Happy Hallowe'en Everyone!

Unfortunately, I don't have anymore Hallowe'en projects to share with you, but I wanted to share my mom getting into the spirit - we wrapped the cash register tapes all around her (we used one whole roll!)  She said that it's actually unexpectedly warm (ah, Hallowe'en costume idea for the last minute people!), except that it does get hard to breathe after a while (oh, maybe not!).  She then broke through the tape and acted like a live mummy that came out of it - the kids had so much fun (except for our 1 year old - she freaked out!). 

Anyway, I had a chance to put together this card today - made it with my new Tim Holtz Textured Fades Embossing folder - Swirls, and the cake is from Celebrations cartridge.  I added pizazz to the card with stickles and heat embossing on the sentiment.   

Have a great Hallowe'en! Stay safe and warm :)

SVGCuts project - Gothic Wall Hang.

Here is my latest project for SVGCuts - the Gothic Wall Hang.  I've asked Mary (the artist that designs all the cutest SVGs for all us crafters) to be my model for my wall decor. Hehehe...  She's dressed up as a gruesome witch here, and she just looks amazing in it!  You would never guess what she looks like in real life - she's just so beautiful!

Again, if you would like the details about how to make this - the collections used, and its sizes to be cut at - please visit SVGCuts blog, click here.  The pics posted there have a different background (I posted different ones to make it more interesting) - looks so much better there with photo-editing! 

I love the chain that I used to connect the two parts together as well as for hanging at the top.  The chain adds so much to the project, I think :)   This is my last Hallowe'en project for the year, and I'm so excited about the next holiday - Christmas!

Another exciting news for SVGCuts today - the latest addition to the design team, Cheryl Becker (dragonflydesigns)- her first project has also been posted, it's the cutest project (not going to tell - you've got to see it yourself), so please visit the SVGCuts blog, click here, and welcome her!

My Son's Happy Haunting Haunted House.

My son is eight years old and loves Cricut.  He's pretty much taught himself how to use the machine, and can do simple functions on the Design Studio and SCAL2.  The only thing that drives me nuts though is not being able to think about paper wastage and cuts things on the middle of my beautiful 12 X 12 sheet, or uses the scraps that I've kept for that "special" card.  Nevertheless, he's growing up to be quite the crafty boy, and I should be very happy about that.  And I am.

We've moved back home this weekend.  My husband and I were busy packing and unpacking everything.  The reno is not 100% finished, but completed enough that we were able to move back.  The kids were soo excited to have their own rooms, and all the toys sitting in the basement for the past 4 months seemed all new to them again.  We've been staying up until 2 am every night and I feel like a zombie right now, sleep-deprived, and I'm also coming down with some naughty cold.  However, I'm also excited to line up all my crafting supplies again in my computer room - I somehow convinced my husband that he needs less space, and it's not a "craft room", but I will be able to have more space than I ever did.

So, after setting up the computer and the Cricut, my son wanted to make the haunted house from Happy Hauntings cartridge.  He just had to get this cartridge, so he can make this house.  He sat in the office chair for hours and hours, and the amount of satisfaction that he got from building this house was worth it.  I'm impressed with all the details.  It's definitely a lot of work - something that can't be replicated many times.  I gave him the advice of embossing the house with Tim Holtz Textured Fades Embossing folders "bricked" and he let them "pop" with white ink.  It was his idea to put ghosts around the house. 

Here's his version of this famous house:

 

Card in less than 10 minutes!

I don't know about you - but along with my ribbon addiction, I have paper addiction, and I just HAVE to buy a stack if I like it.  I'm usually pretty good about buying them with my 40% coupon at Michaels (another great place for paper stack that I've been buying from is Winners/HomeSense in Canada - do you have that in US?). 

Anyway, I had this really cute Hallowe'en paper collection from Recollections (Michaels) that I bought post-Hallowe'en last year.  It came with transparency overlays, glitter cardstock, embossed paper, double-sided, and I think that there were about 12 sheets all different, and bought them for $2.99.  The worst part about me (and probably you, too!) is that I buy because it's such a great price, but many times, I don't use it. 

In this package, there was a sheet that already had embellishments (characters adhered on the paper with foam dots) - so, I just cut a portion of the paper to use for the front of the card.  Since there were so many characters, I thought it would be cute to say, "Happy Birthday from all of us." in the eerie font, and adhered Hallowe'en ribbon at the bottom.  That's it!  How easy is this! and I thought it was pretty cute for 10 minutes of work.

Adding Texture and Dimension does a LOT!

Remember those days of scrapbooking, where we had no cool embellishments, no embossing machines, and adhesive was considered as a plain old glue stick. I am always so amazed at how the technology changed over the years, and how that affected our ways of card making and scrapbooking. I used to be so excited with those Stickopotamus stickers, then the Jolee's stickers came along and that was unbelievable. I remember seeing those very first Sizzix machines (the big rolling ones) at the scrapbooking stores, and thought that was the neatest thing.  I also used to buy embossed papers per piece, and never thought that one day, I'd be able to make the same thing at home using any paper.

So, this is where we are, and the world of scrapbooking is hotter than ever.  With the new Imagine Cricut machine and matless die-cut machine E-craft system, and I also heard a rumor about Provocraft sewing machine that embroiders the picture on the cartridge.  How cool is that?  It never ends either with amount of things that I would want.  You think that you're good for now, until you see the next cool thing on the market.

Anyway, here's a card that I made today - I used a stamp with pop-dots on the back to bring them out, used paper raffia with plastic label on top, and backed it with embossed background cardstock.  See what difference it makes to use different texture and dimensions to the card.

Bone Rattling Giveaway to 10 winners at SVGCuts!

Check out SVGCuts blog (click here) for your chance to win 1 of 3 grand prizes or 7 of the $5 gift certificates. It's running now until October 27th, and all you need to do is:

Official Requirements


Must complete at least 1 of the following to qualify!

•Subscribe to the SVGCuts.com Newsletter – Click Here

•Join the SVGCuts.com Facebook Page – Click Here

•Follow SVGCuts.com on Twitter – Click Here

•Subscribe to SVGCuts.com on YouTube – Click Here

•Add an SVGCuts.com banner to your blog – Click Here

AND – Must complete at least 1 of the following to qualify!

•Post a link to this giveaway http://svgcuts.com/blog/?p=7212 on your favorite forum (OR)

•Send a link to this giveaway http://svgcuts.com/blog/?p=7212 to your crafty friends via email (OR)

•Post a link to this giveaway http://svgcuts.com/blog/?p=7212 on your Facebook wall or Twitter Account

This picture below is the grand prize - wouldn't you love to win that?

Too cute to Spook!

I am really excited about this Hallowe'en card I made tonight.  It's made from using SCAL2 and font Evilz from this site - click here.  I chose graphics that would work well for the cut, and decided to go abstract, and simple and placed them on a square card, with white and orange cut outs on a black cardstock circle.  I used tiny pop-dots to give dimension, and making one pumpkin orange made the card complete.  This is one of my favorite dingbat artists - they are really cute and it's free!

We've been mashed!

Happy early Hallowe'en from our family! (can't seem to center it or make it smaller :(  )

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

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Candy corn anyone?

I'm personally not a big fan of these candies.  They taste like paste to me, and the flavor doesn't really excite my palate.  However, I love the way they look - the three colors together and its size makes it perfect for pictures.  Looking at these gets me into the Hallowe'en mood.

Here, today, I took candy corn svgs from SVGCuts Monster Mash collection and made a card with it.  I used different thickness foam dots to make it appear dimensional and I think that it worked! 

Simply Silhouettes.

When making cards, one tends to think of cutting out something and adhering onto the card.  However, this time, I just took a silhouette from Wild Cards cartridge and placed various colored cardstock underneath to make a card.  I quite liked the simplicity of the card - yet, when lined with different colors underneath, it becomes elegant.  It's so important to make sure the colors go well together to achieve the look, and you can accent the card to complete it - in my case, a stamp and a ribbon. 

13 Creepy Crackers for 13 Ghoulish Guests.

Hallowe'en is just around the corner - do you know what your kids are going to be for Hallowe'en?  Are you having a party?  Do you like decorate your house?  Do you give out special treats to friends and familes, kid's classmates, or your workmates? 

Well, here is my newest SVGCuts project and this may take care of your "treat" portion.  I don't know if all of you have seen my Christmas crackers I made last year (my first contest entry for SVGCuts) - if you haven't seen it, click here. Anyway, this time, I wanted to take the same cracker file, but change the cheerful feeling too something spooky!

I had a blast making these - they really got me in the Hallowe'en mood.  You can use them as dinner crackers if you are having a party, or you can stuff them with candies and give to special trick-or-treaters. 

Enjoy! and for more info on how to make them, see the SVGCuts blog.

Our house extension is pretty much done!

We got a call yesterday from our contractors letting us know that we can officially start moving back in!  We have a long way to go - nevertheless, we are so excited! (The only thing I'm not excited about is that I probably won't have time to craft for a little while :(  )

Now that we have lived at my parent's for 4 months, I don't know if I'm ready to start cooking again!  We've accumulated tons of stuff over the summer, so we've got more things for us to take home than what we started here with.

The majority of stuff is sitting in our basement.  Right now, we could hardly walk around in the basement, and there's so many things that I have misplaced (and some are important documents!) - so I'm looking forward to rediscovering them one at a time.

I had promised that I would post pictures of the reno, so here it is!

This is where I do all my crafting.

I cut out dinosaurs for his light to match the wall.

Our master ensuite.

My favorite room - my daughter's room.  I love the chandelier!

Another favorite room - the laundry room.

My favorite acrylic stamp line.

Okay, I just said in my last post that I had obsession with ribbons, but I guess my obsession doesn't end there.  Another item, out of many items, that I've been into is acrylic stamps.  I never started appreciating them until late last year, and since then, I've accumulated quite the collection.  They look great on cards (which I make a lot) and makes them more professional looking than writing myself. 

One thing that I've realized recently is that there actually is quite the difference in quality between different brands.  I've always like the way Technique Tuesday brand stamps look, but they are more expensive than other lines, so I never tried it - until last week.  Yes, you do pay for what you get.  These stamps are more sturdier and offers so much more crisp look.  I just fell in love with these stamps. 

Here, I am showing you a stamp that I used on the card using a stamp from Love, Ali collection.  The felt birds are from American Crafts.

Another obsession of mine.

Ribbons, ribbons, ribbons.  I think that I've purchased way too much ribbons in the last while - not that it's a bad thing.  I can't help it, but when I see ribbons on steal sites, on sale, anywhere - it makes me want to get them.  They add so much to the page, or a card - makes it more sophisticated and pretty. 

I usually use ribbons to tie a bow or to run across my card, but I tried cutting scraps of ribbons around a tag to create an effect.  Enjoy!  All the ribbons and the patterned paper are from American Crafts - one of my fave companies!

My new favorite tool - i-rock ROCKS!!!

Many of you probably already have this tool, but I just got this about a week ago, and I'm just in love with it!  It is the same idea as putting the rhinestones and pearls on the card, but doing it with this tool is so much easier, and faster, and you don't have to worry about falling off!  I'm going i-rock bling crazy and you will notice that I'm using so much more gems in my creations.

Here's a card that I made - you'll see why I love this tool!  With this chandelier cut file (isn't it beautiful?), I had downloaded this onto my computer about a year ago, cut it, kept it, but never kept the file on the computer, nor remember who's blog this was from.  I feel terrible about this - I went searching tonight to see who this beautiful creation belonged to, but I could not find it.  So - if it happen to be you or know who's file it belongs to, please let me know!!!  I would love to give this person a credit for creating an amazing chandelier file (and I would love to have it on my computer :))

Special thanks card.

Another card for the Paper Craft magazing giveaway using orange.

Another card with yellow and orange.

Happy Belated World Card Making Day!

Did you all make cards yesterday?  How many cards did you make?  I wanted to sit and make cards all day - but of course, that didn't happen.  I did manage to create some cards though - as Paper Crafts magazine is issuing a World Card Making Day challenge. It was to make a Thank You card with the colors orange or yellow on it some way and then upload it to the link on the Facebook post by Oct 4th, and one random winner will win a cool prize! So that's what I did.

I used a flower file from SVGCuts September Afternoons Collection, embossed the backing cardstock with distressed stripes, and sprayed with Tattered Angels Tattered Leather.  It was also sewn at the edges (my new favorite techinique!).