Christmas Paper Piecing Blog Hop Dec. 2nd & 3rd - Day 2

*Scroll up a post for the Christmas Cards hop by Nicolette*

Good morning Friends and welcome to the Christmas Paper Piecing Blog Hop brought to you by Nikki of Paper Piecings by Nikki.  If you happened upon my blog, please stop by and check out Nikki's blog and especially her store!  She has an AMAZING deal going on until December 31st... You purchase $25 worth of product and you get 50% off!!!  How can you beat that deal?  And, she has been designing like crazy lately!  In just the past couple of months she has added so mini digi stamps and SVGs to her store, I'm just amazed! :0)  Did I mention, she's picking her new DT from this hop??? I'm super excited!  Wish me luck!!! :0)  Oooh, ooh, ooh!  I forgot to mention Nikki's blog candy yesterday!!! My bad!  So, if you comment and follow every blog (there aren't many) in this hop plus "Like" Nikki's FB page (make a note if you do not have FB so you will still be eligible), you will be entered to win her special blog candy.  I'm gonna enter, you can count on that! :0)

If you arrived here today from Liz at Tryin 2 Craft then you are in the right spot!  Isn't her blog design the most hilarious ever?  I Love it!

Ok, so I know this blog hop says "Christmas"; however, at the time when I was picking what I wanted to use for this hop, Nikki didn't have her awesome Christmas creations up quite yet (I signed up really early.) ;)  So, of course, I picked my favorite holiday... Can you guess???  It's HALLOWEEN!!! LOL  Oh, you guys know me so well!

This adorable file is called Mischief Brewin' Halloween Pattern Set.  Thanks to all who stopped by yesterday. I really hope your patience paid off! :0)  This is my very first attempt at actual paper piecing!!!  I had so much fun with it.  I am very happy with how soothing this technique is to the mind... It's great to keep you focused on something other than normal worries, ya know?

I apologize that this is very picture heavy... Reason being, the pics with the flash show the paper piecings better and the ones without the flash show the true richness of the colors!  Someday I'll figure out how to take better pics! ;)

 I used an emery board on the printed rectangles and love how nicely it distressed them!

 For the lettering I used the regular font & cut that from the printed paper, then I did a separate layer with the shadow of the font (didn't change size or anything) in black and it made a nice little background to make the patterns pop!

Used lots of pop dots because I believe a great design must have dimension!  Ok, well, unless you're stamping... That's a different story! ;)

This layout will be for sale in about an hour at my new store!!!  Please check it out at AmyJRockstar's Store.  I will be posting my creations there from now on, if they are not already spoken for.  Please send your friends as well!  

DETAILS:  SKIP IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE WITH THE HOP
For this project I used some of the awesome Studio G Goodies that I won a while back from Heather at Heather's Crafty Blog Space.  The "Beware" sticker on the front of the cauldron is from there, the cute polka dotted background is also from the kit I won from her.  Stop by her blog and show her some love for me! :0)

Most of my cardstock was stuff I had on hand, Recollections, etc... I used these amazing metallic fine tip pens from Creative Memories for the details on the cauldron.  Everyone should own that four-pack.  They are the smoothest pens I've ever used!  They never clog up or skip!  To make the goo "pop" I used Glossy Accents and I inked around pretty much everything with my favorite Cat's Eye dark brown ink by Color Box.  The "Happy Halloween" was created by using my SCAL 2.0 that I was so lucky to win from Ashley - Dirty Truth Reviews a while back.  So glad I was "grandfathered in" before the whole mess with Cricut and SCAL!  If you don't know what that's about, check out Ashley's blog...  Anyways,  I used K&Co.'s Halloween Specialty paper pack for the "Happy Halloween" and pumpkins.  Love that pack!!!  I used ribbon from my stash, a border from Pinecone Press, and the purple houndstooth background was also from my stash.

Thank you all so much for stopping by today.  I truly live for followers and comments. Leave me a comment and become a follower for a little blog candy, but please be patient with me (I take a while to send things out, but always do send them!).  Please do leave your email address or another way for me to get a hold of you!  Now you need to head over to Mandy to see what cuteness she has created for us!

XO ~ Amy Jo