Keep an eye out for monsters and have a safe and happy Halloween, everyone!





What's your ideal Halloween costume?

You Should Be a Cat for Halloween

According to our quiz, you'd make an ideal cat. Your runner up costume: Action Hero

The Halloween Costume Generator

PC Gourmet Blog Tour!

Pretty much anyone who knows me, knows how much I love PaperCrafts magazine. I have even had the honor of being published in one of the special issues. Well, you lucky peeps get to check out these sneak peeks by Alisa Bangerter from the upcoming November 4 issue of PC Gourmet, right here on my blog! Get the magazine.


See below for complete instructions and supply list to make Alisa's Halloween tag, and be sure to try her recipe for Cheesy Garlic Drop Biscuits. YUM!

Note: I apologize for posting these in slideshow format. As noted, I'm having problems posting images and wanted to be sure you are able to see them in full.

Enjoy tag - finished size: 3" x 4 1/2"
Designer: Alisa Bangerter

SUPPLIES:

Cardstock: (ivory) Dye ink: (Black) Stewart Superior Corp.; (Summer Sun) Stampin’ Up! Specialty ink: (Mango Lemonade color wash) Stewart Superior Corp. Color medium: (black chalk) Craf-T Products Accents: (black brads) Making Memories; (chipboard bat, moon) Melissa Frances Fibers: (black striped ribbon) Pebbles Inc. Font: (Black Family) http://www.dafont.com/ Adhesive: (foam tape)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1 Make tag from cardstock.

2 Crumple tag and smooth out. Spray edges with color wash; let dry. Apply chalk.

3 Ink chipboard moon; let dry. Chalk edges and adhere.

4 Ink chipboard bat; let dry. Adhere with foam tape.

5 Print sentiment on cardstock; trim and tear edges. Chalk edges and adhere with foam tape. Attach brads. Attach ribbon with brad.

****
Cheesy Garlic Drop Biscuits
Alisa Bangerter

This is a perfect recipe to pull out if you are short on time because there is no rolling or cutting. The cheese and garlic add extra kick to a plain biscuit, and kids love them. They are the perfect accompaniment to serve with soups or stews, and are great served with a salad.

INGREDIENTS
2 c. flour
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 c. butter or margarine
1 1/2 c. grated cheddar cheese
1 1/4 c. milk
Chives (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Mix together dry ingredients. Cut in butter with pastry cutter until mixture is fine. Add cheese and mix well. Add milk and stir until just moistened. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. Sprinkle top with chopped dried or fresh chives if desired. Bake at 400 degrees for approx. 15 minutes.

Journal and bookmark

Started with a dollar store memo book and altered with these gorgeous papers by Basic Grey. Butterflies are cut from one of the papers, painted with glossy mod podge, allowed to dry then adhered to the cover and embellished with stickles. Bookmark made from scraps and embellished with more butterfly cutouts, rubons and stickles; machine sewn. Made with the October Quickitz by Scrapbuggy. (You can slow down or speed up the slide show by using the minus and plus buttons.)

October Quickitz by Scrapbuggy

This month's beautiful Quickitz consists of the Basic Grey Ambrosia line -- there's just no way to see how pretty these papers are in a photo or scan, but I've tried to show them off here as best I could. Check out the store link to see pics of the complete kit--this month you even get two bottles of Stickles! You'll love it!

This project was such fun. Also using the QuicKitz, I've taken those fake credit cards you get in junk mail and used my Bind it All to make a gratitude book. Each page has a letter spelling out gratitude (g on the cover). Here are just a few of the pages with some of the things I am thankful for.

Girl Scouts Slime Explorers Event, 2008

Gracie and a few of her Brownie troop members attended the Slime Explorers event this past summer. As you can see, she had a ball! Miss Cyndi is my daughter, Gracie's mom.

For this album I used a kit by Carolee's Creations,which I won in a scrapping contest a while back. It's actually a Friends kit but I altered the album covering up the "friends" with a strip of cardstock printed with the event info and added a splat to replicate the slime. TFL!

Lamp Re-Vamp!

Update a lamp with paint and vinyl. This lamp is so old, but I haven't been able to find one I like well enough to replace it yet. So whenever I want a change, I spray paint it. :) This time, I've used Suede paint (very cool) in bordeaux (burgandy) to go in my living room, which is undergoing a redo as we speak. For this project, I've used the brown vinyl and cut the design with the QK Silhouette using a dingbat/font image. For the "necklace" accent, I've used brown vinyl cord with silver and black metal beads.

I'm not sure why the image shows the design as "choppy" -- it's not that way IRL.

Vinyl for porch decorations

We're not really big on Halloween at our house, but I do like to put out a couple of things just for fun. This year Grace and I used the QK dies and vinyl to decorate our pumpkins. Well, her pumpkin and my squash. The dies and vinyl were so much more fun, and a lot faster, than carving the pumpkins for the Halloween porch decorations this year. We could also use much more intricate designs than if we had carved. Yay for vinyl. ;) Try it! It's not just for electronic cutters.

framed photo/vinyl project

Something about the first one just wasn't working for me. I hadn't even hung it on the wall yet. So this morning I changed it and now I really like it. :) It's on the wall in the newly redecorated bathroom and looks so pretty!! The new and improved vinyl project.

Magnetic folders

Once you start working with the vinyl you'll want to put it on everything! LOL I had been wondering how I would label the magnetic folders with all my QK cookie cutter alphas but I didn't want to alter them with paper or paint them and just wasn't sure what to do so I didn't do anything. Until I got the vinyl. Oh my. Here they are all labeled with the alphabet each one contains. Love this!

Closer view

Can't have red stars for the good ol' U.S.of A without sparkly stickles on them, you know. ;)

Bind-it-all Projects

Mini books for Grace and Olivia to take to school for autographs, phone numbers, pics of their friends, or whatever. For these books I used those fake credit cards that come in junk mail. Run through the xyron, cover both sides with pattern paper then decorate if you want. They're very sturdy and could be clipped to a backpack. Aren't they cute! The girls are going to love them. :)

This school bus book was especially fun. I cut this one on the Cricut Expression using the Doodlecharms Cartridge. Cover is 5 inches; pages are slightly smaller; bound with 5/8" owires.

Vinyl project in progress

Oh my gosh. If you haven't used the vinyl yet, get on it. I love this stuff!! I've use it in the Silhouette, the Revolution and the Cricut Expression.

For this project, I used Holly's Cricut (she INSISTED she leave it at my house while she was out of town for her sister's wedding). I really had no interest in it and didn't think I'd really like it all that much. Well, let me tell you, I have changed my mind. It's awesome and I might have to ask her about a rental plan so I can borrow it occasionally! LOL

This is not a finished project, but here's what I have so far in the kitchen up along the beam. I have 12 inches to play with so it was fun making super big cuts. Is this cool, or what??? 'Delicious' and mug are 8 inches high!! These images are from "Graphically Speaking".