MWAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!! I LOVE Halloween!! I went out this week and bought a bag of bones (really, I bought them, I swear! or DID I? MWAHAHAHA!) and made this awesome wreath that I saw a tutorial for on Craft Magazine's blog.

That's the kid's eye view. Super spooky.

Then, I completely cracked myself up when I came up with this modification of my Sassy Maddie stamp!! Who knew cute little Maddie could be so scary?
Happy Halloween from your favorite little sassy black cat!

I hope you guys have cute trick or treaters and a fun and safe evening!

The Tyranny of Grey

Now that the dark months are upon us, it's time to reveal the un-secret - I like somewhat dark books. I like the epic wrestling of good and evil on the printed page. 1984, The Brothers Karamazov and Blindness are all in my top 10. Orwell is so brilliant, and despite his more hilarious books, he has this beautiful sense of apocalypse and soul stealing evil, as do my beloved Russians.

I listened to Anthem on my walk this weekend - I read that in college but not since - and found one of my favorite themes.

I call it the tyranny of grey.

Pick any apocalyptic story - The Road, The Stand - whatever - and each of them builds a prison out of greyness. Color is forbidden in some - 1984 and Anthem - primarily because it represents freedom and self expression - defiance of sameness, rebellion.

We are all artists, so we live and breathe (and if you're like me, wear on your hands and your clothes accidentally) color all day every day. We love it, but because we use so much of it, we take it for granted.

It would be inconceivably inhumane to steal color from a people. And when it's stolen in these stories, what color ends up symbolizing is hope.

Hope for salvation and freedom. Hope for that sacred individuality.

I knew just what stamp I wanted to color when my book ended.

And so I did. :)

Stamps: Rejoicing in Christmas Paper: Basic Grey (SU) and Basic Grey whites collection Ink: India Ink
Accessories: Radiant Rain, paintbrush, Copics, Summer Sun Reinker

Hope you had a colorful Monday. :)

It's a beautiful day!!

I know - you're thinking I mean it's a beautiful day because it's Friday. TGI, baby!!

But it's been so pretty here lately that it's truly just a beautiful day. And despite freckling, it's going to be a super weekend to be outside. So don't let it get away!

It's also Friends With Flair hop day! I haven't gotten to play in a while so I'm glad I got to ink up my October Kit of the Month - Take Time to Laugh - for today's hop.

This was a super easy card. 6x6 Tangerine Tango base. Then all the DSP is from an unknown huge bargain box I got at Joann's. I stamped the cute cloud stamp on a bunch of different pieces and cut out the clouds. I popped a few up.

I ran some May Arts ribbon through my Xyron X-runner and then just stuck it down all scrunchy on my card. I used Crumb Cake cardstock, a paper daisy, a button and two decorative SU brads to finish it off.


How is your weekend going to go? Sunny and nice I hope! Don't let it get away!!

Just Pawsing to say Thanks!

Yeah.

For a few things. We'll call it Thankful Thursday!

Thankful for fun challenges, like this one, that inspired me to make this card.

Thankful for Thursday sitcoms - the Office, Community, Outsourced. Nothing better than a good laugh.

Thankful for my eye doctor - I had to go back today because I couldn't see with my new glasses and thought I was losing my mind, and I wasn't, and she's fixing it.

Thankful for my nice plumber who is coming to fix our house tomorrow.

Thankful for the guy at AT&T that I HOPE is coming to fix my DSL for the millionth time tomorrow. (I'm ready for space internet - please let me know when that's available.)

Thankful for Secretariat - the horse and the movie. If you haven't seen this movie, stop what you're doing and go see it now.

AMAZING in every possible way. So amazing I've started calling Splotch Splotchytariat. :)

But speaking of challenges, this card was for Cindy's Hope you Can Cling To Challenge to make a square card with four additional squares. So fun!!I used Friends Fur-Ever and Nite Owl DSP for paper piecing. But my fave part is the flower. It's one of the paper daisies, that I dyed with my Tangerine Tango reinker. Then I punched a 1" circle of cardstock, stuck it in the middle and sprayed my gold Smooch Spritz on it. FUN.

So I'm just pawsing to say thanks. Hope you have a good night.

I May Carry a Purse, but I can Start an Oldsmobile With a Pen, Buddy!

So I go into a large home improvement store last week. I needed some of that little ball chain stuff with the closer thingies on it for a craft project. And yes, I said thingies. But I know what that stuff is and I know where to find it.

However, women get a different kind of help in home improvement stores than men do. It's all in the name of helpfulness, but it's definitely different. When a woman walks into a home improvement store, any available male employees give you the sort of sympathetic, pitying look a helpless creature with a purse deserves when surrounded by the smell of sawdust and big scary tools. You know the look I'm talking about.

Not that I mind help. But sometimes when I get that sort of bemused assistance I feel like saying - Lookie here. When I was 16 years old my car was a mint green 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. And it was nowhere near 1968. So every time I stopped at a stop sign, it died. This was super fun when you were all dressed up to go do something fun. I had to get out, pop the 3,000 pound hood (cars were made of metal in the old days, you little chickens), stick a ballpoint pen in the carburetor to let some air in, start it, wait till the flames shot out of the little flapper thing, close the hood, and drive to the next stop sign. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So just because I have a purse doesn't mean I don't know where to find gasket material or ball chain closey thingies. And I bet my craft room has more tools than you do, mister!

:)

Since Barbara Billingsley died this week :(, I was thinking that maybe this is what we look like to the employees of said stores. And that's not a bad thing, by any means!! Who doesn't want to live like Mrs. Cleaver did??

Stamps: Hero Arts Sew Stylish, Ippity Dots for Sure
Paper: Basic Grey patterned paper, Pirouette Pink
Ink: Basic Black, Pirouette Pink
Accessories: Sticky Strip, May Arts Ribbon, SU Rhinestones, paper flower

This card was for Beate's Hope You Can Cling To Challenge, which was to make a card inspired by lingerie. I thought this girlie must have some spectacular lingerie on to look this good in her dress :)

RIP, Barbara Billingsley - you were a classy lady. I bet you never had to start your car with a pen!

Anyone Else Eat Embossing Powder for Lunch?

I didn't.

But Maddie did. :(

I'm working, and I hear an eating sound, look over and Maddie has her head inside my EP container, lapping it up like it was yogurt!!

I almost had a heart attack!

I grabbed her and headed for the sink where I rinsed her mouth out as best as I could, and that sweet little thing didn't even scratch me or anything. I have no idea how much she swallowed. For the record, it's very hard to wash embossing powder off a barbed little cat tongue, in case that ever comes up on a game show or anything.

What in the world possesses a cat to do a thing like that? She will eat anything. I guess the good news is, I found out that the embossing powder truly is non-toxic. She lived through the night anyway. I hope it ends there! Everyone told me to keep her away from the heat gun. :) She's already pretty shiny.

Between that and all the other craziness this month, this is totally how I feel...

If you don't see the cutest video in the world above this sentence, click here.

But I did find time to make the coolest 10 minute pumpkins for Halloween! Love these awesome Spooky Things rubons!

I just popped them and some Black Flourish Designer jewels onto some white pumpkins from Michaels and BAM - Halloween decorations DONE. Now maybe I can nap.

Yeah, right.

Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :) Want to see my other blog?

Everything AND the kitchen sink!

So the challenges for Hope You Can Cling to are still going strong, and I'm having a blast working on them, but way more fun checking out the almost 500 and counting entries in the gallery! I'm just constantly inspired (and stamp buying ENABLED) by the creativity of the papercrafting universe! I've favorited so much stuff my thumb hurts!!

But in addition to that, I had the Austin Shoebox Swap, which was a BLAST, a class in Houston, Regionals in Ft. Worth, a craft fair next weekend and my own stamp class, so October is a little whirlwindy.

So first things first! I made the following card(s) for the Austin Shoebox Swap, for a Hope You Can Cling to challenge by Sara Henton and for a swap I was doing with Yvonne and Chriss - a color challenge that I gave them for our monthly stampy dinner. It's a much beloved combo of mine, and now that Cherry Cobbler is one of my fave colors, I wanted to put it with kraft and blue. I made two variations of this card - one with Chic Boutique and one with Artistic Etchings - just for a different mood with the two different styles of Eiffel Tower. The one on the left uses Basic Grey Whites background paper and the one on the right uses Very Vanilla. They were very simple but super fun. I saw a card somewhere with some dark silhouette images in the foreground that I used for my inspiration, but I can't find the card now. I think it was Michelle Zindorf. Which one of these do you like better?

Then, this weekend, I went to Houston with my beloved Dana for a class with Kitchen Sink Stamps. Holy cow. This was the best class I've been to in a long, long time. Dana said what the class felt like was that very first time you ever stamped - when your mind was just blown and you squealed a lot. And we did squeal a lot.

Notice how we are goofing off and everyone else is working. :)

Their stamps are amazing - they have a very unique photographic quality. You stamp them in multiple steps with different colors to get this amazing detail. They taught us these incredible tricks about combining colors, making shadows, etc. And Maria, the owner and artist, and her family and team, including Makiko Jones, were just the sweetest, most fun bunch of girls. We had a bunch of Splitcoast peeps in the class so the day was just like a fun stampy family reunion.

Maria designed Texas themed stamps JUST FOR OUR CLASS and that's what we got to use - how cool is that? We made this cowboy hat corner bookmark and boot card that I'm sending to one of you. :)

Aren't they amazingly realistic? What fun!!

I hope you are having some sort of crafty fun this beautiful weekend.

Rejection Therapy

A friend sent me a link to this fascinating site called Rejection Therapy.

It's based on a pretty simple and familiar idea, but it's very beautifully expressed here and has some fun little exercises, most of which you already experience every day.For example, every day on my walk, I say to HI to people I pass.

Some of them just astonishingly rudely never even look at me and walk right past. It floors me every single time. That is some serious rejection when someone is a foot from you.

When I moved to New York for college, I had this same feeling every day.

People who say hello to strangers in New York are considered mental defectives, or possibly hookers. But I didn't stop saying hello to people. I just carried my personal Texas with me, and if people didn't like it or thought I was insane, well so be it. Maybe that made them giggle - like, "hey - check out crazy HI lady with the funny accent!" A giggle is always a happy ending. :)

So today I bring you some rejection therapy. I came up with a fun little technique that I submitted to be considered for a demonstration at the regional in Ft. Worth and - BAM! Rejected! :(

BUT - it's cute as heck, and so I'm giving to all of you instead! That's therapy, right? So I'm gonna enter this in Shelli's Creative Challenge instead!!

Now what this technique does is give you new and different way to use your embossing folders. Have you ever just wanted a stamp that looked like your Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder? Maybe you didn't want the raised surface, just the pattern, like this...Maybe you wanted a stamp that looked just like our fun spiderweb embossing folder! I did.

So I'm gonna show you how to do this in a fun video tutorial.

In exchange for this tutorial today, I want you all to be sure and visit my friend Carolyn King, who is doing her AMAZING Heart to Heart card drive to benefit the caregivers who do the incredible job of caring for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease. You can send a card, see some gorgeous creations, read her inspiring story, and win more than $1000 in stamping goodies, just for doing a good deed!

So you ready?

Take a gander. (If you don't see a video player below, click here)

Hope You Can Cling To

Today is a very special day on Splitcoast! We are kicking off a month long card drive benefitting the patients battling breast cancer at the UT MD Anderson Cancer center in Houston. This is near and dear to my heart, as you know if you read about Maureen.

Handmade cards are powerful things, and I know we are going to really lift the spirits of some special ladies. So I hope you'll come make a few cards for this drive!

We have challenges every day in October (3 today), lots of prizes, surprises and more! :)

My challenge for today is here. I know you want to make one!!

I made my card with the most adorable little witch in the WORLD! She's Witchy from The Cat's Pajamas and SERIOUSLY COULD SHE BE ANY CUTER?? Or her green cat??

I colored her with Copics to match my Pixie Pink and Basic Grey background.
I really hope you'll join us this month for a terrific cause. It's a fantastic excuse to spend a little time in the old stamp cave.

Loveyameanitbye