Happy Halloween!

I have mentioned before that I am not a big Halloween person, but I thought this year I would put at least a little effort into it. And now I thought I would share my little projects before the big day is past altogether!

A few of my friends and I got together to make these Halloween countdown calendars.  So clever -- it's just a muffin tin, then we cut 3 1/4" squares and put little magnets on the back to cover each cup.  We used our Cricuts and various other goodies to decorate each square, then stocked them with treats from the dollar store or the dollar bin at Target.  My kids LOVED doing this.  I'm excited to make another set of numbers for Christmas, for birthdays, whatever!  I will switch out the ribbon hanger for the various occasions as well.


Here's what it looked like with just the goodies, just to give you an idea of what I put inside.  If things were too big to fit, I just put in a little note.

When I was redoing my kitchen cabinets, I bought a little cabinet door at ReStore to practice on.  I thought it would make a fun door hanger, so I painted it black, distressed it, and added the little witch girl with cream vinyl.  Then I dressed it up with a few ribbon and fabric flowers.  You might notice that beadboard wallpaper is bubbling up a bit.  They are serious when they say let it dry for 24 hours before painting!  Sigh -- I started this project like a month ago and it sat on my craft table forlornly for weeks while I tried to find time to finish.  Got it up just in time!



And here, I'm sorry to say, is my one sad little attempt at decorating in the house.  I painted this witch shoe thing last year, and this year I added the pumpkins.  They came from the dollar store and I spraypainted them white and then with glitter.  I was hoping the glitter would be much more visible, but I think I had the wrong kind of spray glitter for that.  Perhaps next year!  I just added the bottle because I found it in that very cupboard, still wrapped up in the paper it came home from Joann's in.  I'm sure I had an awesome project idea for it at the time...

Anyway, Happy Halloween!  I hope you all have lots of fun and LOTS of chocolate!

Our Little Getaway...

This past August my dear hubby and I took a little trip all by ourselves to visit friends in Texas.  It was just heavenly, so when ScrapbookPal.com sent me Summer Vacation for this month's project, I knew that this was what I would scrapbook with it.  I love the fun luggage on this cartridge and how it looks all stacked together.  Using my Gypsy, it was very easy to figure out exactly what sizes the different pieces should be.  I also used a tag from Once Upon a Princess for the journaling spot and Stamped for the title.  Stamped was actually the first cartridge I ever bought, but the letters are so skinny and hard to cut that I almost never used it.  But I put this title together on my Gypsy, which allowed me to stretch the letters to a very nice thickness.  LOVE that Gypsy!  How did I ever do without it?  I really like the font like this -- I think I'll be getting a lot more use out of this cartridge now.  I cut the big scallop border with Plantin Schoolbook and the little pink photo corners with Jasmine.

I also used my Antique Linen Distress Ink to add some age to the die cuts, then went around the edges with Blackbird Cat's Eye Chalk Ink to make them stand out even more.

Other materials:  Paper -- Scribble Scrabble; Rhinestone -- Imaginisce i-Rock tool; Small flower punch -- EK Success

Ahhhh, why can't it be vacation all the time? :)  I guess because then the USPS man couldn't bring me my goodies from ScrapbookPal.com!

Hip hip hooray!

I've been dying to use this new "Togetherness" collection from Cosmo Cricket since I bought it last month, and now I finally had a chance!  I wanted to make a fun, happy card to celebrate my sister's big achievement, and this paper + this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You was just perfect.

Materials:  Paper -- Cosmo Cricket; Die Cuts -- Cricut ("Hooray" from Storybook, birdy from Happily Ever After, label shape from Once Upon a Princess); Border Punch -- Stampin Up; Distressing -- Cat's Eye chalk ink

Thanks for looking!

A favor to ask...

Hey, friends -- would you pretty please take a second and help me out? I'd love to be nominated for a guest DT spot for Cosmo Cricket. If you could just go to this link and put "I nominate Tomi Ann Hill" as your comment, I would be so grateful!  I promise to show you all sorts of fun projects if they pick me! :)

 Cosmo Cricket Honorary DT Spot!

Thanks!

Life's Ups and Downs -- Summer Vacation

This month ScrapbookPal.com sent me the Cricut Summer Vacation seasonal cartridge.  I've never tried one of these mini-type cartridges before, but this one turned out to have lots and lots of fun shapes to choose from.  I like the graphic style of it and I'm envisioning lots of fun projects I can use it for.  For my first one I chose the classic ferris wheel shape.  It's all one piece on the cartridge, but my 6-year-old had the brilliant idea to make it so it could really turn (and I couldn't say no to that, now could I?).  To make the ferris wheel turn, I just cut out two in the same size -- one in black for the base and one in green for the wheel -- then trimmed away the parts on each layer that I didn't want.  I then used a big brad to go through the hole in the middle so that it really will turn.  Fun stuff!  I do love an interactive card.  :)  ScrapbookPal also sent me a Tim Holtz Distress Ink pad in Old Paper.  I have to admit, I had to do some googling to figure out how to use it.    Man, there are a lot of cool things you can do with these!  I ended up using mine to add some general distressing to my ferris wheel and background papers.  Old Paper is the perfect color for that purpose.  (You can't tell in the picture, unfortunately, but I also sprayed the green layer of the ferris wheel and the bottom patterned paper with Glimmer Mist, just to make it a little snazzier.  Love that stuff!)

Other materials:  Patterned paper -- Scenic Route (top and bottom), Scribble Scrabble (green with little dots); Punch -- Stampin' Up; Brad - Making Memories; Foam Adhesive -- Thermoweb