The Witch Is In!

This was a quick Halloween card I made one evening while working on an evening meal. We call it supper! Anyway, I simply sponged on the colors I wanted and left a lighter colored area where I figured I could stamp the spooky old house. Then I added the other images with black. Voila! It was done. So easy but I still like it a lot. I used Gina K. Designs heavy weight white card stock. It is a no layer card.

I only had to color in some yellow and orange in the house windows and the moon. Also the tree was not filled in so I added some black marker to that. I even did an outline with the marker on the sentiment as well as I wanted it to show up well. These are images from an old (retired) stamp set from Sparkle N Sprinkle called Halloween-RIP. It was a stamp set I acquired when I was on their design team a long time ago. I still love that set a lot and have used it many times. So if you wanted to get some of those images I am afraid you are out of luck unless you can find it on Ebay.

I just wanted to share that even though I had not posted much this week that I was still trying to work on some cards for the upcoming Halloween holiday. I had to work with lots of garden things again and also do some emergency baking.

Let me explain the emergency baking. My wonderful hubby went to town and so I told him to pick up a few groceries of which some eggs was part of the order. Well, when he was bringing the groceries in from the car he dropped the eggs. And, so that day for a noon lunch we had some scrambled eggs. The other cracked ones I used for baking some Dump Bars. I do love the Dump Bars so I was not too disappointed that I had a good excuse to use them. Well from an 18 count carton of eggs we managed to have five of them come through the ordeal unscathed.  So just in case you drop some eggs and need a recipe that uses quite a few of them I am giving the recipe for Dump Bars for you next.

Dump Bars

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

5 eggs beaten

1 cup oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

Blend all ingredients except chocolate chips. "Dump" into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chips (or butterscotch if  you prefer) on top. Don't stir them in. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Depends on your oven.

And, here is a another tip for you: Yesterday I made a card using an acrylic block background and then stamped on some ballet slippers. Well, let me tell you that Hero Arts Ombre Ink would not scrub off with water from that acrylic block. I did not know what to do and then I thought about the Clorox Wipes I had for disinfecting and decided to try that. With a little elbow grease it got that block looking just like new again. So if you have some stubborn ink stains this might be a good thing to try on your blocks too.

Well, I best get my sink full of dishes washed up and also do another load of laundry. Hubby has been working on some machinery and changing oil on vehicles and he sure has some dirty and nasty items I need to take care of. One thing you can always expect is every day clothes with grease and grime on them.

I wish all of you a great rest of the week and weekend. I have to clean my house tomorrow so I won't be posting for awhile again. Thanks for coming by and commenting too.

Take care and God bless,
Verna

Well, it is footwear!

I saw that the Double D Challenge this time was to use some sort of footwear as the theme is If The Shoe Fits! Well, I am afraid I am not finding a lot of success with footwear but did remember I had this one and some cowboy boots or work shoes. Well, I decided to girly it up a bit and use some ballet slippers or at least one for my card. And, I had an acrylic block design handy that made for an easy card design.

I used an Hero Arts Ombre stamp pad for the background. Then I stamped the ballet slipper and the sentiment with black ink over the dried background. I used my MISTI so that I could re-stamp it if needed as I wanted a good printing. Good thing I did too as I did the slipper and the sentiment three times. Then I added it to some Dusty Rose card stock and finished by adding some black rhinestone gems. I also added a white panel inside the card.

The ballet slipper image is by Stampitcrazy and the sentiment is from CAS-UAL FRIDAYS. I could not find any sentiments that involved dancing or ballet but I thought this one would work okay too.

Well, sorry I have not posted much. I have been very busy again with garden work. I did get some Halloween cards finished though in between but have not had time to post about them. Maybe another day I will find time. And, I think I am getting company for the weekend so I better clear the kitchen table off again. LOL

Thanks so much for your wonderful comments and I always love to hear what you have to say. Take care and we will visit again another time.

God bless,
Verna

September Twofers

Time again to do my Twofers for Darnell's Twofer Challenge #9. This time we are to use a leaf two different ways or for two different types of cards. I chose to do a Fall one and a Christmas one with my leaf. The leaf used was one from the Gina K. Designs Fancy Flowers set.

For the Fall card design I masked off the area I wanted to sponge color on. I chose to  use shades of yellow for the main sponged area. Next I then took the leaf and using a Hero Arts Ombre Autumn ink pad I stamped the leaves. After I had all the leaves on my design like I wanted them I then took a black ink marker and with a ruler drew a faux layer along each side. The sentiment was stamped in black and it is from the Joy Clair Harvest Blessings stamp set.

The card base for my Christmas design is white but I used the Gina K. Designs Diagonal Stripe  background stamp to create a plaid design with the green and red colors. I took a sentiment from the Gina K. Designs Holly Jolly stamp set and stamped that onto a rectangle that I had die cut using Gina K. Designs single stitched die. That die cut was added to another larger rectangle from the same set in the green color. The sentiment was then placed onto the lower right corner. For the poinsettia I used a masking technique to make it and then cut it out by hand and popped it  up onto the upper left corner making it so that it slightly overlapped the sentiment panels.  The last thing I added to the card was some yellow pearls on the poinsettia center.

I did not think I was going to get to finish my Twofers today as we discovered that we had several cantaloupe that needed to be cut up and refrigerated. There were so many that I went online and found a recipe for Cantaloupe bread but instead of making it into loaves I opted to make it into one carb choice muffins. Not bad tasting too. And, a great way to use some of the over ripe melon.

Well. that is enough activity for today. I think I will take the lazy route and fix a pizza in the oven for supper. Along with some lettuce salad it should make a good meal. I hope your day went well and that you got some productive crafting in. Thanks for the visit and until next time take care.

God bless,
Verna

Dirt Road at Dusk

Hello again! I hope your day is going well. I got a late start but finally got to working on a birthday card for my cousin who is an elderly farmer and I thought this scene might be to his liking.

I was trying to make it look like the edge of night. I am not too sure I achieved it but I still think it is a nice card. I know it is a great scene and it is a Blue Knight rubber stamp called The Dirt Road.

I used Gina K. Designs white layering weight card stock and stamped the image with Gina K. Designs Jet Black Amalgam ink. I then  used a combination of Copics and ink sponging to color in the scene. Sponging was mostly done on the sky area but I did carry a bit of the blue down into the lower scene to depict it getting darker as the day goes on. It really was an easy card to make. I added a Happy Birthday sentiment from Gina K. Designs.

Well, I think that does it for me today. At least I got one card done. And, I have a lot of ones to do yet this week if at all possible. Oh, where does the time go every day? Hahaa!

Take care and thanks for visiting and commenting.

God bless,
Verna

Humorous Writing

Good morning all!

A local gal named Terri writes a blog and also a column for a newspaper. She is also a wonderful card maker and was instrumental in getting me into the stamping game as she owned the store next door to where I worked that had all those tempting stamps and supplies for sale. Anyway, I am just loving the funny articles she writes and I thought if any of you need a dose of humor to brighten up your day that you might want to check out her blog too.

I hope your morning is off to a great start. Until next time.

God bless,
Verna

Blast From The Past

I ran across this photo I took years ago when I had my design and poem published in Scrap & Stamp Arts. I thought maybe you might like to see it. I sure do miss that magazine as it was one of my favorites.

The images  used are from Sutter Stamps. This was done in the earlier days when I did not have many sentiment stamps and when I was into writing poetry. I seldom write poems now. I mainly just make cards. But I was really proud when they published my card and featured it all on one page. It was in the Inklinations column in the May/June 2005 issue.

Please forgive the bad photo. I tried to enhance it as much as I could. But I think you get the idea and can read the small print.

I should get back into more scene stamping as I used to love it a lot.  Maybe soon. In the meantime you have a great afternoon.

God bless,
Verna

Caroling Penguins #pbcreativechristmas

This afternoon I decided to make up a quick Christmas card and I used a really cute and delightful stamp for my card using the Penny Black Caroling Penguins set. There is also some sentiments with it so I chose one to add to my card.

I recently purchased some wonderful ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon called Vintage Christmas so I tried to use the same colors in my penguin design. I think I got the Copics to match quite well too. After coloring the penguins and adding the ribbon I simply added it to a Gina K. Designs Cranberry Tart card stock base. I also added a piece of the white card stock inside so I can stamp or write a message.

I used my MISTI to get a good stamping and I am glad I always rely on that tool. It is a lifesaver with me not being able to stamp well anymore due to my arthritis.

I am entering this into the Penny Black Creative Christmas Challenge.

Anyway, I wanted to share it and I especially want to thank my friend Patti for giving me the stamp set too. I love it!

I hope your Sunday is going great and that your new week will be a great one.

God bless,
Verna