Ghosty Circle

Happy Halloween!! The day is finally here and all of the adorable ghost, goblins, vampires and witches will come out of the graveyard and knock on your door begging for candy. What is everyone doing for Halloween? What costume are you going to wear? Do you get many trick-or-treaters that come to your door on Halloween night? We don't. We are lucky if we get one kid that comes to our door. So instead I buy a bag of candy and end up eating it by myself. Oh well, more for me so I'm not complaining.

There is not a whole lot to say about today's card except that it is probably one of my favorites for this month. I love the look of a thick black outline against the patterned paper! And, like I have mentioned several times this month, I am trying to use up some of my stash of Halloween supplies. So, these adorable little glittery ghosts just had to make an appearance. I hope you like this card as much as I do!

In the end, I used up quite a bit of my Halloween stash but I still have A LOT left. I decided that I wouldn't buy any new supplies this year (even on clearance) since I still have so much. Plus, I am trying to reorganize my supplies in my craft room and I didn't want to have to find a place to store anymore Halloween items. And, who knows maybe next year they will come out with some stuff that I simply can't refuse. 

I hope that you have all enjoyed this month long buildup to Halloween and the different projects that I created. I sure had a lot of fun creating them. On Friday we will be starting a new series for the month of November, focusing on all things Fall, Autumn and Thankful. 

Witch Cauldron Party

Today's scrapbook layout is another example of layout in WITCH (yes, I know that I spelled it wrong but I couldn't resist) the patterned paper does most, if not all, of the work. I have been super busy lately trying to get my party details planned out and decorations made that I also forgot about making a layout today. I try to have most of my projects made a week or two in advance so that I'm not scrambling for ideas at the last minute. I don't know about you, but when I know something has to be done quickly, that is when I tend to blank out and get uninspired. But, since I have been so busy I nearly forgot that I needed to make a new layout. So, I decided to once again flip through my countless paper pads and see if something inspired me. I stumbled across this cute witch paper and knew that it would make a cute and FAST layout. I adhered two 4 x 6 inch horizontal photo mats and was about to call the layout done when I remembered that I have several sheets of stickers that I am trying to use up. I pulled them out to see what stickers if any would be fitting and found this great "The Witch's Night Party" sticker that I felt finishes the page. I also found several bat stickers that I added to the moon for a spooky effect, although they are slightly too large. I made three copies of this layout, like I have done with several other layouts this month, because there were three identical sheets of this witch paper. I kept them all the same except that for two of them I went through my stamp sets and found a small bat that I stamped in black ink on the moon instead of using the stickers. I actually like the stamped bats better than the stickers. What do you all think? Only four more days until Halloween, have you finalized your plans yet? How many of you are going to your Halloween party this weekend instead?

Open If You Dare

Their are only 7 more days until Halloween, are you getting excited yet? It sounds funny but I am now getting excited for Halloween to be over, simply because I have zero plans for Halloween and also because my big Halloween event will be taking place on November 4th instead. Each year for the past three I have hosted a Murder Mystery Party for my family and friends, and it is a blast. We all wear costumes for our characters and I make lunch/dinner for everyone themed to that years party. This year the party is all about Mardi Gras so it is sure to be fun.

But, enough about me. Let's talk poison, which is the theme of today's card. While going through my scraps from projects I have made in the past I discovered several cutouts full of poisons or potions. I matted them with some orange cardstock just so that the poison panel would stand out more against the background paper. I also looked through my many stamps (which took a while) for a stamp that would make a fitting sentiment. I found this scroll-like frame that says "open if you dare" and I felt that it would be cute when paired with the bottles.

In other news, my cousin and his wife celebrated the birth of their son yesterday and we are all so happy. He is a beautiful, happy and healthy baby boy and we are all so glad that he is finally here. Welcome to the world baby Zion!

Beary Witchy Cauldron

Hey ghouls and goblins, I know, super cheesy greeting right but it was my mom's suggestion so I thought what the heck, there are only 11 more days until Halloween, why not be a little cheesy.

I have been living in my head a lot lately and it puts me in a rather depressed and anxious state. I don't know why I allow other peoples thoughts and opinions effect me so much but they do and I am trying my hardest to work through it. I just can't make myself understand why no one wants to be around or understand when I am going through hard times but they sure expect me to be there for them when they need a shoulder. Isn't it supposed to go both ways?

Anyway, enough angst so let's move on. I want to share with you another scrapbook layout that I made and I am totally in love with!  The giant bear was cut out using my all time favorite Cricut cartridge, Teddy Bear Parade. She is super adorable and for a little added pizzazz I added some shimmer to her outfit, her broom and the acidic vapor rising up out of her bubbling cauldron. To me this layout just screams HALLOWEEN!

Three Squarish Circles

Countdown: 17 days down and 14 days remaining. Today's post is going to be pretty short so let's get started.

For this card I only had one rule, use up the remaining stickers left on the sticker sheet that I used last week. And, after playing around with them for a while I thought, why not just keep it simple. So, that is exactly what I did. I matted each sticker onto an orange piece of cardstock so that it would stand out against the pattern of the paper. I also chose to raise each image up using some thin foam tape so that it has a little added dimension which can help a card to stand out and look more expensive.

I Only Have Eyes For You

Happy Friday the Thirteenth.  Do you guys have any scary plans? Because I sure don't. My life tends to be pretty boring. Maybe one of these days I will surprise myself and step out of my comfort zone and do something unexpected. Maybe it is the theme of the day but I woke up, after a night of being plagued with bad dreams, and have just been feeling very blah today. Hopefully I will snap out of it soon and salvage the rest of the day.

Anyway, enough with my whining, let's get to talking about this cute scrapbook layout. I was inspired to make this layout when I found these cute 'monster googly eyes' at the dollar store. I cut the gumball, or in this case the eyeball machine, out with my Cricut as well as the scalloped squares behind the photo mats. This layout can hold two 4 x 4 inch photos. I love how this layout turned out, kind of a cute scary.

By the way guys, there are only 18 days left until Halloween.

Halloween Stickers

10 days down and 21 to go, are you feeling in the Halloween spirit yet? No? Me either. It has been a hard week and it is only Tuesday. Yesterday my dad had to have surgery for a hernia that he got. The surgery went well and there were no problems so he was sent home at around 2 pm (it was an out patient surgery). After being home about an hour we noticed that he was a bit restless and didn't seem to want to sit still. Well to make a long story short, he had an unusual reaction to a nausea patch that they put on him and it made him restless, irritable, slur his words and hallucinate. This went on ALL NIGHT, we were able to reach the doctor who performed the surgery around 6 am this morning who told us to remove the patch, which we weren't allowed to touch as it is so potent. We noticed a change after only 30 minutes without the patch, he was finally able to sit still for longer than five minutes. After an hour he FINALLY fell asleep which was a complete relief as none of us had slept all night. So needless to say after I finish writing this post I will be going to bed for a bit.

So let's dive into the card for today. One of my goals with this month of Halloween series is to make a rather large dent in my Halloween stash. Some of the items I have had for several years and it is time to use them up. I had a couple of sticker sheets that contained some circle and square stickers, in three different sizes with different spooky images on them. I decided to use up the largest and the smallest of the stickers today.

I found the idea for this card on Pinterest and just adapted it a bit to fit my needs. I have to say that I absolutely love how much the black cardstock makes the other colors and images pop. And, the little bit of added bling really helps to finish this card off.

For the inside I once again added a piece of the matching patterned paper from the front and then accented it with one of the smallest stickers from the page. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the remaining medium sized stickers.

Haunted House

A haunting we will go, a haunting we will go, in 25 days its Halloween and a haunting we will go. Hey guys, do you like my song? I thought of it an hour ago and haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I hate it when a song gets stuck in your head because it makes it hard to focus on the things that need to be done, like writing a blog post. I have to stop after every other sentence to sing it to myself, thankfully no one is home or they would think I have gone insane.

Speaking of insane, (nice segue Ashley) that is what I think of people who enjoy going to Haunted houses. I think that I briefly mentioned in Tuesday's post how much I HATE haunted houses, but today I thought that I would drive the point home by mentioning again. Plus, it fits in with today's scrapbook layout.

When I was about 5 or 6 years old I went with my parents to the zoo for a Halloween Spooktacular that was held every year. You got to walk around and see the animals at night and they lit the pathways with jack-o-lanterns and scarecrows. At one point along the trail they had a haunted house where employee's were dressed up and had some bloody objects. I don't know if the employee just didn't see me or if he was showing off for the teenagers that were in front of us but he jumped out in front of us with a chainsaw and scared me to death. I ran away bawling and it took my parents quite a while to calm me down. To make matters worse (at least for me) the employee felt so bad that he had scared me so much, he chased after us to apologize and to give me a sucker. Thus my hatred of haunted houses began.

When I was trying to figure out what kind of layout to make for today I decided to simply flip through the numerous paper pads that I have to see if anything spoke to me and I came across three sheets of this spooky/graveyard/haunted house paper and thought, I can work with that. Since the background paper provides most of the work for the layout, all that was needed was a 4 x 6 inch photo mat and some added embellishments. I decided to go ahead and make all three pages into layouts so that I can sell some or give them away to family. I had a lot of these cute dimensional monsters that I had bought in a pack after Halloween last year. I am not exactly sure where I bought them but I thought that they would look cute next to the tall dark house.

So, what do you think? Do you have a favorite out of the three? My favorite changes each time I look at them.

Hallow-Kitty

The countdown is officially on, and we have 28 days until Halloween! Now, I've never really been that big into Halloween. I dressed up as a kid to go trick-or-treating around the block with my parents, over to my aunt and uncles house or if it was a cold or rainy night we would go out to the mall were you could get tootsie rolls galore.

I have never been a person who likes to be scared, so I absolutely detest haunted houses or being jumped out at. I had a couple of bad experiences as a young kid of people trying to jump out and scare me, and let's just say it didn't end well.

As I got older, around high school age, my typical Halloween night was watching my version of a scary movie and eating junk food. Heck this is probably what I am going to be doing again this year. But, for the last couple of years now I have been hosting a Murder Mystery Dinner Party for some family and friends on or around Halloween, and it has been super fun and gives us all something to do that involves dressing up and having fun.

Anyway, I have rambled on long enough. Let's get to crafting. But first let me say that in the lead up to Halloween I will be posting only Halloween themed projects for the month of October, so get excited. The first project that I am coming at you with is a 4 x 4 inch card.

I was recently cutting down some cardstock scraps and I had several left over from a previous project that would be perfect for some 4 x 4 cards. I pulled out my Halloween stamps and I fell in love with this adorable little kitty with a witch hat on, so I stamped it out,  colored him, and then used my scissors to trim him out. Then what? I sat there staring at this cute kitty trying to figure out what to do next. When all else fails, browse Pinterest for a while. There I came across several cards that had a starry night/ galaxy scene and I thought that that would be a perfect backdrop for my cat.

I made several different variations of this card because I couldn't figure out how I wanted it to look, and I was having fun experimenting with this new background technique. I even tried masking off the cat using rubber cement and inking around the image. I definitely need more practice with that. I decided to keep the insides the same on all of the cards by just stamping 'Happy Halloween' and then adding a strip of patterned paper that matched the mat on the front of the card.

Let me know which one is your favorite!