Playing Cards with Friends - Halloween Edition!!

 Well, hello there everybody!! Hard to believe its been just over 18 months since my last blog post but here I am. There have been a few things going on in my life that needed attention, so I had to make the hard choice last year to remove myself from all my DT's except one, and limit myself to just posting on Instagram and Facebook. So I've still been making cards and trying all sorts of new ways to craft.

Recently my friend Michele of I Card Everyone (who I've known since I started my card making adventures around 9yrs ago...) contacted me and asked if I'd like to take part in her 'Playing Cards with Friends' series. She chose the month of October which meant 'Halloween' so I couldn't say no. And also knowing she does this with a blog post I thought it would be a great time to start posting again!!

So, Michele gave me some guidelines for the card:

 - Make a Halloween card, scary as you like with a dash of funny

 - Must use a die, even if just for the sentiment

 - Colours: Black, green, purple and orange + one of my choice

 - Here's the Trick:  No Pumpkins!!

I have to tell you, I used to make the craziest Halloween cards that really pushed the boundaries but haven't been able to the past few years. This really got me excited and I LOVE the final result:

Trust me to have teething problems after not blogging all this time......My photo is completely in focus after being 'resized' with Photoshop but as soon as I put it on my blog post its blurry..... I'm so sorry, have retaken the photo 15x but I can't get rid of the blurry.....maybe this is why I stopped blogging. You can see a much better image on my Instagram shona.chambers  or Facebook page.

My colour of choice was the 'red' for blood of course and I did sneak in a little 'blonde' for my poor woman's hair. Goes to show that you can spend hours looking gorgeous for it to then be pointless!!

I'm running over to Michele's Blog now to see what incredibly scary and hilarious card she has come up with. Hope to see you there and thank you so much Michele for getting me excited about card making again. xxxx

Shona

Reminder: TIME OUT Challenge #187

 Wow, what a week its been!! We've gone from ridiculously warm weather in late Autumn (been sleeping with no blankets at night!!), to overnight suddenly 0 degrees (celcius). Talk about a shock to the system and tomorrow morning we might have our first frost....I'm not ready!!!!

I might need to take a hint from our theme at TIME OUT and keep myself moving to stay warm. This is such a fun challenge theme and the word 'Move' can be interpreted in so many ways. For example you've got body movement, moved by an emotion, maybe moving house.....so many!!

Our Sponsor for this challenge is Topflight Stamps and they are giving the winner a $25 voucher to their store. They have a tonne of products to choose from, I'm super jealous!

I had a completely different idea for the word 'move', its a bit naughty but I love making these sorts of cards:

Can you guess what type of movement I was inspired by??????? If you guessed 'bowel movement' your a winner! I've had this stamp set for months and what could be a better challenge to use them in.

The images are super simple to colour so decided to make a couple of cute note cards instead of one big card. I stamped the images from Simon Says Stamp 'We're like toilet paper' (inspired by COVID toilet paper madness.....) with Versafine Onyx ink on white CS, coloured softly with my Faber Castell Polychromo pencils and fussy cut out.

I created two 3.5 inch square white card bases and adhered squares of black CS on the front. I then popped the images and sentiments on some foam tape for dimension. Instead of pearls I found these cute red resin hearts and little brown bugs (to be little flies) from Loose Lemon Crafts and glued them on. Done!

You have until Wednesday 19th May to link your projects to the TIME OUT challenge and if your needing any help with ideas, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our talented Guest Designer Milla from Mustesormi have created for you. Can't wait to see all your 'moving' projects in the Gallery!!

And on a personal note, you may have seen the message from Sandie, our fearless leader at TIME OUT, sharing that this is her last challenge with us. I'm going to miss her terribly. She has always been so supportive of myself and everyone on the team, and worked so incredibly hard. It won't be the same without her but I know that the girls and I will give our all to keeping the challenge going, not only for ourselves but also all of you, our super-loyal followers. Thank you Sandie for EVERYTHING!!!xxx

Take care

Shona

 

Reminder: TIME OUT Challenge #186

 Hi everybody!! Sorry my blog has been rather quiet of late, lots of things going on at home so not much time for crafting but I'm off to my Mum's place this weekend so will definitely get some cards made!!

Our current challenge at TIME OUT is all about 'Pets' which should be a topic that many of us can relate too. You could include animals on your project, make it about your own pets or maybe have a few photos included. Would love to see what pets you all have!!

Our Sponsor for this challenge is Newton's Nook Designs which couldn't be more appropriate as they have the cutest little mascot and animal products. They are giving the winner of this challenge a $25 voucher (I'm very jealous....).

For my card I wanted to create a scene which shows off one of the favourite places I love to sit with my dog in the Summertime:

Unfortunately I don't own any Golden Retriever stamps but this cute little doggie will do just nicely.

Lots of colouring for this one!! I stamped all the images (from Funky Fossil Designs) on white CS with Gina K Amalgam Black ink and coloured with my Altenew Artist Markers. I then spent quite a while fussy cutting them out.The tree and its heart leaves are from the 'Heartfelt Tree' set, doggie from the 'More Furry Friends' set and the bee from the 'Bee's Knee's' set.

In Summertime I love sitting in the shade under our two Golden Queen peach trees. I have an old black bean bag and set myself up with my colouring products and my Ipad so I can colour and watch a movie. My dog Bella always comes to sit with me, as does our cat Remy. Its a beautiful place in the shade, especially when the peaches are starting to come ripe.....

I used two stencils from Funky Fossil Designs ('Scenic Borders' and 'In the Clouds') to create the background, blending over some Distress Ink on the front of a white square card base. I used some foam tape to pop up the images, as well as the white heat embossed sentiment (also from the 'Heartfelt Tree' set). To finish off I added some Wink of Stella to the hearts and glued on some pearls from Loose Lemon Crafts.

I'm going to link this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Anything Goes'.

 

You have until Wednesday 5th May to link your projects to the TIME OUT   challenge. And if your needing any help with ideas, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created for you. Look forward to seeing your pets in the Gallery!!

Take care

Shona