Happy Halloween

Joshua's Pumpkin from the Pumpkin Farm

Joshua as Spider Man

My little ladybug, Jayda

Happy Halloween from my family to yours.

Florals

I am slowly getting back into my usual challenges. This card represents the Stampotique Designers Challenge #69 which is Scrap it and the Stampendous monthly challenge of fabulous florals.As I'm not usually a scrapper, I went with a scrap card rather than page. The image is of my dear daughter standing at the gate of Mt. Vernon. (Since the deadlines for these challenges are here, I had to temporarily use this image. Of course, my printer ink went low just as I printed this. As soon as I replenish the ink, I will replace the photo and upgrade the blog picture.) The floral image on the card is from Stampendous and the bees are from Stampotique. I used the marker watercoloring technique (TJ June/July 2008) to color the flowers.

Case Study Inspiration

Stampotique Designers Challenge 71 was to case one of the Design Team. I chose to case Kim Howard's card from her September 5th posting.

When I saw this card, I knew I could use my new  Baby Cthulhu stamp.

As a coincidence this layout also works well with the sketch challenge at the Marks Finest Papers Friends of Speedy challenge.

Believing in Ghosts

Stampotique's new policy of grouping all of its weekly challenges into one monthly drawing certainly has given me a chance to catch up with challenges I would otherwise have missed. This card is for Challenge 70 - backgrounds. I am also entering this card in the Take a Word challenge with the theme wings.
I used the stamp Heads as my background. I stamped it with Versamark and then embossed it with cement white embossing powder. I wanted to do Leopard Queen in bright colors to counterbalance the black and white. She is popped out from the background. The sentiment was created from Tim Holtz's ChitChat.

Autumn Leaves

I have always loved the Old Gristmill stamps from Artistic Outpost. As I worked on the technique challenge from Compendium of Curiosities II, I knew I wanted to use these stamps. All of the stamped images and sentiment come from that stamp set.  Our CC II challenge is Crumpled Kraft Suede from p. 40 of Tim's book. (This challenge is generously sponsored by the Funkie Junkie.) Simon Says Stamp wants to see autumn leaves. Kraft Journal's theme is bangles and bows. The monthly challenge at Artistic Outpost is anything goes.
The crumpled kraft sued technique is awesome. To feel the background panel on my card, it is hard to believe that it started off as a piece of kraft paper. Now it feels almost leatherlike. I tried to keep a very rustic feel to the card. All of the framing is done with wood paper. The copper perfect pearls adds zest to the background and leaves. For the bow, I used raffia.

Give Thanks

The monthly Stampsmith challenge theme is give thanks. 
this week Cheery Lynn Designs wants to see vintage and Simon Says Stamp and Show says just add pearl. The Mojo Monday sketch is round or square.
To make my card, I followed the round sketch from Mojo Monday. My focal image is Miranda from Stampsmith's Julia's Friends. Isn't she lovely? I think she works very well with a vintage card. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up. It definitely works with the give thanks theme. From Cheery Lynn I used the pinwheel doily and angel wing dies and two circles from the mini pearl circles dies. My pearls are part of the bling as well as liquid pearls surrounding the card front.

Halloween Zentangle

Here are two views (top and bottom) of my Halloween Zentangle project. I'm still a novice, but I saw this white pumpkin at Michael's and is just screamed to be tangled. So on Sunday, while I was watching the Bears game, I took the plunge and started to tangle. The surface wasn't very even, and the pumpkin had some glitter attached to it which wouldn't come off, so there was more of a challenge than tangling on a tile. I had so much fun finishing my pumpkin. I must say that it has given me the courage to try new tangles in the future.
Happy Halloween!