Halloween Home

I grew up in the kind of neighborhood and era where your parents turned you loose on Halloween to cover as much territory as you legs could handle and trusted you to be back before 10 p.m. or so with all the candy you could gather. Other than the one time a lady in a house offered me a banana, it was a great childhood adventure every year. Times have changed and I was never able to turn my kids loose, but we did do some trick-or-treating on a much smaller scale back in the day. I am somewhat ambivalent about Halloween now but every now and then, something strikes my memory and funny bone and I have to create with it. That is the case with the new stamp set "Holiday Home" (#137631 for bundle) which comes with framelits to cut out the houses. I was intrigued by the Christmas and fall images, but the first card I made was a Halloween one because I wanted to see if I could make ghosts appear to be coming out of the chimney!  Funny how our minds work, right?  Here it is:

There are a few problems with this card, such as we NEVER have green grass in October and bats don't usually fly and frolick under blue skis but sometimes you have to compromise for the sake of art ;)  Here's the stamp set and as you can see, there are tons of possibilities!

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Hope you have a fun weekend planned... take time to create!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

Starry night in the pumpkin patch!

I've never tried to grow pumpkins myself, but have always enjoyed buying a bunch to decorate my front porch or even my stairs inside the house. As it got closer to Halloween, my kids would pick the one they wanted to carve and away we went. They started out pretty simple and got more complicated designs the older they grew. I'll never forget the year Sam and Jeff carved the Minnesota Vikings logo on a pumpkin in perfect detail. Once the knives could no longer do the job, out came the drill!

In the new Holiday Catalog, there's  stamp and framelit set making it easy for you to create your own pumpkin patch or Halloween Jack-o-lanterns!  I also wanted to give the new star border punch a try so here's what I came up with:

My next attempt at this will use Night of Navy for the background cardstock... way more appropriate for a night time starry ski... I just didn't think of it at the time I made this.

This is one of the many cards you will be able to make at my Card Buffet next week! Hope you can make it!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

Fall Feathers

I'm still playing with products from the new Holiday Catalog!  You can view it online or if you would like a paper copy to drool over, let me know and I'll get one in the mail to you! 

A favorite new thing for me are the feather stamps and framelits!  I can really see alot of possibilities with them! Here's my card today:

It's so easy to combine beautiful paper, fun stamps and embellishments and ink into a unique handmade card for someone special... I have a great opportunity coming up next week if you are curious and want to try your hand at this fun hobby/craft. I'll be having a Card Buffet next Thurs  (5 to 9 p.m.) and Friday (9 to 3). There will be a big selection of cards available to make, with all the supplies tucked in a shoe box and ready for you to grab, find a spot at the work table and create away. I'll be there for pointers and help and you can hang in there for as long as you like! I'll have more details next week, but put it on your calendar! This is at my house and I'm happy to share directions, just ask!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

Fall Flower Patch

There is a great new set in the annual catalog of flower and leaf stamps and framelits. I played with them alot this summer and couldn't wait to try some fall colored flowers and leaves. I also like to do some two-step stamping (stamping on top of already stamped images) and this set lends itself to this really well. For a background, I debated about using an embossing folder or background stamp and ended up using the background stamp "I Love Lace" (#134033). This is going to be a go to stamp for me with any vintage or feminine card that I want to make. Here's the result:

 Obviously this set has endless possibilities!  I also didn't add any sentiment to make it more versatile and also it gave it the added benefit of being either a horizontal or vertical oriented card. The set comes as a bundle, called "Flower Patch"  (#136788)

I'm off to Farmer's Market today! It's the last one for me this season and I've emptied out my cupboards. In addition to my regular inventory of cards, I will have all my holiday cards there at a greatly reduced price!
Stop by if you end up at the fairgrounds this morning!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

Thinking of You

I love to try different techniques when I'm creating a card and I really get excited when I can use something I have in my house... who doesn't like to repurpose something you already own?!  In this case, it was an extra large container of sea salt that I don't even remember buying!  Anyway, I've seen cards with this technique and knew I wanted to try it. Here are the basic steps:
1) Cut a piece of watercolor paper the size you want it to be.
2) Brush the paper surface with an aqua painter to lightly cover with just plain water.
3) Add about 3 drops of your favorite color from a reinker bottle.
4) Without adding more water, unless it is too dry, spread the ink around with your aqua painter until you like the look.
5) Add sea salt to the surface, all over and then set aside to dry.

After mine dried, I embossed it with the "&" embossing folder and then added a sentiment and some sequins. This was super fun and I can't wait to try it again with different colors! Here's the card we made using this technique at my class this week:

I'm so glad it is Friday today!  Tomorrow is the first MSU Bobcat home game and most of Bozeman will probably be there! Go Cats!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

Happy Birthday Pheasant and Feathers!

Some of you know that I'm originally from South Dakota. Did you know the state bird of South Dakota is a pheasant!  I think they are really pretty birds and of course, think of my home state when I see one. Stampin'Up! has a great outdoors set called  "Walk in the Wild" that I've used alot for masculine cards. Here's the latest:

While the stamp set is not new, I combined it with some new beige tissue feathers (tissue and framelits are new!) and some great kraft-weight paper in the new holiday catalog. I love how this turned out and can't wait to use it . Let me know what you think!

Welcome to my new blog by the way. I've been test driving Blogspot off and on for awhile now and think I have alot of what I want on here. I'll be tweaking it some more but am ready to go public with it! Thanks for the visit!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

For All things

I love the fall season!  It think it's my favorite, along with winter and of course there is summer. In Montana, we have a nonexistant spring most years so I don't have alot of experience with that!  I love the rich, warm colors of autumn, all the scents, the baking, the crisp air, school starting, my birthday, etc.!  Stampin'Up! has some great autumn themed products this year and I'm already playing with some of them. Here's my first card:

I went kind of easy with the stamp set because I wanted to focus on the paper, which looks hand stamped, but is not.   Here's the product info, all in the new Holiday Catalog!

   

Color Me Autumn Designer Series Paper	135820
Price: $10.95

    

For All Things Clear-Mount Stamp Set	135155
Price: $17.95

I hope your autumn is full of creativity, good scents and great weather!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah