Digital Doodles Tuesday & Giveaway

Today is a very special day! Not only is it a new release day here at Digital Doodles, but it's my darling husband's birthday! Happy Birthday Dan!

I'm not the best at creating masculine cards so I thought I'd try a little harder this year. I perused blogland for a little manly inspiration and came up with this card. I like the way it turned out and I love that I used my patterned paper scraps! My hubby loves maps so this old paper is perfect!

Now onto the new Digital Doodles release! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here with this new 'Night Before Christmas' stamp set!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care....you know the words! We've been uttering these phrases since childhood. What fabulous memories they invoke! And here is what the the design team and I came up with this week.

Merry Christmas Card

by Kathy Martin

Merry Christmas Photo Frame

by Arielle Gordon

Holiday Cards

by Patricia Kumfer

Tea Lights Gift Set

by Carina Lindholm

Merry & Bright Card

by Virginia Lu

Night Before Christmas Scrapbook Page

by Cheryl Nelson

I've Been Good

by Audrey Pettit

Merry Christmas Card

by Vera Wirianta Yates

I think I hear carols playing off in the distance when I look at these projects! I love Christmas! It's a month long celebration of card making, baking, decorating, drinking cocoa and bringing our children to visit Santa. Before you can blink an eye, it will be here so I plan to get started on my cards and ornaments and I hope these project samples and new 'Night Before Christmas' set will help you to create fabulous goodies this season!

Our winner for last week's Digital Doodles prize is Krissy! Congratulations Krissy! You get to select a Digital Doodles stamp(s) of your choice. This week's Digital Doodles giveaway is the 'Thankful' stamp set pictured below! Just leave a comment on this post by Friday and you may be drawn from the list of comments! Winner will be announced next Digital Doodles Tuesday! Good luck!

Thanks for stopping by! I really enjoyed showing you all the design team projects and revealing the new 'Night Before Christmas' stamp set. On sale now at Two Peas in a Bucket for just $4! I'll be back tomorrow with some more crafts and Halloween decorating! :) Kathy

Thankful

Thought I would pop into today with a card and more Halloween decorations. I made a second card for the Caring Hearts Card Drive last evening.

I created the entire card from my Halloween/Thanksgiving stash box! It's always a bonus when I can use scraps and left over embellishments!

 I was also able to use the packaging from the felt leaf accent to punch out the tag for my sentiment! I love to reduce, reuse and recycle!

Last Friday I posted some photos of our Halloween mantle and today I have the console table to show you that's also in the family room. I just started decorating for Halloween last year so I don't have a lot of Halloween decor, but you don't need much. There are so many ways to use everyday items in your Halloween displays.

As you can see I don't have any linens that would work so I just crinkled up some newspaper. An idea my friend Audrey picked up from the garden center she works at. You could also use some burlap or old flour sacks.

This little green house usually has a little plant in it. That creepy little glittered spider was purchased for just $2. At that price I purchased several! He's actually made of two jingle bells!

I found this goblin guy last year at the same gift shop that I got the spiders from. He and his cat girlfriend were only about $10-$12 each!

And there jolly little pumkin friend here was about $4! I went crazy in that shop and purchased a number of things because my girlfriend and I had a 25% off discount coupon!

This is one of my favorite decorations! His name is Hocus Pocus because he reminds me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs sings a song and each time he says the words Hocus Pocus, this spook who's out to get him, turns into a little bat! My friend Audrey, made him. Clever, huh?

Now this part of the display is made using a shabby chic bird cage that's out year round in our house and decorated depending on the season. The white pumpkin is something I've had for years, part of the few token items I would put out every fall. Then there's my hanging bat who is also from the same gift shop as the above goodies. Isn't he funny?

Here's another bird cage that's actually a candle holder. I fastened this Halloween mirror to it that I got after Halloween last year for half off. I believe that came to a grand total of $6! Gotta love that!

Moving right along down the table is this stack of vintage books. Something I always have laying around the house and the perfect look for my display. Again, there's one of those fun little $2 spiders crawling up the books! Eek, he's creepy!

Last, but certainly not least is my adorable Laurie Mitchell figurine. She's standing on an antique pressed aluminum candy dish. My girlfriend Audrey loves these Laurie Mitchell figurines and has quite the collection! Are they not the cutest??? I love them too, but was trying not to get into collecting them. I finally broke down a few weeks ago on a shopping trip. She's not as cheap as the other items, but she's pretty reasonable. Who knows, that adorable little face with her sweet pumpkin pail and ghost might get me hooked?!?! You should see the pieces for other holidays!

Hope you enjoyed my post. If you've considered decorating for Halloween, but thought you needed a lot of things....hope you can see that you don't. Go down to your dollar store and pick up some spiders, some webs and a couple little nick knacks and mix and match with what you have!  I'd love for you to e-mail pics of your displays!

Have a lovely day and thanks so much for visiting! :) Kathy

World Card Making Day

Wow, isn't it great that there's a World Card Making Day, a special day just for those of us who enjoy creating cards?!?! I think it's fabulous and in honor of the occasion, Vera Wirianta Yates, a design team member of Digital Doodles stamps, has organized the 'Caring Hearts Card Drive' for the elderly at nursing facilities! The purpose of this drive is to share our cards with the residents in nursing homes who often times feel lonely during the holidays. Vera is such generous and kind hearted person who decided just this week to start this drive. So, there are still details to be worked out, but that means we can all pitch in and help by either sending cards or sponsoring prizes to make this a successful event! I'm pleased to announce that Digital Doodles stamps will participate and donate stamp sets as prizes for this drive! Please hop over to Vera's blog by clicking here to find out how you can join!

I'll be back later today to show off some cards I'm making today for this event. I  hope you can join in and have a great World Card Making Day! Kathy :)

As promised I'm back this afternoon to show you a Thanksgiving card I made today for the Caring Hearts Card Drive. I created this card with a new digital kit called 'Feels Like Fall' from Jen Martakis of Two Peas in a Bucket. Such a cool little kit full of autumn accents and a lot of coordinating patterned papers.

I can't get enough of the fun crinkled seam binding, buttons and Nestabilities die cuts as you can tell from all the projects I've posted lately! I made two cards yesterday that I can't show just yet that uses all the above! They are my go-to items these days!

Well, I plan to squeeze in another card today for the Caring Heart Card Drive. I hope you can join me, but if you can't, the drive will be open until mid November. Get all the details on Vera's blog posted above. :) Kathy

October 1st Halloween Card

Hey everyone! T.G.I.F! It's a three day weekend in our county since schools are closed today for a teacher work day. So Christopher is here in my office typing a story. He loves to write which is somewhat of an unusual interest for a nine year old, but I'm delighted with it and love to read his stories. Maybe we have a future author on our hands?

I have a card to share and a couple photos of my Halloween house to show you this first day of October. First I'll show you my card.

Oh how I love the vintage shabby chic look, but don't pull it off as well as some of my favorite designers like Betsy Veldman or Melissa Philips. I'm giving it my best shot though.

My jack-o-lantern started as as a plain piece of chipboard from Bazzill Basics Chips and I painted it with a mix of Making Memories paints. I didn't want the orange to be too bright so I mixed in a bit of tan and brown. Once dry, I inked the edges with a walnut color cat's eye inker and then I took some Martha Stewart glitter to him. Eek! He's so handsome! ;)

I rarely make a project without some buttons on it somewhere! I just love those little things! The bingo card is from Jenni Bowlin and that ribbon, can you believe it's from Dollar Tree? Yep! Lovely and the perfect weight to make bows, not too stiff.

Now to share a little of my Halloween house. It was rainy and cloudy yesterday so pictures were not very good. My friend came over to help me decorate and we had a splendid time until I nearly knocked the entire mantle display to the ground! Wow, did that rattle our nerves!

I was adjusting the cream colored netting and pulled a little too hard which in turn made the window come falling down! I quickly caught the window, but that antique iron scale came crashing down! That thing is heavy and only made a little dent in the wood floor! Ouch! I was surprised the dent wasn't at least twice as big!

The window is salvaged piece that I purchased it from one of our local antique shops. I decided to leave it dusty since it made the look more authentic. It's hard to tell from this photo, but the black item in the glass jar is a glittered skull on a bed of moss. I got the skull from Dollar Tree last year. What a find! ;)

I recently purchased the green divided box at an antique store and need to find a couple more little items to put on the little shelves. I wish the photo did the mantle justice. It appears somewhat plain because of the large wall space above the green box.

I'll share some more photos this month as I get some better pictures. Do you decorate for Halloween? I've always put out a candy dish or two and a few token Halloween items, but last year I decided to start collecting some fun things to decorate our Halloween home with. It's fun and keeps me out of trouble! Thanks so much for stopping by today! Kathy :)