Easy Halloween Treat Bags

Need a cute and easy Halloween treat this season? My talented friend, Sheri Rottler, shared this great idea with me.

Cut a reverse stencil using the new Cricut Artistry Cartridge. With a sharpie/permanent marker,  color the face on a plastic bag.

How cute is that?

Stamp a tag. To dress it up, mask it and add cobwebs.

 

Fill you baggie with treats and tie on your tag.

So cute! Happy Halloween!

A little Halloween scrapbooking

Just a little Halloween scrapbooking! Making sure I'm all ready to document the festivities. 

This month's Cherish Your Memories group kit featured Nevermore and the Nevermore complements. I love that silhouette of the trick or treaters. I love the vintage feel of it. 

Happy Halloween!

Nevermore...

In celebration of Halloween, Edgar Allan Poe, and a lot of spooky fun, I wish you all a Happy and a Safe Halloween!

A Witch's Hat

Remember the poem, "I'm a mean old witch with my hat..."? Well, in the Close to My Heart (CTMH) catalog, there is the cutest witch's hat. Fortunately, for all of us that wanted to make one, CTMH kindly published the instructions here.

However, as with many projects, sometimes what looks simple enough really isn't. That was my experience with this hat. My challenge was the CONE!

I followed the instructions. I glued two sheets of patterned paper to two sheets of cardstock. I taped them together. I started to roll from the corner. And my cone was hideous and I couldn't figure out how to even off the bottom and I had a little kindergarten meltdown. Sooooo, I went to bed.

The next day, I watched a couple of YouTube videos on making cones and after work, I tried the cone again, this time with a little help from my very patient husband. We ditched the two sheets of patterned paper and went down to just one sheet of patterned paper adhered to a sheet of cardstock. Rather than just winging it, we created our own even pattern using a pencil and string. Tie the string to your pencil, hold one end of the string tightly at the corner of the paper and draw from the top corner to the other, keeping the string tight. Here is a little video clip of my husband drawing it out.




Once we had the pattern, I cut it out and rolled it into a perfect cone. And then, the rest all came together. The cricut cuts as seen here are still the correct size, I just used three cupcake liners instead of four.

Because I will be making these with my stamp club tonight, I needed to mass produce enough for ten so I simplified a bit and improvised on some of the products. I used black, thistle and slate cardstock, the Scaredy Cat paper packet, Geometric Backgrounds (but any background stamp would work), and black ink.

Rather than using patterned paper for the banners, I used thistle cardstock and then stamped it and sponged the edges.

All in all, I think it turned out pretty great. We'll see if the lovely ladies coming to my stamp club tonight to make their own will agree. And hopefully, if you want to make one of your own, I've saved you a cone meltdown as well.

Halloween is only a week away! Happy Halloween!

A Halloween VW Card

Ahhh, Halloween approaches. Fall is in the air. My Halloween decor is up. Time to create a Halloween card.

It starts out fairly simple, boring almost, but then...

You open it up and there is a VW Halloween party inside!

It's a pop up card! The Cricut Artfully Sent cartridge is fabulous for making pop up cards. I've just been so busy cutting VW bugs that I failed to actually use the pop up feature on the same key (until now). The Frightfully Fun stamps and the Trick or Treat Sweet stamps had the perfect little characters for this card.

Don't you want to go trick or treating with this bunch?

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from me and my monsters! Okay, so there aren't any scary monsters. Just one lovable, blue, cookie loving one.

 Here's another Halloween monster for you!

And  here's a little Halloween treat and a joke to go with it (I've been texting my kids Halloween jokes all day and they all think I'm weird).

Who won the skeleton beauty contest?

No Body! Mwahahaha!

The darling Emily Anderson made both of these projects and I so appreciate her sharing them with me!

Have a spooky and safe Halloween!

Ghoul's Weekend

Saturday, we wrapped up our latest Artistic U Scrapbook Retreat. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! And now I'm exhausted. But we had the best "Ghoul's Weekend" ever! If you missed it, never fear, we'll be doing another in the spring. Here's a few pics of the creative fun. Some are from Instagram.  If you have an Instagram account, check out #artisticu for more photos or follow me on Instagram, user name BlytheShupe.

The lodge was absolutely beautiful! We had plenty of space, a hot tub and heated pool, comfy sleeping arrangements, a theater room and gorgeous views! We even had a masseuse come up on Saturday to work out those knots from so much creative fun. We probably didn't take advantage of all the amenities like we should have because everyone was so busy scrapping!

My partner in creative crime, Jen Mahan. I couldn't have done this retreat without her and Diana Veenendaal. Diana cooked up a storm for us and we ate like royalty!

One of our pretty witches, Kristen. Anytime you finished a project, you got to wear the hat. The most projects completed over the weekend won a prize. Wish I looked as great in this witch hat as she does!

I'm taking a breather here. Enjoying some social time with my scrapping friends, Marielle and Sara.

   

One of the multiple projects provided to our participants. Jen Mahan is the creator of this beautiful page using the Close to My Heart Artbooking Cricut Cartridge and Cricut Craft Room to manipulate some of the images. 

 

Our pumpkin contest participants! They were all so creative. You had to decorate a pumpkin using scraps, etc. that you had on hand. I was very impressed with how clever they all were.

So if you missed it, make sure to sign up for next Spring! We plan on doing this twice a year, in the spring and fall. We'll be posting spring dates and details soon at ArtisticU.net. And now, I'm going to go take a nap. Got to rest up so I can start planning the next one.

A Little Pickled Toad

One of my favorite stamp sets for Halloween is Magic Potions. With "Commotion Potion, Guaranteed to Quiet the Voices Inside your Head", and "Bat Wing Brewing Powder", it is perfect for Halloween decor, parties, etc. My very talented friend, Diana Veenendaal, used Cricut Craft room and the Close to My Heart Cricut Cartridges to create this Pickled Toad candy holder. In Cricut Craft Room, she combined a web overlay and some shapes to create the base. The other shapes are from the Close to My Heart Artiste Cricut Cartridge and are sized for the Magic Potions stamps. If you don't know it already, many of the shapes in the stamp sets correspond with shapes on one of the three cartridges. The stamp carrier sheet will even tell you which cartridge, what page of the guidebook the image is on, and what size to set your Cricut to for perfect sizing. How's that for Faster, Simpler, and Easier?

Diana was kind enough to let me make one. Here it is from assembly to finish.

Did I say already that Magic Potions is one of my favorite Halloween sets? Well, I'm saying it again. Make sure to sponge around the green glitter paper in black ink It's a great finishing touch.

Don't you want to share a little Pickled Toad with someone you love?

A Halloween Layout

In October, I usually try to do at least one Halloween layout for my Cherish Your Memories scrapbooking group. However, this year, Close to My Heart didn't have a Halloween themed paper packet. So I looked at the colors of the various paper packets and toyed around with which paper could be most easily manipulated to work for Halloween (we are nothing if not versatile in the scrapbooking business). And then I saw a layout by my friend, Launi Layton utilizing the Sarita paper packet. And then I saw that layout as manipulated by my friend, Jen Mahan. So what did I do? I scraplifted the idea from both of them and manipulated the layout even more to make it my own. So here it is--my twist on a Sarita/Halloween layout for this month's Cherish Your Memories Class.

The Cricut Artbooking Cartridge was a must for this one. Use real dial size for some of the images and Cricut craft room to create the outline of the Haunted House. 

If you've never come to a Cherish Your Memories Class, you really should. We meet once a month in Salt Lake City and once a month in Provo and we have a great time. You get to have a fun with a group of people that love scrapbooking and you go home with four finished scrapbook pages (you just add the pictures). Contact me for time, place and cost. Here is the second layout we'll be doing on a non-Halloween theme.

We'd love to have you join us!

Happy October!

I love October. Time for cooler weather, sweaters, fall leaves and Halloween.

For my first Halloween share of the year, I share with you not my work but that of a friend. The wonderfully talented Jen Mahan made the cutest little desk banner and was kind enough to share her idea with me. Using Cricut Craft Room and all three Close to My Heart Cricut cartridges (which are so much easier to use all at once with Cricut Craft Room), Jen put together a file that includes all the cuts needed for this spooky banner. You can actually make between five and ten of this darling project from one packet of Laughing Lola paper, two to three sheets of black cardstock and a sheet of crystal blue cardstock. LOVE it!

And for more ghoulish ideas, check back periodically as the month progresses for more fall/Halloween inspiration. And if you want a fun "Ghoul's Weekend" don't forget to join us at ArtisticU October 24th to 26th. We'll have Halloween, fall and even Christmas fun planned for you there. The deadline for registration has been extended to October 10th. Hop on over here to register.

Happy Hallows Eve!

From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!
            ~Scottish Saying

Actually, I can't wait for the ghoulies and ghosties to show up on my doorstep trick or treating. We are in full Halloween mode here! No crafting today--just tricks and treats!

Here's a few shots of my own scary creatures. 

(It's very difficult to get a serious picture with this bunch.)

The Maid of Horror

Have a very Happy and Safe Halloween everyone!

Double, Double Toil and Trouble

Round about the cauldron go;
in the poison'd entrail throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot

Double,double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
            -Shakespeare's Macbeth

 

I received the following thank you from the lovely Sheri Rottler for a project I designed for a scrapbook retreat she did (don't worry--I plan to post the project later when it is a little more seasonally appropriate).

See how clever Sheri was in making the card easy to attach to a bottle!

But the most charming part is the bottle itself.

No, it is not a witches brew, just a bottle of Tabasco sauce, but I absolutely adore it. I am pulling out my Magic Potions stamp set and some Moonlight paper and heading to the store for Tabasco (she made some up with green chili sauce too) to brew up a few for friends. I think you should too.

Happy Halloween!

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

Either way, every witch needs a broomstick and here is a great party favor or easy craft that even kids can make.

Use a brown or black licorice stick and place in a clear bag. I used a 1x8 bag from clearbags.com. You may want to let the licorice sit in the air for a bit so it's not quite as sticky when you put it in the bag.

Cut the following shape using the Cricut Close to My Heart Artiste cartridge. It's on the sewing button but as I don't sew, I don't know what it's actually supposed to be.

I sponged the edges a bit and then attached it to the licorice with a glue dot and wrapped it around, securing it in place with another glue dot. Add a cute stamped tag (I used Perfect Fit--Halloween), tied on with a bit of hemp.

Oh, so cute! Thank you Sheri Rottler for the fantastic idea!

Happy Halloween!