Part 3 - The Weekend!

 I’ve got photos from Friday and Saturday. On Friday Mona debuted Concord and 9th's fruit basket die and coordinating stamp set. This can be made an interactive die by using the pull-up tab enclosed. I have some key photos of how Mona put this set together and she was so good at showing the great variety of fruits you can create for your bucket that I had to go to the store and buy the die set!

Lets start with some samples. NOTE: Mona had the camera focused up toward the top of her work surface but did much of her work towards the bottom. This made getting some shots of her details more difficult to get, but I think you'll get the idea.

All her basket pieces and the slider pieces have been cut out and are ready for assembly after a little inking.

 With this die you can put apple, pumpkins, strawberries and even candy corn for your basket. Mona started by cutting her pieces, then inking with Vintage Photo to give the basket definition and depth.

In the photo below you can see some of her shading and the embossed guides. The designers are giving you guides to make the assembly much easier. You can also see the channels that the pull tab ride in. One of Mona's tips was to run your anti-static tool over both the front and the back area where those channels are to make your pull-up travel easier.

The second part of the assembly is the front to the back of the basket. Here you want to use 1/8" tape or as Mona does, foam tape. this will enable your slider to move more freely and not struggle to move up and down.

Using the matching stamp set you get several sayings that are designed to fit on your pull tab depending on the type of fruit is in your basket.

The set comes with a strawberry die that you can turn into a candy corn by layering two strips, one orange and one yellow on a white piece of paper then running it through with the strawberry die to create a piece of candy corn! Mona used this Pretty Pink Posh strip die to create her orange and yellow stripes.

You can also make apples with die. Mona is about to lift up the top apple to show you her slider.

Next up we have Saturday's video with Sharon and an encore appearance from Mona showing off her Spellbinder swing feet die adapted for Halloween cards. First up are some new papers for the holiday season and winter. Most of these papers are PhotoPlay and traditional colors are back.

Next up is a quickie tour of Maker Moments dies and a paper pack. Sorry of the poor quality, Sharon breezed through these really fast and moved them around so it was hard to get a good solid, clear image.

Next up is a bit of a review of the Hero Arts dies we have.

We have new Taylored Expressions in. Please remember we cannot put these in the on-line store as per our agreement with Taylored. You can still purchase anything you see by calling the store or better yet, come in for a visit.

This is their Create-in-Quads Layering stencil. Mona will be using this in a class coming up. You get four cards out of one layered stencil set. TE has matching dies for the caldron and the cat.

For of those out there that like your Halloween on the macabre side, we have Tim Holtz's new Halloween release; lots of bits and bobs and plenty of Boo!

This is the transparency pack. Look what Sharon pulled out, Anatomy 101!

An older but goodie. This may have to come home with me along with the next one, absolutely!

Even though they really don't celebrate Halloween like we do, the English company, Creative Expressions has gone all out with these dies and stencil.

A cool stamp.

Sharon also shared these rub-ons from 49th and Market, just stunning!

Woodware stamps have some Halloween treats for you. We're starting with ghosts, and moving on to gnomes that will be the basis for a new card class from Sharon. We'll end with some suitably creepy spiders (I HATE spiders).

Here is Sharon's sample coloring of one of the cards destined for her class.

We also have some new glitter butter and pastes. Sharon was talking about doing a demo with these in the near future.

A layered (5) stencil from Pretty Pink Posh with matching die for the words.

We also had a quick review of the Lawn Fawn release. Sharon has ordered more! I was in before the video ended because even though I was not going get anything...I went a little wild and crazy😜. My nephew and his wife are really into goth, spooky, etc. There were so many cool things this year and in years past that I decided I'm going to do The 13 Days of Halloween and send them a card for each day. I'll start out cute, but I'll end with some of the bizarre stuff from Tim Holtz. Just call me Dr. Frankenmuir, BOO!

They have this great 6X6 pad of alternating starry paper. One sheet has regular stars in white on the colored background but the next sheet has the stars in gold foil. We're trying to talk Sharon into getting a package or two of the gold foil colors.

This was the set I thought I'd get. I ended up getting the mice with snowballs stamp set instead and will be doing a platform pop-up class using that set.

We also have the 6X6  knitted papers featuring a cable stitch page alternating with a regular knit/purl page. You can see a sample in the apple basket card above.

After Sharon shared all these goodies, Mona came on and shared her take on the Spellbinders swinging legs for Halloween. She used the Pretty Pink Posh pumpkin/Jack O' Lantern stencil and their ghost stencil as her backgrounds. 

 Photoplay supplied the title on one of the cards. She layered it with black and used clear embossing powder to give it a little umph!

Check out Mona's and Sharon's videos on YouTube for the full demos on these cards with their detailed descriptions.

Also, Mona used the Spellbinders Haunted House combining it with elements from several other die sets. That's a great tip from Mona. Check out your other Halloween or other holiday stamps for elements that you can combine to create a great scene in your current creation.

I'm a sucker for a good mummy! You can see the background, added elements (bats!) and sentiments from Spellbinders.

Lastly, from my workspace, I've been working on this for five days! It's a pop-up box card for my daughter. I created my own pattern from a Concord & 9th die inspiration and used their Downtown Stacks die for the buildings. An idea and design totally copied from someone clever at Concord & 9th. I hope she likes it.

That's it for today. If I cooked, I'd use this idea!

That is plenty for now. I'll be back after Wednesday nights video with whatever Sharon comes up with next. Until then, stay cool, stay crafty and above all, Stay Safe!