My Creative Time 70th Edition Release Blog Hop

Welcome to the My Creative Time 70th Edition Release Blog Hop! Today is a happy day, because finally it’s release day for all of the wonderful products you’ve been seeing in the sneak peeks throughout this past week. I am so excited to be joining in on the fun with a special guest project. You should have arrived from Ruthie’s blog, but if you’ve gotten lost anywhere along the way, you can start back at the My Creative Time blog.

We are huge Halloween lovers here at my house, so for my project today, I couldn’t resist making a spooky sweet gift set for a surprise treat for my daughter who’s just recently headed off to college. Can’t wait to see her face when she gets a hold of these!

These cute treats were made with the new Stitched Bat Die and the matching Bat Sentiments stamp set, which is the freebie set for this month’s release. I absolutely love how versatile this bat is, and know it’s going to be a big hit this holiday season. Makes the most adorable candy holder, and works great on cards, layouts, and home decor projects, too.

I am the last stop along the hop, so thank you so much for joining us!

And here’s more information for you about today’s release.

“FREEBIE STAMP”

Starting THIS Friday, August 18, 2017 @ 8am PST ~ Our “Freebie” for this release is the “Bat Sentiments” stamp set. It will be given to the FIRST 75 shoppers! If you are one of the 1st 75 shoppers it will be automatically added to your package at the time of packaging/shipping. Once 75 shoppers come through, this stamp set will be available for purchase. So, if it’s for sale in the store, you are not one of the 75. No exceptions will be made. This freebie set is not a part of the “bundle” and will be sold separately!

***BLOG HOP GIVEAWAY***

For our blog hop giveaway, Emma is giving away a $50 gift card to the “My Creative Time” store to ONE LUCKY winner! ALL you have to do is leave a comment on each of our blogs! You are NOT required to comment on EVERY SINGLE blog, but the more you comment on, the MORE chances you have for winning! VERY IMPORTANT, PLEASE leave a way for us to contact you w/your comment just in case “YOU” are the lucky winner!

***SALE ALERT***

ALSO, DON’T FORGET our sale starts RIGHT NOW here:http://shop.my-creative-time.com/Ne…! Use the code: AUG2017 to receive a discount off your entire purchase! This sale applies to “IN-STOCK” items ONLY. This sale will end on Fri, August 25th, 2017 @midnight PST.

Friday, August 18, 2017

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The supplies I’ve used are linked and/or listed below for your convenience:

My Creative Time: Stitched Bat Die
My Creative Time: Bat Sentiments Stamp Set
My Creative Time: Stitched Squares Inside & Out Die Set

Be(you)tiful Bundle Cardstock Pad 6″X6″ 24/Sheets-

Twine

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Friday Fun- Prim Easter Chicks

Hiya Crafty Friends! Happy Friday!

Thought we would have a little fun today, and I would share a different kind of project with you. You all know I love my papercrafts, but I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I am pretty crazy about fabric projects, too. With Easter just a little over a week away, I’ve been making lots of silly sweet spring things. And today, I thought I’d share my latest with you.

The girls and I made this cute little prim chick in a basket during our last crafty play date. I made up the pattern, and then we went to town with the fabric, paint, and glue. Isn’t it cute? I am such a sucker for these types of primitives…. no big secret there!

One thing I always love about craft day is how different each of our projects turn out. I used a soft calico-print fabric for my chick, and added a light wash of paint to create that old worn look that I love so much. The girls all used different fabric for theirs, so each chick was truly one-of-a-kind. Best thing? My little Missy Nik was off from work that day, and was able to join us for crafts.

So now we have two sweet little chicks!

How cute is that?

Thanks so much for stopping by, my friends! Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Paper Pumpkin Pillows with Authentique

We’ve been having some fun on the Authentique blog this week, hopping with our friends from May Arts and Imagine Crafts. All three blogs have been filled with great projects, and better yet, all three blogs are giving away some wonderful prizes. Hope you’ve had a chance to check it out.

You all know how much I adore the fall, so I couldn’t resist making a fall-inspired project to share. I call these pumpkins “paper pillows”, as they are constructed of a front and a back, stitched together and stuffed with fluff. They are super durable and dimensional, and just a whole lot of fun. I think they’ll add a really festive flair to my home for the season.

Creating paper pillows is actually quite easy, and I love that you can create them in any shape, size, or form, using whatever paper or supplies you have on hand. The papers I used for these little cuties are from our Radiant collection. Although Radiant is from our summer release, and contains bright and tropical prints and colors, it is definitely not just a summer collection. The warm orange, pink, and yellow tones also work perfectly for fall.

To help the individual layers of my pumpkins really stand out, I added lots of heavy inking in a variety of fall Imagine Crafts colors.

Then I added fun burlap stems, big bow ties, and rolled ribbon rosettes using a variety of trims from our partners at May Arts. I even made curly-q “vines” from natural hemp and tacky glue.

I’ve got the full step-by-step tutorial up on the Authentique blog, if you’d like to learn more.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Sweetie Peas! I hope you all have a very wonderful weekend!

Joanne’s Haunted Halloween House Tour

Hi Sweeties! Happy Saturday! Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend so far. It’s been fun busy here. Yesterday I kicked off the weekend at my friend Joanne’s house for our annual Halloween Haunted House tour. Us girls take turns hosting each other every October so we can see our houses all decorated for fall and Halloween. I so look forward to this event each year! Joanne’s house looked amazing, lunch was fabulous, and this year, we threw in a craft, too.

Of course I brought along my camera, so that I can share the house tour with you. So welcome to Joanne’s Halloween House!

This adorable Halloween tree was made by Joanne’s crafty husband. Painted branches and the ornaments are painted acorns. Kurt made all the cute little ghouls perched on the spooky sign, too. Aren’t they fabulous?

Joanne’s tablescape was absolutely beautiful! The primitive pumpkin ornaments were made by her and we each got one as party favors. We also got one of these amazing beauties made by Kurt. Now we all have our own spooky acorn tree!

Pretty spooky fabulous, huh? She’s giving me a run for my money, but I’m still determined to beat these girlies again this year! It’s my turn to host next. Wish me luck!

Thanks for stopping by, everyone! Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Happy 4th of July!

Hi everyone!  I just wanted to make a quick stop at the old blog here today to wish all of my family and friends in the States and very happy and safe 4th of July! Whether you’re off to a big soiree, having a BBQ with the neighbors, or just spending a quiet day with the family, I hope you have an absolutely fabulous holiday. I’m heading out the door soon to join the festivities, and am looking forward to a day filled with good friends, good food, and good times! But before I go, I have a little share for you.

Here is a fun 4th of July project I made as a hostess gift for today.  I created this dimensional star from corrugated cardboard and several star templates I downloaded from the internet. Used adorable Report Card papers from October Afternoon for a perfect touch of Americana flair, and added a tag with a vintage holiday image from Crafty Secrets.

The Pink Paislee blog shared a tutorial for making these 3-D barn stars this week, and they are amazingly easy to do. Super fun and super fast, too. And great for so many projects. Think I’ll be making a ton of these come Christmas time.

Time to head out!  Happy 4th of July, everyone!

The 31 Days of October- Day 26

Evening everyone!  Things are just starting to wind down here after a very fun day.  Spent the day hanging out, scrapping, shopping, and eating.  It just doesn’t get much better than that.  In shopping today, I found the perfect pair of Pilgrims for my Thanksgiving decorations.  So hard to believe that this weekend will be the 1st of November already.  And in scrapping, I started a project that has me very excited.  I was so hoping to get this done in time for Halloween, and although it’s not finished, it is far enough along that I can set it out and enjoy it as is.

I was inspired to make this project after visiting one of my favorite scrappy blogs recently.  Linda Albrecht absolutely stuns and amazes me with her creativity and talent.  I fell  in love with her “little pumpkin head” immediately and knew I wanted to give it a try.  All the directions are on her blog if you would like to play along, too.

The base of my little pumpkin head is a plastic gourd I found at my local dollar store.  It is approximately 3.5″ wide and 3″ tall.  I found a second one that’s a little taller that I picked up also.  The first step is to paint the entire pumpkin orange, which is a big improvement over the original, trust me.

The next step was creating the cone hat.  I used patterned paper from Making Memories’ Spook Alley, buttons from Foofala, a silver bell, a bat charm, and some metallic pipe cleaners.

The next step was painting the face,  which turned out perfectly thanks to Linda’s great directions. Lastly, I made the pleated collar for the base of the pumpkin using paper from Spook Alley and Basic Grey’s Eerie.

LOVE this guy!  Ultimately, he needs to go into some sort of container or on top of a box, but he looks pretty good in the mean time, too.  And remember, the complete directions for all these steps are on Linda’s blog. Just scroll down to her post dated September 21st.

Thanks so much for stopping by everyone!  Have a great evening!

The 31 Days of October- Day 17

Hey everyone!  I just finished downloading all my photos from the gourd farm yesterday, and I have to admit to having a hard time limiting myself with all the pictures I would like to post for today’s 31 days of October share!  I said I would only post my favorites, but I’m challenged to narrow down the field.  As a scrapbooker, I love the idea of having so many new pictures to play with, but as a blog reader, you all might be groaning right about now.  “Oh mercy, not another family photo!!!!!” So I’ll warn you, this blog post is going to be photo heavy.  Run for your life now if you don’t care to be inundated! 😉

We are lucky enough to have a small, country gourd farm just a short distance from our house, and for the last several years we have been sure to include a stop here as part of our annual Halloween celebrations.  It is owned by a cute farmer couple.  She loves to carve and decorate the gourds they grow on their land, and he loves to bring out the tractor and trailer to cart the kiddos around a small path on his property that he spooks up every year.  Nik just loves it, and I must admit to enjoying the ride as well.  This year, they’ve expanded the place to include a small play area and donkey rides, too. Nik and I were quite goofy with the ring toss and the bowling and the tunnels and such.

I get such a chuckle thinking about the groans and eye rolls I would have gotten out of Peter, had I dragged him along.

And now here we are on the hay ride.  Check out all the spooky stuff we saw.

Love, love the gourd farm.  Great place to take younger kids for a fun-filled family afternoon.  You can check out all the farm info here.  For anyone local, I can promise you lots of fun to be had there!

And now I will leave you all with one last photo from the ride.  Thanks for stopping by everyone!

The 31 Days of October- Day 14

Here we are, already at the half-way mark of my 31 days of October.  Where, oh where, does the time go?  For today’s Halloween post, I thought I would share a few more of my spooky decorations.  For some of you who have been visiting my blog for awhile, you might remember these beaded sticks I made with Nik and my mom last year.  They were fashioned after some similar branches we saw at Pottery Barn that Mom and I thought we could make ourselves for much less money.  But after spending hours picking apart beads and trying to get them to stick to the branches, I do believe it would have been much easier to just have bought the Pottery Barn versions and been done with it.  Gluing those beads drove me dern near crazy. 🙂

I did, however, break down and purchase the adorable Pottery Barn spiders for the branches.

For anyone who wants to try this at home, I really don’t recommend it. 😉  But if you are going to anyway, here’s what I did.  It truly is simple in theory…..spray paint some sticks black and then apply white glue with a sponge brush and sprinkle beads over the glued areas.  Thicker branches obviously work better than thin, as there is more surface area for the beads to cling to.  Here’s what the branches look like up close.

Then I have this spooky guy hanging out with the spiders.

Looks like me first thing in the morning!

Hope I’ve given you some crafty ideas to NOT try this Halloween season!  Trust me…..you’ll thank me for it!

Have a great day everyone!

The 31 Days of October- Day 10

Here I am having another late night, and almost forgetting to post for my 31 days of October!    At this rate, I’m afraid I’m going to slip up soon and blow the whole thing entirely.  Thank goodness I’ve been catching myself at the last minute.  😉

I have a quick share for you tonight.  A Halloween Tussie Mussie.  In Victorian times, ladies carried these around filled with small bouquets of flowers. Now I think they make adorable treat holders for candies or small gifts, or look cute hanging as ornaments.

I started by drawing a circle onto the back of a sheet of patterned paper.  I traced a dinner plate on mine, as that fit nicely on a 12×12 sheet.  Cut out your circle and then divide the circle into quarters.  Each quarter can make one cone.  Round the paper until the two straight edges meet and secure the cone with strong adhesive.

Add a ribbon handle, and then embellish.  I added a pinked edging around my cone with some cute bat trim from May Arts.  I painted a Melissa Frances chipboard swirl black and added some glitter, and layered that with a couple of tags, a flower from Petaloo, a button, and another bat.

These are fun and easy to make and can be adapted for any holiday or occasion.  And you can easily change the size by playing with different sized circle templates.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I always love to hear from you!

The 31 Days of October- Day 9

Geezzz…….I almost blew it tonight.  Almost went to bed without posting something for my 31 days of October!  Only 9 days in, and I’m already almost forgetting about it!  Silly me!

And I have some good stuff to share, too!

 

Look at this cute surprise I found for Nik today.

This adorable little jack o’lantern is a nightlight.  Is that not just too cute??

And now for a crafty project, here’s a little bat magnet  to spook and inspire.

The bat is a wooden shape I bought at my local craft store.  I covered the front with patterned paper, and then embellished it with some ribbon, part of a fall pick, and a couple of paper strips with Halloween words.  I made the eyes by layering gems on top of buttons.  I hot glued a magnet on the back, but this also looks cute as an ornament.

Glad I didn’t blow it tonight!  Thanks so much for stopping by!