CASED: Vertical Sticky Note Pad & Pen Holder

Earlier this month I went to a crafting Play Date held by the lady that runs the monthly Stampin Up class I go to, and we played with the new Peaceful Poppies suite. I was in a bit of a daze and only really did some stamping and die cutting whilst everyone else was making full cards. partly due to the fact that I'd forgotten to take card blanks with me and my watercolour pencils doh!

I bought a selection of the 6" x 6" papers from the collection to bring home to play with, and brought home the bits I stamped and cut and over the past week I've been playing with them to make cards.

I was browsing Pinterest looking for some ideas at the weekend and this lovely project popped up by Rachel Tessman of Stamp Your Art Out using the SU Peaceful Poppies papers, I decided to have a go at creating one. The first one didn't turn out so well because I did the measurements wrong and the resulting project was slightly narrower than it should be, luckily it still allowed the post it notes and pen to fit in so I used it anyway.

All the measurements and info can be found on Rachel's blog post for the Vertical Sticky Note Pad & Pen Holder and in the video below. I've ordered some fun mini pens in a variety of colours off Ebay for making more and some more post it note pads as well. These can be made in all colours and for lots of different occasions.

A point to note though, in the video Rachel uses sheets of card that are US sized 8½" X 11" and she gets both panels needed from her sheet. However if you are in the UK and buy your card stock from a UK SU demonstrator (or use any UK A4 card for your holders) your sheets will be A4 (8.3" × 11.7") so not long enough width ways for the job. You would need to use two sheets of card stock and cut it lengthways to get the same length that Rachel uses.

You can get round this by cutting your panels at 8.3" (which is almost 8¼) and for the back piece cut at 8" all the other measurements are the same. The amended measurements for UK A4 card stock are as follows: -

• Front Piece that forms the pocket and front of the holder: 5½” x 8.3" scored parallel to short end at 2¼” and 2¾” and scored parallel to long end on each side at ⅜″ and ⅞″
• Back Piece that forms the back and stand 3½″ x 8″ scored parallel to short end at ½″, 1½″ and 2½″

All the other measurements are the same, what you will end up with is holders that are approx 8¼" high instead of 8½".

As well as the holders I did make some cards this week using the stamped panels I made and papers I bought at the Play date.

This first set were really simple to make, I just cut a sheet of 6" x 6" Peaceful Poppies paper up and added the larger section to a card blank I made from Rich Razzleberry cardstock and stamped a simple sentiment on it.

The remaining piece I used to make a bookmark and trimmed it with some wool scraps, again a stamped sentiment and the finished bookmark is good to go. Both were very, very quick makes and perfect for when you have flagging mojo.

I stamped one of the poppy images several time, coloured with SU watercolour pencils, the top one is stamped direct to the card panel, I added a sentiment and matted the panel on to black and then a silver card base then added a few black iridescent gems to the centre.

The second card I stamped the leaves in water based dye ink and then used a water brush to pull the green out from the edges to colour the leaf. I stamped the other poppies on a separate piece of card, coloured them and then fussy cut them out.
I made a card blank from Old Olive card stock and added a mat of black card and I stuck the leaf panel to the top of both.

I then adhered the sentiment panel to the card and added the fussy cut poppies to the card, again adding some black gems to the centre. I really love this poppy collection, its so versatile, when I first saw the dies I thought I wouldn't want all of them, but now I've had a chance to use them I can see that I do, I'm looking forward to next months play date already and craft class this week :)

Things I've Learnt, Picked Up & Discovered Recently

I realised that because I haven't been blogging I haven't shared some of the awesome things I've been taught, picked up and discovered over the past 5 months, and it occurred to me that I've also been making lots of cards but not sharing them to boot!

So to rectify that, I thought I'd do a little pre-Christmas post and share a new technique to me that I learnt at one of Tracey's Stampin Up Classes a few months ago. Its really so, so simple but very effective and at the end of the process you wind up with 4 cards!

You process starts with a sheet of A4 stamping card and using stamps and a selection of inks you randomly build up stamped clusters, groups of 5 work rather well, like this rose card.

It was so funny when we did this class, Tracey had us all carefully stamp our designs, then when we had she instructed us to chop them in to 4, the looks on our faces were priceless. During the class we each picked 1 of the 4 pieces from our chopped up panel to make into a card during the class and the rest we took home to turn in to cards at our leisure.

I was so impressed with the technique, that when I got home I used one of my Stampin Up! sets now retired called "Painted Seasons" and stamped a couple of sheets with pine cones, leaves and ferns on. I also stamped some of the flowers from the set and fussy cut them out to add some dimension to the sets of cards I decided to make for Christmas.

I inked around the edge of the flowers to give them so more depth and added them with foam pads then added some Nuvo drops to the centres.

The technique lends itself to use with lots of different kinds of stamps for all occasions and its perfect for making batches of cards and because you chop the A4 panel up, no 2 cards look the same.

If you don't add an added dimension, they are also flat to post as well.

Another thing I've picked up from craft class is adding decoration to the envelopes we put our cards in, it takes moments when you are stamping your card/embellishments to stamp one of the stamps from your card design on to the envelope to give a totally co-ordinated look.

Something else I've started doing is working more with with smaller sized card bases. I used to be a 6"x6" or 7"x7" girl but its getting more expensive to post them, especially if you add dimension. So I now take an A4 sheet and cut 2 x 4½" wide strips, score them at 5⅞" and trim them to be 5¾", another advantage to this size is you get 2 cards out of 1 A4 sheet.

I make batches of 6 in several colour ways and keep them on my desk ready to use when I'm making cards. I make them when I don't have a lot of time, or my old mojo fails me, as well as making card bases, I've started to die cut out sentiment bases, leaves, frames and other things I add as decorative elements to cards. I mostly cut them from white card, then I can colour them to suit my project or keep them white.

One of my most favourite discoveries this year though are Sakura Glaze Pens, I've had a black one for ages that I use to add details like eyes, buttons on snowmen etc. But recently I bought them in reds, greens, yellow and blues and they are absolutely FABULOUS for adding details to items that you want to look shiny or glassy. If you click on the photo of the Newton's Nook cards I made you can see the effect you get.

I've worked with them two ways this year, on their own directly on to white card stock and over the top of Copic coloured images. As well as the candy cane details I used them to colour in fairy lights, the brilliant thing about them is the gel ink in the pens dries slightly raised and is translucent to boot.

Once dry, wherever you've applied the glaze pens will actually look glassy, making them perfect for fairy lights on Christmas cards! They are available in 20 different colours including clear, white and black, and can be purchased individually, or in 2 different packs of 10 pens light and dark colour groups.

As well as card you can use them on vellum, the trick is to go really slowly as you colour so more of the ink comes out, giving a smooth and even coverage, you can also use them on other non-porous surfaces including plastics, coated papers, acetate, and glass! I'm hoping to get back to blogging more in 2020 as life and my health seem to be improving, so hopefully I will be able to share more in the new year. For now, I wanted to say I huge thank you to everyone that has read my blog, left me a comment or offered support, it means the world. I hope you all have a hearty Christmas and a healthy, happy and prosperous new year!

Review: Koh-i-Noor Polycolor, Prismacolor & Spectrum Noir Colour Blend Pencils

When I first got my hands on the Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils, it was under the mistaken belief that they were oil based pencils similar to Faber Castell Polychromos pencils (but much cheaper), there are several YouTube videos and tutorials out there that compare polycolor with polychromos which started me off on the wrong path. But as I worked with the pencils and did further research, I discovered that Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils are in actual fact wax based, they do have an oily coating to help improve the performance of the pencil though, I put two and two together after reading the product description of the pencils on the Koh-I-Noor website: -

"The key components of POLYCOLOR professional coloured pencils are rich, top quality with perfectly dispersed pigments, carefully selected and purchased from renowned producers around the world. Their light permanency and dosed concentration also influence the final result and durability of the artwork. Therefore, a high concentration of pigment dosing has been prescribed for this product in its entire colour range. The final product is resistant to water thanks to the oily treatment.

This gives our coloured pencils, along with the addition of binders and other additives, an unsurpassable ability to make a unique stroke on paper or another medium. The pencils contain a set of unique components which ensure a convenient, full colour stroke without the necessity of high pressure. This handy feature is enhanced by the preparation of pastels in special oils. Thanks to the diameter of the lead, 3.8 mm, POLYCOLOR coloured pencils provide excellent artistic value to any user. Noble wood, from which the pencils are made, allows easy sharpening." So a better comparison for the Polycolor would be Prismacolor and Spectrum Noir Colour Blend, two wax based pencil brands that are available for sale in the UK, which is good really as I own a set of 24 Prismacolor Pencils, and a set of SN Colour Blend but only about 8 Polychromos, so I can do a few test swatches to share.

Sanford Prismacolor have been around for a while they were first made by Berol back in 1938, then in 1995 the Newell Company joined forces with Berol and merged to become a branch of the Sanford Corporation. Prismacolor are marketed as artist grade premium colour pencils, and have 150 colours in their pencil rainbow. They are sold in sets and come in tins with plastic trays inside the tin that holds the pencils. A set of 72 can be picked up on Amazon for less that £47.00, and you can buy the colours individually for around £1.50 - £1.90 each. The leads in the Prismacolor pencils are 3.8mm and the barrel has a diameter of 8mm, as of today I haven't been able to discover which wood the barrels of Prismacolor pencils are made from, if I do I'll add the info to this post. I do know that there has been a lot of problems with the Prismacolor since the company moved the manufacturing of them to Mexico several years ago and they have fallen from arty favour a little over the past few years.

Spectrum Noir Colour Blend pencils are part of the Crafters Companion family of crafting products and have 144 colours in their rainbow. They only come is sets of 12 and 24 ranging in price from £15 to £25 a set, you can pick up sale and bundle bargains, but if a particular colour runs out, you have to buy another set because they don't currently sell the pencils individually. The lead in the ColourBlend pencils is 4mm and the barrel has a diameter of 8mm, the barrels are made from Californian Cedarwood.

Koh-I-Noor Polycolor Pencils have 92 colours in their rainbow (as of May 2019) 72 of which are available in the coloured sets, plus Koh-I-Noor do a couple of sets of greys and brown tones and some of the colours in those sets (but not all) aren't in the coloured bundles, because of this unless you don't already have the duplicate colours already it may be better to buy the additional ones open stock rather than in the 12 sets.

I picked up the 36 set for just over £18 off Amazon when they were on special offer, a 72 set on Amazon is currently £39.96 marked down from £90. The lead in the Polycolor pencils is 3.8mm the same as Prismacolor and the barrel has a diameter of 7mm and is made from Noble Fir.

A lot of reviews for Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils say that they are not available open stock, meaning you can buy a single pencil colour instead of a whole set. However, I have found them available for 83p each from Cult Pens, and there are a few other places in the UK that you can find them open stock, that said I like Cult Pens, they are one of the cheapest places online in the UK for brands like Copic Ciao and Polychromos and they have the cheapest prices and a fast and reliable service. The Cult Pens page linked to above has a drop down that lists all 92 Polycolor colours by number and colour name. The sets that come in boxes only have the numbers on, but open stock pencils have the number and colour on them apparently, although I've seen some examples that don't so until I order some more I won't know for certain.

Speaking of colours, for some reason known only to the manufacturers, the colours on Koh-I-Noor's Polycolor Colour Chart run 0 - 72 (0 being the blender pencil), but on the open stock pencils we can buy in the UK the numbers aren't linear, instead they have numbers that leap around. To keep track of my Polycolor pencils I've created a printable document with the 72 main pencil numbers and colours on with a space for adding a small example swatch of the pencil colour. If you'd like a copy you can download it here Koh-I-Noor Polycolor Pencil Colour Swatch Chart.

Again there is a discrepancy in that some English speaking art supply websites list different colour names and numbers for the pencils. I've tried doing some translations of the colours listed in Czechoslovakian on the Koh-I-Noor website to no avail, I need to see if some kind soul can give me some literal translations. If in the future I discover that the colour name I've listed is incorrect then I'll update my chart.

All three brands are blend-able with products like Gamsol, Sansador and baby oil, Crafters Companion do their own blending solution that costs around £6 for 75ml. All three brands are light fast. Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils are supposed to provide excellent light fastness and water resistance (although YouTube and various internet sources have people saying that they aren't light fast) however the manufacturers website states that the Polycolor Pencils do have "light permanency").

Furthermore on the colour chart on the Koh-I-Noor website each colour has a series of stars, the stars relate to the light permanency of the colour with 1 star having the least amount and 4 stars the most, you can see which pencil is more light fast by clicking on the link.

Another difference between the three brands is that Prismacolor and Colour Blend pencils have round barrels, whilst the barrels of the Polycolor pencils are hexagonal as per my photo above. Which means, for me anyway, the Polycolor are far better because they don't roll away from me when I put them down on the desk, Prismacolor and ColourBlend have a tendency to roll off the desk, hit the floor and break if I'm not  careful 😢

Additionally, both the Prismacolor and Polycolor pencils have a barrel that shows the colour of the lead as true to the colour as the coating can get, but the ColourBlend pencils don't, the white ColourBlend pencil has a tip where the white looks almost pale grey as can be seen in the above photo and isn't an accurate representation of the colour that the pencil lays down.

It was a little difficult to do a proper hue for hue colour test as the sets all contain different colours, so in the end I went for the lightest and darkest pink and green shades from each set to colour the stamped images.

For my test I used 3 different card stocks: -

White = Crafters Companion Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, 216gsm.

Kraft = Tonic Studios Craft Perfect Brown Kraft Card, 280gsm.

Black = Limetree Crafts 'True Black' black card stock which is 300gsm and my go to black card stock for doing almost everything where I want a black base.

For the image I used a clear stamp that came free with issue 191 of Simply Cards & Papercraft, and for each test strip I stamped the images using a Tonic Studios Nuvo Clear Mark Embossing Pad and added some WOW! Super Fine Clear Gloss Embossing Powder, I wanted to focus just on the colour pencils and not highlight the stamp with gold, silver of black edges. Pencil colours/shades used I'm listing here and I'm listing the lightest first, the colours used were as follows: -

Koh-I-Noor Polycolor - Leaves (22 & 25), Flowers (131 & 177).
Prismacolor - Leaves (True Green & Grass Green), Flowers (Pink & Mulberry).
ColourBlend - Leaves (Jade & Pistachio), Flowers (Vivid Pink & Pink Violet).

I also added some squares of the white pencil for each brand to show the opacity. The top white square was blended with gamsol on all three swatches, the 2nd white is just as it comes out of the pencil, and I added a small swatch of the lightest pink of each brand. In Prismacolor's favour, I think the white pencil in their set is a more brilliant white than the others and I think I'd still use that along side my white Polychromos pencil to add highlights to images.

All 3 brands were blended using Gamblin Gamsol and Spectrum Noir Paper Stumps. I laid down a single layer of each colour starting with the darkest first then shading the lighter colour around it before using the paper stump and gamsol to blend the pencil colour smooth.

You can see the results of each colour pencil on the 3 different card stocks above, I want to focus on the results obtained on the black cardstock and specifically the opacity of the pencils. Once the applied gamsol had dried out the pencil with the most vibrant colour was the Polycolor, something I did notice was when I blended the Prismacolor and the ColourBlend with the Gamsol, the colour lifted off and resembled small flakes, the kind you get when you've used a rubber on pencil. There was no flaking with the Polycolor, the colours blended smoothly in to each other.

The Prismacolor did keep more of the light to dark gradation, but they were not as opaque as the Polycolor. The ColourBlend pencils are a lot more translucent than the other two brands, they work better on the lighter coloured cardstock, and personally I don't think that they are a good choice for using on darker cardstock, not unless you are going to add a layer of white first and build up a couple of layers of colour, which is fine if you want to take the time, but not if you want to do some quick colouring.

Polycolor pencils on Kraft cardstock

I've been using the ColourBlend and the Prismacolor for a while off and on, and until now Prismacolor were my go to wax pencils over the ColourBlend due to the opacity of the colour that Prismacolor has. But I'm afraid the Prisma's are going to get a lot less use in the future now that I've discovered Polycolor pencils!

Polycolor's lay down a nice amount of colour without the need for applying heavy pressure and the pencils can be sharpened to a fine point, without crumbling, I found the Polycolor a lot easier to sharpen than the Prismacolor and I think some of that is down to the lead being not as soft as Prismacolor and the wood being better quality, the fact you can get a nice point to the pencil when sharpened makes them really useful for adding details and working on small intricate images.

They also don't leave a wax bloom, at least not that I've seen so far, although the Prismacolor and ColourBlend do if you add a lot of colour. The rose example above was worked on Papermania Kraft cardstock using Gamsol and paper stumps to blend the colours.

The colours blend in to each other really easily and I found them very easy to use, they do leave a little dust (bits of pencil lead) if you apply the colour too heavily, but if you use a light touch they go on like a dream. I found its better to lay down colour, blend it out then add more colour on top if you want more saturation of colour.

They have a nice creamy feel and go on really smooth, the fact that there are less colours to chose from than the two other brands isn't really an issue because the Polycolor pencils blend together so well to help you achieve other shades and hues having less colours isn't really a problem. You can also use a standard eraser (the kind you would use to erase graphite pencil) to remove the colour! The colour doesn't go totally, there is a slight waxy residue left, but you can see the results of 3 shades being laid down a pale grey, dark green and a pink and one pass of a cheap eraser.

Two of the colours listed in the open stock Polycolor colours are Silver and Gold, I don't know if they are metallic or not, when I buy them I will update this post, I've now purchased them, and Polycolor #40 Gold and #39 Silver are indeed metallic pencils and work beautifully. I now intend to add all the Polycolor pencil colours to my stash, for the money they are fabulous quality and I can see me getting a lot of use out of them. Prismacolor definitely have metallic colours but only a silver and gold, and ColourBlend don't currently have any metallic colours, although Crafters Companion do do a set of 12 metallic pencils that can be blended with Gamsol, but they aren't part of the Colour Blend family and they are not as vibrant as Prismacolor or Polycolor.

So in summation and sorry for this mammoth post but I wanted to do a proper comparison, if you want a good quality blendable wax pencil with a good range of colours that give brilliant results then look in to acquiring a set of Polycolor pencils, maybe buy a few open stock colours before you plump for a full set, I think they are excellent value for money and they are now my new go to pencil colouring best friend! And before I go, nobody has paid me to review these pencils, nor have a I received any freebies or incentives to review, the review is based on my personal opinion of products I have bought myself to use in my projects.

Bears, Bears and More Bears!

How are you today? Its been an interesting few months here at "All That I Am" towers and life is certainly being a lot more upbeat, I've dropped a jean size, discovered I like prawns, started making the back garden granddaughter friendly, spent more quality time with said 22 month old granddaughter and acquired 10 of the 12 new alcohol pearl inks by Tim Holtz and I'm smitten, more on them soon I promise! I've been spending lots of time getting healthier lately, more on that later, but the extra time spent walking and doing workouts has given me less time to craft, and crafting helps relax me and keep me sane, so I've been trying to balance things to make more time to craft and unwind and as a result I'm trying to set some time aside to craft at weekend.

My craft desk currently has some yupo rainbows on it and an assortment of bear themed projects and a few dinosaur affairs, I seem to be yo-yoing between dinosaur themed projects and bear themed projects this past few weeks and I'm loving it, although I do need to change my themes up a bit because I have a few female friends with upcoming birthdays that I have to make cards for, one is a crazy cat lady like me, so guess what her theme will be?

This weekend along side finishing the Easter wreath cards I posted recently, I also managed to finish 4 new baby cards for my box. I'm trying to get more use out of my stash and think of other ways to use dies, stamps and embossing folders and these baby cards are classic examples.

The 'cable' embossing folder came with some freebie Xmas stamps at the end of 2018 and the cute little bear is from a Christmas themed Stampin Up set called 'Cookie Cutter Christmas' that I acquired recently. I have the matching punch as well which makes making these little cuties a doddle! The set also makes gingerbread men, Rudolph, an eskimo and a Santa as well as the bear, the punch can also be used with another set of cute little halloween characters but I haven't been able to find them yet as they've been discontinued by Stampin Up sadly. The bears and the gingerbread men can be used for a few different themes and I've seen the Santa worked as a soldier and also a little leprechaun 😁

I have a few Stampin Up stamps and a couple of punches, I went to a class run by a lady who lives not far from me in June 2018, I resisted buying SU stuff at first, and I've been to a few classes since and have become a regular, its been a great way of meeting people who live local to me that love to craft and I've bought some SU inks and some of the stamp sets, I do find SU stuff a little expensive, but the quality is good and as long as I buy sets that I know I'll get a lot of use from its fine.

I admit most of the sets I've bought so far are cat themed or floral, big surprise there lol! In fact my next purchase will be the cat punch that goes with the 'Spooky Cat' set I got last year and the 'Nine Lives' set I got recently and hopefully they will release other cat sets to go with the punch in the future.

I joined the monthly Stamperette's club that Tracey runs, I spend around £15 a month and as well as my goodies, I get some little freebies, last month it was some butterfly papers that I turned in to this project, the colours in the papers are so vibrant.

I'm rather chuffed with my fussy cutting on the butterfly. I do like these floating pop cards, I first made some of them them in November last year and I've made them a few times using different themes, I think a birthday bear version is on the horizon, I sure have enough bears to make it happen 😁

Another bear card completed recently was for a challenge in a group I take part in on Facebook and is now in my box ready to send to a male recipient, I used a stamp and die set that I got free with a magazine last year and had never used, something else I'm endeavouring to do this year, play with things that I've got as free gifts but never created anything with! It's silly the number of things I liked and had to have but have never used!

This colouring on this card is the first time I've used my Copics to colour, I tried to create a fur like texture, not sure if I succeeded or not, but I'm really pleased with how this furry little chap turned out. I have 36 Copic Ciao's at the moment, they are very expensive but I've been buying a couple each month and Si has agreed to buy me 6 pens for every stone I lose as an incentive, gets my vote and I got my first lot of 6 last month. They do colour very evenly and blend like a dream, but I do need more practice, so I'm going to stamp some images and take my copic's when I go on holiday and do a little colouring in the evenings.

One of the other projects on my desk that need completing are these cute little bookmark bears, which are part of a bookmark project I'm making using Mama Elephant dies and stamps. So quick and easy to put together and I have the dog, bunny and cat dies to play with yet. The plan is to make some bookmark gifts for friends and family and to make some cats sets to give to the Cat's Protection to sell.

Finally before I go, I thought I'd share a quick health update... I have now lost 8.5kg since starting the Livewell programme on 4th Feb 2019, and this week my blood pressure is down to an average of 123/87 which the Doctor said was good, and I'm pretty damn pleased with the reduction I've achieved in just 2 months, a big difference from those earlier readings on the 4th and 5th of Feb!

My cholesterol levels were good, a reduction to 5 from 5.5 last year, all the other levels were fine save the triglyceride's which are just over the acceptable range at 2.1 but the doctor is happy that the level will come down by next year as I lose more weight. She was so happy with what I've achieved so far that she said I didn't need to go back for a follow up appointment, she has asked me to keep checking my blood pressure once a month and report back if it starts to increase, but for now I can proceed as before and continue to get thinner and healthier.

My positive progress is down to being active at least 30 minutes a day, eating healthier, I have 1,850 cals a day and I make sure that I burn that amount plus another 500 cals worth of calorie burn through exercise every day and its working. I have a lot more energy, I'm walking a lot faster without feeling like I can't breathe and I am a lot happier in myself, and because my blood pressure has come down so much, I'm now allowed to take part in the Livewell exercise sessions, its taken a few months to get there but I am and can't wait to get started 😁

Stampin Up Spooky Cat Cards 🙀

Good morning all 💋 I hope you've had a good weekend, its been a bit hit and miss here, but we survived and rolled on in to Monday, I've been making more wreath template examples to share, but I wanted to make a few more Halloween cards to send out. So I got my stamp on and created a couple of cards one of them an eclipse card, both were quick to put together because the stamps did all the 'colouring' for me!

The stamps are my first Stampin Up set of stamps, to explain for the past few months I've been going to some classes run once a month run by the local Stampin Up demonstrator and I've begun to meet local ladies who like to craft and its been nice to get out and meet real people in the real world that share my love of papercraft. Don't get me wrong I have some fabulous crafty friends that live 'inside' the computer but real world physical friends I have very few. Long story and maybe I'll tell it one day, maybe I won't.

I confess that not everything Stampin Up do is too my taste but they do have some nice stamp sets and I'm hoping to acquire a few of them over the next few months. I've also started to treat myself to some Stampin Up goodies, so far some ink pads, water markers and re-inkers that I picked up in a recent sale, I saved a fortune 😍

My first stamp set is called 'Spooky Cat' and I managed to find it via a group on Facebook where members can look for and sell retired Stampin Up products. I'd seen some examples of the 'Spooky Cat' set on Pinterest and fell in love with it, so I was sad to discover when I went to buy it from Tracey my Stampin Up demonstrator that it was now retired, it only came out last year! That's the downside of Stampin Up they have a fast turnover and things don't stay around for long.

I'd picked up the 12" x 12" papers that were part of the 'Spooky Cat' release by accident last month, so I had them to work with, and I knew that one of the cards I wanted to make was an eclipse card, so that's what I did. I made 3 cards in a couple of hours and that includes the time spent trying to remember where I'd put my flippin' alphabet dies lol!

As I mentioned above the stamps do all the colouring, the owl has 3 stamps to complete him, but I only used 2, the hat has 2 stamps and the cat words stamp again has 2 but I only used 1. I used Just 3 ink pads to make this card Hero Arts 'Intense Black' and Delicata 'Golden Shimmer' for the hat and for the words and owl I used a Hero Arts 'Ombre Autumn' pad, I love this ink pad for Autumn projects because it has rust, orange and golden yellow tones to it.

I made a black tent fold card blank, covered it in a mat of some of the papers from the Spooky Cat pad, then I lined up my dies and die cut the BOO word out of the pane. I stuck the stamped panel down on to a rectangle of black card slightly bigger than the stamped panel, then using some 3D foam squares I put the letters in place.

I also made another quick card, it took me 10 minutes from start to finish using the stamps. I first die cut the white panel, stamped it, matted on to black card and then added it to the purple tent fold card blank I made.

The card stock had been in my stash since about 2006 when I first dabbled with card making thought I couldn't do it and gave up. I got rid of a lot of the stuff but some of it I kept and the cardstock is one of those things. 

The set has a punch which I'm hoping to be able to get before its retired, you can use it as a stand alone or cut around the wordy cat.  I can see me getting a lot of uses out of this set, there are a few more sentiments and some grungy stamps. I have the last of the Halloween cards made now, although I don't think I'll stop making them yet, I can make more for next year lol! I just need to get them in the post and then I can concentrate on the Christmas makes and I need to make an Anniversary card for Simon, it will be our 16th year married in just over a month, boy has that time ever flown.

Back to wreath stamping now, the Facebook live that Jennifer was going to do on Saturday 20th got rainchecked for this weekend due to unforeseen circumstances. Not the end of the world because it gives me a chance to make more cards to show people what can be done with them. Have a good week everyone and thanks for stopping by 👀