Make-it-up-as-you-go-along

Here's an example of a spontaneous card. They're so easy to throw together.

You start with a subject, which in this case is the trio of october pumpkin ghosties.
Next, go through your stash of embellishments. I found the round Boo sticker right away, then my cat punch - surely black cats would be darting around on Halloween night, wouldn't they?

The rest kind of comes together, chunks and strips of paper in scary, gloomy colors. Random pen scribbles, a word ("frightening," of course). Finally, a slither of purple ribbon. Are you creeped out yet?

Day 5 of Great Card Giveaway

Ok, I admit that one of the purposes of the Great October Handmade Card Giveaway Contest is to showcase different ways our october pumpkin rubber stamp company stamps can be used.

Then a sudden idea for a card popped into my mind and guess what - it doesn't use any stamps at all! I have to share it with you anyway.

The ghostie (a ghost, by the way, is scary, while a ghostie is just plain cute) is torn freehand from a piece of watercolor paper. WC paper tears nicely and makes soft edges.

An old bristly paintbrush dipped in a tiny bit of paint makes the soft blurry eye and mouth shapes.

Shimmery color scraped around the corners with a metallic ink pad help suggest a round dark pit where the ghostie is usually hiding in wait.

The scary tag was punched from a section of a Starbucks coffee cuff, and the motif on it is an embellishment someone sent me from a "card candy" swap - motif brand source unknown to me.

I think it all came together nicely and made a cute card! Even if it does not have any of my personally designed october pumpkin stamp images on it!

Mayday!

News bulletin:

A reader just sent a message to my email that the Comments box on the blog is not working. She says that when she tries to post using Comments she is asked for her "profile" (?) and that when she tries to respond to the options they are all declared invalid. I'll have to report this and hope it's fixed soon.

Meanwhile, contest entries can still go to my email site at pelikanbeach@gmail.com

So sorry about this! I can't imagine what's gone wrong.

Card 4 in October Giveaway

Can there be too many Halloween cards? I doubt it. Halloween is a holiday that's really caught on the past few years. To some, especially kids, it's a time for lots of candy, costumes, and decorated cupcakes. For most of us adults it's a time to see the kids having fun, a time for lots of color, creativity, and wackiness.

I like the simple and sweet side of Halloween. I'll take a smiling pumpkin over a blood-dripping skeleton any day!

This card has two unusual elements. One is a layer of sandpaper, for texture, and the other is a cat paper clip from ye olde Staples.

Card 3 in Great October Giveaway

Here is the third card to be given away this month as we continue to celebrate October. This one would make a good Thanksgiving card, a fall greeting, even a birthday - the inside is blank for you to add your own sentiment. The punpkin stamped on the card is from october pumpkin rubber stamps, available online at etsy.com (see link to right).

Be sure to enter our giveaway contest by sending in your contact info via Comments below or else to pelikanbeach@gmail.com - good luck! It's always fun to win. Okay, I have to admit it would be alot more fun to win a million bucks in the lottery, but your odds of winning a card are alot better!

Cyber mystery

A couple of people have asked why the dates of my recent posts and the Day of the giveaway contest don't match up. The answer is, I don't know. The first day I posted the card just after midnight, making the date Oct 1, but the date on the blog site remained Sept 30. On the chance that the blog site and my computer were in diff time zones, I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night (yawn!) to test it before posting my Day 2 card. Once again, a discrepancy. Even at 2 a.m. the preceding day's date had not turned over. Tomorrow I will post in the "real" morning (that is, the morning when most people are awake, not the wee hours!) and see what happens. I'm sure there is a reason why the dates are contradictory, but I don't know what it is.

Day 2 of Card Giveaway

So far, so good! We had a winner for yesterday's card and the ghosties will be sent north to their new owner on Saturday.

Wonder who will win our second card in the October Card Giveaway? Hope it's you!

People seem to be sending their contact info via my private email, which is fine. If you missed that address, it's pelikanbeach@gmail.com

Good luck to all on today's drawing!