Happy Halloween Anna Griffin Style!

Hello, friends!  Are you dressed up?!  Are you just waiting for dark to see all the ghosts and goblins knocking on your doors?!  

This morning is one of my favorite events of the year at my kids' school-- the Halloween Parade!  It's only a bunch of kids walking across the stage, but let's face it-- we all wish we could be them, showing off our cool costumes to cheers from our friends and family!  It will be a day full of pictures, silliness, candy and staying out after dark-- what could be better?!

Here is my final card of the season (boo!).  I am a big Anna Griffin fan-- I have a huge number of her papers and collections that I find it hard to touch and cut apart because they are so beautiful as is.  Stamps can be used over and over again, though, so no guilt at using those!

The skeleton, hanging spider, sentiment and web border are all stamps from this collection.   Anna's Halloween stamps are just my favorite year after year. I am thrilled for you all that she re-released them this fall.  If you haven't picked them up in years past, grab them for next year before they disappear again!

Hope you and yours enjoy a spooky, treat-filled day and night!  Happy, happy!

Halloween Countdown Cards #2 & #3-- Claudine Helmuth

Happy Sunday!  Only four more days to Halloween!!! 

These cards were inspired by these awesome borders from Claudine Helmuth.  There is a huge selection of themes, holidays and seasons in this kit.  They would be great for scrapbook albums (true 12" borders), but I love cutting them to make a quick card.  HSN has these on serious clearance, so get them while you can!

 The tag and patterned paper are Studio Calico, the Boo stamp is Martha Stewart, the embossing powder is Inkadinkado, and the enamel dots are from My Minds Eye (Collectable collection).  Easy to throw this together!

This one was beyond easy.  The paper also came from a Studio Calico card kit, as did the Basic Grey stars.  Again, it seriously took cutting apart the border adding some background paper and a couple of stickers, and voila! 

Only a few more days.........

Halloween Countdown Card #1--Simon Says Stamp October Card Kit

As promised, some Halloween inspiration!

This was made as an attempt to use some paint on my cards, which isn't really in my comfort zone yet!  I have been reading May Flaum's blog since taking a Summer Camp class with her at Big Picture Classes.  She is inspiring me to try some new things-- thanks, May!

Most of the supplies came from the Simon Says Stamp October Card Kit.  (The non-kit items:  glitter is Stickles, the bat border stamp is from Anna Griffin's Halloween set, the background netting stamp is Stampin' Up, and I have no idea where that cute little spider came from!).   I keep saying I am going to stop my subscription-- and then they just keep coming out with kits that have favorite supplies in them!!!  One day, my addiction will end... :)

Almost Happy Halloween!!

It is my FAVORITE time of year again!!   I have been making tags with my boys to attach to goodies for their friends and, of course, lots of projects for my classes!!  My children's classes made trick or treat bags last week using Halloween stencils and thinned acrylic paint in spray bottles.  This week we will be making cool masks with paint and feathers and sequins.  Because what is Halloween without masks?!?! 

In my adult class this week we will be making Halloween picture frames.  My students can make it so they can add a picture or put a quote or some other scene in it like I did.

I have also been making cards (of course!).  Over the next week, I will post them so you can count down with me to my favorite holiday of the year!!

Hope you're all enjoying the ghoulish spirit!!!

Birthday Tags Obsession!!

I have two little boys, ages 5 and 6.  They have a zillion friends and a zillion birthday parties, it seems!  I adore the community of families that we have built here in Miami through our school and our neighborhood and my boys' sports teams.... but with often multiple birthday parties on a given weekend, it gets overwhelming with gifts and cards.

I can't stand to not make a homemade greeting, but over the last six months or so, I have become obsessed with quick and easy birthday tags instead of cards.  I mean, let's face it-- these kids don't care at ALL about a card!  And since most of my "wrapping" consists of dropping the gift into a bag and tossing some tissue paper on top, tags are just the easiest way to ensure the greeting stays with the gift.

With this obsession, I have begun to figure out how to make fun tags really quickly and easily, and I have begun to teach them in my Tuesday Morning Craft Class (since many of my students are also moms on the kid party circuit!).

These took exactly three minutes to make, including cutting and tying the bakers twine!  Best stamp set I have bought in years (which is saying a lot since I buy a lot of stamp sets!)!!  This one came with my first ever online class, Studio Calico's You've Got Mail.  I LOVE the stackable sentiments, but the highlight for me is, hands down, the streamers.  How happy are they?!?! 

This one took a little longer, but honestly, not much!  The tag at the top was actually a fix from a mistaken stamp (whoops!), so it took it from a 5 minute tag to a 10 minute tag... But still!!  The owl paper is from Jillibean Soup, and I can't remember the brand of the polka dotted washi tape.  The Happy Birthday sentiment came from a set meant to work with Spellbinders Labels dies, and the label punch is Stampin' Up.  All of my twine runs together, so forgive me for not knowing the manufacturer!!

I hope whether you're a mom on the party circuit or just a time-conscious gift giver that you consider joining me in my tag obsession!  Quick, easy and oh-so-fun!!

Pattern Play Days 2 & 3

Tomorrow afternoon, my brother-in-law arrives.  Brad is the remodeling hero of our home, having fixed almost all of the ugly things--from gutting the kitchen to painting the hallways.  The best part about Brad (besides his chatty nature and love of all lemon baked goods), is that he has done all of this for us despite living at the other end of the country.  Once a year, he leaves his wife and crosses the country to help us with a project. 

This year, the project is painting my studio!!  I am really excited to banish the dark brown walls (and brown ceiling and dark brick...).  But what was I thinking?!?!  For those who have done it, you know how hard it is to move out of your studio!!!  Throw onto that the fact that I am in the midst of major inspiration thanks to Pattern Play, and I am pretty much screwed.  I have to be out by tomorrow afternoon, and this is what my studio looks like...

Yes, what you see on that table are supplies from me just making stuff all evening instead of packing (yikes!)!  Did I mention that I am volunteering at my children's school all morning tomorrow?  Who needs sleep??

So back to Pattern Play....

I am loving this class, but I have to tell you that Day 2 really kicked my butt!!  I spent about two hours trying to do the resist technique, and I just couldn't get it to work.  And then I tried to piece my stamps on patterned paper, and I picked the wrong stamp.  So after 10 minutes of icky fussy cutting, it looked terrible!!  I finally threw in the Martha Stewart scissors and called it a night.

I went back at it last night, and I felt much better about myself with this card and the Day 3 lesson of breaking up hard-to-use patterns.  :-)  It's certainly not perfect, but I was able to use this fantastic Anna Griffin paper that has been staring at me for almost a year now.  I think I might have liked the sentiment better in black, but I was just done with it after the third label. 

 

The big pattern is Anna Griffin (6x6 botanicals that they used to sell on HSN, but I don't think you can get it anymore), and the tag was die cut from Glitz.   The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp (March card kit) and the ink is my favorite brown, which is an Anna Griffin pigment ink. 

So I finally got to finish watching Day 3 today, and I was pleased to piece, stamp on patterned paper (yeah from Day 2!) and use a small amount of patterned paper, which was the inspiration.  The idea of white space (literally) is hard for me-- I love color, color and more color.  But I am SO happy with this that I am going to have to rethink my use of white....

The patterned paper here is from Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic.  The butterfly stamp and ink are Close To My Heart.  The sentiment stamp is Hero Arts.  The enamel dots are from My Minds Eye for Studio Calico.

I would like to try the vellum technique from Day 3's class, but it will probably have to wait until after my studio is done in a week and a half or so.

So if I don't get back to this blog, Happy Easter, if you are celebrating!   (Or Happy Passover or Happy Spring!)  Talk to you next week...

Pattern Play Day 1 Continued...

 

I loved yesterday so much that I haven't even moved on to today's lessons yet!!  I wanted to try another of the techniques described in the class.  This essentially is a paper piecing project with concentric hexagons.  I liked popping the layers up, but I wasn't really excited about the idea of my card being almost an inch thick, and the foam adhesive I grabbed was pretty thick.  (I fully admit the element of laziness in first trying this method before going to search for thinner pop dots!!)  Anyway, I just really liked the way it turned out, so I just popped up every other layer.

To get the layers lined up, I adhered the outer layer to my card base and then placed (but did not adhere) the outermost hexagon ring.  I adhered down the next one in and peeled off the one I had placed.  Then I popped up the remaining two layers and added a banner.  The muted palate made me think of a wedding, so I made them wedding cards. 

The supplies I used as as follows:  The dies are Spellbinders, the paper is Authentique (Fresh), the sentiment stamp is Simon Says Stamp, and the ink is Close To My Heart.

Hope you enjoy!!

Pattern Paper Play Day 1

 

Okay, so I know how odd it is for me to blog two days in a row, but I just started an online class that is SO MUCH FUN!!!  Online Card Classes is more fantastic than I could have imagined! We are learning about how to use patterned paper better, and, for those of you who know me, I LOVE patterned paper (huge collection), but I also like pretty simple designs.  So here is the card I made today:

The patterned paper all came from the same Basic Grey set.  The stamps are a fantastic Stamp of the Month set from last year from Close To My Heart.  I think it still needs a fiber, but I ran out of time and now have to run to my son's baseball game before I get a Mommy F!!

Loving the class and loving how easily this card came together!!  Have a great day! 

Studio Calico January Card Kit

I showed you February and forgot about the January kit!  This kit was a stretch for me, as the supplies were a ways out of my comfort zone.  But how fun was it to try something new and make beautiful things nonetheless!!  Have a fantastic week!

Tuesday Morning Crafts Class....

For those who might not know, I teach arts and crafts to young children in an after school enrichment program.  I began to teach an adult class in my home back in October, my Tuesday Morning Crafts Class. 

We always have muffins and coffee and fruit.  As you can imagine, it started as a social way to share some of my crafty fun with friends.   I found, though, that it also helped me create consistency in my crafting to have to prepare a project each week. 

So here are some of the cards we did for Valentine's Day!  Had I not been teaching, I probably would have missed the opportunity to celebrate love in this way!!  So thank you to the great women who keep me excited to try new things and spend fun mornings with them!

Hope you enjoyed a fantastic holiday with someone special (or at least ate chocolate and watched a good chick flick!)!!

Simon Says Stamp February Kit

Okay, as promised, I wanted to share just a couple of pictures from the February Simon Says Stamp  Card Kit!  I was so excited about this beautiful Glitz paper that I ordered more and more of it, even though Valentine's Day has passed... Of course, being an incredibly lucky woman who is married to an amazing man, love is something I am blessed to have around me constantly, regardless of the holiday.  :-)  As far as I am concerned, love is always in season!!