Hey Boo!

Ya YOU! Hey BOO! Ok, I will stop it! But what I won’t stop is sharing some fun Halloween inspiration with you this month! This is my third project share and today I am sharing a really spooktacular Halloween card with you that uses a really cool technique!

The base of this card is Fresh Freesia which is a color you might not think of when you think of Halloween. I think all the purples work for this holiday so I incorporated three of them onto this card project.

There is a base layer of Basic White behind the vellum layer to help the colors of the Stampin’ Blends pop. I used the dark Stampin’ Blend marker for all three—Highland Heather, Rich Razzleberry and Fresh Freesia. The technique is the popular Alcohol Blends technique. There are a million videos on how to make this so just do a quick search! Basically you need 3-5 things for this technique:

1. Stampin’ Blends

2. Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol in 99%

3. Vellum

4. A straw

5. A Waterpainter

The straw option is used to blow the rubbing alcohol around and I have created some projects with that look, so to speak, so watch for some future posts! For this card I used my Waterpainter to drop and spritz the rubbing alcohol on top of my blends.

I colored my Stampin’ Blends across my vellum, dividing it into 3 sections. I then dipped my Waterpainter into the rubbing alcohol and flicked it across the card. This is what created the speckled look.

Because you could see the lines between the colors, and I didn’t really like that, I took the Waterpainter to the edges to where the colors met and touched the vellum. This allowed the color to bleed into each other a little bit.

TOP TIP: A little rubbing alcohol goes a long way. Sometimes less is better

After I had created this fun background it was easy to add some fun aspects to the card. We have such a great selection of Halloween stuff in our catalogues right now!

“Hey Boo” is from the Cutest Halloween stamp set and the sentiment is die cut with a label shape from the Frightful Tags Dies.

I added a fun spiderweb cut from the Black Glitter Paper and the Frightful Tags dies. Over top I added our sentiment and a cute owl, cut from Bumblebee card stock, and cut with the same dies. Now when you cut the owl, his eyes and nose will be hollow, so I added a small scrap of Basic Black cardstock behind to fill them in.

The skull is stamped from the same stamp set, Cutest Halloween, and is hand trimmed. While there is a punch to coordinate with this stamp set, it only cuts out the cat, ghost and pumpkin.

I used my Stampin’ Blends again, this time in Daffodil Delight, to color the Black & White Gingham Ribbon. This ribbon is the BOMB! Its the perfect width and everyone loves gingham. And you can customize it by coloring it with Stampin’ Blends OR even with a Blending Brush and an ink pad!

I hope this card inspires you to make some spooktacular yourself!

Color Fusers--October Blog Hop!

Hello friends! Welcome to the most SPOOKTACULAR month of the year! Our Color Fusers Blog Hop this month is featuring the color combo of Just Jade, Evening Evergreen and Cajun Craze and it was a good challenge to create a Halloween Project—since that is the theme of my blog this month!

The project I created to share this month is a mashup of the Detailed Pumpkins Dies, the Adorning Designs Decorative Masks and the Banner Year stamp set. All of these elements came together to create a unique Halloween card!

I started with a card base of Just Jade and used one of the masks or stencils with my Just Jade ink pad and Blending Brush to create a fun tone on tone design on my card front. I also angled the mask so that it was a diagonal for something a little bit different!

I cut a thin strip of Evening Evergreen card stock and attached it following this diagonal to bring more attention to that detail. After I stamped out the sentiment, Happy Haunting (in Evening Evergreen ink) I used the same stencil over top with Just Jade ink. This is a really fun way to jazz up your sentiments and to blend these two greens together. I added some retired Cajun Craze Twine (I seriously need to quit being a hoarder) and some of the new awesome Chevron Evening Evergreen Ribbon behind the sentiment.

The two Cajun Craze pumpkins are from the Detailed Pumpkins Dies. Both of the dies, in their original form, have area that you can ‘see’ through. I wanted my big pumpkin to be more solid so I glued it to another piece of Cajun Craze card stock and then trimmed around the edges with my paper snips!

Bling makes everything better of course, so I couldn’t resist adding some In Color Jewels in Evening Evergreen for a little sparkle!

If you are just joining our awesome hop here you can go back to see what my fellow Artisan Design Team member, Tami Hewlett, has designed or you can keep going forward and loop around. Next up on the hop is the amazing Melanie Hockin!!! Whatever route you take I hope you visit everyone along the way!

Happy Halloween MONTH!

Self proclaimed Halloween LOVER over here! In fact I have created so many things that I am going to share 3 projects per week with you this whole month and an extra special post on Halloween! This means you can expect 14 amazing awesome and unique Halloween projects this month—ALL featuring our Amazing Stampin’ Up! products!

I want to kick things off with this super fun BOO BOX or a Halloween Happiness Box—you decide what you want to call it! It uses one of our Mini Paper Pumpkin Boxes that I spritzed with Pumpkin Pie reinker mixed with Rubbing Alcohol. I used one of our Stampin’ Spritzers to cover the top and sides of the box. I really love how it turned out and it was SO FAST to change the outside look of this box!

I created a belly band to go around the box using a 2 x 12 strip of the gingham print from the Hostess DSP stack—Pattern Party! This is one of the best Hostess Rewards Stampin’ Up! has ever offered in my opinion! And I love the fact that a belly band can be slipped off of the box so after the recipient has gotten to all of the treats inside they can fill it up again, slide on the belly band, and give this fun BOO BOX to someone else! That is the whole purpose of what we create, to brighten as many lives as possible!

I decorated the belly band with a fun spider web cut with the Frightful Tags Dies. You will notice how many times I used these dies in creating my projects this month! I would highly recommend adding them to your next order! You can always use my Monthly Hostess Code or shop my online store if you live in Canada!

The spiderweb is also cut from the Black Glitter Paper for that extra little pop of fun. The Highland Heather label is also from the Frightful Tags dies and the mini spider webs stamped on top are from the Banner Year stamp set. You can find this amazing stamp set in the Annual Catalogue. It also has a sentiment inside saying “Happy Fall Y’all”…just saying…you need it! Behind the label is some black twine from the Baker’s Twine Essentials Pack, also in the Annual Catalogue.

I finished off my BOO BOX but cutting the letters BOO using the Playful Alphabet Dies in Pumpkin Pie cardstock. i used the Foam Adhesive Sheets to cut the letters again and add the cardstock letters to it. The Foam Adhesive Sheets are like one giant Dimensional. And to jazz up the BOO a little bit, I took my Pumpkin Pie Stampin’ Blend to the bottom half of the letters. Its such an easy way to add some interest to your letters!

Well that is my first awesome Halloween project to share with you this month! I hope you will visit me on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays as I continue to share Halloween projects, cards and scrapbook pages with you this month!

Happy Birthday Summer!

Yesterday we celebrated a milestone birthday at our house! My daughter Summer turned 13, which means I am the mom to two teenagers now! Honestly, how did that happen so fast?

So obviously I needed to make her a special card for her birthday. Pear Pizzazz was the perfect color to coordinate with her Baby Yoda birthday cake we had made and all of my birthday celebration decor was gold so that is where my color palette came from.

I wanted to make a shaker card for Summer as something extra fun. The inside ‘shaker’ stars actually came from my wedding, which was 21 years ago! I recently came across some wedding decor I had stored in a box and I had a whole container of these stars which we had used to sprinkle on our head table. I am really glad that I saved them for so long! hahaha! They finally came in handy!

As you can see, I used the Stitched Rectangles to cut the ‘window’ for my shaker card and layered a Window Sheet behind. I used the Foam Adhesive Strips to elevate the front panel.

On the base of the card I stamped “You Are Amazing” using the retired stamp set of the same name. The sentiment “Happy Birthday” is from Itty BItty Greetings and I used a retired punch that I modified to create just the perfect size for my greeting. I love punches that can work beyond what you initially see or think.

I ran the first window layer through the Timber 3D embossing folder before I put the shaker aspect together. I love this folder and find it so versatile.

My 13 is cut from the another retired die set that I will keep forever and ever! Sometimes you need to hang onto the dies that don’t come around very often, you never know when they might come in handy!

Behind the 13 I layered a Basic White circle and some Gold Fine Art Ribbon with some Linen Thread and Gold Metallic Thread. I finished off the front with some Gold Shimmer Gems.

I was really happy with how this card turned out especially because I felt under pressure to make Summer a really special card to celebrate this milestone birthday!

Around the World on Wednesday --Changing Seasons

The changing of seasons really is my favorite time of year! I love all of the colors that nature blesses us with, not to mention the gorgeous projects we can complete with all of our Stampin’ Up! products! For this month Around the World on Wednesday Hop, our theme is ‘changing seasons’. I created this fabulous scrapbook layout with some of my favorite things!

I hope you enjoy this hop as you visit some amazing talented crafters from around the world. I love how everyone interprets our monthly themes! I know you will be inspired!

I love to scrapbook, especially anything to do with fall. When the leaves start to turn its absolutely gorgeous in Alberta as in many places in the world. These pictures are from 3 years ago already! I can’t believe how much my kids have changed in that time frame! Which is why I am so blessed to be able to capture our memories in a more permanent way.

I started with a base of Rich Razzleberry and added some depth with my Blending Brushes and Blackberry Bliss ink. I also flicked my dark Black Stampin’ Blend marker over the blended area for another bit of texture. This is the easiest way to add interest to your backgrounds!

I focused on two die sets for this layout—Harvest Dies and the Beautiful Leaves Dies. Both of these dies have amazing images or shapes that don’t require any stamping! You can just simply cut them out to add as embellishments to your design.

The Blackberry Beauty DSP was the color inspiration for my page as I used both Rich Razzleberry and Blackberry Bliss, Cinnamon Cider, Kraft paper, Gold Shimmer Vellum and Very Vanilla as my colors, with the sentiments all stamped in Soft Suede.

For the left hand side of my scrapbook page (yes, I actually design left to right!) I added two strips of the amazing Blackberry Beauty DSP—this specialty paper has gold foil inlaid in the design. It is so rich and luscious! My photo matte is Very Vanilla and I love to have the strips and my photo offset. Nothing is square!

I cut the large leaf shape from the Beautiful Leaves Dies out of Blackberry cardstock and then cut it vertically in half. This allowed me to use some on top left and bottom right corner of my photomat. Because our eyes move left to right I tend to have a little vignette at the top of the left and at the bottom of the right on this page of my double spread.

The two thistle shapes are cut from the Kraft 6x6 stack and the wheat is cut from the Gold Shimmer Vellum! I love to layer all of these shapes together to form a bouquet of sorts!

The sentiment “Enjoy the Little Things” Is from a retired stamp set, but its the perfect phrase and size so it is one that I still keep hanging around! The other phrase on this page, “Love is What Makes us Family” is from Lovely You. I love the mix of fonts in this stamp set!

On the right hand side of my scrapbook layout, I wanted to be able to include two 4x6 photos. The photo mats are Soft Suede and once again nothing is square. These pages are actually two pages that my Scrapbook Group members made this month as well. I find be eliminating things being perfect, hence adding things on an angle, it takes away the stress of having to have everything perfectly aligned! Because my eye was just on the bottom right corner of my previous page, it kept the eye moving across to this page by having a vignette in the bottom left and then naturally up at the top right. These are aspects I consider when designing my scrapbook pages. I hope this is a helpful tip!

Many of the same elements are also carried through on this page, however I did add a couple small individual leaves from the Beautiful Leaves Die cut from the Kraft paper. Both pages have some Champagne Rhinestones, they coordinate so beautifully with this suite!

“You make the ordinary extraordinary” is from the Simply Succulents stamp set and “Love You More” is from Measure of Love.

I love how these pages turned out! If you live in Canada and are interested in scrapbooking, please reach out to me!

Now onto the HOP! You can keep hoping to Tricia Butts an amazing crafter from the United States!