Halloween Cards: My first serious makes in forever!

It's been a long, long time since I have devoted some serious amount of time to paper crafting. This isn't to say I haven't done any, but that I've not given it a central focus for months on end. I decided to get back on the "holiday schedule" with cards for the loved ones outside of the immediate area. Here are the four I've made this past week. Lots of Lawn Fawn stamps, Spectrum Noir coloring, some We R Memory Keepers "Bewitched" papers, and some Wink of Stella here and there (both pen and brush). I think these all meet the "Too Cute to Spook" Lawnscaping Challenge. Maybe?

This is off of Get Sketchy #1.

This last card was a beast. I actually started the diagonal background stamping sometime last year. Gave up on the coloring because I didn't have the full set of Spectrum Noirs yet and it was getting a bit nuts to blend orange from the handful of colors I had. I also didn't quite know what to do with a sentiment. The small ones that came with the set were going to get lost. Found a bigger one from a different set, white embossed it, distressed it, and then added a dark purple "drop shadow" with a Sakura Micron to the lettering. That made it stand out enough for me to be happy with it. A few pop dots, and boom!

Bring on the Valentine's Day cards!

I'm trying to get the drop on this holiday early. I had a little help, too. We'll get to that in a minute.

My first card is for Freshly Made Sketches #119, which I wanted to play with because I almost never think to do anything on the diagonal. [Not only that, but I deviated from the sketch, which I never do!] The papers come from the January card kit from Simon Says Stamp, which I had been debating joining up and finally something came along and twisted my arm in to doing it...

It was this guy! I just had to have him! I knew my other half would really enjoy a fun bug-eyed monster. So I had to add him to my stamp collection. The kit is a little pricey, IMHO, but it always has lots of fun product in it so I decided to sign up for awhile. (I probably feel that way because I never pay retail. Okay, almost never.) This card and the next are both for CASE(E) This Sketch #60.

Since cardmaking is also retail therapy -- hee hee, never too much paper in the collection! -- I had also picked up a couple of paper pads at my local 'Crap Warehouse' before I signed up for the kit -- now I'm swimming in Valentine's papers. Anyway, the papers are from Pebbles "Yours Truly." The little foam hearts were part of a gift from Unity Stamp when my BF put in a HUGE Christmas order for me. I've not hardly made a dent in using all of my Christmas goodies. Oh boy!!!

For once, I've also done the interiors. I stamped "Happy Valentine's Day" from the Simon Says kit in pink. I have a little thought... I might try selling cards. I'd tell you more, but let's just say I have a very close relationship with a local non-paper boutique craft store, and I thought my friend, the owner, would put a couple of my cards on her counter. What do you think I should charge? Is $5 a nice round number? Too much? I'm thinking, I would think it's too much but only BECAUSE I make my own. I might let her price them... that was my real thought. She knows her customers best.

Today's sketches for your reference: