Jack-o-Lantern Wishes and Mummy Kisses

Happy Halloween! I think more than any other holiday, Halloween has got to be the funnest of all. With all the cute and scary costumes, haunted houses, jack o lantern carving, pumpkin patches and trick or treating, there's always something fun for everyone of all ages. This year I decided to make these little jack o lantern treat holders which were totally inspired by the one created by SVGCuts Design Team artist, Tamara Tripodi.

I decided to create my own box template in MTC by welding an octagon shape (for the base) with oval shapes (for the sides). Then I used rectangular strips to glue the sides together to form the shape of the jack o lantern. Mini eyelets were added to the sides and I used 20 gauge black craft wire for the handle. 

Jack o lantern face was a freebie cutfile from KaDoodle Bug Designs, and peeking kitty was also a freebie from Treasure Box Designs. Jack o lanterns were filled with bags of cookies tied with a bow. For once I got started early and was able to finish 20 of these in time...wow, that's scary! Lol, in fact, I even had time enough for these...

...Hershey kisses dressed up with cute Halloween stickers! These always seem so silly to do, but oh so much fun...and so easy! Sticker designs are a free download from Amanda's Parties To Go. Simply printed them up on sticker paper and used a 3/4" circle punch to cut them out.

The mummy bag toppers is an idea I cased from Candace Pelfry of Papercrafts By Candace. I thought it was so clever how she came up with these cute bag toppers using just strips of paper, punched circles and a bit of ink for edging. Quick 'n easy...just my speed!

Oh, and can't forget the Halloween treat bags for Latte's doggie friends!

Used yet another freebie cutfile from Treasure Box Designs, "Bobble Dog" to decorate the doggie treat bags. Little witch hat...another freebie...comes from My Little Scrap Chick. Yes, it definitely pays to subscribe to all those newsletters to collect a lot of cute freebie cutting files!

Now that our only daughter has grown up and moved, we have fun dressing up our little Latte in silly costumes for Halloween instead. But when hubby saw the costume I bought for Latte this year, I think he felt really sorry for her and so we ended up getting her another one...that's the hotdog one I posted earlier this week. Well, nevertheless, I still thought the first costume I got was cute....even if it might seem so wrong to dress a dog up as...

 ...Hello Kitty!

Happy Halloween, everyone!





Halloween Gift Bags and a Riddle

Halloween is this week already...wow, where did October go? Just a short post today to share a couple of gift bags I quickly decorated to hold some cookies for giving to two friends we had dinner with earlier this month.



This little kitty peeking out from a pumpkin was a weekly freebie cutting file offered by Treasure Box Designs, another one of my favorite sites for adorable paper piecing cut files. Designer Dina St. Laurent comes up with some of the cutest paper piecings perfect for cards and scrapbook pages. Be sure to sign up for her weekly newsletter so you won't miss the weekly freebies offered every Tuesday.
Right now I'm still working on finishing up the last of my Halloween projects. Mailed out and personally delivered about half of them already to family, but don't want to post them quite yet until they're all delivered...
Till then, I have a Halloween riddle for you!

"What happens when hubby forgets to turn on the air conditioner

before we leave for work in the morning?"

Answer: We come home to a HOT DOG!!!

 Hahahha! (sorry Latte!)  Okay, so if you'll stop by on Thursday I'll have my Halloween projects finally posted and an even funnier picture of sweet Latte to share...

"Get Well Beary Soon" Tissue Holder

The theme for our annual Cricut Club project this year was "Anything Goes". Creativity unleashed! We could choose to create and share anything our hearts desired...the only requirement was that it included at least one Cricut cut in it. We each made 17 sets of our chosen project to swap and everyone would go home with 17 different and very special handmade projects.

For my project, I decided to go with a easel tissue box card using the bear from my favorite Create A Critter cartridge. I tucked him under a blanket and gave him a little thermometer with a little "get well" message. Used  a bell flower punch with liquid pearl for the centers together with a tiny leaf  punch to embellish the front of the card and also to serve as the stop for the easel on the inside. Spellbinders Labels Four die was used to cut the opening for dispensing the tissues. 

Here's what the "card" looks like closed down. You can find a video tutorial for the construction of the tissue box holder with a display panel over at Create! with Dee. Folding down the top panel and adding an easel element to it allows the "card" to close down for ease of giving. A lot of little steps to embellish 17 of these but definitely fun to put together. And in the end it was all worth it 'cause I got to  bring home 17 brand new and amazing handmade goodies shared by my fellow Cricut Club friends!

Kimono Marci Birthday

This is the card I recently sent off to my dear friend, Gene who celebrated her birthday last month. Inspired yet again by a card spotted on the Crafty Card Making site, I decided to try and make a variation of their Open Front Push and Pull card. Though the mechanics of their Push and Pull card is different than mine, I thought the end result looked pretty similar. Yup, it's another one of those sliding pop up box cards that I always have so much fun with.

This time I cut the front of the box down at an angle, placed my greeting at the front corner and added die cut sakura along the sides. Sakura were cut from WikiCaps sakura and sakura outline dies then brushed with Stickles. Centers were punched from text weight pearlized gold paper using a Nellie Snellen stamen punch.

Kimono Marci with Fan is a digital image I purchased from the La-La Land Crafts website. Used Copics to color her up and paperpieced her kimono and fan using digitized washi paper. The bridge is a die cut, also from La-La Land Crafts. Added pearly gold accents of Smooch to the bridge and Marci's kimono.

Here's a shot from the top which shows the bridge attached to the sliding element inside the box, and a shot from the back where I added my sentiment.  Shaped back panel for this card was created in MTC by welding basic oval and rectangle shapes together. On the inside, I used patterned paper from My Little Shoebox...I thought it looked kinda neat with the kokeshi on the bridges in the background behind Marci on the bridge.

And finally, the folded flat shot...all ready for mailing. Had fun experimenting with this open front style sliding box card...will definitely have to try this again soon!

Kimono Kitty Easel Calendars

Needed something cute but quick and easy to donate to my mom's Senior Citizen group  for the annual Senior Fair held last weekend. LOL, originally I had all kinds of ideas in my head of neat things I wanted to make for this year's fair since I think my mom was a little disappointed with my donation last year. Ahhh...but due to my poor time management skills (and Candy Crush Saga...) I fell behind schedule and had to keep it simple again this year... Really wanted to try to make something that would be "useful" so I chose to do easel calendars.

Decided to go with Hello Kitty since she's always a crowd pleaser and easy to piece together. The original image is from a coloring book and I used MTC to create the cutfile. Digitized washi paper was used for the kimono and sakura background paper is from My Little Shoebox Cherry Delight collection. Once all the pieces were cut, the assembly went pretty quickly and I was able to finish a bunch of these in a weekend. Mom seemed pretty happy...I hope they sold okay!

Sister Stamps Release #18 Available Today!

Just a reminder that the last two stamps of the Sister Stamps Chinese Zodiac series - the Year of the Rabbit and Year of the Dragon - go on sale at your favorite retailers TODAY!
And just in case you missed any of them, here's all 12 of the adorable zodiac animals that were released this year...

Many thanks to all of you who stopped by to visit during each of the these releases. I hope that you were able to get even a little bit of inspiration and see how versatile these wonderful stamps can be. Thank you too, to Denise and Jenny for allowing me to be a part of this fun and learning adventure!
Please stop by the Sister Stamps blog for a list of places you can purchase these stamps to start collecting all 12 of the Chinese Zodiac Animals!