Haunted House

I have been working on this haunted house for probably the entire past week! It ended up being somewhat labor intensive. The first thing I did was to paint the insides of the windows yellow, to create the illusion of there being light inside the house. I painted the edges of the house black. Then I cut out a piece of Core'dinations Black Magic cardstock to fit the house. This really took some time hand cutting out all the angles and windows with an Exacto knife! Then I gave the cardstock an initial sanding to reveal the green core beneath. To add even more texture, I took an embossing stylus and a ruler and embossed lines to mimic board siding. I then sanded again to make the embossed lines stand out. I carefully adhered the cardstock to the wood using Zip Dry. More sanding! I tell you, my hand was certainly tired after sanding all the little nooks and crannies on this thing! After everything was sanded, I inked all the outer edges with silver Color Box ink. I then adhered paper to the windows, using the backside of the Magic Stripes PP from Echo Park's Happy Halloween line. I adhered more Core'dinations cardstock with a gray core to the door and steps and added a button for a doorknob. Next, I used my Cricut and the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge and cut two trees, two tombstones, a cauldron and whole lot of grass! I lightly sanded the tombstones and the cauldron to reveal the color core underneath. I dry embossed the grass using a Fiskars texture plate, then sanded it to reveal the green core. Next step, embellishing! I used a wide variety of embellishments for this. The spiders and webs are EK Success Jolee's Boutique and Recollections. The awesome pumpkins are also EK Success Jolee's Boutique. The ghosts, Happy Halloween sign, cat and some of the bats are Little Yellow Bicycle. The "bubbles" in the cauldron and the "smoke" from the chimney are acrylic stickers by Recollections. The witch's legs and the cloud, moon and bats piece are stickers by Echo Park that I adhered to cardstock and fussy cut out. I layered everything using lots and lots of Glue Dots and assorted pop dots by Ranger and Scotch. I am really proud of how this turned out and I hope you like it, too!

Giveaway at the DCWV blog!

Head on over the DCWV blog today and check out the great giveaway they're having! They've got a couple of great stacks and Cricut cartridge to give away!

A Bittersweet Day

5 years ago today we welcomed our beautiful baby girl into this world. 5 YEARS. How is that possible? It's such a cliche to say, but the time has flown by so quickly! She has blessed our lives in ways we could never have imagined. Happy 5th birthday to my sweet girl!!!

American Crafts Prize Pack!

A few weeks back I entered a layout into the weekly American Crafts blog challenge and won! The prize was a Dear Lizzy Enchanted prize pack! When we got home from our recent trip, my box was on the front porch. And ALL this Dear Lizzy goodness was inside! I can't wait to play with it! Hopefully soon I'll have a layout to share!

Altered Birdhouse with Imaginisce Apple Cider

This is one of my most favorite projects ever! I just love how it turned out! I got the idea to make an altered birdhouse while cruising the 'Net looking for fall home decor projects. All PPs and stickers are Imaginisce Apple Cider. Die-cuts were cut using an assortment of cardstock and the Storybook Cricut cartridge. TFL!

Sketch Thursday Sketch and American Crafts Dear Lizzy Challenge

Trying once again to kill two birds with one stone! I combined this week's Sketchy Thursday sketch with this week's American Crafts blog challenge for this layout. Bingo card is Jenny Bowlin. PP is Dear Lizzy. Thickers are Dear Lizzy. Flair is Dear Lizzy. Chipboard accents are Dear Lizzy. Do you think I love me some Dear Lizzy? ;)

Exciting Scrappy News!!!

I am honored to be the Guest Creative Team member for September over at my very favorite online scrappy store ACherryonTop.com! It's very definitely a dream come true! I got to work with the new Sassafras Lass Indie Girl line! So go on over and check out my reveal! http://www.acherryontop.com/articles/September-Guest-Paper-CT-Reveal-11449