Halloween Hamlet

I couldn't resist the alliteration, it makes everything better.  The kids and I made this little glittery village as this afternoon's craft.  I first saw the little paper house idea in this month's issue of Scrapbooks, etc. but upon further investigation, I found that they used the idea with permission of Claudine Hellmuth (who is uber amazing) so I'm sending you to her blog to take a look around.  I should not that I did modify her instructions, I didn't want to cut up any sheet music, so we used black card stock, cut out the places for doors and windows and lined those places with newspaper.  We also added glitter.  Lots and lots of glitter.   I didn't have any LED tea lights sitting around so I have to post lit-up pictures later. 

Stamped Gift Tags

These little cuties are from a while back. Maybe around February or March that I got my first Martha Stewart punch,the little birdie.  It's a combo stamp and punch set, so you've got a few options with the birds.  I found it easier to stamp the detail, then  line up the punch with the stamp.  Then I punched out the embellished square with the Martha Stewart Flourish Square Punch.  And while I'd love to say that it was simple to use, I had to put some muscle behind it, or it didn't get through the card stock all the way.  The birds very glued to the squares and the backs of the tags are stamped with TO: and FROM: once again using a Martha Stewart product, the Custom Stamp Setting Kit.  I wasn't very impressed with the Stamp Setting Kit.  Overall I though it gave only okay results, many tags were scrapped because the impressions didn't come out evenly or the letters worked their way out of position after several stamps.  In fairness I may have used it more heavily than intended as I probably made several hundred of these things, but if I make more, I'll just look for a static "To/From" stamp.   After the birds, more friends joined the party, sheep, birthday cakes, bees, etc.  There are still more that I don't have pictures of.  My new craft space should be ready within a week or so, and I'll be able to unpack all my goodies that haven't seen the light of day since I fled Church Hill to the suburbs!  Here's some pictures for now, more later...