A Turkey and a Fat Cat = BFF

I finally got to play with my Chubby Chums set from Paper Smooches! The fat little animals are adorable, and I wanted to use them for this weeks SPARKS challenge at the Paper Smooches blog.

 

This was the inspiration photo:

I was inspired by the wood and orange colors, which remind me of Thanksgiving colors. I also liked the 'man' vibe, so I created two BFFs playing that are supposed to be little boys on a seesaw. I used Paper Smooches 'chubby chums' stamps and colored them with water color pencils. I drew, painted, and cut my own seesaw and lame clouds.

my little bff Be Thankful card

I will also be entering this card in this week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger, which uses this photo inspiration:

moxie trigger

Pretty similar inspirations, huh? Orange and browns, and woodgrain natural textures. I'm also entering in Simon Says Stamp challenge which is ANYTHING GOES!

i like his pilgrim hat :)

By the way it is SNOWING... A LOT... right now! How many of you are trapped inside? Being forced to craft the day away???

<3 Rachel w k

CAS-ual Fridays with Lawn Fawn!

TGIF and a Happy Halloween weekend to everyone! Today's CAS-ual Friday challenge is a sketch, yay my fave! And the sponsor is Lawn Fawn! Double fave!!

Even though it's Halloween I woke up to the weather report telling me we could expect 3-6 inches of snow tomorrow... so my card is more wintery than autumn :)

 

the sketch for this week

I used Lawn Fawn stamps from "Critters in the Forest" and "Cozy Christmas" (the owl and the lights) and the little santa hat is from Paper Smooches. I just adore these colors together for Christmas! I think my house will be red and teal this winter :)

my CFC26 entry

Do you know how difficult it was for me to stop right here?! I wanted so badly to add something to the top, or even a little glitter Stickle dot somewhere.... I restrained myself. This is about being "clean-and-simple"... I just wanna bling the hell out it!

Have a fun Halloween weekend! Don't party too hard ;)

<3 Rachel w k

Halloween Cards Galore and a DT Tryout!

I have a LOT of Halloween cards to share with you all! Last night I got my ass in gear and made about 12 cards to ship out to friends and family. I wanted to share my favorite ones :)  Scroll down to the bottom to see which card I am entering for the DT Call with My Creative Time stamps!!

 

The most exciting part about these cards.... I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO PRINT-AND-CUT WITH  MY SILHOUETTE SD!!!!!!!!!!!! I spent hours figuring out the tricks and I am so glad I got it to work! Happy Dance! For the little devil and the slick owl I used graphics from Lettering Delights Costume Clubhouse Characters. If you wanna buy these, do it soon because you can get 25% off your order if you use the code "SWEETTREAT" at checkout!!  The bloody stamp and the 'autumn greetings' are from Inkadinkado. I heat embossed and glittered the blood :)

look at all that blood!

The DT Entry!!

Ahh! Real Monsters!! I love these guys, I am so happy I got Print-n-Cut to work cuz now I can use all these adorable graphics! There are way too many "cute" monsters, it was difficult to pick just a couple to use. All monsters are from Lettering Delights Monster-licious graphics set, and you can still use that coupon code "SweetTreat" for 25% off!  The bottom batty stuck hanging onto all that twine is probably my favorite of all the cards I made last night. He's just so so cute and nervous!!

I am entering this little upside batty card for My Creative Time design team call. I don't have any of the stamps, so I kept this one clean. I would love more phrases to add to the collection! I am keeping my fingers crossed for this one, guys!!!

Do you send out Halloween cards? Or just wait til the holiday season?? If I have the time, I try to send out cards for any given holiday!

<3 Rachel w k

Monday Monster Party

Happy Monday! Yesterday I spent the day in New York City with one of my dear friends, Rachel, and her lovely hubby J.B.... gorgeous day to walk around the city, even if we did get reallllly lost on the subway (ended up in Brooklyn).  I saw a part of the city that was brand new to me and we got to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge woohoo :) I hadn't seen her since her wedding last fall so it was a lot of fun to catch up in NYC of all places!

This morning there was a special Monday 90 Minute Scramble over at the Hero Arts flickr group. I also took the opportunity to make a card for the October Hero Arts month long challenge. So we had 90 minutes, I had my coffee, and I attempted to use a digital stamp for probably the first time ever (where I spent the majority of my 90 minutes).

The sketch I used...

hero arts card sketch for October

I used the digital stamp kit called 'Monster Party' that I won in a previous 90 minute scramble (woo!). One of the challenges is to create a Christmas card using non-holiday stamps. Monsters are not usually associated with Christmas, so these guys are all I used!

 

I printed out a few of each monster from the kit in black and white. I (quickly) colored them with colored pencils in traditional Christmas colors (shades of green, red, and gold) and then just punched them out with my 1" circle punch. Added a shit load of red and green twine and it's all finished!

Just a quickie for today. Have a lovely Monday. Please visit this Hero Arts page if you wanna play along in the contest as well!

<3 Rachel w k

Trick or Treat? (Treat.... Duh)

**Simon Says Stamp GIVEAWAY at bottom of post!**  I've been putting together my Halloween cards for friends and family, and I just had to share this cute little sugar-craving skeleton with you all! Last night I bought a printable set called Costume Clubhouse Characters from Lettering Delights. This set is fab because you get 100 images in every file format you need (gif, pdf, png, svg, etc) and this guy is so cute...

mmmm caaandy

I really wanted to participate in my FiRsT eVeR Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, which was lines! So my card has sleek and cool black and white pinstripes. Do you see the vertical stripes I scored into the card stock? I'm likin this look!

pinstripe skele-gansta

and added a cute Inkadinkado stamp to the inside...

stupid question

You waited so patiently to the end of this post, I'll let you in on a BIG give away! My amazingly talented crafty friend Kari is giving away $30 to the SimonSaysStamp.com superstore!!! Yeah, I didn't typo... THIRTY DOLLARS! Just visit her blog and leave a comment on this post with this link, it's a great prize and you would be ridiculous not to enter (and wish her a happy blog-o-versary!)


<3 Rachel w k

Paper Wreath Holidays

I'm getting ready to add a lot of new items to my Etsy shop (finnaalllyyy) and hopefully most items will be posted by the end of tonight.  I wanted to share one of the Christmas greeting cards I created.

I was inspired by a great card I found in the Holiday issue of Paper Crafts Magazine. It used a paper rosette as a wreath on the card. Y'all know I've been crushin on paper rosettes lately, so clearly this had to be made!

 

Aren't these so adorbable?? I especially love the ones with the foiled paper (DCWV/Recollections) and I just added a little red bow, a gold rhinestone to the middle, and some red glitter to look like little holly berries. The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn 'Cozy Christmas' set.

I really like how they turned out! And I can't believe I just made a set of Christmas cards... has Halloween even happened yet? I have to make special envelopes for these cards, and then I can put them in the shop :)

Happy Monday!

<3 Rachel w k

Orange You Ready to Trick or Treat?

CAS-ual Fridays challenge this week is to make a Halloween card with NO orange! Not a single touch of orange is allowed. I got to it right away, and got to use my new Best Witches set from Lettering Delights yayayay!!

trick or treat!

The adorable banner and the little bats are from the Best Witches set, there are so many cute graphics in this set I will definitely use more of it before the autumn is out! I seriously scaled down the banner to it could be card-sized. So some of those letters are preeettttyyyy teeny tiny, but the Silhouette SD could handle it, duh :).  The Happy Halloween stamp is from Inkadinkado, and I glittered both of the H's with black stickles.

 

Cutest little batties I ever did see! Make sure you check out all of the Lettering Delights Halloween and autumn sets, they have sooo many new ones, I don't have enough time to try them all!

<3 Rachel w k

A Very Happy Mailbox

This week has been quite a fun mailbox week for me! As my husband put it "You're quite popular today" I'll take it :) So I would like to say thank you so much to the love ladies that made me smile today

from Donna :)

I won this fabulous paper punch from Donna's give away at her blog for World Card Making Day. I have never held a more serious punch in my hands, this baby is not joking around! I also looove her card she sent me, and the best part is that I recognize it from a previous sketch challenge :) it's  always great to get to see the cards in person, the photos never quite do them justice! Thank you so much, Donna!

from Virginia

Virginia sent me this gorgeous gorgeous card that she made for the last Hero Arts card scramble. I was drooling over it, to say the least, and I was so happy that she sent it to me! There was the sweetest note inside that put the biggest smile on my face. She even gave me a big handful of fab SRM stickers, I can't wait to use them! Thank you so much, Virginia!

from papercrafts!

I also won this magazine issue from Paper Crafts for World Card Making Day. I have never really browsed through a crafting magazine before, but this is addictive. There are so many amazing ideas in it, I have half the magazine 'ear marked' already for things to try :) Thank you!


What's been making your mailbox smile lately? I have received a lot of gorgeous cards and generous little gifts from the women I have met through blogging. I am so fortunate to know such amazing and talented people! Thank you all so much

<3 Rachel w k

How To Tuesday - Make Easy Paper Rosettes

Here it is, I promised a how-to on rosettes (or medallions) and I delivered! Now I know I'm kind of behind on the trendy train for these, but a lot of you said you still had never made them either, and they're still 'in' so here we go!... I made all of these for my first time to use in my Halloween Wreath, you can check it out here :)

Materials:

Bone folder

Score board

12inch x 1inch strip of paper

1inch circle 

Hot glue

gems, brads, buttons optional

Step 1:  Using your score board and bone folder, score at every 1/4inch mark on your strip of paper

I really need to invest in a Martha score board

Step 2:  Fold accordion style at each of your score marks. Try to make your folds pretty crisp (I just squeeze it all down nice n' tight every few folds or so)

Get yer fold on

Step 3:  Wrap the strip around so the two ends meet. Glue together by tucking in a valley fold in a mountain fold (shown in picture)

glue these folds together

Step 4: once your glue is dry, you just kind of push the circle down. It'll want to go in this direction anyways. You should have a flat crimped circle...

action shot! push the ends down til flat

Step 5: grab a scrap circular piece of paper and use hot glue gun to adhere the circle to the middle of your rosette (on the back side!) this will hold your rosette together

glue the circle scrap onto the back

Step 6: wait for your hot glue to dry, flip your rosette over, and you're finished! Now you can add gems and buttons or flowers to the middle if you would like to. Personally I liked the look of mine to be plain.

 

Have fun making lots of paper rosettes!!!

<3 Rachel w k

Surebonder GM-160 Mini High Temperature Glue Gun, 10-watt

Martha Stewart Crafts Scoring Board and Envelope Tool

Martha Stewart Crafts Bone Folder

Martha Stewart Crafts Mini Scoring Board

InLinkz.com

Paper Smooches SPARKS

How happy was I when I checked my mailbox and found a package from Paper Smooches yesterday?!!! Three new stamp sets, all for me, just in time for the long weekend!

Of course I had to work on the latest Paper Smooches Sparks challenge. I wasn't ready to make anything Christmas theme just yet, afterall I still have to send out Thanksgiving cards! So I used My Peeps set and made a stupid lookin' gobblin' turkey. I also used the 'thanks' stamp from the sentiments set...

stupid turkey :)

This was the inspiration photo...

I tried to incorporate twine, the nice autumn colors, and 'fabric' into my card. I crumpled up some pattern paper so it would look more fabric-y. I colored the birdie with water color pencils, paper pieced his wings, and added the cute pilgrim hat.

Happy gorgeous, beautiful, perfect weather Sunday

<3 Rachel w k

Stackaholic October Challenge

A new month means a new Stackaholic sketch challenge at the DCWV blog! If you love your DCWV paper stacks, you should probably join in the fun :)

This was the sketch for October...

dcwv october challenge

It's somewhat similar to the last one in that there is a lot of geometric patterns going on. I like it :) I did a page for when Matt and I took a little day-trip date to a local vineyard, and we found our favorite wine! We fell in love with this place, just look at their view! (for photos from our visit, clicky here!)

 

Every single paper I used is from the DCWV Green Tea stack, that I actually found in Phoenix and just had to bring it home with me! It's totally my colors :)

 

I used an EK Success border punch for the gate look, cut my title in Harrington font with my Silhouette SD, and just added these little embellies from Recollections that were on super clearance! Woop. Everything else was just cut with a paper cutter :)

Have a wonderful, beautiful weekend

<3 Rachel w k