Halloween

This is my second post of the day - please scroll down to see my first post

Good morning my crafty friends and I hope you are well. Firstly I must apologise for the delay (again!) in this post going out. We are in the middle of redecorating, and I am down to sharing the computer with the rest of the family in the dining room ... which doesn't help when my other half doesn't know about my Design Team positions!!!!

What an intricate web I've woven, which is perfect for the new challenge that Susan has set over at Lexi's Creations - for this fortnight, our challenge is Halloween.

Our wonderful sponsors for this challenge are the fabby team at Joanna Sheen who are offering a £10 gift voucher to their wonderful craft store for our lucky winner. Now that's a prize worth playing for!

 



Front of Gift Pouch

Now I must confess to not knowing what to create for this challenge as we don't celebrate Halloween! However, on the day when I was sitting down to the week's DT projects I saw a great post on my crafty friend Annette's blog ... and she was faced with exactly the same dilemma. So (deep breath here!) I have cased her gift pouch project and using lovely seasonal image from Lexi's on-line store this is what I've made to inspire you:




Back of Gift Pouch

My Gift Pouch recipe is as follows:

• Base Card - is Neenah Classic Crest Card onto which I printed my Gift Pouch Template and Images. I the made masks for the images using repositionable sticky notes which I cut out and put over my images, before running the card through the printer again to print out my background.
• Gift Pouch - is Treat Tent template from WendyBird Designs. This download comes with five different window shapes including a circle. I used a freebie from the Barry Spooky Bats set at Stamp Fairy which is 2 bats, some clouds and a moon. I superimposed this image onto the circular window shape so that the moon became my cut out section. As one bat was flying across the moon, I cut it out and repositioned it on one of the clouds.
• The bats were coloured using my Spectrum Noir Pen in True Black
• The clouds were lightly coloured using my chalks in Grey and Black 
• Design Paper - Summer at Summertime Designs and is called Web Paper from the Happy Halloween set ... this is just perfect for this treat bag as I wanted my girl vampire to really stand out.
• Image - This gorgeous girl is called "Little Minx" and she is one of the newly releases created by Lexi at Fairy Dust Crafts. I brought this cutie to life using my Spectrum Noir Pens in the following colours:
• Skin - FS2, FS3, PL4
• Hair - EB1, PL4, True Black, Colourless Blender
• Dress & Suspenders - PL4, PL5, Silver Gel Pen
• Boots - True Black, Silver Gel Pen
• Necklace - True Black, Silver Gel Pen
• Stockings - True Black
• Wings - IG4, Silver Gel Pen
• Outline - IG1
• Ribbon - Black Organza ribbon from my stash

Head on over to Lexi's Creations and see how incredibly talented team-mates and our fabulous Guest Designers Carol and her 12 year old Granddaughter Alexis are celebrating Halloween - don't forget to come back and share your projects with us! You've got until Saturday 27th October 2012 to link your cards up.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Challenge 19 - Spooky at Stampin' for the Weekend
• Challenge #39 - Halloween at Creatalicious Challenges
• Challenge #29 - Halloween at The Cutie Pie Challenge
• Fortnightly Challenge 47 - Halloween and/or Autumn at Forever Friends
• Challenge 43 - Halloween at Dream Valley Challenges
• Too Cute To Spook at Di's Digi Designs
• Fall/Halloween Challenge at Scrappy Frogs Challenge - Second Entry
• Challenge #185 - BOO-tacular at Stamptacular Sunday
• Challenge #44 - Black, White and One Colour - Card Crafter's Circle
• Challenge 87 - Things with Wings at Top Tip Tuesday Second Entry My TOP TIP for you here is make your design all on one layer (your base card) by printing out the template and images on your base card. Print this out again onto some spare card with a sticky note (or 2 in the case of my Little Minx image!) over the images making sure that some of the sticky will be there once you cut round your image. Fussy cut round the image prints on the sticky notes and position them over the image prints on your base card. Then run the card through the printer to print out your background. Peel off the sticky notes and, hey presto, your image looks like it's superimposed onto the background!

Hugs, Helen x

Little Treat Bags - A Quick Make!

Hi,

I hope you had an awesome Christmas!

We're now at that gap between Christmas and New Year, which can sometimes be rather awkward depending on whether you or your loved ones are working this week, as it is in our house at the mo. If you're at home with either some time on your hands, or you need to escape from the family!, why not head on over to The Crafter's Cafe Open House where there are fun and games to be had right through this weekend.

One of the challenges is "So What is Hybrid?" which has been sponsored by WendyBird Designs -Wendy has given The Crafter's Cafe a template for a small gift bag, which can be downloaded, made up and entered into the challenge. And if this free template isn't enough to tempt you, Wendy is also offering every participant in the challenge a $2 voucher to use in her store! So without further ado, here are my small gift bags. The template is for 2 bags side by side on a sheet of A4 paper/card, and Wendy has offered several styles of aperture. As I wanted to try 2 different colours, I used digital papers and cropped them so they each fitted on half a side of A4. The contents of these little bags are a piece of homemade "Jewelled Flapjack" which I wrapped in clingfilm - however they could be used for all sorts of things as long as the items are put in a sealed bag e.g. sweets, hair bands (for little girls' party bags), wedding favours etc. 

This small green bag is made using a digital paper called The Stockings Were Hung 4 which was a goodie sent out by Paulette of Create With TLC in The December Club. I printed the paper on one side of my card, and the template on the other, and then cut and scored the template as per the instructions. The sentiment is also by Create with TLC, although I think this was a freebie download from the blog. I sized the sentiment to suit the bag and punched 2 holes in it to match those holes in the bag flap. The bow was tied using 5 lengths of raffia to give a bit of body to the bow and the only embellishments I added were 3 bits of 'Bling' at the bottom of the heart.

The pink bag was made in the same way as the green one, this time using a digital paper called Hip Christmas Paper 4 (again from the Create with TLC December Club). The sentiment on this bag is another freebie which I downloaded from Paulette's blog ... if you haven't discovered her blog yet, you simply must visit as she is sooooo talented and completely awesome in her generosity! Again the sentiment was sized to suit the bag, cut out and had one hole punched in it for the tie to go through. This lovely pink ribbon was on a blouse I got for Christmas and I think it goes perfectly with this paper. I left the ribbon longer at the back, so that the bag can be hung on the Christmas tree. The only embellishment I added to this little bag was a bright pink flower gem.

I would like to enter these little treat bags into the following challenges:

•  So What is Hybrid? at The Crafter's Cafe December Open House
• Challenge #3 Anything Goes at Card Crafters Circle
• Challenge #88 Anything Goes at Digi Doodle Shop Challenges

Thank you all for your support and encouragement (both on my blog and other forums where we have met) since I started card making, just eight very short months ago. I truly value all the comments that I've received.

I hope that you and your loved ones have a great New Year's Eve, and that 2012 proves to be happy, peaceful and prosperous for you all.

Hugs,
Helen
xxx