Teacher Halloween Gifts | WOW! Wednesday

Today is Halloween which is a big day at my daughter's school!  The students get to dress in costume and parade through the Lower School, Middle School and Upper School.  After that, they return to their classrooms for parties.  It's quite an event!

Here is the card I made for each of the 4th grade teachers which I gave them along with a little treat bucket from the Target $1 aisle filled with my famous peanut butter cookies (you can find the recipe HERE)!

It's also WOW! Wednesday at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks blog.  Don't forget to comment on the entries or enter yourself - both qualify you for prizes!

Card Supplies:
image colored with Copics - Bugaboo Stamps Make It Snappy - Stella Witch
card stock - from my stash
ribbon - Really Reasonable Ribbon

SU! Stamp Club - October

This month at the Stampin' Up! Stamp Club with demonstrator Christi Beck, we made this adorable pumpkin card.  I was so excited to discover that I own all of the punches used to make this card.  We used half of a modern label punch to form the stem of the pumpkin and layered 3 large oval punches to make the pumpkin - so easy!

I was supposed to make a second card but had to leave early.  If you'd like to see the sample of the second card, you can click HERE to see it on Christi's blog.  It's a Christmas card!

SFYTT October | We R Fiesta

I know that most card makers are working on fall, Halloween and Christmas cards right now, but if you make cards for Operation Write Home, those deadlines have all nearly passed (Christmas is due by October 31).  So, I'm trying to get in the frame of mind to make Love and Valentine's cards already.  It's hard...I'm still in the Christmas mood!  But, here's a Love card (generic love are more useful for OWH than specific Valentine's cards) I made using the We R Memory Keepers Fiesta line of paper and a jewel from Bazzill.

I've done really well keeping up with the Sketch For You To Try Challenge at i{heart}2stamp all year - so glad that it's a monthly challenge!  This is my entry following the October sketch.

Doodle Pantry - WOW Wednesday

It's WOW Wednesday again at the Cat's Creations Scrapbooks blog.  My card today is a thank you I mailed to my dad last month after he came for a visit and took us to dinner for my and my husband's birthdays (both in September) at our favorite restaurant - Texas de Brazil.

I colored the sunflower from Doodle Pantry's Topiary Seasons with my Copic markers (this is available pre-colored or outline), used the sentiment from Rounded Wishes and digi paper from Four Seasons Digi Paper Pack.  I love how everything works together across the Doodle Pantry sets - it makes card making a breeze!

Don't forget - TODAY is the deadline to participate in the Doodle Pantry Digital Challenge.  Make any card using a Doodle Pantry image and you will receive a free digi stamp set just for entering!  If you want to shop, today is also the last day to get Pumpkin Ants free with a purchase.

And, I'm still working through the OWH Sketches - this is sketch #38!

Ribbon Scraps Ornament Card

Here is another card that inspired me from the Operation Write Home World Card Making Day Blog Hop!  This one is by Donna Inks LA, and she has even provided a tutorial.

Donna's Card that I CASE'd

My First Attempt - Tip: Start at the top of your ornament to ensure no white shows through!

My Second Attempt - Much Better!

My first card uses Bo Bunny papers, a SU! sentiment in Cherry Cobbler ink with Word Window punch and Modern Label Punch, scrap ribbons and silver elastic cord from SU!

The second card uses patterned papers and ribbons from We R Memory Keepers, card stock and a brad from Bazzill, and a rub-on from my stash.

A CASE'd Christmas Card

I belong to a Stampin' Up Stamp Club and bought these ornament stamps and the matching dies for them.  I hadn't inked them up yet when I saw this card by Deborah Robb in the Operation Write Home World Card Making Day Blog Hop.  I instantly knew that I wanted to CASE her lovely card!  Thanks for the inspiration Deborah.

Deborah Robb's Card

My version of the card
Everything is SU! except the patterned paper is Bo Bunny.

I thought this would be a quick and easy card, but it wasn't.  Maybe because I decided to do 6 at one time.  I figured if I was stamping and die cutting I might as well make a few!  I had to stamp all of the ornaments in black and die cut them, then stamp them in red, die cut them and cut the toppers off before glueing them to the black bases.  Then I stamped the round ornaments in green, used the 3/4" circle punch to punch out the center and pop them up on the red ornaments.  That was the most time-consuming part of the project.  After that, it's all just assembly.  I used Cherry Cobbler and Lucky Limeade for my red and green.  I also decided that since my background was green, I would use all red ornaments so they would stand out against the background paper.

CHALLENGES:
ABC Christmas Challenge - U is for Up to You (any Christmas theme)

Doodle Pantry - Poppies

It's Wednesday which means I'm participating in WOW Wednesday over at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks blog!  Today I have a card that uses one of the newly released Doodle Pantry images called Poppies.  If you play along with this month's Doodle Pantry Digital Challenge, you can receive this image FREE.  Just make any card using a Doodle Pantry image (freebies can be found HERE to get you started) before the October 24 deadline!

I paired this image with Graphic 45 paper with a Wizard of Oz theme that I bought at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks (probably a year ago because I'm a paper hoarder!).  I colored the image with my Copic markers, but it also comes pre-colored in two different colors if you don't enjoy coloring your images.  Doodle Pantry has something for everyone!  I also followed the OWH Stars & Stamps sketch #65.

Tissue Box Covers

Last weekend I made Christmas gifts for all the fourth grade teachers - the one with the name on it is for my daughter's teacher.  They started making these at my LSS using a tutorial from Splitcoast Stampers. When I saw them, I thought they would be the perfect teacher gift, especially if I made them using paper that was not for a particular season.  I dragged out all of my Basic Grey papers from when I was doing kits-of-the-month with my LSS a few years back.  You can make these tissue box covers using two pieces of 8-1/2 x 11 card stock for the base and two pieces of 12 x 12 paper to cover them and then whatever you want to embellish - pretty inexpensive little gift, right?

My Fall Wreath

I don't make wreaths, but I bought this one at our school's annual "Pumpkin Patch" that sells decorated and painted pumpkins along with a whole slew of other decorative items that parents make.  I knew my mom would want to see it - she follows my blog!  LOL  This way she can tell me if I should hang it differently.  I'm sure she will make a suggestion because now that I look at the photos I'm thinking the decorated part should not go straight across the bottom.  What do you think?

Edited to Add:  My mom called me and said definitely NOT Choice A.  Do you like Choice B or Choice C better?!

Choice A

Choice B

Choice C

Hero Arts | Chevron Circles

When I come across cards that inspire me, I love to CASE (copy and steal everything) them.  I absolutely loved this card by Shari Carroll of the Hero Arts Design Team!  Luckily, it was also perfect for this month's ODBD Challenge at Operation Write Home to use circles.

I have this Hero Arts Zig Zag Cling stamp (4x6" stamp) so I knew I could easily pull this off!  I used SU! 2012-2014 In Colors cardstock and ink along with a sentiment from the Hero Arts Year Round Sentiments clear stamp set (an OWH fundraiser stamp set!).  I used an EK Circle Punch and was able to punch 6 circles out of each 4x6" stamp.  To be able to make more cards, I used 2 circles of each of 3 colors on my card and made 3 cards - each just slightly different.  Because this is another Clean & Simple card, I used my "good" Papertrey Ink white cardstock, too!

Doodle Pantry - Crescent Moon Ants

I haven't had much need to make baby cards lately because most of my friends are my age and done having babies - LOL!  However, one of the kindergarten teachers that I sub for often is expecting her first child in December (over Winter Break).  I will be long-term subbing for her in January and February.  So, I finally had a need for a baby card - YIPEE!

When Doodle Pantry released this image this summer, I thought it was very sweet and hoped I would be able to use it some day.  I paired the image with a sentiment from Create with TLC which fits the occasion perfectly since this is their first child.  Because I already knew they were expecting a boy, I stuck with the yellow and green digi papers that come with the image from Doodle Pantry.  I sure hope they like it!

And, it's WOW Wednesday at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks blog.  You can win a prize by linking up a project of any kind and/or commenting on other people's entries.  Cool, right?!

It's not too late to enter the Doodle Pantry Digital Challenge either - just use any Doodle Pantry image (not just a sentiment) and enter your project by October 24.  You will automatically receive a free image just for playing along and be eligible to win a gift certificate as well!

Birthday Card with Scraps

This is a card that I made at the last scrapbook crop I attended (it was a while ago!).  I used scraps of paper from a scrapbook page I made to create the card.  I need to try to do this more often while I'm scrapbooking so that I don't have so many leftover bits and pieces.  Do you scrapbook?  Do you use your scraps to make cards?  Do you have favorite sketches to use for cards using your scraps?  Operation Write Home has a whole tutorial on how to "wrangle" your scraps along with a few sketches that are perfect for using up scraps HERE!

OWH World Card Making Day Blog Hop

Woohoo!  These hops are so much fun, aren't they?!  I hope you are finding a ton of inspiration as you make your way through all of the blogs.  If you need to go back to the list of blogs, click HERE!

The theme of the blog hop is to make a wintry card using any sketch.  I'm doing my best to make my way through all of the OWH sketches this year, but I noticed after I die cut my image into an oval that there aren't very many OWH sketches with ovals.  Soooo, I went to my "back up" sketches over at Mojo Monday and used this one from July 5, 2010!

Here's my card...

Card Supplies:
pre-colored image, sentiment - Doodle Pantry Snowflake Sheep
digi paper - Doodle Pantry Winter Worm
ink, card stock - Stampin' Up! Wisteria Wonder and Rich Razzleberry
dies - Nestabilities ovals and scalloped ovals

You can participate in the Doodle Pantry Digital Challenge with any Doodle Pantry image until October 24 - you will receive a free digital stamp set just for playing along AND be entered to win a gift certificate.  What a deal!

CAS using paper scraps!

CAS means Clean and Simple!  While this isn't really my usual style, I aspire to be able to do CAS cards well, so I do follow several of the clean and simple style blogs.  One of them called Clean and Simple Stamping provides sketches and this one just spoke to me.  I could envision all of the possibilities of cards I could make with the TONS of scraps of patterned papers that I hoard - leftovers from scrapbook pages or mini albums mostly.  The number of cards I made in one afternoon was only limited by the time available.  I could have gone on making cards with this sketch for weeks or even months!  LOL

One tip when making single layer CAS cards is to use the best possible white card stock for a base.  I normally use the Georgia-Pacific white card stock from Walmart because I have many layers on my cards, but for CAS I use the "good stuff" from Papertrey Ink!

Here's the sketch:

3/4" wide strips - start with 6" long (if available) and trim the excess

And here are some of the 23 cards I made:

Bo Bunny Paper - Hero Arts Year Round Sentiments - Memento black ink

Three Bugs in a Rug Paper - Hero Arts Year Round Sentiments - Memento brown ink

Three Bugs in a Rug Paper - Hero Arts Year Round Sentiments
I added an extra strip of paper because my ink (SU! Pumpkin Pie) smudged!

Challenges:
Operation Write Home Midweek Throwdown Challenge - Thinking of You
Moxie Fab World - Thinking of You for WCMD Week

SU! Stamp Club | WOW! Wednesday

It's WOW! Wednesday at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks blog.  Today I'm sharing a pair of cards that I made but did NOT design myself.  I completed these cards last week at my Stampin' Up! Stamp Club with Christi Beck.  I thought the Santa card was very creative.  When I first looked at it, I thought the black strip was threaded through a buckle, but there are TWO pieces of black so that it only LOOKS like it's threaded through.  Very clever!  Santa's beard was made using a die that we adhered and trimmed the other side off of - another clever idea, right?

Don't forget to comment and link up your creations to be eligible to win prizes from Cat's Creations Scrapbooks!  Last week's winner was Shaunery - chosen from MY blog comments.  You could be next!

Doodle Pantry - October Release Day

Yay!  It's the first of the month which means it's time for another Doodle Pantry new release.  This month there are mischievous ants, cute polar bears, fall-themed images of every kind and, if you can imagine it, Golfing Fish!  You must go to the store and check out all the new images HERE!

I used the pre-colored version of Corn Field Ants along with one of the sentiments and both digi papers that comes with it.  It's so handy to have digi papers that go so well with the images!  I added a bit of ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon, some leftover card stock, and used a sketch from Mojo Monday (July 2, 2012) that I turned on its side.

Don't forget that the Doodle Pantry Digital Challenge begins today at NOON - everyone receives a free image just for playing.  This month the free image is Poppies.  All you have to do is make a card of your choice using a Doodle Pantry image - that's almost too easy!  LOL

Pumpkin Pie Ants is the image that is free with a purchase until October 24 - who doesn't love pumpkin pie, especially loaded with whipped cream!  The ants sure do!

Challenges:
Delicious Doodles - Autumn Scenes or Autumn Colors
Bugaboo Catch the Bug - Seasonal/Fall Harvest
Paper Pretties - Fall Inspired
Can You Digi It? - Indian Summer
Milk Coffee Challenge - Welcome Fall