Whirlpool of Imagination

Halloween Mail

Happy Halloween!

I thought that this month I would show a few pen pal cards that had to do with Halloween. I got lots of wonderful cards, here are just a couple of them.

This fun Frankie card is from Lesley. I have really enjoyed the Frankie craze this year and was excited to get this little gem.

And as you will see all weekend, I used this card quite a bit as inspiration that Halloween season.

This fantastic card is from Bonnie.This holiday season, she made like a kajillion different Halloween cards and sent a different card to all of her pen pals.

I am totally amazed at the ability to keep changing things up that much and coming up with creative new ideas for the entire month of a single theme. Definitely check out her blog for lots of fun Halloween inspiration.

And last but definitely not least is a card from my very own Meghan. I have a bay window in my dining room with a fairly large ledge. I typically use that ledge for various holiday decorations. This season I had different Halloween things up and I interspersed all my pen pal Halloween/autumn cards. Well, Meghan wanted in on the action and made this card.

After all her hard work, I had to put it on the ledge with all my other great cards.

And there is just a small taste of some of my Halloween mail this season. I hope you have a fun and safe holiday (and don't eat too much candy!)

Two for the price of one

A couple of weeks ago, I tried out a couple different techniques that I had seen on Splitcoast. They were both backgrounds and sat around for a while. When making this card, I decided to throw the two of them together.

  This card contains both a faux batik as well as a marble background. The panel with the leaves came first when I decided I wanted to try faux batik. I stamped the leaves (not sure what company these are although they kind of remind me of Stampin' Up) with versamark on watercolor paper and then embossed with white embossing powder. I then spritzed the paper with water and stroked over it with ink refill on a paintbrush. Once it dried, I placed a piece of copy paper over it and ironed it until the embossing powder reheated and melted into the copy paper.

The tangerine background was created with marbles and ink. I used plastic cases that the stamps from SU and TAC come in. In one, I put van dyke brown refill, my paper and marbles and rolled them around until I got the look I wanted. I then placed the cardstock in another case with gold acrylic paint and marbles and let that one roll around for a while.

The sentiment is from Papertrey. I first cut the circle in my nestabilities die, kept the paper in the die and stamped part of the leaf in the circle (second generation) and then overstamped the sentiment. I cleaned my ink off the die right away so there was no problem with staining.

I usually don't spend quite this much time on a card but I have to say that both techniques were fun and I definitely want to try them again. 

I spent much of today getting stuff ready for Halloween tomorrow. I'm a bad one for procrastinating so I'm happy I got the stuff done as early this evening as I did! Now I can relax a bit - hope you have a great night.

Swirly Tree

Can you believe that October is almost over? I feel like like I blinked and the month is gone. The leaves continue to fall all around us so that is the theme for today's card.

  I really like this swirly tree image from Inkadinkado. Their line of clear stamps are fun, fun, fun. The card itself was pretty easy. Besides a bit of stamping, there is a lot of sponging. The ribbon is from Papertrey. If you haven't tried their ribbon, I would suggest you try some - its wonderful quality.

So I'm still trying to decide what to make for the kids' school treats. My brain is completely blank on this one. Oh, the possibilities for jokes if Mo read my blog........

I'm off to get the kids ready for school. It's a yucky rainy day here - hopefully its nicer where you are. Have a great day!

Card Storage

One of the biggest challenges of this hobby/career is storing everything that goes with it. And that includes the finished product. I have debated about the best way to store my master card designs. I wanted to come up with something that kept them in one place, could accomodate all sizes/shapes and could look pretty. I think I've finally come up with a solution. Have you been to the There She Goes website yet? Not only do they sell very good quality acrylic stamps, they now also have a very neat card storage solution.

This is what their card bins look like when put together. I ordered a set of three of these when they were first offered. The bins come to you flat but they are very easy to construct. In fact, everything is just one piece - it's a matter of folding up the sides. Believe me, I am challenged when trying to put things together and this was easy as pie, even for me.

  Before I actually put this together, I decided on what I would use this one for (winter holiday cards) and chose paper to go with that theme. Pretend I'm just starting and you don't see the paper yet. I didn't take pictures as I went along.

I wanted to match the inside of the bin with the paper. While I liked the white layers, I wanted to cover the brown. By using plain old acylic paint I painted the inside just to jazz things up a bit. I needed three layers in the end to coat the brown the way I wanted to. My goal was to make the insides look nice when the cards are in the bin.

And here is the finaly product with some paper and a bit of ribbon and with sample cards in it. I have various sizes and shapes of cards held within this box and they all fit nicely. And these are roomy. I will be able to fit in lots more cards before it fills up.

I recently had someone place an order with me and what a pleasure it was to present this piece to them for them to make a selection. In the past, I'd just pile a bunch of cards in a bag and pull them out when needed. Now I can offer a piece that looks as put together as the cards themselves.

I'm in the midst of decorating the other two I have and will show them off when they are done. I would definitely recommend this item (and this company) if you are looking for a new card storage system. The quality is fantastic and the customer service is exceptional.

Spooky Hair

Well, not really spooky, but cute for Halloween. Meg had her Halloween party this weekend and I wanted to come up with some activities for the girls to do. You know I have to do one or two little crafty things. Since Meg is a girlie girl, she is always wearing pony tail holders, so we decided to have the girls make ribbon pony tail holders. This is a super easy activity that can easily be adapted for whatever color scheme you want.

  Not many supplies are needed. This is done with an elastic pony tail holder and ribbon. Here you see enough ribbon cut for all 6 girls.

For ribbon, I suggest sheers mainly. Here I have various types and I used 3/8" and 1/2" ribbon. I do not recommend grograin because it is too bulky and the knot won't stay and I don't recommend satin because it is slippery and the knot won't stay.

Each piece of ribbon here was cut to 8" in length. You could adjust this according to your taste - this is the size that worked for us.

Each girl had 12 pieces of ribbon - 2 each of 6 different designs. To make the pony tail holder, you cross over the ribbon piece like you were starting a knot and tighten. These are all single ties - not double knots. The sheer seems to catch nicely when you tighten it. And if any start to loosen up a bit, just give a quick tug and retighten.

The girls made different patterns according to what they wanted. You don't have to use as many ribbon designs and you could even pretty them up with rhinestones or crystals.

Here is Meg showing off the one she made. What's fun is that she can be involved in the process of deciding on ribbons and colors so this project can truly be individualized for her by her.

You can bet we'll be sporting Christmas ones before too long!

Berry Medallion

A couple of weeks ago, the project on the Splitcoast newsletter was a medallion element created using the Stampin' Up scallop edge punch. I immediately put that on my "must try" list and finally got around to it today.

  The medallion measures 2.75 inches. By using the scallop edge on all 4 sides, you get this pretty medallion. The stamp I used is from Close to My Heart and I used pure poppy ink from Paper Trey.

The white layer was cuttlebugged with the swiss dots folder and then I used basic acrylic paint and dry brushed the cardstock. From there it was only a matter of layering.....

It's Monday night even though this post was started last Thursday. When I tried to originally post this I realized I had taken the wrong picture and had to redo everything. Then the weekend came and with it, Meg's Halloween party (I have a quick and easy kids project to show you tomorrow from that) and finally, my computer decided to act up on me yesterday. So here it is, a new day and FINALLY a new blog post! Hope your weekend was spectacular - ours was!

Santa Spotted

I have a lot of Santa stamps (okay, I have a lot of stamps in general but I DO have a lot of Santa stamps). And many of those poor Santas have yet to see ink. Today I decided to get one of them dirty. I think with tomorrow's release of new Papertrey stamps, I'm subconsciously reaching for uninked PTI stamps so I don't feel guilty about buying tomorrow. Those sneak peeks have completely won me over - there will be new PTI stamps in the house before too long.

  In general terms, this card is inspired by a card I saw over at Splitcoast but that one featured a snowman rather than Santa. Santa is colored with a copic marker and his fringe is "colored" with "snow" from Plaid/Deco Art. He is pop dotted over the ribbon - I find I really like the slight dimension that pop dots give me without making the card too bulky. And i use the term pop dots loosely. I actually use foam mounting tape that I cut into however many pieces I need/want for whatever I'm adding dimension to. A large roll goes a long way and I use it a LOT.

The sentiment is from Lizzie Anne and is stamped in burgundy (Stampin' Up).

The kids are back to school today and now I need to finalize details for Meg's Halloween party this weekend. Thanks for the suggestions I have received - I appreciate the help!

The Infamous Drippy Goo

The science of marketing.....it's so interesting to see what tool or gadget is a must have and what is a must not have. Have you read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell? It's a really interesting book about this very topic. Whether it is an idea, a behavior or, in this case, a product, this book talks about how they spread. How they become epidemics, in Gladwell's words. It's a cool read - I recommend it if you get the chance. This leads me to the drippy goo punch by Martha Stewart Crafts. Who knew that they would become a coveted item this Halloween season? I was lucky - I picked one up about a month ago in a rare trip to Michaels. I figured after buying it, I'd better put it to some use (or sell it on ebay if I want to make a bundle!)

  I was trying to make some October notecards for myself. I had one idea that really wasn't working so I completely scrapped it and grabbed my drippy goo punch instead.

I punched the drippy goo in both green and purple and added stickles along the edges of both. Once attached to the white layer, I stamped a pumpkin from the Halloween set from There She Goes in orange ink from Stampin' Up. I used the xyron to adhere the goo which made quick and easy work of these.

Here's the set of notecards I worked on today. All in all, not counting the tons of time I spent on the idea that DIDN'T work, these took no time at all.

Columbus Day went well here. There was a minor skirmish this evening but overall, the day off from school was a mostly relaxing event. (Those do happen sometimes!). Have a great night!

Happy Holidays Tree

Good Saturday morning! I am still on my Christmas kick so today is all about that.

I'm a little behind the times - this is one of Papertrey's Christmas stamps from last year. I do have this year's tree set but I went with the poor neglected set first.

This card, like the last one, is a 5x7 sized card. WIth the slightly bigger image, I felt I could get away with the bigger size card.

The tree is colored with prismacolor and copic markers and the sentimet, also from Papertrey, is stamped with Stampin' Up ink. Beyond that, add a little bit of patterned paper, a small cuttlebugged section and lots of cardstock, and there you go.

I'm looking out my window at the beautiful sunshine of a classic autumn day. My neighbor's tree is filled with gorgeous red leaves - talk about great inspiration. Have a fabulous day! 

Christmas Peace

My pen pal Siobhan was having a CTMH party but unfortunately I couldn't get to Japan for it :). Instead, I did the next best thing - placed a mail order! It's been a while since I've gotten anything new from CTMH so I figured I was due.

One of the sets I picked up was Christmas themed so I figured I'd give the wreath a whirl. The wreath and the paper are from CTMH. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I went round and round on the layout. I kept trying to decide whether I needed another layer or some ribbon. I did add a bit of piercing underneath the sentiment although it doesn't really show up in the picture. In the end, I decided to, as Tim Gunn would say, edit myself rather than trying to go for too much.

Most of my cards are usually an A2 size but this one does top off at 5x7. I think that may have thrown me since I'm so used to working with the smaller size.

Schools were closed today so I had Meg and Conor with me all day. We went out to the pumpkin patch and picked up some pumpkins and hay for the front porch. Meg and I had a few creative differences but worked it out in the end so now we have pumpkins. Hopefully the squirrels will leave them alone!