Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my family, my friends, my health and well-being. So, from my house to yours, Happy Thanksgiving. I'll be eating way too much turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie to move, but tune in on Monday for a peak at a special Christmas card.

Over The Moon Monday - Challenge

Good morning and welcome to Over The Moon Monday. I hope you had a great weekend. I went to a cookout for my nephew, who just finished Marine Corp boot camp. He has to leave to go back before Thanksgiving, so this was his Thanksgiving dinner. He wanted a cookout so his friends could come and visit with him.

Let's get started with today's challenge, shall we?

From my beginnings in scrapbooking, I have a ton of stickers. For today's challenge, I want you to use a sticker on your card. I needed a card for a baby shower (where the mother doesn't know the sex of the child ahead of time). Not having many baby stamps, I decided to improvise with what I had.

To make this card, I used:

• 2 pieces of white cardstock, 1 cut to A2 size, and the other 4-3/4 x 3-3/4
• a piece of green cardstock 5 x 4
• a contrasting piece of yellow cardstock 3-1/2 x 3-1/2 (you could use patterned paper)
• a Mrs. Grossman baby carriage sticker
• Stampin' Up canvas background stamp
• green dye ink
• yellow ribbon
• decorative border punch
• words are computer generated

I stamped the green cardstock with the green dye ink using the canvas background stamp and set aside. I printed the words onto the yellow cardstock before cutting it out, then placed the baby carriage sticker.

I punched out the edge of the white cardstock, then layered the yellow cardstock close to the edge. I turned back the left edge of the cardstock (in this case by 1/2"), punched 2 holes and threaded my ribbon through it.

I then layered the green cardstock onto the folded white A2 cardstock, and lalyered the white cardstock on top of that.

A pretty simple card, but still looks elegant.

Now let's see what you do with this challenge. Please post a link to your creation in the comment section so we can all enjoy it and be inspired by your creativity.

Last week I got to spend an afternoon with my dear friend, Shelly, and I had a great time. We hardly ever get to see each other, with her illness and my work schedule, so it was really fun to be able to get together.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Don't eat too much turkey, and we'll meet back here next week for another Over The Moon Monday.

Over The Moon Monday - Christmas Cards

Good morning and welcome to another Over The Moon Monday. I have been off work for a few days, so it's going to take me a little while to get back in the saddle, so to speak. I had a productive few days, though. I had some stuff that needed doing at home, but with hubby always underfoot it never seemed to get done.



Today I want to share one of the Christmas cards I have been working on. The stamp set is from Dream Impressions. I don't think they are still in business. I got the set used online. I really like it. I stamped the building onto glossy cardstock, and masked it. Then I masked the bottom part of the cardstock with post-it notes. I brayered an aqua blue onto the top part of the cardstock, then blended in a darker blue towards the top. Then I removed the masks.



I stamped the large star in the sky and heat embossed it with gold. I used glitter glue in the center to give off a star-like shine. I used a white gel pen to make stars in the sky.



For the bottom part of the cardstock, I used various brown markers to make the ground. I wanted it to have a sand-like color, and the textures of the markers on glossy were okay for this application.



I stamped the wise men onto regular cardstock, colored with markers and cut out, adhering them to the card background.

How are you coming along with your Christmas cards? Will you be done in time to mail them out? I have found I'm a little behind, so now I'm rushing to play catch-up. But I'll get them done.

Have a great week!

Over The Moon Monday - Technique

Good morning and welcome to another Over The Moon Monday. This past week I saw a video on making "fluff" for your stamping. So I decided to try it out. It's really quite simple to do, and the results so far have been great.

I have left mine white, so far, and it looks like snow! It has a little sparkle to it, just like real snow. I put it on the large snowflake below. I wish you could see it close up. But, according to the video, you can color it with reinkers to get any color you want, and you can use it for flowers or grass (or anything else you can think of).

To make this wonderful faux product, you simply need white styrofoam balls. I got a bag of them at Michaels so I could try this technique out, but you can get them at any craft store. Then I simply rubbed them together, and they come apart. Do this over a sheet of paper, then transfer the rubbings to a zip lock bag. I left all mine white, but can take out any amount I want to color them for flowers, or grass. It goes a little quicker if you use a kitchen grater with very small holes.

Anyway, the video is here. Or here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_tz3P9NOcY

If you try this out, let me know what you think. I have never tried Flower Soft, so I really can't compare, but leave us a comment with your observations.

Have a great week!

Over The Moon Monday - Faux Marble

Good morning! I hope everyone had a safe Halloween. The consensus with most of you was that you liked the green background on last week's card.

I hope everyone remembered to set their clocks back this weekend. Daylight Savings Time is my hubby's biggest pet peeve. He says it gets his body and his routing all out of sync, and he complains for at least 2 weeks when the time changes. He's not as bad in the fall as he is in the spring.

Let's get on with today's card. I used the Faux Marble technique, which can be found in this month's Technique Junkie newsletter. If you aren't a member, you should check it out. Pat always has lots of interesting techniques, and I like the fact that it comes to you at home in a colored brochure, and there are lots of samples and bonus tutorials online. Instead of using a marker to make the marble veins, I used a cube stamp (Stampendous)I had had for awhile. I used 2 colors of brown inkpads with scrunched up waxed paper to make the marble. I really like the way it turned out. Just wad the waxed paper up and tap it on your inkpad. I did the light color first, then re-scrunched up the paper again and tapped it into the darker color. There is still plenty of the background showing through, so you don't need to feel like you have to get color on every little bit of cardstock.

The Autumn stamp is from The Angel Company. I used a nestability punch to punch out the white cardstock and the background. I colored the stamped area with copic markers.

I matted the whole thing onto copper stardream cardstock. I was pretty happy with the results.

Have a great week. And craft something.

Halloween Card #2

Good morning! This is the re-make of the halloween card I showed you yesterday. This time I used a green background and put yellow behind the windows. I added some "mist" to the sky and put a spider in the upstairs window.

Which do you like best? Please leave a comment and let me know.

Happy Haunting....

Over The Moon Monday - Halloween Challenge

I hope you had a restful weekend. One of my favorite holidays is coming. Can you guess what it is? If you guessed Halloween, you are absolutely right. My husband and I usually dress up to hand out candy to the little trick or treaters, although I don't think that's going to happen this year. We have also been known to attend a party or two (and even win prizes), but that's not going to happen either. We have made some pretty elaborate costumes over the years, and always enjoy it.

Anyway, I wanted to share a card that I made using my cuttlebug. As usual, after I finished the card, there were a few things I would have done differently, but I still like the way it turned out.

To begin, I ran a sheet of white cardstock through the cuttlebug, using the haunted house template. Then I smeared purple ink over it. (This is one of the things I would do differently - I would just use purple cardstock next time.) Set this aside to dry.

Then I ran a piece of black cardstock through the haunted house embossing folder. I took an exacto knife and cut out all the windows and around the door, and I cut out the basic haunted house shape. I smeared white Brilliance ink on this to give it a grungy look.

I put green cardstock behind all the cut out windows, and put a little glitter on it to give it some shine. Then I adhered the black cardstock to the background.

I cut out the moon with an exacto knife from the purple background. I put a piece of yellow cardstock behind the cut out circle, and added some depth and shading with copic markers.

While I was at it, I colored the bats black, and used a white gel pen to make white dots for their eyes. When the white was dry, I colored over the white with red marker, making them have red eyes.

I took a gold gel pen and colored in the fence on the roof and also to the left of the house. Also, the balls on the top of the house.

I used a silver gel pen to color the stair rail on the right side of the house. I also colored in the shutters.

I stamped a ghost border from My Paper Moon, and cut out a couple of the ghosts. I used pop dots to make them stand out.

I used a white gel pen to write "Happy Halloween" on the bottom of the card. (I had a small stamp, but it didn't look quite right.).

All in all, I like the way this turned out. I think I might make one with a bright green sky background and see how that looks.

I hope you have enjoyed the card today. If you have a halloween card to share, please post a link in the comment section.

I have added some more cards to the gallery at My Paper Moon. I hope you have some time to take a look and let me know what you think. If you have any cards that use My Paper Moon stamps and would like to see them in the gallery, please email me or post a link in the comment section. I'd like to see them, too.

Have a great week!