binding Crinkle Ribbon (4 colors, 2 yards each)

The item won't be listed in your cart, but will come in your package! Any of those gifts would be fabulous to receive - get your order in by October 10th!

Thank you, Kirsty, for including me in your new venture!

Fairy Bride

My cousin participates in a women's Friendship Dinner in Hobart, Oklahoma. She is the hostess for her table and designs the setting. Her theme this year is Wedding. The past couple of years, she has asked me to create cards around her theme. I found this darling little fairy bride and knew it would have to be for one of the cards. I used the sketch at City Crafter Challenge blog to create it.
I kind of "scrunched" the sketch a little. I've been so busy the past few weeks with special orders, I wasn't sure I'd be able to complete it in time to post it on the City Crafter blog, but I think I'm going to make it with just a few hours to spare. The City Crafter blog has some quite excellent challenges. I really like the variety of challenges. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it. The papers on this card are from My Minds Eye, except for the white lacy edge which is from Anna Griffin.
That cute crocheted lace at the bottom of the picture is from Hero Arts. I wanted the ribbons to be a pretty close match, so I dyed that yesterday.

Happy Fright Night

The challenge at Paper Sundaes is to create a card using fall or Halloween colors. I love Halloween! I look forward to it every year. I adore this little witch image. She's so cute at the cauldron with her black cat. She's cut out and popped up to create depth.
I added the moon and an extra bat in the upper right corner. The papers are from Making Memories and Cosmo Cricket. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. Happy Fright Night!

Easy, but cute, Halloween Favor

Hi, there! Today I've got a very easy, but very cute, Halloween favor. I think it would be great for a little "You've been Boo'd" treat. I started with a matchbox. If you don't have any, there are several templates on line - just google matchbox template. I printed the Witch Hat from Cutting Cafe file Halloween Assorted Circles onto orange cardstock. From Halloween Time, I printed the Witching you... sentiment onto cream cardstock. Both of these sets are awesome. You need to check them out!
I wrapped the matchbox with a strip of leftover Halloween paper from who knows when (great way to use those scraps!), tied the circle and tag on with black yarn and orange fibers from Michaels. Of course, a bite size piece of chocolate is what makes this really good! Easy, but cute!

Party!

The party Sunday was so much fun! Good friends, meeting new friends, and good food! And cute things to see, too! Several people asked for recipes. So, head over to Mika's Pantry. She's got a great food blog, where Dennis and I get some of our dinner ideas. She's got great pictures of the food layout and all the recipes that Dennis and I put together. Even if you weren't here, you might be interested in Snickerdoodle Cupcakes, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars, and Maple Sugar Cookies. I think she's even got a few pictures of my display, too. This is one of my goodies I had at the party - a Christmas Countdown Tin. I placed a vintage santa and a bottle brush tree on top and covered it all with packaged snow.

The countdown is easy to change. Just unclip and change the number. The numbers are housed in this little box, which fits in the tin for easy storage.
The lid of the tin is easy on and off, so adding a treat or a special note every day is super easy!
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who's ready for Christmas?

A Friendly Challenge

A while back, Jessy invited some of us to take part in her friendly challenge - just for fun. She sent this pretty picture, courtesy of http://www.thelennoxx.com/.
The challenge is to use the colors in the photo. I remembered that I had some pretty Creative Imaginations paper that I had never used. I think I've had this paper for several years.
I combined the papers and added a cute vintage image along with a pretty flower and some of my crinkle ribbon and pretty vintage buttons. This challenge ended up being a lot of fun. I love the colors together, but I may not have thought of them if Jessy hadn't sent that photo! Jessy is from Singapore (edited to correct: should say Malaysia, sorry Jessy!) and asked us to post at 12 p.m. on Sept. 20th. I hope I figured correctly that our time is about 10:00 p.m. on Sept. 19th. So, if you check the links below of all the other participants and nothing is up yet, I may be wrong!

Jessy Christopher

Sandy Ang

Wati Basri

Helen Tilbury

Rachel Clarke

Kirsty Vittetoe

Sharmandeswari

Cindy Lee

Janet

Amelia Khalik

Bountiful Blessings

I love fall and the holidays that go with it: Halloween and Thanksgiving. The word circle is from The Cutting Cafe set So Thankful. That little bit of paper you can see is Basic Grey. The card itself is made with The Cutting Cafe's scallop card set. The little girl is one of my favorite vintage images ever!
One of the first things I ever made was a Thanksgiving hanging decoration featuring her. I added some of my crinkle ribbon, a vintage button, and twine from Papertrey Ink. Here's to fall weather coming soon! What's the weather like where you are?

A big Thank You to City Crafter Blog for choosing my Guy Card from the previous post as a spotlight card for last week!

Guy Card

Kirby needed a card for his cousin and it just so happens that the challenge at City Crafter is a guy card. The papers are from Crate Paper, except for the red which is old Basic Grey. I love the new Crate Paper, especially the playing cards.
The car is a vintage image. Hope you had a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Nuts About You!

This cute acorn shape is from The Cutting Cafe. The Welcome Fall set comes with 46 shapes! The papers are October Afternoon and that cute squirrel is a stamp from WeRMemoryKeepers.
Fairly simple, just added some of my favorite ribbon, buttons, an acorn and a tag. I'm ready for fall and it's just not feeling that way yet...higher temps than normal here. Oh, well, I'm ready when it gets here!

Bookmarks!

I love this bookmark! I've already been using it. The image of the little kids is actually from a vintage Christmas card. These corner bookmarks are so easy to use.
It's so darling "saving the spot for me." The papers are Fancy Pants. The frame stamp and the sentiment are from Papertrey Ink. Charlene commented on a bookmark from an earlier post and told me about a new blog, Paper Cubed or P3. I checked it out and they've had some great challenges. For the month of September, it's all about bookmarks.
This soldered charm bookmark is similar to the one I made for my mom for Mother's Day. Silhouettes are a particular favorite of mine.
The initial on the back is from a victorian alphabet.
Amazingly, that pretty ribbon was in the dollar bin at Michaels. Another thank you goes to City Crafter Challenge blog for choosing my haunted house card in the previous post as a spotlight card. THANK YOU!

A Piece of Moon

One night last week my grandma called me and told me to look at the moon. It was very pretty ringed by a foggy light. She recalled when I was little that I loved to look at the moon and I would say "Look, a piece of moon" if we were out at night. The City Crafter challenge this week is Let Your Light Shine. Included in the project must be something that is or makes a light. I realize that the moon does not make its own light, but it certainly looks like it's shining to us on earth! So, staying with the holidays I'm currently working on and with the phone call from my grandma, the moon seemed a wonderful choice. I love the shape of the moon with its man in the moon face and curly ends.
The moon and the house are cut with the October 31st Cricut cartridge. The background papers are from Cosmo Cricket and Rusty Pickle. The stamp is from Papertrey Ink.

Christmas Challenge

Oh, the weather is lovely here today. Low in the 50s and highs in the 80s. Wonderful! Are you a hot weather person or cold? I like winter more than summer and fall most of all. Spring, too, although we usually don't have much of one! You know I've been doing holiday things lately. I noticed that Paper Sundaes is having a Christmas challenge and I just finished this little gift card holder. One thing that's awesome about it is that it just takes 1/2 of an 81/2 by 11 piece of cardstock. I used a Spellbinder die to create the holder opening for the card.
The inside stamps are from Cornish Heritage Farms (which I understand is closing.) The decorative paper on the front is from Collage Press. I ran white cardstock through my snowflake cuttlebug embossing folder to create the snow. I tucked the elf house behind the snow and the little guys in the front are set up with pop dots. The snowflake punch is Martha Stewart.
I love the bells and silver chenille stem added to the button and tied with baker's twine!
The little elves are from a vintage card. Hope you had nice weather today! Here's to a great start to a great weekend!

Happy Birthday, Sophie!

This sweet little kitten card is for my three year old cousin, Sophie. I stamped the curtains with a little flower from Lawn Fawn and popped up the window box of kitties. The shape of the card was cut with a Spellbinders die.
I forgot to take a picture, so I set it up on my desk and whipped out my camera. I think it turned out okay, though. The background papers are from Girls Paperie. I tied the front and back together with some of my crinkle ribbon. Happy Birthday, Sophie!