A Few of My Favorite Things



This week the ladies over at Heart 2 Heart Challenges continue the "Sound of Music" theme by asking to see a few of our favorite things.  Let's see...

Cats:  I have loved them for as long as I can remember and currently have two four footed children who regularly provide design assistance.
Halloween:  I love carving pumpkins, dressing up, seeing the kids in their costumes, Snicker's Bars...   I love Halloween almost as much as Christmas.
Paper crafting and playing with new techniques.
Close to My Heart products:  Beautiful papers with lots of dimension, cool bling and stamp sets that include not only icons and sentiments, but usually graphics with lots of possibilities.

Yes, these are a few of my favorite things!

I just got the "Eek & Shriek" stamp set that includes a cat full of attitude, so of course I had to use it and I have also been wanting to try the chalkboard technique which could more accurately be described as techniques.  It seems some people are purists and stick to stamping white pigment ink on black or dark gray paper, maybe drawing a bit with a chalk pencil, and smearing some white ink or chalk on the background:

I had to stamp the cat twice with White Daisy pigment ink to get it to show up.

Next I checked out this helpful tutorial from Operation Write Home in which she embosses her stamping and then adds some chalk lines.  She also stamps over her embossing to give it a slightly dimensional effect.  I found that gave me double vision, so I stuck to double stamping the sentiment only:



 Next I tried embossing just the cat and sentiment (the background is not quite as "dusty" as it appears):

Lastly, because I love resist embossing, I tried embossing the cat with clear detail powder and rubbing on a heavier layer of ink.  I think of it as the cat who refuses to be erased:

These cards may not show off CTMH's beautiful papers, but they do show off CTMH's stamp sets.  I used bits and pieces from five different sets!  The cat and sentiment come from the aforementioned "Eek & Shriek" set, the side borders from the retired "Wicked" (August 2011 SOTM) and "Pear & Partridge Scrapbooking Workshop" sets, the flourish below the sentiment from the retired "Simple Memories" set and the corner flourish from the "Instant Memories" set, also retired.  I should mention that although CTMH carries a vinyl chalkboard paper, I used plain old black cardstock and Mischief which I bought more of on the "While Supplies Last" section, another one of my favorite things.  You never know what you will find there!

The layout was adapted from this Atlantic Hearts Sketch.  I had to swap the sentiment and icon positions to be able to use the cat.

Now the question becomes, which one do I like best?  I think I like the black cat version best because it is unexpected.  How about y'all?  I don't see a limit on entries to either challenge, so I will enter them all, even if I have to pick just one card to show on the link.  Thank you for stopping by!  Now please hop over to Heart 2 Heart and Atlantic Hearts to see some more creations.  Until next time, Hansi

Materials used, all Close to My Heart unless otherwise noted:
Paper:  Black and Barn Red cardstock, Mischief (retired)
Ink:  White Daisy
Stamps:  Eek & Shriek, Simple Memories (retired), Wicked (retired), Pear & Partridge Scrapbooking Workshop (retired), Instant Memories (retired)
Embellishments:  Opaque White embossing powder from Michael's, Clear Detail embossing powder