Frilly and Funkie Challenge #20; Haunted Halloween..... "BOO!"

      October! While Summer are my fave months by far, October would come next. No, not "fall" itself, but just the month of October since it gives me reason to shout out my fave team: Los Angeles Dodgers! Don't get me wrong her; I was brainwashed very early on as a bonafide, lifelong Chicago Cubs fan- along with all my older siblings- by our Dad. He coached, taught us how to keep paper score, and watched all his Sons' ballgames long into their 30s when they had their own kids. Girls were not allowed to play back then, so I was out. But that didn't leave me out of HIS teaching and coaching! By the time he had Grandkids- all of them played baseball or softball, but with 23 of them- it was a bit hard for him to get to all their games. Especially since most of them played at least one sport and were in at least one other school-sponsored activity, so it was up to us kids as Parents of our own kids...just like he did. He spent many a game at Wrigley Field long before lights became the norm. He died in April of 2016 and I always say that the Cubs won the WS that year because our Dad died and went up and had 'words' with GOD about that. lol! And while my older Brothers gave me heckling about the DodgerLove, I blame it on my Dad: Rick Sutcliffe was an early crush for me who was back on the Cubs then in the 1970s before he became a Dodger. I finally have the time again to actually SEE a ballgame on TV or stream it...after years of coaching, teaching, and basically running around like a chicken with my head cut off during the raising of our 2 boys and getting them off into the world.

          Oh, yeah...my Birthday falls in October, too. So I guess you could say I am a genuine PUMPKIN!! So October is a fave month and while some would comment that "real CHRISTians don't celebrate Halloween", our belief is that while there IS evil in this world...Halloween is a perfectly FUN time of year and we have always done the neighborhood thing: Mom at the door with at least 12 bags of candy bars (I had to save them up for a couple of months to have enough) while Dad took about 7 or 8 kids from here to Trick or Treat with our boys. Our last name officially changes for this time from Larimore to SCARImore ! We did all that so it would be SAFE for the kids as well as FUN for ALL ages. The past 9 years, we have been heavily involved in our church's Trunk or Treat event. We started with less than 100 attending but last year's count was over 800 people!! The ChiefHubby does all the food (chilli, hambeans, hotdogs) cooking while all the ladies supply the sides and desserts. We have blowup funhouses, games, hige hayrides, punkin-chunkin, apple-bobbing, prizes, tons of toys and candy, and every bit of it is FREE. I do all the photography (we did away with the Old Time Booth because of too many in line and only 3 hours to do it all), and posting it all on the FB site so ppl can grab all they want to send out to Grandparents or for their own scrapbooking. We usually take a month to get ready for it all...and a month to RECUPERATE!! But it's worth every minute and Halloween seems to have been seen as only a kid's thing, but we make it for FAMILIES, and keep it SAFE so all can play! And the costumes that show up: there are some VERY talented kids out there who have great imaginations! Won't surprise me a bit to find them crafting up a storm as adults!!!

      
        So, let's GET ON with this! This is my third time as Guest Designer and it seems like I pop up with ideas so easily. Actually, tho; I keep my eye on what Tim Holtz puts out each season as he develops new items or tools for us to use. Some I like, and some I don't. But it seems that Tim always has a design or a color that sparks with me! This year: those little IdeaOlogy Mini Pumpkins!! And always: Tim's Pumpkin Dies and Stamps are AWESOME! I am still keeping my eye open for the "Pumpkin Parts" die to add to my collection of his Alterations Bigz Dies, but I will find it! Meanwhile, I invested in his Pumpkinhead Stamps and got my hands on those Mini Pumkins along with some Broomsticks and THOSE ADORABLE DOLLS !!! (Thanks to some TH Addicts who took the time to show a few of them so we could all see the possibilities!)
                                     Of course, I had to order from
                                                          The Funkie Junkie Boutique
                                    since Linda almost always has the newest TH stuff in stock.
              Your package always has a few little "extras" in there and on this particular project,
            I used the TH Crinkle Ribbon that was part of those extras- it matched PERFECTLY!!
                              And then, I won the drawing for the $25 Gift Certificate on
                                                The Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog
                                     which meant I went back to order again from TFJB!!!
                                         Hey, if it can happen to ME; YOU can win, too!
                                               But you can't win if you don't join in !!
 

                                                     Here's what I came up with....

Ready to play on that AWESOME TH Stamping Platform!

The main background paper was one of 2 NON-Tim things:

the light set was found at Menards and the paper is Graphic 45.

My area of creativity is usually CHAOS.

But, it's MY chaos and I embrace it!!

The IdeaOlogy Mini Pumpkins come ready to use, but I sanded them down a bit (lower 3) as they are flattened out on the bottom for easier stacking.

I dabbed a bit of Walnut Stain Distress Paint onto the stems.

The front side of the Tag is all 'normal mode' with the Husband under the Wife's feet while she is trying to just keep up with the daily Pumpkin mess that is never ending.

Little messes always get bigger!

Please note the "BOO!" 

(made by lightly smearing Picket Fence Distress Paint onto Mirrored Paper 

and then using a Qtip to write letters onto as it dries)

leaking through from the other side of the mirror...

*POOF!*

Everything's ALTERED!

The broom turned into a tree,,,

the big Pumpkin morphed with those little ones and they came ALIVE!!

The mirror on the other side had hidden "The MAN in the MOON"

But no matter- though the Wife can be crabby about it: she's still cleaning up,

and the Husband is still up there playing around and making messes.

                             Are you ready to be SCARED?!

MwhaHahahahaha!!

                 September was a tough month for our family- especially on my side- with the loss of our Oldest Brother , our Dad's namesake. Here's a HUGE THANK YOU! to everyone who left comments of condolence, and especially for all who prayed for comfort during the time we needed it most. My Niece is still having to deal with some tough decisions as well as getting married in November. It's hard for all of his siblings because we are the Grandparents we once were able to lean on our Dad to be. Time marches on and keeps pulling us all with it.

And it's about to get BUSIER:

Wittle Peanut, Cole, announced to us that he's going to be a BIG BROTHER

with a Baby Brother or Sister due in March 2019 !

            And another THANKS! for all the sweet comments on my blog, photo work, and esp the creative work I do with paper! It's totally wild how people actually LIKE my projects! While it humbles me, it also spurs me on to creating more! If you get the chance to surf online once in a while-  check out the amazing things being added onto "Tim Holtz Addicts" on Facebook. The projects are just AWESOME!!

                           As always: THANKS for checking in on my blog!!

                      BE SAFE and HAPPY BLOGGING!

Frilly and Funkie Challenge #19 Just My Type....Americana

    In my mind; there is nothing better than pairing up the colors of our US Flag, unless you could get those same colors in vintage shades!
I have an extreme love for the good old Red, White, and Blue that goes back to the celebration of our Country's Bicentennial in 1776. I clearly remember the fashion of hip-hugger, bell-bottomed, faded denim blue jeans patched over with peace signs or US Flag colors. I am a former wearer of such items and when they made a comeback in the early 2000s... I ran out to get some before the fad disappeared again! But, these past years have been 'pouring'  yourself into spandex skinny jeans that have less material in them. It's ironic to pay big money for jeans that have more holes in them than yours did as a teen in the 70s when Dad said "You are NOT leaving this house in THOSE God-forsaken, torn up jeans. I can see your SKIN through those things! Go put on some better pants, please." *sigh* Parents just didn't understand the draw of a comfy old pair of jeans. So, when our generation popped out kids of our own, we just HADDA go and show them our saved-from-the-trash old jeans. And someone went and got FILTHY RICH off of that. It wasn't ME. Sadly.

Just an early peek on my "pull" towards Americana colors and items! ;)

         But then some guy named Tim Holtz came along and while he was still a bit younger than me....*gasp!*...he GOT IT! He actually understood the blending of "vintage" or "old" with "Americana"! And I felt like I'd met a match in my theory of design and art. It felt like coming HOME when those Distress Inks came out in shades named: Faded Blue Jeans, Frayed Burlap, and Fired Brick! He could actually dig it, man; what inspiration an old camera or a vintage fan, or a still-usable 1939 typewriter could mean to someone- and the THRILL of finding one!
        If you are my age (53 next week) or older, you might even remember your Grandparents having several of these "old things" not just laying around catching dust, but really STILL being used! That was the case of my maternal Grandma- she was a 'saver' of things. And being her namesake, I was often shown a lot of these things that were dear to her and how she came to have them, and especially: how she took care of, and still used them. One item of oft-use was her

old black typewriter. It was used by her in High School and she was very proud of it. Here she was in the 1980s, still typing on that thing. I was mesmerized by it! Partly because computers were pretty new in our schools at that time. Only High School students who were majoring in some kind of office work or a business career, signed up for "Computer Technology" or "Typing" (Classes 1, 2, 3, and 4 along with "Dictation") needed to worry about learning any kind of keyboard-related learning. Since I was profoundly deaf by then (but not as bad as now, which is totally), I didn't have much use for any of that. I DID however have a WANT to learn typing just for the fun of it. My experience of typing had been almost nothing except for Grandma's old black typewriter. I had borrowed it from her for extra credit on an English Class report. Then decided I liked it so much, I borrowed it for other reports; liking that crisp, clear, bold black, same-sized lettering over my own handwriting (which was always complimented on by Teachers who said I have a 'flowing cursive").  So, there I found myself in Typing I with a state-of-the-art electric IBM. AND.....I sucked at it. From all the practice I'd had on that old typewriter where I'd had my Dad coming into my room complaining that my "CLICKETY-CLACKETY! CLICKETY-CLACKETY!" was too loud for him to sleep. So touching on those NEW "QWERTY" keys that just flew with a slight touch meant that I kept typing things that looked like:

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant toooo tttttteeeeeeellllllllllllll yyyyyyyyyyyyouuuuuuuuuuu

Oh, I passed the class... unless you count being forced to take sample Dictation on her exam. I guess she just couldn't understand how a DEAF person could possibly need to learn how to type but not to HEAR people speaking on earphones to you. Oh well.

        So when the Frilly and Funkie Challenge #19 was announced, I already had found out I won Guest Designer from the Haberdashery Challenge ( click here to see it if you missed it ), and I was going to have to think of a SIMPLE entry for Just My Type, since I'd be working on TWO projects. The bonus is getting two weeks "off" after the GD spot. with all that stuff above going through my brain, I was still hung up on that larger Tag of the Haberdashery, so I decided to just go ahead with another like it.
     NOTE: This is NOT an original design by me. I've seen a couple of these on Pinterest. So I don't want to look like I came up with this myself- NOPE! Kudos goes out to whomever came up with it first, though!! All that is original about my take on it, is the Americana paper ribbon I scored on a trip to Treasure Mart for a whole $3 on a recent "ChickTrip" there with all the Besties. I have about 3 yards of it and you'll be seeing it again, to be sure!

JIC: This could be where you could find more??

I used my TH Tiny Attacher to fold the bottom of my cut together.

Then "puffed it up" using my folded paper trick

( as shown on the Columns I made in F&F Challenge AUGUST ).

FRONT SIDE of Tag...

… and BACK SIDE of Tag.

IDEAOLOGY ROCKS !!!

Who said we were DONE with those TH Type Charms?!

Ditto for the Memo Pins I chose to use here!

More Type Charms on the puffed-out paper ribbon, so the Paper Doll girl needed to stand out, too.

She's waving Old Glory...of the smaller TH Alterations Movers and Shapers Set.

Who is NOT enjoying that TH Memoranda Paper? RUN & GET SOME!!!

I used the photo of the Royal Typewriter, above, to create a copy from Tim's die, using GrundgePaper; Distress Paints in Black Soot, Brushed Pewter, and Picket Fence,

Glossy Accents, and Foil for dimension, color, and feel.

Total layers: 5 GrundgePaper plus 1 Foil on top.

Here's another older TH IdeaOlogy item: Pen Nibs.

I still LOVE these !!!

I used a couple of my TH Embossing Folders to add a bit of dimension to 

leftover Memoranda halfsheet to add a backside to the Tag. Kept it SIMPLE!

And that's a wrap for this Challenge!

Be sure to head over to

The Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog

to see the rest of the entries this time!

The next Challenge... #20...is my 3rd time as Guest Designer, and it's a FUN ONE!

It was worth doing 'double-duty' on two projects at once, but I sure am glad to have them both completely finished so I can clean up my studio a bit. lol!

So, here's your chance to join us in showing off your creative side;

don't be put off if it's not a flat project, as you should check out some of the AWESOME

STUFF people are making for an entry...it always blows me away with their ideas!

I also need to shout about: I WON THE DRAWING- a $25 Gift Certificate from

The Funkie Junkie Boutique

the Sponsor of these Challenges. You can be sure that it literally burned a hole in my Email and I just had to go back and purchase some things I've been wanting since they came out.

(I'll give you a hint of my package on it's way: LIFT!)

 As Always:

Be Safe,

& HAPPY BLOGGING!