Authentique and Deconstruction 110, 109 & 108

Yes, I know, it isn't Halloween Yet. :) Halloween is my favorite! I spent the better part of this morning sorting through my Halloween stuff. I've made it a goal to organize this year, and I've actually purged quite a bit of stuff!

I store all of my supplies by occasion. While this may be different than most people do, I find it to be an easy system for me. I have one or two 12x12 boxes for each major holiday or occasion. Christmas and Halloween are the only two holidays for me, that warrant more than one box! So... I sorted through my prized Halloween stash and decided to work with some of my favorite paper from last year, by Authentique.

Today I worked with Deconstructed Sketches 110, 109, and 108 again. It was a DS day! I also tried my hand at Paula's latest Boot Camp lesson, from Stars & Stamps. Let me show you how... here are the cards. :)

It was a little bit difficult to measure exactly, the color rule, but I tried to stay as close as possible to Paula's lesson. I attempted to use a variation of this theme... going 60-10-30 with oranges, blacks and whites. In the above, I think that I accomplished 60% black, 30" white and 10% orange. Or somewhat close to it anyway.

Before we go any further, let me add a reminder that the above card is probably the only one here that would be ok to send to OWH. It may be on the edge a little even... It's better to stick to the cutsey Halloween decor with regards to cards for OWH. No death imagery ... if you have any questions about that, the latest episode of OWHtv might be good for you to check out. :) Next!

I love these sketches. Did I tell you that I love these sketches? I love them.

Argh...glare on the strip of  neat black doily stuff... and can you see, that even though this little "Thriller" (CTMH) stamp is so darned cute, the skull image rules him OUT for our heroes. That's ok. They can't all go in the box. :)

A few deets! Here is that strip of black doily on some clear acrylic kind of stuff... I don't know what you would call it. But it is by Martha Stewart. My sweet "Mom" Cindy sent it to me last year!

I stamped the skull onto a piece of swiss dot Bazzill. I cut it out with a Spellbinder's frame and left the frame in place while I distressed around the inside edge with some black ink and a sponge dauber. The same sized frame was used to cut the black one, behind it.

Some thoughts about this card... first of all, I did not have any black lace on hand. I had plenty of white lace though! So I simply cut a strip of white lace and put it in a baggie with a few drops of black re-inker. After smooshing it around for a while I removed it carefully and let it dry on a paper towel. Voila..black lace!

I also wanted to note that I would normally never stamp a sentiment directly onto a patterned paper like this. But I messed around with this look and really ended up liking it, so I went with it. I daubed some white ink around the sentiment area to make it kind of misty, ghosty and cool looking! Then, I stamped and heat embossed with black to make the contrast even more different. The "web" like stamps in the corner, in comparison, were stamped with black ink. Only the sentiment is embossed. What do you think? It shows up much better in this photo, than in the one above, and in real life it looks even better... and it was fun.

This paper reminds me of Beetlejuice. Did you ever watch that movie?

For the "Trick or Treat" above, I stamped with black onto a scrap of orange paper, then used a white gel pen to accent the letters. Looks like that labeling tape stuff. Cute! I also really enjoyed adding bits of toulle, ribbon and a few other baubles today.

Here's another closeup of the corner stamp with the webs. I love this set. "Thriller" is now retired. Sad!

Hey, thanks for stopping by. I was scared and lonely and a little bit creeped out... I watched two paranormal-ish horror movies on Netflix while I was making cards today... one of them was Paranomal State 3, and the other one was about some kind of haunted looney bin... I forget what it was called, but it was scary good. Hubby doesn't like to watch horror flicks so I have to sneak them in during card time. Hee hee!