It was a dark and stormy night...

Ok-so I tried all kinds of camera settings-

and, sadly, this is the best I could do for the "spooky" effect

of my stamping efforts!

It is really cute lit at night-trust me!

Before I go any further, here's a well-lit version...

This is how I spent one afternoon on our recent trip.

I used the Close to My Heart

Around the Block stamp set along with the new Wicked

stamp set and one other whose name I cannot recall right now

to create this Creepy Lane/haunted house scene...

I *think* the bats are Inkadinkadoo and I am not sure

who the street light, street sign and gate is by-

but when I saw it at Joann's a week or so ago
I grabbed it and RAN to the checkout! lol!

The street sign says "Creepy Lane"!

And yes, Theresa was impressed that I even cut out

the street light and "lit" it up (she hates hand-cutting!)

This idea, in all fairness, did not originate with me.

I found it last year on Tresa Black's blog

and knew I wanted to try it...fast forward a year...

sigh!

Theresa goes all out with holiday decorations

and I wanted to make it for her-so I did.

This is supposed to be a card but--I just didn't do that part of it!

I used battery operated candles --yes, two-

as one just didn't light up the upper story too well

and then I had to rig this spider-looking thing

to hold the second candle

quite a contraption!

You do NOT want to use real candles here-believe me!

Paper + fire = disaster!

I "tweaked" Tresa's idea by adding an inside layer

to cover the plastic layered windows-

it just gave it a much cleaner look to the inside.

And I decided that the crooked windows gave

it a spookier feel

than stamping them straight...

The vellum at Michael's was all torn or wrinkled

so I resorted to plastic bag colored with Sharpie marker

and then stamped the windows with Staz On.

Of course it wouldn't be complete without

a CUTE BLACK CAT

and lol-I just noticed that I put the OWL

right next to the cat-how cool is that?!

Did not plan that one!

Anyway-it saved my sanity

on our trip to get some (serious!) stamping time in

and Theresa liked it

so it was worth the year-long wait!

Until next time,

happy haunting-er, I mean

stamping and scrapping! ; )

Blessings,