Two Beautiful Days and a Bat Dog

It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day here! Chloe the cutie puppy and I took a walk in the early morning, then visited the dog park in the afternoon for a long romp with the other neighborhood dogs. Chloe's wiped out, which was part of my grand plan to get her into her Halloween costume. Be sure to make it to the end of this post to see what she's dressed up as for her very first Halloween.

I also squeezed in some stamping time this afternoon. Here's my card for today's SCS featured stamper challenge, based on this pretty floral card. I was inspired by the layout and originally planned for my card to stick more closely to the layout than it ended up in the end.

I used the fabulous big cloud image from Unity's October Kit of the Month for my focal image. I inked the image in Hawaiian Shores ink and stamped it on a white panel. The image wasn't wide enough to look right on a standard A2 card, so I scaled back the card to a 4 1/4" square one. The panel is layered an Aqua Mist mat, then attached to the cardfront with foam tape.

I loved the look of the die cut flower at the edge of the original card, so I did my own version of that here, replacing the flower with a die cut felt sun. A button, tied with some baker's twine, fills in the center of the sun.

Materials Used:

October Kit of the Month (Unity Stamp Co.); Hawaiian Shores ink, Hawaiian Shores and Aqua Mist cardstock, Pretty Pastels patterned paper, Harvest Gold button (Papertrey Ink); Whisper White cardstock (Stampin' Up!); Tuxedo Black ink (Memento); sun die (My Favorite Things); baker's twine (The Twinery); felt; foam tape

While I had the stamps out, I made this simple card for this week's Unity Addicts challenge. The challenge was a recipe based on your initials. My ingredients ended up being black, white, plus one color, buttons, and one layer.

I stamped the clouds in turquoise pigment ink and covered the ink with clear embossing powder, then heat embossed the image. The subtle texture looks great IRL! I used a black marker and a ruler to draw a frame around the outer edge of the cloud image.

The sentiment is stamped in black ink on a small white strip. I added a trio of matching buttons to embellish the strip, filling up the white space. The buttonholes are faux threaded with a line from a white gel pen--one of my favorite cheats! The sentiment panel is attached to the cardfront with foam tape.

Materials Used:

October Kit of the Month (Unity Stamp Co.); Tempting Turquoise Craft ink, Crystal Clear embossing powder (Stampin' Up!); white cardstock (Xerox); Tuxedo Black ink, Tuxedo Black marker (Memento); Simply Blue-tiful buttons (Clear and Simple Stamps); white pen (Ranger)

Now, as promised, here's some Chloe cuteness. After some debate (and purchasing not one, not two, but three different costumes), it was decided that she would be a bat for her first Halloween. We did a trial run earlier in the week and she was not particularly thrilled about playing dress up. I had figured that would be the case since she's been resistant to even wearing a bandanna around her neck. The time at the dog park this afternoon wore her out enough that she really didn't put up too much of a fight tonight when I got her dressed. I did decide that the matching hat with the bat ears wasn't worth the effort. She's such a social puppy that I think she'll love checking out the kids in their costumes. As I'm writing this, we could hear the neighborhood kids outside, yelling "Let's go to Chloe's house!" How cute! I'm off to hand out some candy . . .