fright night

Happy Halloween, folkes! I did it again ... forgot to leave a card to post on the actual holiday, so I quickly made up one using one of my latest stamps - this one's a single - and Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday sssc91 sketch challenge. This'll be a quick post 'cuz Geoff wants to show me his latest background on his PC. Oh, and by the way, it's now official ... I have enough Halloween stock on hand to never have to purchase another item ever again, LOL! If you see me at a store considering making yet another purchase, please remind me!

stamps: SU's Midnight Raven, Unity's Hauntingly Sweet (inside sentiment); paper: My Mind's Eye's Haunted Spooky Words DP, Paper Co's Kraft, Paper Reflections' black card stocks; ink: Ranger's black soot distress ink; accessories: unknown black web ribbon, Making Memories' vintl tape Spook Alley (inside sentiment)

best {thanksgiving} wishes

I tend to be heavy-handed ... I have a lead foot, I press when I write with pen or pencil, I bear down sometimes too heavy when stamping ... get the drift?! So it comes as a surprise to me that it appears I may have sponged ink on this card a bit too gently?! I distressed every piece of cardstock but for the faux ribbon, in case you can't tell from the picture.

This was one of the cards we made at today's make-'n-take at Karen's, before we headed north to take in Shipshewana on the Road in Birch Run. It was a first for me, and I got some good deals - a few tees for $2.50 ea, 2 pkgs of dress socks - at 6 pairs each for $5 each, a couple used stamps for $2 and $3, and a cool wrought iron wreath holder complete with wreath for $20.

No deets today - tho' I really like the mustard-y color of the card stock, and the DP ... and I'm a sucker for leaf punches and stamps!

trick or treat

Somebody, stop me! I keep making Halloween cards and can't help myself! I'd picked up this DP and matching stamp set a couple weeks ago and put it aside ... and realized this a.m. that I'd not stamped it yet. Sigh ... so here's another card, this one loosely based on clean & simple's FTL113 sketch challenge.

I DO enjoy Halloween, tho', and always have. We hold trick or treating at my workplace from 3-5 p.m. the Friday before the holdiay, and lots of employees or their spouses bring their kids up. I generally like to get into the spirit and have amassed quite a collection of clown and witch garb. I don't recall which I was last year ...

stamps: My Mind's Eye blackbird stamps, Unity's Hauntingly Sweet (inside sentiment); paper: My Mind's Eye Blackbird Neighborhood DP, A1 Neenah Natural White, ColorMates' Dark Morning Mist, Dark Terra-Cotta card stocks; inks: SU's Close to Cocoa, Kiwi Kiss and asst'd Tri-C watercolor markers; tools: ek success' dotted scallop border punch

at the movies

I saw Life As We Know It with Sue, Sue, 'n Barb this afternoon. It's interesting to get different folkes' interpretation of movies. This is a romantic comedy, my fav genre, one that my DH generally considers "chick flicks" and I usually reserve for when I can get together with my buddies SueB, SueS, and BarbW. In reviews I read today while snitching a picture to use, I see lots refer to it as a great date flick. Well, it was, and there were plenty of couples in the theater today when we went to see it.

I laughed, I cried, and laughed again (okay, LOTS more laughs than tears here). The whole audience was appreciative - busting out laughing at the silly parts, and weepy at the sad parts. It stars Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel, and Josh Lucas, with supporting parts by Christina Hendricks, Hayes MacArthur, and Jean Smart. They're all great here - t'riffic chemistry between the whole cast. This one's a 5 star flick - I'll definitely be checking it out again when the DVD's released!

at the movies w Sue 'n Paul

My DH and I took in Red this afternoon as I flexed a couple hours off work. I had to visit imdb.com to check out the cast of characters as there were so many big names in it and was surprised to see who wasn't listed as top-billed! It starred, in no particular order (ok, for the most part it's by their appearance on film), Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine, and (new-to-me) Karl Urban.

Suffice to say it was an over-the-top action adventure flick about a team of spies who come out of retirement to uncover a government conspiracy meant to cover up some wrongs committed by a high-ranking official while in the service a couple decades ago. Is that not giving too much away? 'Cuz, you really ought to see it! It was filled with one-liners and tho' at times it seemed like the cast was grinning and just enjoying themselves a tad too much during some of the action sequences, it was one helluva ensemble piece! I'm giving it 4.5 of 5 stars!

happy b'day, bro'

My favorite youngest brother (hi Mark!) enjoyed a birthday this month, and I was a BAAAADD sister ... I made a card based on his fav cartoon, Mr. Peabody & Sherman of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon series, but didn't have it ready to be delivered in time for his b'day. I MEANT to ... but like my Mom used to tell me, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions (yes, I heard that LOTS while growing up, LOL!). And then, to top that off, I MEANT to send him an e-card on his b'day ... yeah, and forgot to. And THEN I messed up his birth date and put him 900 years older than he actually IS! Sigh ... of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most!

Anywho, I felt the need to wait 'til I was sure he'd seen his card before posting it here. And bro' Mark probably already knows this, but a film based on the cartoon is in development stage and slated for a 2012 release.

stamps: n/a (all pics I found on the Internet), sentiments PC-generated; tools: Cuttlebug w Spellbinders' Nestabilities

a CASE study

October is filled with family birthdays. I could tease my sister about whether winter could perhaps be her favorite season rather than fall, with all that snuggling leads to ... all three of her kids were born in October! And one of my brothers has an October birthday as well! I was a BAAAAD aunt / sister and didn't get my cards all made in time this year. Heck, I sent one an eCard! I DO love the Hallmark site and use it regularly. For a measly $10/year you get access to an unlimited supply of their eCards ... and they've got some of my fav characters (think Hoops & YoYo, and Maxine!) as well! So, yes, I'll admit it ... I DO go the eCard route occasionally!

This card made it into the mail this month, winging its way east to my niece Lisa. I went elegant this year, with this pretty flocked DP popped up on Kraft ... er ... make that Crumb Cake card stock. It's CASEd from Tobi's card (here). And I LOVE purple so had to use that awesome satin ribbon for a splash of color! The fluffy ribbon meant that I had to get special packaging rather than just send it in a regular envelope, which would have crushed it for sure. Hopefully it made it to her still fluffy! Love you, Lisa! Thanx for stopping by, folkes.

stamps: SU's Hugs & Wishes; paper: DCWV's La Crème matstack, SU's Crumb Cake card stock; ink: Ranger's black soot distress ink; accessories: unknown purple satin ribbon

have a spooky night!

I love A Muse Artstamps - especially their sentiment stamps! And I have a soft spot for phrases that use a mix of plain and script fonts.

I picked up a few house die cuts last month after a make-'n-take at Karen's Creative Stamping that had previously been used in a Halloween card workshop (how did I miss THAT class, I wonder?!). I paired just the rooftop of this one with a 1-1/4" circle cut from a pale yellow card stock, a snippet of a padded ribbon, and added a cute Halloween sentiment. Voila! Easy Peasy! Another Halloween card's done!

stamps: A Muse Artstamps' Spooky night; paper: SU's Kraft ... er ... Crumb Cake and So Saffron, unknown black card stock; ink: Ranger's black soot distress ink; accessories: unknown ghost padded ribbon; tools: Paper Shapers' 1-1/4" punch

Blog Action Day 2010 Water

Blog Action Day is held annually on October 15 to unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year's topic is water.

According to the kind folkes at change.org, currently almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us. Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.

I'm proud to use my blog to give a shout-out to the students and employees involved in Kettering University's chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB-USA), an organization devoted devoted to supporting the work of undergraduate, graduate, and professional engineers as they conduct development work in disadvantaged communities. Kettering's chapter (EWB-Kettering) was founded in 2006, and has members who are studying Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial, and Computer Engineering, as well as Biochemistry and Business. EWB-Kettering serves the Flint area and international development needs in villages in Africa and Mexico.

Locally, EWB-Kettering has designed and built playground equipment for 20 Flint elementary schools and wheelchair ramps for those who can't afford to do for themselves.

Internationally, EWB-Kettering has designed biosand water filters and SoDis (solar disinfection) units to clean and disinfect water for drinking. These systems (1) mechanically filter large parasites and bacteria, (2) “suffocate” smaller aerobic bacteria, (3) eliminate turbidity, and (4) sterilize the remaining bacteria and viruses with UV radiation. Select residents in the communities are trained on the use and maintenance of these systems. Kettering-EWB monitors the use of these systems in the village, and is exploring the possibility of delivering this technology to neighboring villages.

Visit the EWB-Kettering chapter for additional information, or to donate to this worthy cause thru the kind folkes at Network for Good!

gratitude

If it's the 2nd Thursday of the month you'll generally find my stamping buds (hi Pat and Kim!) and me at Angie Jarman's first of 3 monthly stamp camps! Here's my fav of the cards we made tonight - this one uses one of the new colors of this year's catty - Cajun Craze - that's really rich and pairs up wonderfully with my fav green, Old Olive, don't you agree?! Thanx, Angie - methinks this may be my first Thanksgiving Day card of the new year!

supplies - all SU unless otherwise specified - stamps: Day of Gratitude; paper: Cajun Craze, Old Olive, River Rock, Whisper White; ink: Cajun Craze, Old Olive, River Rock; tools: mat pack and paper-piercing tool

don't you just LOVE Sunday Mornings?

I do! And I've found at least one site that displays some of the unique suns they've displayed after some of their show's segments. Sunday Morning's news at its best, IMHO. They cover the news behind the news in a feature story each week, and provide news about the arts and sciences as well. Today's show included a segment on bone marrow transplants; I'm on the registry and encourage everyone to register!

Today was a special telecast in another way, at least for me. I was SO looking forward to wishing my DH a happy 10-10-10 at 10:10:10 a.m., but he slept in late and had departed to gas the car and get our usual Sunday morning breakfast treat of donuts and coffee (he makes the BEST coffee ever, BTW!). And then, the show, being on top of all things newsworthy, made note of it being the 10th day of our 10th month in the year 2010.

Interested in another oddity about October 2010? I had two friends point out to me this past week that this October has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays, which happens once every 823 years*. Now, wouldn't THAT be special?!

* well, it WOULD, but it's more like "every 6-11 years" - I checked on snopes.com and read that this past August had 5 of each, as well. If we stop to really think about it, every month of 31 days will have the 5 weekend days on the average of every 7 years, give or take a few years due to leap years (izzat capitalized or not?!) ... I'm just sayin' ...

them thar's spooky words!

But ... not TOO spooky, agree?! I like the mono- chromatic look of this card - it's all about natural white, kraft, and black ... topped off with some DELISH flocked DP! So I HAD to use my new Crumb Cake ink for the full moon, right?! Of COURSE! (so glad you agreed!)

I'm cooling it today and my goal is to make a b'day card for my sweet niece but I'd had this DP staring me in the face for the past week or so. I picked it up last weekend at Capture-a-Memory while perusing the "new to you" items at their sidewalk sale. So ... today's a two-fer. As my blog auto mirror posts to Facebook, hers will have to wait 'til AFTER her b'day to emerge.

I dunno about you, but I don't get a card done daily. Some weeks there are multiples on a daily basis; other weeks I seem to only get crafty on weekends. Hey, some weeks pass by when I don't get crafty at all!

Today I MEANT to donate platelets at the Red Cross, but I forgot and took a "low dose" aspirin (it's a recent daily medical regimen) this past Thursday. I spoke to someone yesterday who assured me I was okay to donate, but this a.m. I wanted to be sure and mentioned it to the nurse before I started my questionnaire portion of my donation registration, and she confirmed that I shouldn't donate 'cuz I'd had aspirin within the past 48 hours.

So, instead I did what any natural-born crafter would do ... I went in search of necessary crafty items to support the local economy. Today that meant taking my two 40% and one 50% off coupons to JoAnn's! I saw an ol' working buddy and his bride from back in my GM days - hi Terry! - and we talked kids and scrapping and card-making for a bit before going on our separate ways. I picked up some SWEET DP and card stock and Halloween supplies using my coupons ... more to follow on that in another post while Mrs Terry picked up a cool music ek success border punch!

stamps: A Muse Artstamps' Frightful & delightful, SU's Home Is Where the Haunt Is; paper: My Mind's Eye's Spooky Words DP, A1 Neenah Classic's Natural White, Paper Co's Kraft, Paper Reflections' Black card stocks; ink: Ranger's black soot distress ink, SU's Crumb Cake; accessories: unknown die cut house top, Buy-The-Spool black ric-rac ribbon; tools: Cuttlebug w Spellbinders Nestabilities Label 8

Really Reasonable Ribbon

Thar be blog candy over at Really Reasonable Ribbon, folkes! If you haven't scoped them out YET, you should. The name says it all! I'll keep the blog candy link on the top of the right-hand side of my blog 'til the drawing. If I don't win (but I really want to! pick me, Bonnie!), I hope one of my readers does!

a sticky situation

While perusing my sticker inventory a couple weeks ago for my "talk like a pirate" posts, I happened upon these sweet Stickopotamus spideys, and I thought they'd pair up cute-like with my latest making memories' vinyl tape strips!

Quick post tonite - my DH just left to pick up Chinese take-out for supper! LOVE that man! Thanx for stopping!

stamps: n/a; paper: SU's Kiwi Kiss card stock; ink: PC-generated (inside) sentiment; accessories: making memories Spook Alley vinyl tape strips, Stickopotamus Spiders binder stickers

when I count my blessings ...

... I count you twice! My niece's birthday is coming up and this is for her. And my, does that sentiment mean a lot in our relationship of late! She's doing SO much better in such a short time since the accident in late June. The background piece is from one of my test pieces from the alcohol inks technique class I took this past Saturday. I recently got the Labels 8 Nesty set at Hobby Lobby, and Ranger's eggplant and lettuce inks. My sister's favorite color is purple; hopefully some of that rubbed off on Jenn too! I've been following Joy, Robin, and Vera's challenges on the Less is More blog and was inspired to pull out my Labels 8 nesties for today's card.

stamps: Technique Tuesday/Ali Edwards' Loving Words; paper: SU's Old Olive and Staples' white card stocks; inks: SU's Old Olive and PC-generated sentiment; accessories: Offray lavender ribbon; tools: Cuttlebug w Spellbinder Nestabilities Labels 8

sending you sunshine

Here's another alcohol inks card - this one using a background inked today while practicing with the inks and adding a few items from the Good Neighbors and Sun, Moon & Stars stamp sets. The sentiment's one of my favs from Amuse Artstamps. Hope you had a t'riffic day! Thanx for stopping!

happy world card making day!

Well, I definitely made cards today! I've some that still need a few last-minute touches before I post, but following are four cards made from an alcohol inks class I took this afternoon at Karen's Creative Stamping.

This cutie silhouette flower is stamped on a sheet of transparency - no deets on the stamp, tho' it's very pretty, eh?! - and then the reverse is sponged with two colors of Ranger's alcohol inks (eggplant and pool) and then stamped with a glue pad and sprinkled on the reverse with an opalescent sparkle. It's attached by the two brads onto a white card stock mat and the ribbon tied around this matted piece before mounting it on the black card stock.

The surfer Santa card was made from adhering aluminum foil to card stock and running that thru a Big Shot, then rubbing the entire bubble front with a combo of two Ranger alcohol inks (pool and citrus ... and yeah, I can hardly make that step out either), then dripping some pool onto the front. I originally planned on adding a fish stamp popped up on the front but when I got home, this Santa stamp was calling to me. Actually it's two stamps in one - Surfin' Santa doesn't have a board, so I borrowed this one from his buddy Surfer (both Amuse Artstamps). This may actually be my first Christmas card of the year. You see, my eldest brother lives in California, so it's going to head to him and his lady.

The inchies card (well, not quite - methinks they're actually inch-and-a-half-ies) was the result of gently crumpling aluminum foil and then straightening it out and glueing it to card stock, then dropping various colors of alcohol inks, and cutting and matting those pieces after it dried. Pretty awesome stained glass effect, eh?!

And lastly, this silhouette flower card is from an embossing resist technique. We stamped and embossed the silhouette, then used alcohol inks (two colors again, tho' my head is spinning and I'm not sure here ... methinks these are purple twilight and raspberry), and then we put doubled paper over the dried card and ironed it to draw the embossing powder back off. Sweet, eh?!

world card making day 2010

Happy World Card Making Day, ya'll!

Celebrated by card-making enthusiasts everywhere on the first Saturday of October, today kicks off the holiday card-making season and celebrates the creativity of handmade cards and the personal connection that they create between friends and family.

En route to looking up info on Card Making Day, I discovered the following facts:

• The top occasions/themes for making cards are
  
  • Birthdays
  • winter holidays (Christmas, New Year’s, etc.)
  • thank you
  • Valentine’s Day
  • Mother’s Day