My decor for HALLOWEEN...the most wonderful time of the year!

 So, as promised, I'm back to talk about my absolute favorite thing about October...it's HALLOWEEN! I'm a little bit of a freak when it comes to this holiday and my tastes in decor are usually quite dark and macabre. The cutesy stuff is nice, but I like the truly wicked and mysterious decor (not necessarily blood and gore, although that's ok too)...i just tend to like a more spooky or sinister feel. I think I've made myself clear, don't you?

Anyway, I thought i'd share some of my Halloween home decor which is almost always inspired by(and sometimes, a direct copy of) something I saw on Pinterest.  This is a very photo-heavy post and even though I arranged them neatly in the post window, they publish differently so I apologize. You can check out my Halloween pinterest board here.

First up is my bathroom. I don't do a whole lot because it's a small bathroom and there isn't a lot of room for unnecessary stuff. This is mostly dollar tree items with a few finds from Michaels (like the scull felt placemat which I thought made a perfect wallhanging). What I really wanted to do was attach it to a canvas and have lights behind it to really show off all the intricate cuts. I have a quirky sense of humor, so i though the "enter if you dare" was funny for the bathroom door :).

Next is the Dining room. A goodwill sheet, 3 tier plate display and a couple white stemmed cups along with dollar tree pumpkins covered in inexpensive fabric. The "hoosier" cabinet got some fake family photos which were cheap plastic framed things at dollar tree which I cut and placed into "real" dollar tree frames. along with a specimen cloche (made from a 2 litre bottle and a heart shaped ornament) which is holding a few rotting and moldy hedge apples. On the top of the cabinet, I added a skeleton to the bike that always sits there and he (or she) is hauling a basket of mini sculls. In the corner, is a disembodied head that I made last year.

creepy cloth draped over existing curtains with a spider and pom pom banner

Bats were cut on my silhouette then scored and folded for dimension and adhered with some atg tape


The next area is the mantle and living room. I draped some tulle and added a set of Martha Stewart spiders crawling up and over the trim (FYI...i hate that wavy trim, but I can't seem to convince my husband to get rid of it!). The book covers are printables I found on pinterest which i inked over with brown distress ink to give them an aged look. A few more dollar tree pumpkins which are either crackle painted, covered in tissue, or left bright orange for a little color. EEK is spelled out with some inexpensive glittery foam letters I found at Wal-mart

The last few photos are also from the living room. A few "doctored" medicine bottles with labels printed from pinterest along with a fake dollar tree liver in a jar of water with bloody latest gloves. More "fake" framed family photos and a febreze luminary cover I designed and cut on my Silhouette. Also a Ouija board printable mounted on foamcore and a couple silhouettes added to existing frames.

pay no attention to the painters tape on this work in progress :)

The last but certainly not least item is my pride and joy. I should post a more detailed description of this, but basically, at Goodwill, I found a tacky battery-operated Santa on a rocking horse that I knew I could hack into something wicked....so I did. I bought a doll that fit the rocking horse and I coated it with a homemade recipe of texture paste which I painted in greys and whites to "zombify" it.

IT IS  positively creepy! I'm hoping i can post the video here, but I'm not sure it will work.

Birthday Wishes to many

October is without a doubt my favorite month of the year. I love the crisp morning air followed by warm afternoons, the brilliance of the fall leaves here in Kentucky & Ohio, fresh apple cider and anything....absolutely anything flavored with pumpkin! 

Another reason it's a favorite is because so many people dear to me were born in October, so there's lots of birthday wishes to send and celebrate this month.
Below is a card I made for a few of those October birthday (girls) in my life with some variations. I used 2 gifts from my dear friend Nancy; a set of neon inks from hero arts (link is to online sale at Joann's for $5.99), and a great background stamp from Darcie Heater (i think...don't know the name of it right now). The HB stamp comes from a clear set by Hero Arts called Glow Girl and  I'm crazy about it (also a gift...from my sis, Jen).

You can figure it out, but I basically stamped the background in each of the 4 neon ink colors, then I cut all 4 of the images the same way (doing 2 at a time in my paper trimmer), then you just piece them back together mixing and matching the colors and before you know it, you have 4 card fronts :). I wanted a solid accent strip on each card, so I randomly chose one of the 4 neon colors and inked a strip of white cardstock so it matched perfectly. The butterfly is done the same way...inked a piece of cardstock then punched it with a very, very old butterfly punch and then again with a scallop punch circle (that i just snagged for $5 at a store that shall remain nameless because i really don't like to shop there or support them).

Thanks for looking....I'll be back soon to post about the MAIN reason I love October...stay tuned :).

Shameful. Why do I even have a blog anymore? I so rarely post anything these days that it's almost laughable when I do. Ok, enough beating myself up. My sweet BFF Lisa and her wonderful hubby celebrated 20 years of marriage yesterday and they invited me and my hubs to join them! We had a wonderful dinner at Joe's Crab Shack - LOVE the food, hate the ambiance, but last night it wasn't too crowded, so the noise level wasn't near what it usually is. Anyway...I have limited supplies on hand in my temporary craft space (most everything is in storage right now) but I was quite happy with the card I managed to put together for her.
I can't give any details because I don't know the specifics for the paper or dies I used (off the top of my head)...however I'm sharing the final product because I like the way it turned out.

Blooming Diary - catching up!

While driving to work this morning, I noticed Iris blooming and realized I hadn't updated my blooming diary in oh so long!

So, without further ado, here's what I've seen:

April 4 - Tulips (photo taken at P&G headquarters, Cincinnati, OH)

April 5 - Daffodils

April 12 - Magnolia Trees (not my photo, but aren't they gorgeous...pictures do not even do them justice!)

April 18 - Forsynthia bushes

April 19 - Redbud trees

April 20 - Branford (or is it Bradford?) Pear (again, not my photo)

May 2 - Lilac bush

May 8 - Iris


I'm sure there are some I'm missing but i'm trying to keep track and send myself messages from my phone when i see them. obviously I don't have photos of everything posted, but at least I'm keeping up on the dates!

What's blooming in your area??

Blooming Diary - Crocus!

I'm not much of a gardener at all, but i do appreciate the beauty of flowers very much and for several years, I've wanted to keep a "blooming diary" to record when various flowers bloom in my area (Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky). So this is my first entry for 2014...let's see how long I can keep at it :).

It's been such a long, hard winter for so many of us, so I was very happy to see the Crocus blooming in my front yard this week. I first spotted them on St. Patrick's Day, so that's the date I'm "officially" recording.

Have you seen anything flowering in your yard yet?

Crocus is a genus of flowering plants in the iris family comprising 90 species of perennials growing from corms. Many are cultivated for their flowers appearing in autumn, winter, or spring.

Scientific name: Crocus

Rank: Genus

Higher classification: Crocoideae

Lower classifications: Crocus ligusticus, Crocus flavus, Crocus tommasinianus, Crocus sieberi, Saffron, Crocus vernus, Crocus chrysanthus, Crocus banaticus, Crocus cartwrightianus

Celebrating St Patrick's Day with an MFT card sketch

I liked the simplicity of card sketch #167 at My Favorite Things blog this week, so I used it to make several St Patrick's Day Cards (which hopefully are arriving in mailboxes today).

I'm trying to use up the many card bases I have from Club Scrap's Greetings to Go kits, so I looked through for anything green and found these tall cards. My shamrock embossing folder isn't long enough to cover the whole front, so my tip of the day here is to use 2 smaller pieces and then mask the separation with another strip (the diagonal in this case). I made a variety of sizes, but all matching the sketch.
The word Lucky was cut on my Silhouette several times (5 for each card) and then inked with distress ink in a rainbow of colors, then glued together in a staggered pattern, then covered with clear wink of stella glitter pen (completely inspired by Jen Mcguire's post here). I printed the sentiment "to have you as a friend" to adhere the lucky word to, and added different embellishments to each (some have twine, some have washi tape, etc).

Thanks for looking and may the luck of the Irish be with you today and everyday!

Wicked Pendant for a Wonderful show

Below is a photo of me (wearing the pendant) and my BFF Lisa at dinner before the show.

Maybe I will give a full review of the show on another post, but I can sum it up in two words. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!

Can I also just state for the record that I love having friends that "get me"....

and Lisa definitely "gets me"! I love you girl!

Now...onto the explanation: As is often the case, inspiration came to me just hours before a deadline! I don't know how to summon (perhaps I need to learn a spell??) this type of inspiration earlier in the creative process, but I guess that's just how I roll. Anyway, I needed a Wicked accessory to wear to the theater with my "little black dress". While searching online for the images used on the card in my previous post, I came across an image of the program bundle and I just loved the multiple color choices and most especially, I love the design with the gears in the upper left (but I needed/wanted green!).

So, I dug through my crafty stash and found an unopened package of Ideology Ornate Plates (image is from Etsy seller: PrettyPaperz).

I printed the image on white cardstock and then I simply traced the oval opening on the ornate plate on another piece of cardstock and cut it out for a template. I transferred the template to the printed image, cut the oval shape and glued it to the plate with glossy accents. As printed, the image was a bit small for the oval opening, so I added the green gems at the bottom to mask the shortage plus I thought a little green bling was called for! I then went to my bead stash and found some beautiful green cat eye like beads, a couple appropriately sized bead caps, and a bronze chain, and just attached all with a few jump rings. If time had allowed, I would have added alcohol ink to the bead caps to make them match the bronze finish on the chain and the ornate plate, AND...I would have covered/sealed the image with glossy accents, but since time didn't allow, I just went with it as is. It was the perfect accessory for a perfect show!

 

If you love musicals and all things Oz, you MUST see this show. Heck, I'd even reco it if you don't love musicals or Oz. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it. Simply magical and an experience of a lifetime!

Wicked - The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz

The day has finally arrived....I'm going to see Wicked tonight with a couple of my bestest friends!! I'm positively giddy with excitement and I'm listening to the soundtrack as I write this post :)

The tickets were a gift for my girlfriend Lisa's birthday, so, in honor of this wonderful occasion, I made an appropriate birthday card and I thought I'd share. Chances are she won't be perusing my blog before tonight so she won't see it!

Try to ignore the fact that the photo is wonky and that I've "borrowed" someone's image for the inside greeting (c'mon...i'm not selling it or anything!)

MFT Sketch & ColourQ challenges

Since it's utterly ridiculous how long it's been since I blogged, I'm not even going to try to defend myself. So much has happened in my life since I posted anything, so perhaps I will update with all that later :)

I needed a few thank you cards, and I have been itching to use my new bold statements stamps from MFT (thanks sissy!) So, I figured I might as well play along with their sketch for this week, #158. In addition, I've followed the suggested color palette from ColourQ #223.

      

I really wasn't loving the burgundy and poppy together, so I stopped forcing myself to use em both and just went with the poppy color. Paper is from random Club Scrap kits & Coredinations (which is sanded). Stamp is MFT Bold Statements. Flowers are cut with MFT's Die-namics :upsy daisy. Modern wallpaper embossing folder by cuttlebug.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to blog more often than every 6 months :)

Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge

I decided to make several of the same card to simplify things a bit. Inspired by sketch #302 at Mojo Monday and a card I saw on Pinterest, I churned out 4 cards very similar to this one. Card base, purple panel & butterfly are all Club Scrap paper. swirl stamp is from a set called Henna by Tia Bennett. Sentiment is Rubber Stampede. Ink is Club Scrap's Amethyst. I added little pearls on the butterfly and swirl with Viva Decor Pearl Pen in Ice White.