I Love Halloween!

Art Impressions has a new challenge on their blog. They want to see Holiday stuff: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hannukah or some combination of all of these. Naturally I went with Halloween. It's closest holiday (just decorated yesterday) and one of my favorites anyway. 

I'm using the AI sets: Old Bat and Fright Night. I made adult cards but hey, adults can enjoy the fun of Halloween too (or at least that's what I tell myself as I consume more than my fair share of the chocolate that we buy for the Trick or Treaters) Sooo worth the extra shots of juice that I have to take for them ... dog gone Diabetes.

I made my second card a shaker. It has been so long since I've made one that I actually had to relearn the ins-and-outs of how to do it. Ugh. I should probably make the effort more often.

Holy Heck Batman

It's September.

My friend's birthday is in the first part of August ... do you see the reason to drop f-bombs? Yep. Major Oops here. In my defense, I ordered her gift from Amazon but I DID forget to check the box where it says mail here or to HER house. So, here I am with her present on my doorstep nearly a month and a half from her special day. Sigh.

So out came my stamps that had irritated expressions; this guy won by far! He is from Rabbit Hole Designs and is called Caffeinated Turkey. Super cute, isn't he? I've been trying to make my cards more simple but this time I just let myself go wild with layers.

 

Just Chicken In

I'm still trying to use all the stamps that have never seen ink. This one is from Gerda Steiner Designs and I can't believe that I've never inked it!! It's too cute to sit in a drawer by itself. This set is called Chicken Scratch.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to make the card so I stamped about six of the chickens and ended up having enough to make two cards.

I used a sentiment from Stamping Bella Farm Phrases for the second card. I loved the accusatory expression on the fence chicken so this phrase really worked. It's a tad crooked but

... eh, it's a homemade card, these things happen!

Sweater Weather

 

Sadly ... it will be sweater weather in just 5 short days. Local weathermen are predicting snow on Tuesday. Yep, we are going from 86 degrees on Monday to 37 and 2 inches of snow on Tuesday.  Really Colorado?!! We can't have even ONE month of Fall?

I decided it was the perfect time to break out my new MFT stamp Safari Sweater Weather to make myself feel better (and to make myself feel even better, I decided to buy the Sweater Weather in the Woods set as well ... I felt that I really need that silly moose in a sweater!)

I'm using the Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2 sketch for this first card. I plan to submitting it to the Aud Sentiments Challenge Blog as well so I added the required sentiment at the top. Soo, I'm kinda playing a bit loose and free with the sketch since it looked a bit busy with the sentiment. I didn't want to clutter it up with dots. I probably should have made the card a tad bigger.

My second card also uses the Safari Sweater Weather set. I made this card for a buddy whose birthday is tomorrow! Sooo, not getting to you on time, Susie! Sorry.

Tropical, Baby!!

 

Sadly this is about as "tropical" as I've gotten lately. Sigh. Covid is seriously cramping my style. Art Impressions wanted to see a new creation to satisfy their new challenge "Tropical Treat" but if we didn't have the tropical part, they would be satisfied with something that had: "sun, sand, sea or summer" on it. Soooo since I can't do the real thing anytime soon, I created this card

I used Blanche and then cut off her legs so she could be in the water. Of course I gave her a buddy, drinking a margarita on the shore (because really ... is there a point to going to the ocean without a sister or bestie?!!)

ABC: Re-useable Color Shirts

Every time I have an ABC post assigned my heart sinks a little bit because let's face it, cards are kind of my thing. But when my friend told me about this new thing to give as a gift ... I was kind of jazzed.  As my friend put it ... who doesn't like to color (especially cute little girls), and I was sold on this as a possible Christmas gift idea.

Another selling point for this shirt was a new vinyl for my cutting machine (I can see that you are thinking, "Wow, Joanna, it takes so little to get you excited about crafts doesn't it?" Yes, it is kinda pathetic isn't it?) But we digress. As I was saying, there was also a new kind of vinyl to try (called infusible ink) to use on shirts. So off we went to Michaels to get a shirt, the infusible ink and a box of watercolor Crayola markers.

I'm using the Bugaboo image Fall Autumn Fox from the Bugaboo shop.  There are so many images in the Bugaboo shop that finding the perfect image is super easy. Be sure to click on the Freebie & Sales tab. There are always some good deals there too.

The new vinyl actually colors the fabric fibers rather than laying on top like other kinds. Because of this, you must use a cotton/poly blend shirt rather than the 100% cotton that have always been used. Also, the Cricut instructions had us use a deeper setting to cut.  When we ran it through the machine, it also cut the plastic mat as well as the vinyl so weeding, the process of pulling the unneeded vinyl, was a bit of an issue.

The vinyl looks brown in its raw form but irons on black.

After you iron it, the shirt is soooo soft.  I really like the new vinyl. The point of the shirts are that kiddos can color the shirts and wear them but the washable marker comes out in the washing machine. They will have fun coloring them over and over again.

My little model sure had fun coloring.

SS with Bugaboo Stamps

It's time for another challenge over on the Sketch Saturday blog.  This time we are sponsored by the fabulous Bugaboo Stamps.  Jodie is offering our winner 4 digis.  Woot woot, what a great prize.

I used one of my favorite images in the shop: Christmas Hedgie to make a Christmas card. I've been making so few cards lately that nearly every card I make is Christmas .... I still have the dream that I might be able to send out homemade cards this year. I've got that Man of La Mancha song in my head, "To dream, the impossible dream ...."

Anyway, I hope you can join in our fun this week.