HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!! Guest Designer Libby Hickson

HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!!!! Well we made it. Today it all comes to an end. For me it means in 2 days the traffic will lighten and I won't have to leave my house an hour early to get where I am going! YAY!!! My little goblins are almost ready to go. I have to finish one costume today. They are getting older so one just painted a mask, the other is Harry Potter and my girl is a cutie pirate that I broke down and bought because her bff is one to and they wanted to match again this year. I will take pictures and post them tomorrow.

Today we have our final guest.....Libby Hickson. I was so happy when Libby agreed to make a card for my blog. I love Libby! We met via Twitter and I am so glad we did. She is an AMAZING mom to her 2 little ones Carter (who is a wiz at Words with Friends at the age of 5!!!) and Courtney, she is a phenomenal card maker and I am blessed to call her friend.

Libby has been on the Play Date Cafe Design team, she is the guest design team coordinator for Hambo Stamps and the Web content specialist for Hero Arts. You can find her on her blog Libby's Little Addiction. Please be sure to stop by and give her some love! ;)



I LOVE this card so very, very much!!! I squealed with delight when I opened the -mail. I love how she used the patterned papers, the stamps and then the stitching & ribbon! It has an eerie feel to it too...which I love!

That's all for now. I do have mine and Faith's little project to post later. We finally finished them!!! I hope you and your goblins have a wonderful and safe Halloween. Don't forget to check the candy....we all know that those Recees' really need to be taste tested! :)

Iron on Transfer...Creepy Skull Shirt

Eek...it's SATURDAY!!! That means Halloween weekend here in Salem, MA is going to kick off. We will be confined to our fair city for the duration. There is no pulling the cars out of the driveway to go anywhere but the grocery store. Mayhem will ensue quickly. There are an expect 250,000 people expected between Friday and Monday. Craziness I know!

Today I am going to share a rather "creepy" shirt I made for the boys this year. I know I said I was going to post mine and Faith's projects today but as life with kids goes...it didn't get finished. I made home made donuts for the kids all day and Faith and my husband spent the day putting together Faith's loft bed that we bought almost a year ago for her but couldn't figure how to get it up the stairs. We had to cut it in half, drill holes, put in metal rods and then plates to hold it together. Crazy, but her room looks awesome now and she has almost the entire floor for play.

Onto today's project. Here's my handsome boy Trevor modeling today's project.....





I loved these skulls that Lori Whitlock has done for a fill pattern in the Silhouette Store. My boys are really into skulls on their shirts. There are so many out there already but I have wanted to play with these ones since I bought them. The idea of these is that you use them as a fill pattern on an image. I just wanted one skull. I created a rectangle shape in my Silhouette Studio, clicked fill pattern and then chose the skull pattern. I enlarged the rectangle to fill an entire 8.5x11 piece of paper and kept going so that the edge of the pattern was way off my rectangle. I think by the time I was done enlarging my shape there were only 2 useable skulls on it. I then printed it on regular paper. I then scanned that image back into my computer and into Photoshop Elements. I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut it out of my "paper" and then made a PNG file with it. I printed it on a Hanes iron on transfer and cut it out by hand.

The diamond shapes came from Lori Whitlock too. I believe it's her 3 circles shape. I loved the abstract diamond (not sure what you call it) I resized them and just kept duplicating them until I had a strip long enough, I then grouped it & duplicated it. The stars and the fleur de lis are Lori's too. I am not sure who the spatter is by. I can tell you though...it was a nightmare to try and get all those holes out of it once I cut it out of the red iron on material. I only did it for the first one the 2nd one I got smart and printed it on Hanes T-shirt maker transfers. I do love the look in person of the Silhouette iron on transfer material but it was just so much work to get all those holes out.

I laid it all out in the Silhouette software first to make sure I liked the design. I had Brycen give me some input and when we had it where we liked it I then began to cut it all out. I laid it out on the t-shirt to make sure I liked the position of everything and then began to iron it all on in separate layers. It took a bit of time but I think it was worth it. The both were really happy with the end result.

Well that's it for today. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

:)
Michelle

Guest Designer...Mary Dawn Quirindongo!!!

Hi everyone!!! First let me say that I had a blog post that should have gone up on Thursday. I scheduled it to go up and it didn't. I came and hit publish and it never came up...not sure what happened to it but I will post it on Saturday because I am super excited to share today's' guest with you!!!

She is talented and funny and makes cards that make me swoon, her videos are great and she has the best voice!!! I just want to meet her in person and make her talk forever. She has been published numerous time in Paper Crafts Magazine & Cards Magazine. She is also stamping Royalty.. The one, the only....Mary Dawn Quirindongo...other wise known as My Pink Mexico.

Mary Dawn is on the Clearsnap design team and does incredible work. You must check out her blog My Pink Mexico. She also sells for A Muse and you can get to her online store via her blog. Please stop by and leave her some love!

We are so lucky today, Mary Dawn made us not one but TWO fabulous cards. I just love them! This first one is just awesome. It's a discreet Halloween and I love that!



this is what Mary Dawn has to say about her first card: "the first card is made from PTI rustic cream, girl's paperie toil and trouble patterned paper, stampendous jumbo cameo cling set, a retired cc designs set for the sentiment, girl's paperie clear stamp set for the bat and the text underneath and a girl's paperie charm, the die cut label stampin up, the inks are colorbox pigment in espresso and i colored in the flowers and frame with colorbox stephanie barnard die in the orange (tangerine, maybe) and i colored in the frame and did my distressing with colorbox archival dye in putty (coffee house queue at simon says has this color)"

I love the spider charm, the torn paper, the stamped frame on the patterned paper and the bat that is just so discreetly there. I think it's just a fabulous, classy Halloween card! I was so excited when I saw it.

Her second card is magnificent too!


here is what she has to add about this card: "The second card is PTI rustic cream cardstock with patterned papers from the girl's paperie toil and trouble as well as embellishments and stickers from the collection, no stamping, but i did distress with colorbox archival dye in putty. A few of the items in the toil and trouble collection, including the stamp set, are still available at Simon Says Stamp"

I love how she didn't use any stamps. I struggle with that. I always seem to need to stamp. I really have to learn to step away from them sometimes. I love the combination of patterns and who doesn't love those pinwheels? Love this!!

Please stop by Mary Dawn's blog and say hi!!! My Pink Mexico

Thanks so much for coming by. It's gonna get crazy here in Salem very soon. I'll be back through the weekend with the rest of our Haunted Happenings!!! Are you ready for Halloween yet? Have you carved your pumpkins? We are doing ours Saturday Night. I hope you have a fantastic Friday.

Guest Designer Vicky Papaioannou

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday!!! YES! We are that much closer to Halloween night! I hope you have all found some Halloween Spirit this month on the blog. There have been so many talented guests and today is no exception! Vicky is one talented gal! I met Vicky through her challenge blog Lily Pad Cards and her company InLinkz. You know those little image links I normally leave on my blog to help you find product...yup them. I love her company and her challenge blog, her personal blog Clips and Cuts and her! ;) She is so sweet and very talented. If you have not checked out Lily Pad Cards please do and check out her blog and her videos!!! I love to watch her work. I look forward to my e-mail every Sunday knowing she will have a video in there :)

Vicky made this adorable card to share with us today:





I love this card! It's just a PERFECT Halloween card!!! Faith really liked this one too! Please stop by one of Vicky's blogs and leave her some love! She really does deserve it!!!
Thanks for coming by. I'll be back tomorrow with a cute project Faith and I did :)

Michelle
Supplies:
Happy Haunting by Lawn Fawn, Victorian Homes by Penny Black, distress inks, stickles "crystal"

Halloween Subway Art

I'm so excited to share today's project with you. I am so happy that I finished it in time. I didn't want to wait until the last day to share it. I had this idea about 2 weeks ago but I didn't have the frame. I posted on Freecycle to see if anyone had one and I ended up with some seriously cool frames all for FREE! I get lots of great stuff from FreeCycle. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a program to help keep stuff out of the landfills. One man's trash is another man's treasure right? Everything on FreeCycle is FREE. You aren't allowed to charge for the items. You can find more about it at Freecycle.org. There is usually one or more in your surrounding towns all over the country. One of my best finds was my children's swing set. It came off of a HUGE swing set/tower. It was close to $7,000 brand new. We took the swing portion only as the thing was monstrous. It has tire swings and rope swings and regular swings. Definitely worth checking out. I get rid of tons of stuff on it too.

Ok, so today's project. I got the frame in great condition. I just added some primer and gloss black spray paint and it was done. (I have another to share for Christmas that's bigger and not subway art.). I made it with my Silhouette. I just cut out the subway art in dk gray, yellow, orange. For the "Halloween" I had cut it out of Orange and black but didn't like it. I traced it onto the glitter purple and hand cut it. I loved it afterwards. I attached the yellow and orange to the gray slightly off centered to look like shadow and then Modge Podged them on front and back so when I place it by my door it withstands the traffic. I used a large sheet of mat board (from AC Moore) and cut it down to size, I then mounted 2 pieces of Bazzill on it and then attached the words. I used a thick piece of chipboard from one of my kids drawing pads and cut that down to size for the backing of the frame. I nailed in a few tiny nails to hold it all into the frame.







For the skull I used one of the pattern images that are now available in the Silhouette Store. This skull is from Lori Whitlock. They look like digital sheets of paper. I created a large square, filled it with the skulls and then enlarged it to make the skulls huge. I think I only had 2 useable ones by the time I was done enlarging it. I then printed it out on plain paper, scanned it back into my computer and imported it in to Photoshop Elements. I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut it out and then printed it on photo paper. I also saved the shape as a PNG because I made my sons a shirt with the same skull (I'll post later this week). I put it on pop dots so that when I change it out for Thanksgiving and Christmas I can just use Undu to get it off without damaging the frame.

That's it. It was so very simple and very fun. I leave you today with a picture of my silly girl playing with the frame before we put it together yesterday! Having so much fun with her. We are Halloween shopping today for decorations and costumes and then coming home to make home made donuts from scratch. Have a wonderful day!!!!



PS: I am sorry I am not linking right now. I'm just trying to spend as much time with Faith as possible this week. If you want to know where anything came from or what it is just leave it in the comments and I will hook you up. Thank you for understanding! :)

Michelle

Guest Designer Latrice Murphy

Happy Monday everyone!!! I hope your Monday has gotten off to a great start! Faith and I are having a "jammie day" we are crafting and baking all day today! So happy to have my girl home.

Today's guest is Latrice Murphy. I met Latrice on Twitter about a year ago and I am so honored to call her my friend and one of these days I am going to meet up with her in person. She is so super sweet and talented.

Latrice is a mom to 3 beautiful children. They all have the most amazing eyes! ;) Latrice is a designer for May Arts, Lily Pad Cards, Electric Paperie and Our Craft Lounge. You can also find her stunning creations in her Flickr gallery, Split Coast Stampers, 2 Peas in a bucket, Studio Calico Gallery and on her blog Any Occasion. Latrice also has an Etsy store where she has the most gorgeous necklaces check it out HERE. Honestly, I don't know how she does it all!!! I am in awe of her.

Here is the layout she made for us today!



I squealed with delight when I saw this. I love Doodlebug and it was used to perfection in this layout! Not to mention that sweet little boy is beyond adorable!!!! The mix of patterned paper, the overall design and the typed journaling just make this layout a total winner!!! I love it!!!

I hope you will stop by one or more of Latrice's galleries and leave her some love. Also Latrice is hosing an incredible class called Handmade Holidays. You will make 10 fun, crafty projects all for the incredible price of $10. Please check out this post and if you want to register you just need to e-mail her. You won't be disppointed! :) Her e-mail is located on her home page of her blog.

I want to thank Latrice so much for her contribution to our Haunted Happenings and to all of my readers. I am really having fun this month. Off to create some fun Halloween stuff with my girl. See you tomorrow! :)

Guest Designer Anne Gaal

Happy Friday!!! I don't know about you but I am thrilled it's the weekend. Not only is it the start to the weekend but it's the start of vacation for my youngest. This is the first time that she is on vacation and her brother's aren't. I am so excited to have a whole week alone with her. I have many things I want to do with her and I am hoping that we get to accomplish most of them so that we can share them here on the blog. She loves crafting as much as I do and I found some fun stuff for us to make.

Today's guest is an amazing designer. I don't know Anne well personally but her work is one of my favorites in the Hero Art Flickr Pool and I was so excited when she agreed to come by the blog and share her stunning work. She has so much talent. I get excited every time I find something new in her photostream. Be sure to check it out HERE.

Anne let me go through her photostream and pick my favorites. This first card just takes my breath away. The colors just draw you in, the layers are perfection! I love how you can see just a little bit of the music note stamp on the background and the way she crackled the small butterflies just adds one more incredible layer of dimension. I love this card!



I couldn't stop at one so I picked 2. I love this card. It is simple yet has so much depth to it. I love how she added layers of color to the one flower and then shaded the rest. Just stunning and really makes you think of Harvest I love it!



Here is a little more about Anne:

Short Bio:

Anne Gaal (rhymes with smile) lives near Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and their two cats, Melody and Coda. Anne is a paper crafter, stamper, mixed media artist, photographer, and all-around creative person. She loves to create, discover new things along the way, and share what she's learned on her blog, Gaal Creative.

Thanks so much for being my guest today Anne. I hope you all stop by her blog or photostream and leave her some love! :)

Have a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday! :)

Guest Designer Jill Foster

**edited to add*** I apologize to anyone who came here earlier for Jill's post and didn't find it. I had it set to go automatically but Blogger hates me. I never had a chance to check it until now. My sincerest apologies.

I am sooooo uber excited to announce today's guest...JILL FOSTER! This girl has so much talent. Her blog was a GENIUS idea and she is the sweetest, most talented gal and I feel so honored to have her card on my blog today!!!



I squealed with glee when I saw this card in my inbox. The colors are just heaven. The wood background it just stunning and the way she colored those pumpkins just blew my socks off!!! She is one very talented gal!

Here is some more about Jill:

Jill is a designer for Penny Black, her blog NEVER DISAPPOINTS and you can find it right here: Inspired By Please go leave her lots of love! :)

Here are some more places you can find Jill each week:
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41719388@N07/
Monday PB&J Video Tutorial on Penny Black Blog: http://pennyblackinc.wordpress.com/
Mementos Tutorial Blog: http://www.ilovemementos.blogspot.com

I hope you have a wonderful day!!! Thanks so much for coming by!


Supplies
Stamps: Penny Black 40-048 Paisley Outline, Penny Black 3708J Pumpkins in Moonlight
Inks: Distress Stains (Forest Moss, Fired Brick, Wild Honey, Vintage Photo), Distress Inks (Brushed Corduroy, Old Paper, Walnut Stain), Colorbox (Chestnut Roan)
Other: Penny Black Mix and Match Cardstock, SRM Sticker (#51012 Fall), Neenah Tiara White Cardstock, Twine, Photo Corner Punch (EK Success)

Guest Designer Tiffany Ervin.....

Happy hump day! It's Wednesday which means that the start of the weekend is only 2 days away. YAY!!! I am very excited to introduce our next guest designer.... Tiffany Ervin!!! I met Tiff over in the Hero Arts Flickr Group (seeing a pattern here? you really should check it out if you haven't). Her cards caught my eye every time she posted. We got to know each other and I am so glad that we did. She is so encouraging, sweet, always a kind word to say and so very talented...and she LOVES food and tweets about it all the time. :) She is forever making me hungry! ;)



I love this tag by Tiffany, it incorporates both Halloween and Fall. It's just adorable and she has so many yummy layers and details on it. I just love it.

Here is more about Tiffany:

Started out as a Scrap Booker in 2004, right after my son was born, I wanted to capture all of those precious moments of having a young baby and watching him grow up in the early years. Soon after filling up many scrapbook albums, I discovered the world of card making. Not really knowing how to make a card, I would visit different websites and found my inspiration through watching tutorials. I started joining on-line card making groups like Hero Arts and entering card challenges. From there my card making just blossomed. Later on, I joined the Lizzie Anne Design Team for one year. I also was fortunate to have the opportunity of teaching at my LSS - Stamp Fever, in Orange, California. I taught there for 8 months. It was enjoyable meeting new friends and crafting with women who share a common interest.

Places where you may see my work, my website at It's the Stuff I love or my Flickr Gallery HERE

Please go check her out and leave her some love! Everyone loves comments! :)

I hope you all have a wonderful day. We are preparing for intense rain today...which means flooded street and basement. I am not going to link the products today as I have way too much to get ready. Here is the list though. If you have any questions I am sure Tiff or myself could answer them.

Cheers!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Neenah Solar White and Papertrey Ink/Summer Sunrise.
Patterned Paper: My Little Shoebox.
Stamps: S5477 - Tree Trunks.
S5507 - Envelope Pattern.
CL466 - So Thankful (pumpkins, leaves).
Bat chipboard: Cosmo Cricket.
Inks: Tim Holtz, Versafine Onyx Black, and Memento Tuxedo Black.
Markers: Copics.
Round corner punch: EK Success.
Ribbons: Michael's (Purple) and Papertrey Ink (chocolate).
Green Alpha Thickers: American Crafts.

Haunted Wreath & a WINNER

Hi Everyone! I am so excited to share this project with you today. I found THIS TUTORIAL online almost a year ago & loved it. I was waiting for the perfect paper line to make it and when Apothecary Emporium by Echo Park came out I knew instantly what I wanted to do with it. While at my lss I really loved the Pink Paislee Phantom line and Fancy Pants' Oct 31 line so I bought all 3 in 6x6 pads and used them to make the wreath. I did use mostly Echo Park as they are double sided (THANK YOU Echo Park!). The other 2 lines I had to glue together and then create the cones. It was labor intense but I survived ;) So if you decide to make this remember that it's less work to use double sided paper.

It went together really fast. Only took a day and a half & that was with a house full of kids and an NCIS marathon on (love me some Leroy Jethro Gibbs). The directions are super clear and easy to follow. I hope you do try. Mine is on my front door as I type. My whole porch is Echo Park...remember THIS Halloween Banner from last year? LOVE IT! Echo Park makes me happy!

Speaking of Echo Park. I have a winner to announce from THIS post: BARB!!! YAY! Congrats!!! email me at skrappergirl@msn.com and I will get your 6x6 pad of Apothecary Emporium out to you!

Have a great day!

Supplies used:

InLinkz.com

Guest Joy Taylors visits

Good Monday morning all!!! Today I am so excited to share my guest designer with you. She's an incredible designer and she is just the sweetest, kindest, most caring, giving person I know. She is always there for a good laugh or a pick-me-up and I am so very blessed to be able to call her my friend.

Joy has been a Hero Hostess over in the Hero Arts Flickr Group, she has done some great videos for the Hero Arts Blog and her own blog, she is on design teams for Jay Gee's Nook, Simon Says Stamp and Purple Onion Design. Please be sure to check out her blog, there is just so much incredibly inspiring stuff over there.

I was thrilled when I saw this card. I can't get over how real that leaf looks. Just amazing!!! The burlap adds just the right amount of texture with the embossed background. Just layers of goodness on this card. Makes me look forward to Autumn.



Here are Joy's instructions:

TAKE KRAFT CARD STOCK, TRIM TO SIZE AND RUN IT THROUGH THE CUTTLEBUG EMBOSSING WITH THE DISTRESSED STRIPES FOLDER, INK AROUND THE EDGES WITH BRUSHED CORDUROY.

TAKE MORE WHITE CARD STOCK AND ONE OF THE LEAVES FROM THE REAL LEAVES STAMP SET, INK THE STAMP WITH BARN DOO, RUSTY HINGE AND BRUSHED CORDUROY, MIST WITH WATER AND STAMP ONTO THE CARD STOCK, HEAT SET AND APPLY MORE OF THE INK OVER THE TOP USING A FOAM BLENDING TOOL, TO MAKE THE LEAF LOOK MORE REALISTIC.

TRIM A PIECE OF BURLAP AND ADHERE TO THE CARD STOCK ALONG WITH THE LEAF.

TRIM A STRIP OF VELLUM AND STAMP A SENTIMENT ONTO THE VELLUM WITH VERSAMARK INK, EMBOSS WITH WHITE EMBOSSING POWDER, ADHERE TO THE CARD STOCK, ADDING GEMS EITHER SIDE OF THE SENTIMENT.

FINALLY ADHERING THIS TO THE FRONT OF A TRIMMED WHITE CARD.

Thank you so much for stopping by. Thank you to my sweet friend Joy for joining us today. If you have made anything that was insired by our Haunted Fall Happenings I would LOVE to see it. Link me up!!! :)

I have a fun project to share tomorrow. See you then!

InLinkz.com

Haunted Links on the www

Hi I am late in getting this out. I have foolishly agreed to do my daughter's school's newsletter for the PTO. Not only did I do it in English but I had to do it in Spanish too and I don't have Publisher on my computer so I had to do it in Word and it was a nightmare and took way longer than expected. I am prepared for next week though and have ordered Publisher.

Today I am going to leave you with some very cool, inspirational links from the WWW. There is just some serious goodness out there to be seen and some of the links below have some cool give-a-ways so check them out!

I have a full week of AMAZING talent coming in next week. I am so excited to share all the goodness they have sent! See you Monday! I will announce the Apothecary Emporium winner next week too! :)

InLinkz.com