Happy Halloween, Mr Mummy!

I am generallly soooo not into Halloween (this year I'm ok with the cutsie, silly stuff), but I saw this idea on a Bind It All group I belong to and had to copy it... she copied it from a post she saw on twopeasinabucket.com, too. LOL! Anyway... I finally sat down and decompressed a little bit with some crafting tonight before a meeting I had at my house for church stuff. (Big huge change coming in my life... details a little later, maybe tomorrow.)

This cute little guy is a 4x4" chipboard and cardstock book. I handcut 4" chipboard covers (my Bind It All covers are not here yet) and painted them with black paint, then covered with black cs (inside of covers) and white textured cs, torn and inked in black for the outside covers.



The eyes are just circles punched from cs. The "boo!" letters on the front are the coolest new thing... VELVET Thickers from American Crafts... I just picked them up on Friday from the American Crafts warehouse... SWEET STUFF!




The inside base pages are cardstock that I cut 3 7/8" square and then created pages on them with various cardstocks and embellishments. Mini books are so much fun and relatively fast to make once you decide on the paper combos.









Materials used:
Bind It All Machine - Zutter
5/8" Black Owire - Zutter
Chipboard - Graphix
White textured CS - Archiver's brand
Green, Purple & Black CS - CTMH
Misc patterned papers - CTMH "Happy Halloween" (retired) & American Crafts
Misc ribbons -American Crafts, CTMH, generic brand

White Galaxy Marker, Black Marker - American Crafts
Misc embellishments - CTMH
Click on photos for larger view.

Happy Monday!

Love this cartoon! It came to me today from a friend... totally made me laugh! I have not felt like or had energy to scrapbook... perhaps I need to visit Dr. J!!! LOL!

I need to apologize for not posting for a while. I've been out of the loop for the past week. We had some major issues with our ISP having a DNS server completely crash and fry out the in house servers (when they rebooted) in several homes in our area. We' were without tv, phone, and internet for most of last week. We spent over 7.5 hours on hold with the ISP company on our cell phones and finished burning up this month's allotment of minutes in a matter of a couple of days.

I had something going on EVERY night last week and finally crashed on Friday and went to a Witch's Night Out at a girlfriend's house. Ok so I am sooo not a Halloween girl.... BUT this was sooooo much fun! Ginny had us all come dressed in our "Witch's Best" (For me it was a borrowed hat with purple hair.. lol!) and she had yummy chili and breadbowls and salsa with chips all ready for us when we arrived. She also had Witch's Brew (rootbeer) ice cold in the bottle. She read a cute little story had a little "ceremony" (promise not to be a lame girl friend and wear a little finger puppet instead of gross fingernails - see photo to the left) to initiate us as "witches"... totally silly and fun. She gave us fun and silly little gift bags, too. I won the contest for the "best cackle".... LOL!

We just had a fun and relaxing girl's night out. I can't wait to see what she has in store for next year!!

I need to get the pics of me from Ginny's camera... but here are a couple of photos from the evening....

Yummy Cupcakes!!!

She made the CUTEST cupcakes... I had to take pics of them to share... so stinkin cute! She broke the PepperidgeFarms cookies in half and wrote BOO and RIP on them and crammed them in the choc cupcakes to make headstones... sooo fun!


A few of the other girls had matching metallic eyelashes! These were sooo cool! I've been trying to find a pair to wear on Halloween night when the kids come for treats.

Beautiful & mister toad

This layout was fun! I used a "quick page"/template and stuck a photo in and added some journaling and the date. I LOVE this photo of Brent. He's always so happy and good to me. I couldn't ask for better!











We found Mr Toad in our guest room window well in the summer of 2006. I guess he must have fallen in while hopping in the flower garden that surrounds the back side of the house. Brent scooped him up and we had fun playing with him for a little while before setting him free along the creek on the back of our property. He truly was a beautiful little creature.

Think Pink

I'm up waaaaay too late tonight! Fighting off heartburn (dang garlic chicken pitas) and figured I'd do a little "homework" for my Up & Running With Photoshop class.

Here's a goofy me in a layout inspired by the packaging for Victoria's Secret perfume Pink. LOTS of white space....totally out of my box.

Winners - Tuesday Bonus Challenge & Sketch Challenge {005}

YAY! I have two winners to send prizes to!

Thank you to all who participated in both challenges. I loved all of the entries for the Sketch Challenge and I am glad that I did not have to decide on the winner. It would have been a very tough choice. I loved reading the guesses for Tuesday's Bonus Challenge. I do wish I had a suped up 1953 Chevy truck like that. That would be a blast!

The Viewer's Choice winner of Sketch Challenge {005} is:

Tilda Hawthorne

The random winner for Tuesday's Bonus Challenge is:

Sherry said...

Did your tuition cost $50.00 for your digi class?? :O) I'll keep guessing till you have a winner! and hopefully it will be me!

October 16, 2007 12:54 PM

Please email me at inkysmiles @ gmail.com with your address information so I can get these sent out. :)

Enabler Alert - ScrapGirls digital supplies SALE!

Enabler Alert!!

I just opened yesterday's newsletter from ScrapGirls. Oh my goodness! They are having a BIRTHDAY SALE! WOO HOO! Almost everything is 22.3% off their already super reasonable prices. If you click on the banner below, it will take you right to the store and I will get credit for anything you purchase... SaWEEET! Brent's going to probably cut up my debit card when I'm done shopping... Shhhhh!

Click here to start shopping: *edited* It works now... whoops!

Thoughts for Thursday plus ART!!!

Jeanne Tomshack sent this quote to me today. She picked it up from a morning quote from Change Your Life Challenge (it's for getting your life/house in order in a positive way. I think this applies to us in many aspects of our life and especially in our crafting. Dream about it, then be bold in doing it.

Here's a little something I made this week. It's bold and it's fun.

I used a 7 1/8 x 5 1/4" chipboard notebook, painted it black, punched with my Bind It All machine to match the existing holes and reused the existing wire.

I stamped the Playful Petals in black ink on white cardstock, then let it dry over night. The next day I used Liquid Glass and doodled on the petals and then sprinkled the micro beads all over the LG. I let that dry for several hours and then cut out the individual petals and laid them out until I liked how they looked. The center of the flower is popped out with a pop dot.



- The paper is from American Crafts.
- Black ink from CTMH
- Pewter brads and eyelets from CTMH
- Clear microbeads - picked up at Michael's
- Liquid Glass from CTMH - Black embossing powder from CTMH
- CTMH Stamp Sets: From Me To You, Simple Stitches, Treasures of the Heart, Playful Petals
- Ribbon from American Crafts, CTMH, and others.

The Experiment

Nina Perrin has tagged me for this experiment which was originally started by Mary Demuth (http://www.relevantblog.blogspot.com/). "It's an experiment to see how many degrees we can separate (kind of like Kevin Bacon, only it's relevantblog). How many people can one blog potentially reach?"

What we do is list out 10, 20 and 30 years ago and what we were doing at that time. Then you "tag" some other bloggers and go back and comment on Relevant Blog and let her know. Also, let me know if you've spread the Experiment. I'd love to see how far this goes. Would this be considered "chain tagging"? LOL!

10 years ago:
1997 - I was 23 years old. I had lived in Utah for 3 years and was still somewhat recovering from the culture shock I experienced moving from Berlin, Germany to Utah. It wasn't the religious culture, but the AMERICAN culture... I'd been in Germany for over 8 years... Anyway... 10 years ago I was working for a college as an Academic Advisor & Office Manager for two departments. I had just dumped my boyfriend who was a total jerk (and found out that he'd married someone else within 3 months... hrmmm... a little lovey dovey on the side, I think). I was living with roommates in a small-ish apartment wondering what I was going to do with the "rest of my life". I was driving a cute little VW Golf GTI because my cute little VW Superbeetle had been smashed by someone who didn't see a bright white vehicle in front of them. I had discovered the internet a couple years before and was having a blast learning to make webpages and chatting it up on mIRC. Dad retired from the Army as a Warrant Officer.

20 years ago:
1987 - I was 13 years old. We had just moved to Augsburg, Germany from Ft Benning, GA in the late fall of 2006 and were living in military housing on base. I was learning about Germany and already loving it. I was in the 7th grade.. lol.. I played french horn in the band until it broke, then switched to trumpet and was in honors classes at school. I was best friends with Aaron Freeman and Carrie Gnas. We skipped school together and went to Aaron's house to watch Aliens.. LOL! I had a crush on Aaron, he had a crush on Carrie... I was mad. LOL! I was a gangly kid trying to find style... I had wild hairdo's and "colorful" makeup. I also put a second hold in my ears that year. ( Eventually I worked up to 3 in the left ear and 4 in the right ear... but now I'm back to one each.) I had 6 hamsters for pets which turned into about 20 ish hamsters a few weeks later. We had a sex ed lesson on hamsters that year. LOL! Ralph Macchio & Bon Jovi rocked my world!!

30 years ago:
1977 - I was 3 years old. We were living in Honolulu, Hawaii at Tripler Army Base. I remember bits and pieces of Hawaii. We lived there until I was almost 6. I remember swimming in Hanama Bay and feeding the fish frozen veggies from a bag. (You can't do that anymore.) and wading out into the ocean for what seemed like miles in waist deep (3 yr old waist) water. I learned how to swim in Hawaii. At first I hated the water and refused to get in, so mom just picked me up and tossed me in at my instructor... the rest is history. I am a FISH. My brother, Nathan, was just a few months old. Mom has all sorts of embarrassing stories of me during this time frame, but I will spare you the details. LOL!

I am tagging:
Alisha Trussell - www.paperprozac.blogspot.com
Susan Hankins - www.theresnogettingaroundit.blogspot.com
Stacey - www.thequeenscreations.blogspot.com
Wendy Vecchi - www.studio490art.blogspot.com
Jeanne Tomshak - www.tomshack.blogspot.com
Tracy Mason - www.tmasonstudio.blogspot.com
Tresa Black - www.fabulouslyartsy.blogspot.com

Tuesday Bonus Challenge ANSWER

cnlpeterson said...

It is your obsession with Edward and Bella from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series?
I too am completely obsessed!

The truck is the same one that Bella drives, the one that Jacob restored and his dad sold to Bella's dad. I pictured her's a little shinier though!

Happy reading!

Lisa P.
Laie, Hawaii
October 16, 2007 2:51 PM

*edited* Just FYI - it's not an "obession" and I am not preoccupied with vampires, in fact I've never been remotely interested in the whole vampire thing.... I just think this is a fun story to read and I am excited for the ending...

Lisa P. ROCKS! She got the meaning of the red truck RIGHT ON THE NOSE!!!! Someone else got the quote right... did you google it? Hehehe! If you've read the books, then you know EXACTLY what the truck means! :)

I purchased the first book, Twilight, before we left for our trip to Vegas, thinking it would last me through the trip... down and back. HA! NOT!! I was finished with Twilight by the time we hit St George (3.5 hours or so) and found New Moon and Eclipse (and a cool new huge skillet) at CostCo in St George. I had New Moon finished rather quickly and then got most of the way through Eclipse on the way home from Vegas to Payson.. finished the last 50 pages of Eclipse on the couch on Sunday afternoon. So between Wed & Sun with no reading on Thursday or Saturday I read all 3 books.

These books absolutely ROCK! (Although I did get a bit sick of Bella's "frailty" and her gushing over Edward towards the end of Eclipse....) I had mixed feelings about reading them... They've been the total "in thing" around here and I'm the kind of girl who has her own personal drummer boy... I didn't want to read them just because "everyone else was doing it". LOL! I succumbed! And I was delighted! Poor Brent might as well have driven by himself. I pulled my nose out of the books long enough to stop for potty breaks and to stretch my legs. LOL!

So now, while I had no prior interest in vampires or werewolves whatsoever, I have become engrossed in this story. LOL! I keep dreaming about the characters in the book and what they might look like in "real life". Haha! At the resort we stayed at in Vegas I saw a guy wandering past us who I totally had imagined as Edward. Too freaky! To my delight, I logged on to www.stepheniemeyer.com and found out that she has a FOURTH installment coming next year AND it seems Twilight will be made into a movie.... AND..... there are way cool OUTTAKES and other fun bits of trivia on her website. *Sigh* I am such a nerd!

And now you know the rest of the story. LOL!

Want to talk about the books? Leave some comments here!

Tuesday Bonus Challenge....

Ok, Ok, so it's not papercrafting related... but that's ok... my blog is fairly diverse!

I have a new "obsession". Ok, so maybe it's not an obsession, but it's something that I have enjoyed immensely over the last several days... Can you guess what it is?

---

Here's a clue:

---

Leave a comment on this post and tell me the significance of this 1950's Red Chevy Truck and I will randomly draw a name to win something from my stash on Friday.

*edited* Hints are added in the comments throughout the day until someone guesses....

Also, don't forget to keep voting for Sketch Challenge {005}!

Digital Scrapbooking - My first full digi layout!

Brent gave me "tuition" to a class this spring for my bday... Originally I had wanted to take a cake decorating class, but I just couldn't get myself to sign up for it. I kept "humming and hawing" about it and then Jeanne Tomshack told me about this FABULOUS Photoshop class she took from JessicaSprague.com and showed me photos of the layouts they made in the class. And you know, OF COURSE I had to sign up for the October class!!!! SOOOO... I took my "tuition" that Brent gave me and registered for the Up & Running with Photoshop class.

Here's the first digi layout that we made. Super simple, but very cool.

TFT-Sketch Challenge {005} VOTING IS OPEN!

VOTING INFORMATION:
* Recruit your friends and family to vote for your submission. (PLEASE COMMENT ONLY TO THIS POST with your votes. I won't count votes that I have to hunt for.)

* Voting will be closed on Friday, Oct 19th
The winner will be announced within 24-ish hours.

---

In no particular order, here are the awesome entries I received.
You may click on each photo to view it larger.

10/11 Thoughts For Thursday - Safe Harbors & BONUS Viewer's Choice Sketch Challenge {005}

My sweet friend, Amaryllis sent this quote to me on Monday. I asked her for a TFT idea and she said, "What about that quote I just sent you?" Sounds like a volunteer to me!!!!! Soooooo..... I decided to ask her to be my guest blogger and fill in for me while I was gone to Vegas this week.

Thoughts From Amaryllis:
"I love to create. I love to make layouts of my kids. I like to show off my scrapbooking talents… to my husband. When I show him a layout or a particularly good card I’ve done, it is easy to take his criticism because I’m craftier than he is and I know how it is supposed to be. He is a better writer than I am, so sometimes I enlist him for journaling. He is my “safe harbor”.

Stepping out of my comfort zone, the safety of my husband’s encouragement, the security that everything I make is perfect in my children’s eyes, is like going out into the unknown sea. Posting my art in public forums is really hard for me. Even though I feel my work is worthy, I am baring a piece of my soul, which is vulnerable to the criticism of my crafting peers. But what a better place to learn and grow!

I could keep my scrapping to myself and my family where I would only have to endure my husband’s occasional grimace when the colors don’t quite work out, or when he asks why I’m using staples for the 50^th time (Editor’s note: I still don’t get the point of that). Occasionally I do post something that falls short of expectations, but I get encouragement and constructive criticism that helps me learn and grow, making me a better artist.

Amaryllis Briggs
Wife, Mom & CTMH Independent Consultant

Note to self: share more; grow more!
Edited by my DH who thinks that staples are for work not play!!

---

Bonus: Here's a challenge to set your ships out sailing with.....
Tall & skinny cards are the hardest for me to do. Show me your stuff and use this basic sketch as your starting point.

Email a photo of your artwork or a link to your photo in your online gallery to me. I will post the artwork on the blog when I return from my trip and the VIEWERS will CHOOSE again. You may enter more than once.

The prize this time is a clear stamp set in the Thank You theme (40+ individual stamps)... and some other fun surprises. I think this is from Heidi Grace or Cloud 9. It is unused, but not in the original package.


October is Breast Cancer awareness month...

*Incorporating PINK as a theme will receive ONE BONUS VOTE from Sadie (my adorable furrbaby doggie buddy).

*Use PINK RIBBONS in your project and receive ONE BONUS VOTE from Brent (my adorable furry husband buddy).

*BONUS VOTES will be added on to the final vote count.

---

10/13/07 *UPDATE* - THIS INFO MOVED TO NEW POST

VOTING INFORMATION:
*Entries must be in my inbox by Friday, October 12th at 11:59 pm (MST).

* On Saturday, October 13th, I will post your artwork and voting will be open once it is posted. Recruit your friends and family to vote for your submission. (PLEASE COMMENT ONLY TO THIS POST with your votes. I won't count votes that I have to hunt for.)

* Voting will be closed on Friday, Oct 19th and the winner will be announced within 24 hours.

RAK: Thank You Subscribers!!! RAK RAK RAK!

My number of subscribers has seriously jumped this past week. WOW! Thank you for subscribing! I used a random number generator which chose subscriber #39 to win this cool set of goodies... (Where else can you get a subscription that pays YOU back?)

Ben's Summit This N' That Resin Sticker Accents and Ben's Summit 4x4 Accordian Album from Cloud 9 Design.

Subscriber # 39 is KSTRMOM!!!!

Please email your real name and address to me from the email address you used to subscribe and I will pop this in the mail to you.

Hey Baby, Let's Go To Vegas

I am apologizing in advance for not putting up a lot of art this week. On Wednesday, Brent and I are driving down to Las Vegas to meet up with my aunt and uncle who are coming out from Virginia to "see the west". I am very excited to see them. Saw uncle Steve a couple of years ago at a family reunion in Massachusetts, but I haven't seen my aunt Lisa in probably 20 years or so. We're going to hit Zion Nat'l Park (UT) and Valley of Fire (NV), check out some of the fun night things on the strip in Vegas and enjoy each other's company. I will be sure to post some pics when I get back!

Since I will be nowhere near my computer, I have a guest blogger for Thursday, complete with a prize winnin' challenge... Stay tuned!

Inky Smiles!

Erin

Card Organizer -Made With Bind It All Machine

World Card Making Day is tomorrow, October 6th. I haven't really been in the mood (ie had a whole lot of/any time) to make cards this week, but I saw an organizer like this on the blog of a fellow SCS girl. I just HAD to make one!!

Here's my note card organizer & a "tutorial". I made this very quickly this morning and part of last evening with some leftover paper from a CTMH Level 2 Kit: Just Chillin a 1" Owire from BIA and some pieces of leftover mat board.

(Click on any photo for a larger view.)





Based on my example, you will need:
BIA Machine
Adhesive
* 4 pieces 12x12 cardstock
* 5-6 pieces of 12x12 patterned paper
* 1 - 12" length of 1" dia. OWire from Zutter (You will use 6.5".)
* 2 pieces of 6 1/4" x 8 3/4" Chipboard or Matboard
* Miscellaneous ribbons, embellishements and extra CS to decorate the cover and/or insides.



Step 1 - Score at 3 1/4" Step 2 -Score at 6" Step 3 - Cut off 1/4"
** **

Repeat this on each of your 4 pieces of cardstock and then:

Step 4 - Cut 4 - 3 1/2x12" strips of pattern paper to coordinate with your cardstock. - Adhere to the front of the folded up flap as shown in the picture and fold excess over the top. This gives the edge a cleaner look and decreases the likelyhood of you snagging the paper when removing or adding cards to the pocket.
****


Step 5 Cover your chipboard or matboard pieces with patterned paper and decorate as you see fit. I wrapped my covers and added a bookplate type covering on the insides. You can see this in the left photo. This photo also shows the finished measurements of the covers and pocket pages.



Step 6 - We're ready to punch some holes!
- Set up your Bind It All - make sure the extension arm is pulled out.

- Set your paper stop guide to C for the cover.
Align the cover in the BIA and press handle, flip the cover over and do the other side.




- Set your paper stop guide to D for the inner pages.





- Align the inner pages in the BIA and press handle, flip over and do the other side. DO NOT PUNCH THE FOLDED SIDE!




Step 7 - Bind your book!
- Select the Owire that matches your book and snip off the appropriate length. For my book, I used 6 rings on each length (6 holes).


- Face your covers to each other and load on the OWire.

**



- Set your dial on the BIA machine to 1" and place the wires and book in the machine and press
the handle. Be gentle, don't smash the wires.



VOILA!! Tie some ribbon on those wires, load it up with the cards you've made and you're done!

(thank you for the idea - Lisa S @ Splendiforous Creations!)

**I am working on the tutorial in PDF form and should have it in a couple of days. Please email me at inkysmiles@gmail.com and put "BIA Card Organizer Instructions, Please" in the subject line." **