Creating border strips with October Afternoon backgrounds....

Edit: Look what just arrived at 2Peas. Witch Hazel is in! You can find the new items right here.

Hey there everyone. Today I've got a post up over at the October Afternoon blog showing you how to create border strips with background stamps. My stamp of choice for today is the Spooky Music background stamp. You can get further instructions at the OA blog.
The entire October Afternoon Halloween line called Witch Hazel will available in stores soon. I had so much fun selecting elements to use on my cards. This line has all the traditional Halloween colors with bits of teal blue and a fun green thrown in.
The papers are always a show stopper for me. The Witch Hazel lineup is so fantastic. There are plenty of Halloween themed papers but so many other more neutral designs too.
Here's my projects I created for today. I used 3 strips of my background embossed paper along with Miscellany pieces, Label Stickers, Designer Brads and Buttons.
I've got a sweet card for my little niece Marlee.....
A fun scarecrow card that is adorned with punched paper, tied buttons, a designer brad and some vintage sequins from my Autumn Basket shop items.

And last I created a card that my sister will love to receive. I used more pieces from the Miscellany package + I added some of my own typing for the sentiments.

I love the look of the black embossed border strips on all of my cards today. The shiny raised look just adds a fun bit of spookiness to my Halloween projects.

Before I go for today I have a few tips for how you can add sentiments to cards when perhaps you don't have a stamp set that fits your needs. I think scrapbookers who want to try card making might appreciate this tip. It's nothing earth shattering but I love do this myself....

Tip: Add journaling or sentiments to cards by typing on any of the labels that October Afternoon offers. I ran the entire sheet through my vintage typewriter but I did end up losing a few labels in there somewhere. After that I peeled off the labels I wanted to use and stuck them on a piece of plastic from a page protector. I carefully fed this through my typewriter and it worked just fine. I peeled off my sticker and was good to go.

Another nifty tip: If you want to use labels and pieces that don't have adhesive on the back, you can turn your Washi tape into temporary adhesive. Just rub a strip of Washi on your jeans a few times to remove some of the stickiness. Then adhere your label to a piece of typing paper and run through your typewriter. You can really create some fun, out-of-the-box sentiments this way. Don't have a vintage typewriter? All I can say is......find one! You can search thrift shop, garage sales, Etsy or Ebay for some good deal on basic models. They're so awesome.

And with that, I'm off to a good start on some Halloween projects. Have a great weekend everyone.

I'll be back soon with some of this:
...more Halloween projects using the Witch Hazel collection + new shop items
...a how-to on assembling your own crafty Autumn Basket
...a new card kit in the works
...a big, huge, giant post on my meal planning venture

Come see me soon. :)