An Unspooky Halloween Card for As You See It Challenges

As I've said before, I'm not super-stoked about Halloween, but I do like to play around with the colours and some of the more fun, light-hearted images. This week, for As You See It Challenges, we have a colour challenge, and I made an "unspooky" Halloween card, using the Spider Web Doilies and the Woodland Embossing Folder and some punch art:

This is the banner for the challenge, and though the contest for our special challenge for Lola last week has chosen the winners, the response wasn't what we had hoped for Lola's sake. We have left the linky open for the next month, so we hope more people will participate. Her recovery from the stem cell transplant continues to be rocky, so she could really use the extra encouragement and love these cards will bring to her. I hope you'll consider entering your card. Lola is looking at all the cards on the challenge. She can't have the actual hard copy due to infection issues. If you want to see the card that I made for her, check it out here.

Here's this week's card:

• Black, orange and blue make an interesting combination, but one that I really like. I used lots of Pumpkin Pie and Basic Black ink and cardstock, but the Lost Lagoon worked really well with the Woodland Embossing Folder and the stem and vines for the pumpkins.
• I sponged the inside top of the Woodland Embossing Folder with Lost Lagoon in, then inserted the Very Vanilla cardstock in it and ran it through the Big Shot. It is helpful to do this with this particular embossing folder because it helps the trees really show up.
• The pumpkins were made by punching three each of the Extra Large Oval Punch and the retired Small Oval Punch. I kept that one because it was so useful with punch art figures. I sponged the edges of each oval with Pumpkin Pie ink and overlapped them as you see in the photo. The vines are punched using the Bird Builder Punch and the stems were just cut freehand.
• Guess how I made the bats? It uses another punch in a unique way. Answer at the bottom of this post!!
• I finally got my Spider Web Doilies, so I had to make another Halloween card just to use them, but if I turn them over, they are white on the back so I will use them for other projects at different times in the year. You can actually ink them up using a brayer and make them any colour you want.
• The sentiment is from the Happy Scenes stamp set and the spiders around it are from the A Little Something stamp set.

Today is the last day for this great sale on stamps! 15% off all regularly priced stamps! If you wait too long you'll miss out! Contact me TODAY!

Don't let this be you! Contact me today! Last chance!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

Product List

Happy Scenes Photopolymer Stamp Set [139821]	A Little Something Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139827]	A Little Something Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139830]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]	Pumpkin Pie 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [105117]
Lost Lagoon 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [133679]	Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101650]	Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad [140931]	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad [126945]	Lost Lagoon Classic Stampin' Pad [133644]
Spider Web Doilies [139622]	Stamping Sponges [101610]	Extra-Large Oval Punch [119859]	Small Oval Punch [120908]	Builder Bird Punch [117191]
Bitty Butterfly Punch [129406]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332]	Glue Dots [103683]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]

** You may have guessed that I punched the bats using the Bitty Butterfly Punch. You just punch the butterfly, then used temporary adhesive to attach it to a long  thin strip of cardstock which you use to insert the butterfly in the punch again and use the top edge of the punch to punch again further down the butterfly to remove the bottom wings. It works like a charm!

Kinda Eclectic Farmer's Market for As You See It Challenges

I love a good Farmer's Market, don't you? I love looking at stall after stall of excellent locally grown produce. But even more I love looking at the crafts that people are selling! The creativity and the artistry are really inspiring! More than that though, is the social aspect of the market. For two of my daughters, who live in small towns, the weekly Farmer's Market is a real social affair.

A good percentage of the population will turn up to shop and to visit. Usually there are some good eats on site and a good time is had by all! Farmer's Markets are especially colourful and abundant in the fall when the harvest is on and I was thinking of that when I went to create my Design Team sample for As You See It Challenges today. As well as the sketch challenge from As You See It, I wanted to do a Colour Challenge from Pals Paper Arts:

The colours for this challenge, as you can see, are Delightful Dijon, Old Olive and Cajun Craze. These are not the easiest colour to find coordinating Designer Series Paper for, but I remembered the Old Olive Gingham design in the Farmer's Market Designer Paper and I took it from there:

• I used Sahara Sand as my neutral on the card base and the wood design paper to make the vertical element in the sketch.
• I wanted ribbon in one of those three colours but I had zip! So what do you do when you want ribbon in a colour it doesn't come in? You die some ribbon! I decided to make my ribbon Delightful Dijon, so I took some Whisper White cotton ribbon and spritzed it with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and about 30 drops of Delightful Dijon reinker. The Stampin' Up! Stampin' Spritzers are just what you need to do this. They are very inexpensive and they work beautifully. Whenever I use one I keep the mixture in the spritzer and mark the colour in permanent marker on the tube so I know what colour is in it. The spritzers are so cheap you can afford a lot of them. The alcohol allows the ribbon to dry quickly and you can speed that up with the low setting on the Heat Tool. You can use the high setting very carefully, but it is not recommended as it can melt some types of ribbon.
• I used the Kinda Eclectic Stamp Set for the leaves on the tag. I inked them up in Old Olive and then used Cajun Craze and Delightful Dijon Stampin' Write Markers to add some fall colours to them.
• The sentiment is from A Little Something stamp set from the Holiday catalogue and I used markers as well to ink it up.

Well, that brings to a close our first week of the Holiday Catalogue. I hope my posts have been helpful for you, but there will be many more samples as the weeks go on, so I hope you will come back often and check them out! Have a great weekend. I'm looking forward to attending our local Provincial Exhibition and just enjoying the atmosphere of a Fall Fair! I'll take some photos!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

Product List

Kinda Eclectic Clear-Mount Stamp Set [135350]	Kinda Eclectic Wood-Mount Stamp Set [135347]	A Little Something Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139827]	A Little Something Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139830]	Farmers Market Designer Series Paper [138448]
Sahara Sand 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121043]	Cajun Craze 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [119684]	Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101650]	Old Olive Classic Stampin' Pad [126953]	Old Olive Stampin' Write Marker [100079]
Regals Stampin' Write Markers [131262]	2015-2017 In Color Stampin' Write Markers [138333]	Delightful Dijon Classic Stampin' Ink Refill [138332]	Whisper White 1/4" Cotton Ribbon [134567]	Old Olive Baker's Twine [134579]
Regals Candy Dots [130932]	Note Tag Punch [135860]	Punch Corner Project Life [135346]	Stampin' Spritzer [126185]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]
SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]