Create with Connie and Mary-Spooky Halloween

Have I said it enough this month how much I love Halloween? Well if today is your first stop by, then I will share it again, its my Favourite Holiday (after my birthday!!!). This week our theme is ‘Spooky’ Halloween and I knew right away I wanted to share one of my families favourite treats, Oreo Popcorn, with a Halloween Twist!

This is my Halloween version of my Oreo Popcorn. The original recipe is under my Lifestyle Tab, Favorite Recipes (I will share a link at the end of this post). I just added in some orange candy balls from Wilton and some candy eyeballs for that ‘spooky’ feel!

One batch of this popcorn filled at least a dozen bags with some left over for my family to snack on. This recipe lasts for a few weeks in a sealed container or bag, so it is something you can make ahead of time too. I have all of my bags packed to share at my kids Halloween classes!

I filled our Mosaic cello bags with popcorn (I hope you have spotted these in the Handmade for You catty) and topped the bag off with the largest of the Celebration Labels dies cut from Basic Black card stock and then ran it through the Cobwebs 3D embossing folder for that spooky touch!

Happy Haunting is stamped in Momento Ink on Smoky Slate card stock with the background cobweb in Smoky Slate ink—both of the images are from the Celebration Tidings stamp set. You can find this awesome bundle on page 58 of the Handmade for You. Do not overlook its potential! The dies are the BEST if you are someone who gives a lot of treats. The 5 sizes are all ‘notched’ so you can easily fold them in half to make a bag topper!

Because our theme this week was ‘spooky halloween’ I thought, what is more creepy than spiders in your popcorn? Haha! It would actually scar me for life if it was a reality! Luckily these are just cute glitter spiders that I cut using the Little Treat Box Dies and the Black Glitter Paper. I LOVE this glitter paper as it does not ‘shed’, no glitter on my cutter, hands or Stampin’ Cut & Emboss machine! Win win!

I added in a couple strips of the Terracotta Tile Scalloped Lined Ribbon and coloured the Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon with the dark Rich Razzleberry Stampn’ Blend marker.

Click on the link for my Oreo Popcorn recipe and watch for a Christmas Twist version coming this holiday season!

I can’t wait to see what the other girls in the Hop have created this week! Next week we start sharing Christmas projects so make sure you mark your calendars for all the Saturday’s!

You can go BACK to see what Melissa has created or NEXT to see what Connie has designed! Have a safe and healthy Halloween everyone!

Create with Connie and Mary--Halloween Favors!

Halloween is definitely my favourite holiday, I just love the home decor and seeing all the little kids dressed up, and making fun treats! This year we are still hosting our annual halloween party and I have been making some special treats for the MOMS to take home! Why should kids get all the fun?

I can’t wait to see what everyone creates this week as I know there will be some good ideas I can use too!

I am absolutely LOVING the mini coffee cups! The possibilities are endless with what you can create featuring these fun cups and the carrier! So I knew that I wanted to use them to create a spooky treat!

I think this project is just so fun and the cups can be filled with so many things! Candies and chocolates or for a more mature audience mini alcohol bottles :)

I used the Magic in this Night Designer Paper to decorate the coffee carrier and the cups. You can deconstruct a coffee cup and use it as a tracer to get the shape right to wrap around the cups. And we literally have a plethora of options we can use to decorate these cups Halloween style!

I used a variety of stamp sets to decorate a literal TOWER of cups! Once I got started I couldn’t stop! I used the Celebration Tidings, Festive Post and Banner Year stamp sets plus a variety of dies to decorate and embellish these cups. I used the Autumn Essentials, Playful Alphabet and Celebration Labels dies.

The black glitter spider is cut using the Little Treat Box dies and is just the perfect little touch. I also added some rhinestones from the Holiday Rhinestones beside the BOO (which is cut from Gold Foil paper and the Foam Adhesive Sheets)

You can see from my tower how much fun I was having decorating all of these cups. I used twine from the Playful Pets trim combo and coloured (with Stampin’ Blends) the Crinkled Seam Binding ribbon along with some wraps cut using the Warm Wraps dies to help dress up the cups. I even cut some bats right from the Magic in this Night DSP!

I can’t wait to share these with my friends at Halloween! I have turned the carrier option into a kids class, and I am so excited to have some kids back in my studio stamping and being creative! I hope you are inspired to see what you can create with these cups! I have some awesome ideas in mind for Christmas too!

Enjoy the rest of the Blog Hop today! Thanks for stopping by. You can head BACK to see what Melissa has created and NEXT to see what Connie has created.

Create with Connie and Mary--Fall Essentials!

Welcome friends! It is officially FALL and the most gorgeous season of all. While I LOVE summer, the sunshine and heat, bbq’s and all the fun stuff, I do truly love the beauty of fall. The changing colors of the leaves, the crispy touch to the air, pumpkins and sweater weather! And I find fall one of the greatest themes to design and stamp with. There are so many techniques to creating leaves and so many fantastic products to create amazing projects like this fall sampler!

Our blog hop theme this week is Fall Essentials—so creating a sampler was a great way to include many of my favourite fall things on one project!

Have you ever tried to create a sampler? There are so many possibilities! However, the easiest way to begin is to just use 3x3 squares and decorate them as you desire. It is like creating mini card fronts.

I started with a 12x12 base of Early Espresso and layered a piece of Whisper White over top. I used DSP from the Poinsettia …..and In Good Taste and then squares in many of our neutrals—Crumb Cake, Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, Early Espresso and some regals—Pumpkin Pie and Cajun Craze.

I leaned into two of my favourite fall stamp sets Love of Leaves and Gather Together. I stole the world ‘Autumn’ from the Autumn Greetings stamp set along with the cute little leaf clusters under the word FALL.

Here is a fun tip to try with the leaf dies from the Gathered Leaves dies. This dies cut and emboss at the same time so if you take the die and press it into your ink pad before placing it on your paper and running it through the Stamp Cut and Emboss Machine it will also transfer the ink onto the paper giving you leaf a really cool two tone effect!

I love how Stampin’ Up! has so many embellishments to choose from to help bring our projects to life. The Gold Hoops Embellishments are perfect to add a little flair. I loved adding a little gold bow onto the leaf above using the thread from the Forever Greenery Trim Combo Pack.

The Elegant Faceted Gems are the perfect touch to the square below with the pumpkins.

I really encourage you to give creating a Sampler a try. Its a wonderful way to showcase a lot of products and I love having one for every season to display in my craft room. They also make amazing gifts for those who love a handmade project.

I know the other girls have some amazing things to share with you! I can’t wait to see what their ‘autumn essentials’ are! You can visit Mellisa by going BACK and check out Connie by going NEXT.

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Christmas Coffee Explosion Box

This project is definitely in my top ten favourite things I have EVER made! I just couldn’t love it any more and definitely know its the gift I am making for my kids teachers this Christmas!

If you haven’t tried making an explosion box, don’t be intimated, its actually quite simple. You can look at each panel as a mini card and let your design inspiration go from there! This overhead shot shows you what it looks like once you take off the top and the sides ‘explode’ down.

There are tons of tutorials out there and almost all of them start with a 12x12 piece of card stock which is what I used here. I scored it at 4 inches on all sides and then cut some of the panels at a diagonal to create the two ‘pocket’s. I wanted a couple spots to add in some gift cards (one for coffee, one for booze!).

I used the two stamp sets Warm Hugs and Wrapped in Christmas from the Heartwarming Hugs Suite to decorate and embellish this project. These two sets work so well together!

This is the top of the box. I just love this mini coffee cup that fits inside the For You… it gives a little hint of what might be inside.

You can also use the Glitter Star Ornaments as a stationary embellishment by cutting the string and tucking the hook behind something.

I used the Heartwarming Hugs DSP and used the same pattern on the lid and on the inside panels and decorated the box with colors that coordinate with the DSP. I love the options of using Mossy Meadow, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, and Soft Suede. I used white embossing powder on many of the sentiments to help them ‘pop’.

The pull out pockets also have some stamping and you easily have enough to add a gift card.

I sacrificed one of the cups by carefully taking it apart to trace it onto the DSP so that the shape would be perfect to wrap around the cup. I used Tombow adhesive so it would stay adhered until the end of time! I decided to hot glue the cup to the base of the box. This way you can add some little treats inside the cup too and won’t move around in the explosion box.

I love how the Warm Wraps dies have such great layering options. The top of the coffee cup illustrates this perfectly and I used this layering option on all of the panels.

I would love to share this project with you! I will be offering it as a class on October 21st at 12:30 and October 23rd at 7pm. If you are in the Edmonton area please feel free to reach out if you would like to come stamp with me, or order any of the supplies by following the link to my store. Click on the button below to contact me to sign up for this class!

Coffee Carriers--not just for coffee!

The very first suite I ordered from the Handmade for You catalogue was the Heartwarming Hugs suite. Once I saw those mini coffee cups and that carrier I was SOLD! Hahaha! I have been crafting with them all month long in preparation for a display I was putting together and let me tell you, they are for so much more than coffee!

This cute little project is home to a little coffee bean plant! Isn’t that fun? I went to a local greenhouse and they told me it would maybe grow a bean in like a decade! hahaha! Keeping it alive for that long is actually more of a challenge!

To create the DSP wrap I sacrificed one of the cups by gently dismantling it. I then traced it onto the Heartwarming Hugs DSP so that the shape would be exactly the same to wrap around a cup. I used Tombow to keep things glued down. I love the color palette of this DSP as it allows you to bring in several brown and green tones and the patterns are so versatile and easy to mix together! I wrapped this carrier in DSP. I want to mention that you cannot wrap one strip of 12x12 around the carrier. It isn’t long enough so you need to cut individual pieces for the 4 sides. I wrapped it with the Real Red Braided Trim which is also a part of this suite.

I decided to add in a couple mini cards alongside my mini plant. I cut them to 2 1/2 inches wide so they could slip in the other side.

The Heartwarming Hugs Suite includes two stamp sets, Warm Hugs and Wrapped in Christmas. I used the Wrapped in Christmas set to make these mini cards and accented them with images from the Warm Hugs set.

The suite also includes two slim embossing folders which are great for adding in some texture like in this card shown.

Don’t all these patterns look awesome together? I love the Mossy Meadow Diagonal Stripe ribbon and the Glitter Star Ornaments in this suite. They help make the perfect tag! You can also see on this tag how fabulous the Warm Wraps Dies are as they have shapes that layer on top of each other! I always love when that is a component of a die set.

I actually ended up giving away both of these carriers as gifts so I wish the recipients luck in keeping these little coffee bean plants alive! hahaha! I also hope they are able to put the mini cards to good use and find themselves inspired.

I will be posting more coffee carrier projects so keep checking back so you don’t miss out! And if you need any supplies to make these projects, please shop my online store!