Are You My Mummy?

I am a recent convert to Doctor Who. I have been instructed never to type "Dr. Who" as it angers the natives. So I'm trying to be compliant. Which is not in my nature, so you may have noticed that I did, actually, type "Dr. Who" (twice). That's what you get for trying to tell me what to do.

Ask my parents.

Anyway, the absolutely most terrifying episode of this fantastic show is The Empty Child. I'm telling you - do NOT watch this episode if you are at all prone to fainting spells.

I hear that ghastly child saying "are you my mummy?" in my nightmares!

BUT, because I have a dark, Irish soul, I also kind of love it.

Sometimes when Splotchy is screeching his little eyes out at 4 AM, I imagine (since some mean person tossed him out on a busy street when he was three weeks old) that he is actually just saying "are you my mummy?" and it allows me to forgive him, and just drink more coffee when I finally resign myself to the fact that I won't be getting any more sleep.

I love all things mummy. If someone makes a mummy stamp, I can guarantee you I will buy it.

Mummies are delightful because their scariness comes wrapped, like a present. Also, the bandages make them seem sort of vulnerable. You want your monsters vulnerable, after all.

My friend and fellow Texan Jen del Muro (who owns Reverse Confetti) came up with an ADORABLE mummy recently and a FANTASTICALLY inventive treat topper thingy that I HAD to play with.

As you know, I am not a DIY 3D person. So I will never create a template from scratch and build something. HOWEVER, I will get all up in a die that lets me make a cute treat, and holy cow did she come up with a good one.

This thing is like a Christmas cracker! It's GENIUS. So you cut two of them, and in ten seconds, pop them onto the matching clear treat container for such a cute gift.

I am notorious around my neighborhood for giving things like these at my Starbucks and other drive throughs so I'm super excited about this.

It holds a lot of candy - I used nearly all of two 3 oz. packages of Jelly Belly candy corns (I don't really eat sweet stuff but these are the best candy corns I've ever had) with a little room to spare.

I die cut the toppers from the new Pumpkin Pie Glimmer Paper and adhered them to the matching treat container with Tear & Tape. Then I added some Halloween Night Twine - WHICH I LOVE - to each end. I fought with myself hard about whether to use the orange/black twine or the grey/black, but ended up with the classic. It's really pretty and fun.

Links to supplies:

InLinkz.com

I finished it off with the little mummy I colored with grey and purple copics and a sentiment. Maybe I'll give this to MY mummy for her birthday!

All of these are part of Jen's newest release - so if you like it, head over to her blog for details on how to get it all at midnight on the 8th. Midnight - you know, when the mummies are out stumbling around. .

I'm happy to be in Texas with so many talented ladies I call friends.

Now - are YOU my mummy?

Muahahahahhahah.

PS - I had some minor surgery on my right hand so until it looks less awful I am holding off on videos, although I'm considering a fingerless glove. It might be a week or two before I get back on camera. Thanks for your patience. 

Loveyameanitbye.

Places You Don't Want to Live

We are watching Longmire again to prepare for the new season. What a great show. The audiobooks for the mysteries it's based on are also very good. You get a little bit more background - a lot more background, actually - on the characters.

But I realized the second time through that for a teeny town in Wyoming, there sure are a lot of murders. I came up with a list of places you probably don't want to live based on various TV shows:

• Absaroka County
• Cabot Cove
• Fargo
• St. Mary Mead
• Grantchester
• Bay City

I think Mayberry would be a better choice in terms of per capita murder and shenanigan rates. Well - I guess there were a lot of shenanigans, but they were harmless.

If you do live in Cabot Cove or Absaroka county, stay inside with the doors locked and read stamping blogs. I recommend mine. :)

Today I'm hopping around with some friends who do NOT live in Absaroka County. We are all safe and sound and playing with this month's My Monthly Hero Kit and decided to get together.

Fall holidays are pretty much my favorite and I feel like they don't get enough love in the crafty world, so I was super excited to have a chance to make some Thanksgiving and Halloween cards. The kit also has oodles of Christmas potential, but I wanted to stick with Thanksgiving and Halloween for mine. True fact my friend Libby told me - the sentiments in this set features Clare Prezzia's hand lettering. I love hand drawn stamps and I LOVE her blog - her art is amazing. Stop by sometime.

There are 30 million (that may not be technically accurate) dies in the kit to make wreaths with. So I cut out all the pieces and put them on my grid paper just to see what the shapes wanted to say to me. I do this every time I get new dies - cut out all the shapes in black and put them down to see if something other than the intended purpose pops out at me. Sometimes nothing comes of this, but sometimes it does.

This time, when I looked at one of the wreath pieces, I thought  - if I put a back on that it would look like the opening of a cornucopia.  So that's what I did! I took a piece of watercolor paper, and watercolored an entire piece. Then I used the tiny dies in the kit to cut out some colorful leaves, squash and acorns that could tumble out of the opening. This wreath die is one of the optional add-ons to the kit that I could not resist. Then I lightly rubbed some InkaGold on the wreath cut for a little shimmer.

Links to supplies:

InLinkz.com

Next up - Halloween! Every year at Halloween I put a wreath of BONES on my door - muahahahah! Don't ask where I get the bones! If you're not too much of a fraidy cat, you can see a picture of my bone wreath here.

The barer wreath shape in the die set looked like those bones to me, so I took the test cut and used it as a mask. I added Green Apple ink with my stencil brushes to give it an acidic, spooky glow. Halloween doesn't have to be black and orange. Nothing should really be black and orange anyway, except maybe tigers or monarchs. It's not a great combo outside of the animal kingdom. Sorry Princeton!

I stamped the skull, and die cut the sentiment and added some little green rhinestones. It's actually sort of a happy looking Halloween card I think. Not too spooky! The Halloween Trimmings stamp & die bundle are an add-on too, so if you're not into Halloween, you can just get the kit with the fall images and dies, and/or the Christmas add-on.

Links to supplies:

InLinkz.com

Then back to Thanksgiving I went. The kit comes with three ink cubes in Mustard, Rust and Deep Burgundy. However, they also make an ombre ink pad in these colors which I have, so I swiped that down a quarter sheet of cardstock to make stripes.. Then I flipped the pad upside down and continued the striping, adding a second stripe of the burgundy color to draw your eye to the center of the card. The sentiment and branch die are from the kit. All the fun silhouette dies make for nice dramatic simple cards.The card base is the rust cardstock from the kit, which is a match for the ink.

Links to supplies:

InLinkz.com

Now speaking of fall holidays that usually get crushed on the way to Christmas, did you read about Falliday Fest at Splitcoast?

We are going to have two weeks of challenges, holiday crafting tips and prizes, along with TEN holiday tutorials, so read the full story and follow the instructions to participate! We are going to make the most of the fall crafty season.


For the hop, those generous peeps at Hero are giving away one of these kits, so be sure and leave all my buddies some love too for a chance to win, starting with the next person on the hop - the amazingly talented Jessica.


The Hero Arts Blog
Jennifer McGuire
Yana Smakula
Mariana Grigsby
Clare Prezzia
May Park
Amy Tsuruta
Laura Bassen
Lydia Fiedler
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Libby Hickson

I saw some peeks of their projects on Instagram and Facebook - I can't wait to see the full cards.

What do you like to craft this time of year?

My favorite is little treat containers for my people at Starbucks. I'll be back tomorrow with something cute I'm doing this year. :)

Happy Fallidays!

Loveyameanitbye.

Invented: Trash Co-op

Today is trash-a-palooza here in the hood. It's that rare, eclipse-like event where trash day, recycle day and "white trash day" (bulk collection) occur on the same day. AND Labor Day, so we are all home to observe the shenanigans!

Since I get a lot of Stampin' Up! boxes, I am always sad that recycle day is only every other week instead of every week. Ours is always stuffed full of cardboard, which I hate having in the house. Bugs love cardboard. I break the boxes down the instant I get them and take them out to the recycle bin. But it fills up fast. Too fast.

The other day I was longingly eyeing my neighbor's recycle bin, and I'm not gonna lie, I thought about sneaking over there and offloading some boxes.

It occurred to me that we could easily form a trash co-op. I'm a power recycler, but we don't generate a lot of trash, and they pick up our trash every week. So I could offer space in my trash bin, and maybe one of my neighbors could offer me space in their recycle bin. You could have an app that pinged everyone on Sunday night, telling them who had space in which bin. We could all run outside and start distributing our trash and recycling in the most efficient method possible.

I think it's genius. Please let me know when your ten year old has developed the app and then give me part of the proceeds. Thanks. This is a binding contract.

So since 2010, we've been doing an annual event at Splitcoaststampers called Hope You Can Cling To. It was an amazing event, which generated about 4,000 cards a year for patients undergoing cancer treatment at MD Anderson. The community did fantastic work and we loved turning October a pale pink every year in honor of the event.

This year, we are doing something that's anchored in that event, but is more focused on the best crafting season of the year - the "fallidays", which you can read about below. Our contact at MD Anderson has retired and they have enough cards to carry them into the next century, so it was time for a change, which we are very, very excited about.

So I made a card in honor of the anchor, using some Rainbow Tape to create a weathered wood background. I love, love, love that copper is in in a big way this season, because I really love it with blue. Particularly navy.

Links to supplies:

InLinkz.com

To achieve this look, I first adhered the 1/4" crepe tape to the cardstock, leaving a gap between the "boards". Then I covered the entire panel with warm white acrylic paint. When that was dry, I rubbed Marina Mist ink in the gaps for that weathered, seaside look. I finished the card with an anchor image from the Guy Greetings stamp set, some Night of Navy twine, and a die cut sentiment with the Sunshine Wishes thinlets and copper foil sheets. Fun, right?

Okay, now a little more about the Falliday event! This will kick off on October 9th.

 We are going to have TEN holiday crafting tutorials, four days of tips and card drives, prizes, and a little surprise you'll have to wait and see. Be sure and follow the instructions in the story about this event to get updates!

I hope you're enjoying your long holiday weekend. Let me know when my app is ready.

Loveyameanitbye.