Cookie Booking is Underway!

Hidey-ho, Readers!  Rest assured I've not forgotten about my little blog.  Now that the Halloween cards are all done, mailed even, I'm busy putting the finishing touches on this year's cookie book.  You'll have to wait to see the final results until after December 10th.  Half the fun of the cookie exchange is being surprised by the look of the book.  So no peeking.  Although,  I must admit, some people did get a sneak peak back in May this year. 

I usually start prototyping the design in Spring.  I carry it around with me for a while and let people beat it up a little just to make sure it's construction is sound.  It's a trick I've learned over the years.  That first book, six years ago, while cool and fun, is flimsy and prone to coming unstuck here and there.  As a result, I do repairs on the fly each year during the exchange.

I try to match the annual theme of the cookies to the book.  But again, that's something I learned after a few theme less exchanges.  The first real theme was 'Colorful Christmas Cookies'.  This came about after the previous year's cookies, although all tasty, were all different shades of brown.  I wanted to give away trays of colorful cookies, so that's why I picked that as our theme.  We had "Death by Chocolate Christmas Cookies", which were of course, back to a lot of shades of brown, but it was chocolate so who cares, right?  We did "Bite Sized Christmas Cookies" the year after the cookies were just too damn big.  This year I struggled mightily to come up with a theme.  Together with Colleen and Rosemary, I finally settled on Christmas Squared.  More on that after the exchange this year....

Here are some shots of the past cookie books.  You can see how the books get better constructed over time.

2006 was my first year at this and I must admit, it was a lot of work.  I designed a die for cutting the pages that Legacy was kind enough to have custom made.  In looking at the thing now, I can see where I could have engineered that better. 

Because 2006 was daunting, I opted to add pages to the 2006 book for 2007 and increase the size of the binding rings.  This was only marginally successful.

2008 is the colorful book.  Each page is an envelope where the recipe fits. 

2009 was bite sized.  The book was intended to be round like a cookie, but after playing with it, there was no doubt about it's ornament orientation.  So, despite there being a bite out of each page, as if the cookie was bitten, it still looks like I bit an ornament.  Oh well...

I should add that my cookie that year was a from a Halloween recipe, so I took liberties with my own page.  I've been trying to get the girls to 'bite' on a Halloween cookie exchange instead of Christmas, but it's been no deal so far....

2010, still trying to get that Halloween idea off the ground, Cheryl came up with Death by Chocolate and away we went.  Everyone got a little skeleton ornament and the papers were all very muted and dark.  Still Christmas, but darker than most.

Enjoy! - AMK

Lest we forget the Christians...

If you've been following along, you are no doubt aware of all the Halloween excitement going on in the craft room.  Here are a couple of cards for those of you who, shall we say, delight not in the pagan celebration of All Hallows Eve?  To you, if you are there, I say you don't know what you're missing. 

How is it the Christians came up with All Saints Day on November 1st?  I'm betting it's because they laid a guilt trip a mile long on us fun-loving pagans, offering us a chance to repent from our 'devilry' on the VERY NEXT DAY.  Sneaky Christians, stop channeling my mother! 

Enjoy these - while not strictly Halloween, they are surely seasonal and therefore equally cool to use this time of year. 

Happy All Saints Day? - sorry - just sounds odd.  :) - AMK

This one's my Favorite of the bunch...

After I get all done with something like the Halloween cards, inevitably I have my favorites.  This year it's the one you see below.  There's two shots of the same card to illustrate something I do to keep things marginally unique.  They don't all have to be exactly the same, you know.  Experimenting is good!  (sorry about the color on the second one - it kind of washed out, but you get the idea)

There is something about that Giant Eyeball from Inkadinkado that just makes me laugh.  It is definitely a keeper.  I already have another idea on how to use it in my head.  Not sure if I should wait till next year or just make it now.  Hmmmm...

I pared the eyeball with paper from Reminisce (Halloween Night) and Basic Grey (Erie collection - Tombstone).  And, yes, there's another one of those Christmas stamps that just works perfectly for Halloween as well.  Anybody out there own their own copy of the Nightmare Before Christmas?  That's the first time I realized how alike the two holidays really are.  Tim Burton is genius. 

To get the shine you simply emboss the eyeball with clear embossing powder after stamping with black pigment ink.  The shine on the background swirl is Ranger glossy accents, again.  I do like that stuff.  I used it on the eyes of the jack-o-lanterns in the background and on some of the dots as well, just to add a little interest and keep the eye moving. 

Happy Halloween everyone!  Enjoy - AMK

Wash Me and Put Me Away!

Here's another of my tips on organization.  I've just about come to my wit's end with Halloween cards and the aftermath is all over the craft room.  One of the things I do so that I don't lose track of all the stamps and their packaging is designate this cardboard bin as the "Wash Me" bin.  I've never been one to do things until they reach critical mass, so this suits me well.  When the bin is full I bring it downstairs to the kitchen.  All the acrylic blocks go into the dishwasher.  All the cling stamps get dropped into a warm sudsy bath and then laid out on a cooling rack until dry.  Galvanized rubber gets a wash using my trusty Stampin' Up! scrubbing pad.  When it's all clean, they all go back into their packaging and back into their drawers upstairs.

Similarly, I don't like to put my new stuff away right away.  When I bought it, I had an idea in my head.  If I put it away too soon, then I forget.  Therefore, the "Put Me Away" bin was born.  Also - I have developed a die cut library - an index of all the dies I own.  As they come in, they sit in the bin until they get added to the index.  The index keeps me from buying things twice.  The index is also a huge pain in the ass to keep updated, but it serves a purpose, so I do it.

Unlucky 13 - Unity Stamps

I was trying to convey the concept of a creepy garden gate or front door with this card.  Something that brave trick-or-treaters would dare each other to walk through.  The center image is reminiscent of the door knob or perhaps the knocker.  I couldn't decide which way to orient this card and finally settled on what you see here.  It could work just as well as a flip top (although the bats on the Martha Steward punch would be upside down).  The second image shows the shine on the 'ironworks' inherent in using the glossy black card stock.  Click to embiggen. 

Here are the tools you'll need to recreate this card. 

Unity Stamp set - Unlucky 13
Hero Arts Stamp - K5347 Misty Swirl Long
Quickutz Revolution die - REV - 0039
EK Success Whale of a Punch - Circle punch (1.75")
Martha Stewart Halloween Fence punch (not pictured)
Spellbinders Nesting Circle die - 2"
Cuttlebug Embossing Folder - Swirls
Maya Road - decorative Pins
Making Memories - Spellbound two sided paper
Black glossy card stock
Orange card stock - middle hue, not too bright, not too pale.
White card stock scraps
Colorbox Chalk Ink - Tangerine (not pictured)
Colorbox Pigment Ink - Sepia Black (not pictured)
Ranger Embossing Powder - Clear (not pictured)
Small rubber brayer and pallet board.

The recipe is as follows:

Stamp unlucky 13 and Trick or Treat using Sepia Black onto white card stock.  Emboss the round image with clear embossing powder and punch out using the 1.75" punch.  Trim the paper close to the Trick or Treat words and ink edges of both pieces with Tangerine.  Ink the edge of the words a second time with Sepia black, leaving some of the tangerine to show through.

Die cut an orange 2" circle.  Place it inside the embossing folder and roll it through.  Using the brayer loaded with Sepia black, ink the embossed circle to show off the design.  Ink the edge with sepia as well.

Using hot glue - put a blob in the center of the orange circle.  Arrange two of the pins in the glue and layer Unlucky 13 image over the pins, centering it within the orange circle.

Cut the Spellbound paper to 12 x 5 and fold it to 5 x 7.  The front of the card will be shorter than the back. 

Stamp the misty swirl image onto orange card stock with Sepia Black ink.  Trim right up to the image, ink the edge with sepia and mount to white card stock.  Trim the white to be 5" long and adhere to the inside back of the card.  You should see it when the card is closed. 

Cut two of the hinges from the Quickuts die using glossy black and adhere to front of card as shown.  Using glossy black, punch a longer strip than you need of the fencing so you can lay it on the front of the card without having to trim a fence post in half the long way.  Way to difficult and in the end that fence post will be too delicate.  Adhere to front of card as shown and then trim to fit.

Place adhesive on only one half of the back of your Unlucky 13 image.  You don't want this to stick to the inside of the card through the fencing.   Adhere to the front of the card as shown.  Layer the words behind the pins, and adhere.  Again, watch where you put the adhesive so you don't stick the card closed.

Hope this makes sense, shout it out if it does not.

Enjoy - AMK

Embrace the Voices In your Head

People always ask me how I come up with all these ideas.  All I can say is I've made friends with the voices in my head.  Yeah, it sounds a bit like I've been cuttin' the Prozac in half against Dr's orders, but I don't know how else to say it.  That thing that twangs inside our brains when we come upon something that makes us happy is what I listen for.  When I hear it, I pay attention. 

I wander the world of paper crafting waiting to hear something speak to me.  I don't know what I'll do with a certain thing when I come across it, it just speaks to me so I add it to my collection knowing that some day, it will become part of a larger thing, that has a voice all it's own.  There are ideas in my head all the time.  When they get too loud, I HAVE to get them out. 

I'm continuing to plow though those piles of organized Halloween chaos I showed you in an earlier post. Here are four more samples that have made it from pile to produced. There is one more in play at the moment and I think 6 or 7 more piles left up there. 

These are two that illustrate a similar theme.  I really wanted to get the haunted house in there among the spooky trees, but the proportions were all wrong.  Separating them worked out pretty cool too. 

That's a Spellbinders nesting die circle that I ran through the Cuttlebug spider web embossing folder and then inked with some lime green pastel chalk ink.  The trees are a Quickutz die (now known as LifeStyle Crafts).  The haunted house is part of a stamp set from Close to My Heart that I colored with Prisma Color markers.  I was able to do one of my favorite things, re-purpose a stamp meant for, in this case Christmas, as a Halloween stamp. "not a creature was stirring" works well for Halloween, don't you think?  I accented the eyes in the trees and the windows on the house with some Ranger Glossy Accents.  If you have not tried that stuff yet, get some.  It's a great way to add shine without curling the paper, and it dries relatively fast. 

These two are my obligatory attempts at Halloween romance.  One is quite dark, and one is perky.  Guess which one I like better?...Gah!  Although the darker one does not really say much, if there's ribbon on it, then it's romantic as far as I'm concerned.  The perky one has bats and a big purple heart cut from Sizzix Original and Bigz dies.  The sentiment on the perky one was done on my computer last year.  Yes, this is one that stayed as a pile in a box for a full year because I didn't get to it last year. 

If you have any questions about any of the products used or techniques, shout them out.  I have all the details, but sometimes spelling it all out can get a little boring for you to read.  If you want any of these as a full blown class, or even a mini class - I can do that too.  Shout out, is all you need do. 

I know the comments section on the blog has a mind of its own.  But Anonymous works well.  If you use Name/URL, that works well to.  You can use your FB page for your URL if you aren't nutty enough to have your own blog.  

Enjoy! - AMK

Hello World!

A couple of years ago PaperCrafts magazine declared October 1st as World Card Making Day.  OK.  I suppose it's not any different than some of those holidays that Hallmark has made up over the years.  At least with this one we get to be a little creative.  Make someone a home-made card today! 

Here's one of mine and it'a all for you!

Enjoy - AMK