Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween my peeps.  Nothing more scary than a morning without coffee.  (If you drink coffee that is.)

Monday I showed you the Orange Skull version.  Today is the spider web.   They both come from the same sheet of Witches Brew DSP. 

Thanks again to my friend, Sherry, for the inspiration. 

Creative Blessings,
Heather North

Click HERE to see this week's deals.



Perfect Blend




Witches Brew DSP



Chevron Embossing Folder



1/8" Black Taffeta Ribbon



Purple Butterflies

Every week I check out challenges on the web and "plan" to do them, but most weeks I am lucky if I get one done in time to enter.  Today I have 2! 

Dynamic Duos is one of the few color challenges that I rarely struggle with.  Perhaps because it is just two colors and a neutral.  When I saw that they were doing 2 shades of purple this week I knew I had to join in the fun!


Dynamic Duos

The butterflies from SU Papillion Potpourri were stamped in Perfect Plum, then layered with a smaller butterfly punched out of Perfect Plum cardstock.  The script in the background as well as the mat is in Wisteria Wonder.  Don't you just love my new stamp?   The card needed a little bling so I added strips of silver glimmer paper behind the butterflies and two rhinestones to the center of each of purple butterfly.

The second piece of inspiration comes from Unscripted Sketches.  You know how I love sketches.  This one looked challenging to me at first, but when I started to think about all the shapes/punches I could use in place of the circles the ideas started flowing.  In fact, I am thinking about a few other cards I can adapt this sketch for.



Unscripted Sketches

What challenges inspire you?  If either of these spark your interest give them a try.  There is still time to enter both of them.  I would love to see what you come up with.



Creative Blessings,
Heather North

Stamps: Defining Words (Wplus9), Papillion Potpourri
Ink: Perfect Plum, Wisteria Wonder
Paper: Silver Glimmer Paper, Whisper White, Wisteria Wonder
Accessories: Basic Rhinestones, Bitty Butterfly Punch, Elegant Butterfly Punch

 

 

Winners & Design Team Call

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway last weekend.  The two winners of Catherine Pooler and Maureen Merritt's "A Very Trendy Holiday Class" are:

foleysfriend
&
Southlake Scrapbooking

Congratulations ladies!  Please email Catherine at catherine@catherinepooler.com and tell her Heather North sent you.  ;)  She's expecting your email.  See you in class! 

If you didn't win, you can still join the class.  I suggest joining StampNation first to get your 50% off coupon.  When you are ready to register for the class click HERE.

Speaking of StampNation... they are looking for another 2 people to join the design team.  Could you be one of the next design team members?  Here's some info to help you decide. 

StampNation Design Team Call - (Term December 1st - February 28th)

StampNation is the premier paper crafting community, a place to share inspiration and knowledge with members from around the world. StampNation embraces products from all companies and all styles of design.

We are looking to add 2 new Design Team Members. DT responsibilities include: Weekly Challenges, Weekly Blog Posts & commenting and participating in conversations around StampNation as well as welcoming our new Sistahs.

New DT members will receive free membership for the length of their term.

Applicants must have an active blog (4 or more posts per week) and be passionate about papercrafting!!! 

If you’d like to join the StampNation Design Team, please send us 3 samples of your best work, as well as a little bit about yourself and why you think you’d be a great fit for our team. Also include current/past design team work and recognitions or publications (these are not requirements to be on the DT).

Please send applications to maureenlmerritt@mac.com with the Subject line “SN Design Team Applicant” by Monday, November 11th. Chosen applicants will be contacted by November 15th.

We are constantly looking at ways to improve StampNation to make it the very best site on the internet for education, fun and sisterhood. We are looking forward to bringing fresh and fun ideas and designs to StampNation and we are looking forward to hearing from you!

*Before applying please click here to learn more about StampNation and to see if this is the place for you!
Please let me know if you have any questions! Good luck!

I've thouroughly enjoyed being on the StampNation design team and I look forward to meeting the next 2 designers!!!  Could it be you? 

Creative Blessings,
Heather North

P.S.  Scroll down my blog to see last week's design team card made by me.  clicky

Brewing Together ~ CQC#212

My friend, Sherry Piro, has been the biggest cheerleader I know for Operation Write Home.  (OWH)    Recently she sent me a picture of some Valentine's/Love cards she has been working on to send to OWH.  I LOVE them and asked if I could CASE them.  She said, yes, and I plan to CASE them all.

Aren't they adorable?!!!  The one that really got my eye and got my creative juices flowing was the coffee cup.  I had just been thinking that I need to pull that stamp set out and give it some love.  Sherry used heart paper for her cup and I thought it would be cute to use paper for all the holidays to make cards.   Since Halloween is coming up I decided to give it a go with the Witches Brew DSP.  Here is what I came up with.

When I was talking to her about the card she told me she plans on making one for Christmas too.  I told her I wished I had a Halloween "brew" stamp.  She said I should just print one out on the computer.  Brilliant!  Don't you just love creating with friends?  They always have the best ideas.   It would be so easy to print out a few cute sayings onto cardstock and then punch them out like I did with the stamped image here.

To make the cup I stamped it on both sides of my Double Sided Paper, once onto white cardstock for the lid, and one more time onto my Very Vanilla cardstock.  I cut out the DSP, adhered it to the Very Vanilla piece, then popped up the lid on dimensionals before placing it on top of my cup.  That sounds like a lot of stamping and cutting, but it's EASY because you don't have to be precise.

The colors in my card aren't exact, but close to the ones at ColourQ this week.  I will have another card similar to this one later in the week on my blog.  This time I flip the DSP around so more of the spiderwebs show than the skulls.


cQc #212



Thank you Sherry for inspiring me not only with your sweet Valentines, but with your dedication to Operation Write Home. 

Creative Blessings,
Heather North

P.S.  If you are looking for the winners of my weekend giveaway scroll up or click HERE.

P.P.S.  If you are looking for the StampNation Design Team call CLICKY

P.P.P.S.  Today is the last day of Stampin' UP!'s 25 stamp sets for 25% off sale.  Will you be getting the same sets I purchased this morning?  Clicky




Witches Brew DSP



Perfect Blend Stamp Set



Chevron Embossing Folder



Sewing Sunday ~ Disappearing Youth ~ ALYOF

Tyler's quilt top is finished!  I thought I would be done early in the month, but it didn't work out that way.  Today I was able to sew the last row on Disappearing Youth.

The name of this quilt comes from the disappearing 4 patch I used around the outer edges, and the fact that I made this for my son who is a senior in high school.  He chose the main fabrics.  It's not
the primary colored trains, planes and cars.  My first thought was to name the quilt disappearing son, but the more I thought about it the less I liked it.  My son is not disappearing, he's just growing and changing and becoming a man.  He'll soon leave the house, but he'll always be my son, so I changed it to Disappearing Youth to symbolize him transitioning from childhood to adulthood. 

While I learned the disappearing 4 patch technique from the Missouri Star Quilt company, the center was my own design.  Let me tell you something I learned while doing this, I wasn't quite ready to design my own quilt.  For some reason I really struggled with adding the seam allowance and taking it away to get the final measurements.  I'm blaming it on the Vertigo.  :)

Actually I would like this loads better if the center was bigger, but it was a good place to start quilting again.   Best of all it is done with a few days to spare for A Lovely Year of Finishes.



ALYOF


Now it's time for me decide what my November finish will be.  Should I attempt to go back to my Star Shadow quilt or start on my other son's quilt?  I think I'll work on my guild blocks in the meantime if the dizziness goes away again.

Tyler is on the left and Michael's shoes are peeking out on the right side. 


Creative Blessings,
Heather North

P.S.  Proud mama brag here.  I've got to share a picture of our son Michael getting ready for his concert last week.   That is one handsome young man we have there.  He did great!

A Very Trend Holiday Class Giveaway

As crafters we often need to be thinking two seasons ahead with our creations so that they can be sent, given or displayed in time.  While I don't like seeing Christmas decorations in the stores before Halloween, it does remind me that I need to get moving in the craft room.  ;)

So far the only Christmas cards I have made have been for Operation Write Home to make their early October deadline.  I really need to get started on my own cards to send to family and friends.  Thank goodness my friends Catherine Pooler and Maureen Merritt have come up with a fun new class to get my mojo flowing!

After seeing all the classroom has to offer I was so inspired that I made my first Christmas card of the season this morning.

Even with my cold lingering on I was able to complete this card from start to finish in 20 minutes.  That's saying a lot when you consider my Holiday supplies were hidden away from last year and my craft table is a MESS. 

Click HERE if you want more information or you are ready to register now!

GIVEAWAY time!!!!  Catherine has generously given me 2 FREE Classes to give away to commenters on my blog.  Woot-Woot!  Don't worry, if you have already signed up for the class and are chosen as the winner she will refund your class fee.  She's cool that way.  ;)

To enter to win:
1) Leave me a comment telling me when you like to start making Christmas cards.
2) Enter by midnight (PST) on Sunday, October 27th


One final note... the best deal is to join StampNation and get your coupon code for 50% off.  The cost of membership for one month, plus your half price class is LESS than the class itself. 

What is StampNation?  StampNation is an online papercrafting community filled with the BEST sistahs in the world.  New videos, tutorials and challenges come out every week.  There is also a classroom with ideas for the latest trends, CAS cardmaking, not to mention Shea's lounge and so much more.  There is also a picture gallery with thousands of ideas from everyone on the site sharing what we love.  Just tell Catherine I sent you.  :)

Creative Blessings,
Heather North

edited to add this note from Catherine:

Once you pay, you will then set up your user account.  Within the hour, you will get an email with a link to complete your registration.

 

If you have ants in your pants (like I would!!), and don't want to wait to get in the classroom, EMAIL ME (catherine@catherinepooler.com) YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD.  I can manually activate your account.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me any time!

Thankful Thursdays

Yesterday I had planned to film a video for you and post it along with my design team card, but I managed to catch a cold.  My nose is stuffy, my ears hurt, my throat hurts and when I talk I start coughing.  Nobody wants to listen to that!  Instead I will share with you Stampin' UP!'s Thankful Thursday goodies.  TODAY ONLY these items are on sale. 



Hearts a Flutter Framelit Item # 130159
Regular Price: $24.95 US/$30.95 CAN
Discount Price: $18.71 US/$23.21 CAN



Honeycomb Textured Embossing Folder Item # 129378
Regular Price: $7.95 US/$9.95 CAN
Discounted Price: $5.96 US/$7.46 CAN

Envelope Liners Framelits Dies Item # 132172
Regular Price: $26.95 US/$32.95 CAN
Discounted Price: $20.21 US/$24.71 CAN

Alphabet Press Textured Embossing Folder
Item # 130916
Regular Price: $7.95 US/$9.95 CAN
Discounted Price: $5.96 US/$7.46 CAN

Window Frames Framelit Item # 129021
Regular Price: $26.95 US/$32.95 CAN
Discounted Price: $20.21 US/$24.71 CAN

Chalk Talk Framelit Item # 129983
Regular Price: $24.95 US/$30.95 CAN
Discount Price: $18.71 US/$23.21 CAN

Combine these with the 25th Anniversary 25 stamp sets 25% off and you can get a sweet deal on some matching stamp sets for the Hearts A Flutter Die.

Go HERE to shop my online store 24/7, but don't wait this sale ends tonight.  

Happy Birthday Debbie!

My husband's co-worker had a birthday recently and I wanted to give her a card.  She is one of the sweetest ladies you could ever hope to work with.  I asked Scott what her favorite color was.  He didn't know.  I asked if she had any special hobbies or interests that I might have a stamp for and he wasn't sure.  So, I went with Orange for the seasonal color and added some bling.  Every woman deserves to be queen on her birthday.

The card was an experiment with some glittery orange embossing powder I bought last summer from Cindy's Simple Stuff when she was closing her shop.  First I used a Versamark pen on the top and bottom of my banner, then I added the glittery EP and heat set it.  The results were not as great as I had hoped.  Not sure if it was "operator error" (very likely) or the brand of embossing powder I used.  Next time I think I will try just using glitter.   I do so dearly love the crown with the rhinestone jewels on top!

For the ribbon bow I wrapped the ribbon around my embossed stripes layer of cardstock, then I attached the faux bow to the front.  Of course the card needed a little more bling, so I added three rhinestones to the center of my bow.

Scott told me that when Debbie opened her card she didn't believe I made it.  He told her about my blog and she looked me up.  :)  Still not sure if she believes me.  Should I make another card like this and video it to show her (and you) how it's made?

Happy Birthday MONTH Debbi!!!  I think you should take the entire month off of work!  ;)

Creative Blessings,
Heather North

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Perfectly Penned, Gorgeous Grunge (ON SALE!!!) Crown??? Perhaps Tiny Tags (retired)
Ink: Smoky Slate, Versamark Pen
Paper: Whisper White Cardstock
Accessories: Pumpkin Pie Chevron Ribbon, Stripes Embossing Folder, Basic Rhinestones, Orange Glitter Embossing Powder (non SU)
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In Stampin' UP! News....



Clicky to SHOP my SU Store now

Stampin' UP! is having a 25% off 25 stamp set sale!!!  Some of my current favorites are in that list and some others are going in my shopping cart.  What can I say?  I love a good sale.  :)

While you are shopping, don't forget to check out the weekly deals and new items at the clearance rack.  Be on the lookout on Thursday for a new daily deal.  But jump on that one fast as it only lasts ONE DAY!

Thankful New Zealand

Yesterday I showed you the CAS card I made with the leftovers from today's card.

Are you wondering where the inspiration for this card came from?  It actually came from the StampNation design team challenge for World Card Making Day. 

New Zealand for StampNation WCMD

At first I was going to make a card that included the blue background, but I liked the graphic look of my card on a very vanilla piece.

The burlap ribbon is fringed.  I did a video on how to create that fringe.  If you missed that post last week you can view the video below now.  :)

 

It's probably easy to tell that the "thankful" die cut comes from the Expressions Thinlits and the hexagon comes from the hexagon punch, but do you know where the little chevrons come from?  Not the new chevron punch.  That would be GREAT if I had it, but I don't.  Instead the come from the Circle Card Framelits.  Have I told you lately how much I love the extras that come in this set?



Circle Card Thinlits

This is another Operation Write Home card that I thought any guy could send to just about anyone.   That's why it went in my recent box to OWH.  Did you notice that it has no stamping?  If you are a scrapbooker with extra ribbons and paper and diecuts around you can make this too.  No ink required.  :)

Creative Blessings,
Heather North


Burlap Ribbon




Expressions Thinlits



Masculine Monday ~ Laughter

What makes a card masculine?  For me it just means it is a card that "could" be sent to a man.  Clean And Simple (CAS) cards are great for this.  So are traditionally masculine colors like nuetrals, bright primary colors.  You can "grunge" up a card and make it even better to send to young men.   Today's card is CAS + neutral.  Tomorrow I plan to show you a stepped up version of this card that I made for WCMD using the same papers. 

This card was made for a challenge at OWH to make a card that a guy could send to another guy.  I thought this would be great for one of our nation's heroes to send to his brother, dad, uncle, cousin, friend, etc.   

This layout is great for using up those scraps of paper you've been hoarding.  ;)  It's also a fast and easy card to make.  Take a piece of cardstock, stamp your sentiment, add a strip of DSP, layer that with a coordinating piece of cardstock and you have yourself a card.

Creative Blessings,
Heather North

Stamps: Feel Goods
Paper: Very Vanilla, Mocha Morning DSP (retired), Early Espresso



Feel Goods