Personally, I lean towards April 30^th, as it feels more natural to me to celebrate this exciting spot on the calendar at the end of the month, given that Halloween itself transpires on the final day of October.

Plus, I observe Beltane on May 1^st, so my focus tends to be on that beautiful springtime Pagan sabbat come the inaugural day of the year’s fifth month.

Not, of course, that I mind combining secular and Pagan holidays together. I happily do so each year for Samhain + Halloween.

A number of years ago now (if not longer still), the term “Halfoween” (aka, Half-O-Ween) was coined so as to give the halfway mark until All Hallows’ Eve its own name.

Another very charming – and clever – title that I have seen used for the halfway point to Halloween is “Neewollah“. Aka, the word Halloween spelled backwards. How fun is that!

Plenty of fellow #EverydayisHalloween souls have shared content online over the years pertaining to Half-O-Ween.

Here are but a few that have caught my eye:

-A great roundup of horror movies to watch at Halfoween from The Spooky Vegan

–Halfway to Halloween: 10 Ways to Celebrate the Unofficial Holiday from Mr. and Mrs. Halloween

–How to Celebrate Halfoween from Spooky Little Halloween

–Six More Ways to Celebrate Halfoween aka Half Way to Halloween from Mr. and Mrs. Halloween

With Halfoween rounding the bend again in a matter of days, it seemed like high time I made a papercrafting project to honour this delightful date – as well as to celebrate Springoween at the same time.

Springoween, as I detailed in my 2021 post, Sweetly Spooky Oversized Slimline Springoween Card (Plus, What is Springoween?), is an amalgamation of classic springtime elements (be they Easter/Ostara related or otherwise) and the dark, spooky, hair-raisingly marvellousness of Halloween.

If you are new to the concept of Springoween, pop by that post and get the 411 on this hauntingly fun way to embrace (and decorate for) spring.

(Lol! Who else remembers when the expression “Get the 411” was all the rage in the 1990s and early 2000s? )

It struck me a few days ago that it had been a very, very long time since I last made a pocket letter.

If memory serves me right, we are talking 6+ years (it was unequivocally pre-arson fire).

At the time, pocket letters were wildly popular within the papercrafting world. Numerous groups and forum sections devoted to pocket letters were to be – and still are in some cases – found on various websites and social media platforms (i.e., Scrapbook.com and Facebook, respectively).

I fell in love with pocket letters at first sight, though only got a chance to make around three to four (sadly, no photos survive of them) before that fateful night back in October 2016.

Jump ahead to the present month and I suddenly got the BIGGEST urge to make a pocket letter again.

So that is precisely what I did, choosing to celebrate the concepts of both Halfoween and Springoween within the borders of nine wonderful little adjacent rectangles.

Cute Pastel Hued Happy Springoween Pocket Letter

Back in early 2019, I picked up a pack of Ultra Pro Platinum Series 9-Pocket Trading Card Pages, anticipating that sooner or later, I would make pocket letters again.

Some three years on from then, I finally got a chance to do just that and, OH MY WORD, let me tell you, I am completely and entirely in love with pocket letters!!!

I recall very much enjoying the tiny number I made back around 2015. Creating one again this year was like connecting with the dearest of old friends.

Though the heyday of pocket letters may have passed somewhat, plenty of folks still like to make – and in some instances, swap – them or include a PL as part of some happy mail.

Count me amongst those ranks and prepare to see future pocket letters here now that I have rediscovered the joys of this wonderful form of paper crafting.

In fact, I am already brainstorming a future post all about the ins and outs of pocket letter making.

Until then, however, for those who may be new to the concept, allow me to briefly go over what a pocket letter (usually) is.

Generally speaking, pocket letters begin with nine slot trading card sleeves (or you can make your own version using a fuse tool such as the Photo Sleeve Fuse Tool and Fusable Clear Sheets, both of which are from We R Memory Keepers).

One then creates pieces of cardstock, paper, etc – often with some embellishments swirled into the mix – and tucks them into the front of each of those pockets.

If sending the pocket letter off in the mail or otherwise presenting it to someone else, many people opt to include small gifts on the backside of the nine slots (and sometimes on the front as well).

Examples of these gifts that fit the bill well include such things as washi tape samples, sequins mixes, flatback charms/cabochons, beads, die cuts, stickers, tea bags, and candies – amongst scores of other possibilities.

You can decorate both the inside and outside of the slots on your pocket letter, as desired. I have placed elements both inside and out on the pocket letter highlighted in this post.

Much as with just about all forms of papercrafting, the sky is the limit in terms of how to make pocket letters. Let your creativity run wild when whipping up a multi-slot PL!

Being a huge fan of cohesiveness, I usually pick a general theme and corresponding colour palette for my pocket letters.

In this case, the theme was Springoween + Halfoween and the colour palette was a classic mix of springtime pastels coupled with white, black, and hints of metallic gold throughout.

Tending to favour fall tones and dark colours, I wouldn’t say I have a ton of pastels or springtime themed items in my stash. However, as soon as I hit on the theme + hues for this darling Springoween pocket letter, I knew that I had only to reach for some of Prima’s Halloween offerings to score the aesthetic I was after.

Given the widespread popularity (especially in recent years) of what is sometimes dubbed Pasteloween (aka, utilizing a pastel colour scheme to decorate, craft, etc for October 31^st), I picked up some of the papers from Prima’s Thirty One Collection line a while back and was extra glad I did as it proved to be a great option for this particular pocket letter.

While I did feel a bit rusty on the pocket letter making front, happily and thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to find my grove as I went about creating this project.

I have no doubt that the classic “it’s like riding a bicycle” quality of reconnecting with something you have engaged in doing previously will deepen all the more with each fresh PL I create from here on out.

Theme and colour palette sorted, I set about rummaging through my stash for a bevy of suitable embellishments and trims to partner with these (mostly) pale hues.

Pocket letters are an awesome way to utilize a wide array of those kinds of materials – as well as to potentially use up paper/cardstock scraps and do some stash busting in the process.

Once I had everything gathered, I took my time and composed the various rectangles and exterior embellishments of my pocket letter. After I was pleased with the look, I set about adhering everything together and making a few more design tweaks along the way.

Humbly, I am tickled (pastel) pink with how this adorable Springoween pocket letter turned out and have already started pulling out items to make my second pocket letter of 2022 in the not-too-distant future.

It will be a gift for a dear friend and while it is spring/summer inspired, that one is not going to be Springoween or Summerween themed pocket letter – though it is a safe bet to say that I will very likely make more of those as time goes on.

Products used to make this charming pastel hued ghost themed Springoween pocket letter

-Nine pocket trading card sleeve – Platinum Series 9-Pocket Trading Card Pages from Ultra Pro

-Peachy-cream coloured cardstock

-Pink cardstock

-Black cardstock

-Metallic gold cardstock

-Black and gold floral print paper – Love Story 4.5” x 7” Paper Pad from Recollections (Michael’s brand)

-Various Halloween cut apart pieces – Thirty One Collection Magickal Haunt from Prima

-Various Halloween cut apart pieces – Thirty One Collection All The Treats from Prima

-Pinking shears or decorative edge pinking scissors – Mini Pinking Paper Edgers from Fiskars

-Black ink – Wicked Black Archival Dye Ink Pad from Color Box

-Tiny Halloween word stickers – Trick or Treat Stickers from Echo Park

-Itty-bitty ghost and pumpkin puffy stickers – from American Greetings (No specific product name appears on the packaging.)

-Light pink rosette with purple button center – Button Pinwheel Stickers from Forever in Time

-Tiny pink enamel heart stickers – Tiny Hearts Shape Sprinklers from Doodlebug Design Inc.

-Glossy gold enamel heart stickers – Heart of Gold Shape Sprinklers from Doodlebug Design Inc.

-White and gold foil alphabet stickers – Swing Gold Foil Chipboard Letter Stickers from American Crafts

-Black Foam “Happy” word sticker – this one hails from the Jot brand of products sold at Dollar Tree (No specific product name appears on the packaging.)

-Assorted Halloween stickers from Crafter’s Square (Dollar Tree brand; no specific product name appears on the packaging.)

-White resin frames (The ones used here were purchased a few years ago from an Asian home goods store in Toronto; they are remarkably similar to those produced by Prima a while back.)

-Orange, black and white Halloween sequins mix – Sprinkletz Embellishments (specific product name not listed on packaging) from Buttons Galore & More

-Tiny gold heart sequins – (specific product name not listed on packaging) from Pretty Pink Posh

-White sequins

-Black sequins

-Iridescent pink sequins

-Mini pink clothespins

-Pink embroidery floss (If using, you will need a sturdy needle with a decently large eye on it so as to be able to fit all six strands of the floss through at the same time. Alternatively, use a sturdy pink thread and either machine or hand sew the shaker pocket shut that way instead.)

-Pre-made mini orange bows (or very slender orange ribbon to make your own)

-Gold coloured seam binding

-Black seam binding

-Black lace trim

-Black and white text print ribbon – No. 3 Trim from Graphic 45

-Pink ricrac trim – Fancy Flushed Lace Wraps from Fancy Pants Designs

-Pink velvet ribbon trim – Fancy Flushed Lace Wraps from Fancy Pants Designs

-Black and white striped washi tape

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

How to make a super fun pocket letter for Springoween (or Halfoween)

While I usually provide detailed step-by-step instructions for most of the papercrafting projects that I post here, this time around I am not going to break things down to that degree.

Many pocket letters are, in my opinion, quite easy to dissect, so to speak, just by looking at them. I feel that statement applies in the case of this hauntingly fun Springoween pocket letter.

Instead, I will mention a bit more about its design coupled with some general advice regarding making pocket letters.

(That said, if you have any questions pertaining to how to make this exact PL that are not covered here please do not hesitate to ask them in the comments below or via the email contact form located on the header bar of this blog.)

To make cutting out the correct size of cardstock/paper/thin chipboard/felt/etc for each slot of your pocket letters, I suggest you measure the dimensions of each slot/pocket (in most types of playing card holders, these slots will be uniformly sized) and then make a reusable template based on those measurements.

I did that prior to putting together the specific aspects of this Springoween pocket letter, opting to use some medium-weight chipboard to create one template the length and width of three pockets and another the length and width of a single pocket.

Now, anytime I want to make a pocket letter using the specific card holder sheets that I currently have on hand, I need only trace the outline of these templates on my desired material, cut them out, and I’m good to go.

I have labelled my templates and placed them mere inches away from my crafting desk (it is a small desk without any drawers, therefore most of my craft stash is stationed elsewhere in that similarly wee room).

So easy and so handy!

If you regularly work with the same size pieces for any of your crafting applications, I highly recommend making reusable templates.

When making a pocket letter, keep in mind that the see-through pockets themselves are not usually very roomy from front to back. This means that there is a definite cap on the types of embellishments (and number of layers, etc) that you can fit into a given pocket.

If you wish to include larger/more 3D embellishments, it generally works best to attach them to the outside, not the inside of your pockets.

While the standard pocket letter size is three rows by three rows, I have seen other sizes over the years as well.

These include “mini pocket letters”, which are commonly between 3 – 6 pockets in total size (often cut down from a 3-row x 3-row playing card holder sheet), Project Life type pages with various numbers and sizes of slots, and other configurations created by either sewing or creating slots with a fuse tool.

If you want to shake things up, don’t be afraid to experiment with different sizes. You could also attach two or more nine-slot card holder sheets together and create a mega pocket letter!

Or, leave them separate but carry the same theme/colours across two or more pages for another form of extra-large pocket letter.

When making pocket letters, it is common to attach or thread things such as ribbon, twine, lace, seam binding, tulle, string, charms, and washi tape to one or more of the (three) holes on the left-hand side of the page protector.

This can jazz up your pocket letter further, while also helping to tie your design together to an even greater degree.

If you – or your recipient – are likely to store the pocket letter that you have created in a binder, duo-tang folder, or scrapbook album, it is usually best to either make those components easy to remove or to leave enough space in the holes for them to still be able to accommodate binder rings and the like.

Though that said, technically, one could store the most common sizes of pocket letters in a 12 x 12-inch scrapbook album with corresponding 12 x 12-inch page protectors.

Whether you will be tucking gifts, letters, etc or not into the back of your PL, it can be a really lovely touch to ensure the backside of your pocket letter is attractive looking as well.

You may wish to repeat some of the same papers/cardstocks used on the front sans most (or all) embellishments. Or you can opt to use a single colour of a paper/cardstock.

There really are no rules, so as with the front side of your pocket letter, let your imagination soar and have a blast while creating this fabulous type of paper crafting project.

Happiest Halfoween wishes!

As returning readers may likely have guessed, this festive Springoween pocket letter is my #MakeHalloween365 project for the month of April 2022.

As always, I encourage you to use this hashtag anytime you share a Halloween-related creative project of any kind online (be it papercrafting related or otherwise). It can be on your blog, website, or social media – anywhere a hashtag comes into play, have at ‘er!

When it comes to those of us who live for Halloween – or who otherwise adore this most spooky of holidays – there is something powerfully exciting about reaching the point in the year from which, for the next six months onward, we will be closer to our beloved October 31^st than further away from it.

Springoween strives to imbue springtime as a whole with a hair-raisingly delightful sense of Halloween’s mysterious spirit.

Halfoween, is a single day (or two – should one want to celebrate it on both April 30^th and May 1^st). A pivotal point on the calendar that propels us into that very six-month countdown.

Even if we have no desire for the next half a year to whiz by faster than a flock of bats flying against a harvest moon-filled sky, for Halloweenoholics, we cannot help but cross off the days until October returns.

Growing all the more gleeful that with each fresh sunrise – or, perhaps more aptly for the darkly inclined, each fresh sunset – at that very prospect.

If you are jonesing for plenty of inspiration and ideas to help inject even more Halloween happiness into your days the whole year through, may I suggest my roundup of 31 Ways to Celebrate Halloween All Year Long as well as the following selection of my Pinterest boards?

–Springoween

–Summerween

–Fall time in general

–Lammas

–Mabon

–Samhain

–Thanksgiving recipes

–Vintage Thanksgiving

–Fall and Thanksgiving cards

–Halloween

–Halloween costumes

–Halloween recipes

–Halloween cards

–Vintage Halloween

As usual here, expect to see plenty of Halloween related craft projects from me in the coming half a year (and beyond, natch! ), as well as other posts pertaining to my – and many peoples’ – most cherished holiday.

Right here and now though, as we head towards May and the return of Halfoween, know that I am wishing you the happiest of Halloween countdowns and a safe, enjoyable, creativity-filled second half of the (Halloween-based) year.

Do you take note of Halfoween? If you have done so before, when was the last time you created a pocket letter of your own?

The post Cute Pastel Hued Happy Springoween Pocket Letter (It’s the first PL I have made in six years!) appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

When I think of the late 1990s/early 2000s – a time when my teen years were wrapping up and my twenties were starting – no shortage of such lexicological examples spring to mind.

While I doubt that expressions like “your happy place” and “go to your happy place” were invented during that time period, they were certainly popular back in the earliest years of the new millennium.

A lot of us have at least a few treasured happy places, be they real or imaginary. Spending time visiting or reflecting on these locations can be highly beneficial to our sense of well-being and mental health.

I like to think the same rings true for many animals as well – especially those who get to experience an assortment of different locations throughout their lives.

Though it is beyond the scope of our current scientific abilities to determine if animals (be they wild or domestic) do in fact have mental happy places, I would not rule that possibility out for a second.

Thankfully, we can often make educated guesses as to what an animal’s favourite kinds of places most likely are.

Their moods, energy levels, and reluctance to leave said spots are just some of the cues that can let us know what locations our beloved critter friends enjoy the most.

In the case of Annie, she – like many of her canine peers the world over – is absolutely bonkers for dog parks.

Big or small, at the beach, in the woods, smack dab in the heart of a city, it really does not matter.

If there is an expanse of land where she can run and fetch – coupled with the prospect of fellow doggos for her to play with – she is in absolute seventh heaven!

A while back I created the scrapbook page that is at the heart of today’s post. It celebrates the fact that dog parks are, hands (and paws!) down, our dog’s happy place of choice.

It honours Annie’s unwavering passion for these public spots where she and her furry friends collectively help to keep the Chuckit! product line in business, and where I always know she will be the living personification of happiness.

The Park is My Happy Place scrapbook page

In my Only Love Lets Us See Scrapbook Page post from 2020, I talked about the fact that Annie is one seriously unphotogenic pup!

This is most definitely the case. However, sometimes one can have slightly better luck of getting a usable, non-blurry and/or head-turned image when Annie is at the dog park. This is especially true if Annie is sitting patiently while she waits for someone to hurl a ball as far as they can for her.

It was on one such occasion, several years ago now, that I captured the cell phone photo at the heart of this fun pet-themed scrapbook page.

For my colour palette, I pulled directly from the sunny, sandy hues in that image, as well as the adorable pinkness of Annie’s outstretched tongue.

To convey a sense of the sand in the photo, I used some gold glitter paper as one of the layers behind it. As well as sandy brown, dark brown, and kraft cardstock. And then further drove home a sense of sand all the more via the use of gold glitter alphabet stickers.

I readily admit that the imagery on the central background paper used here has little to do with dogs or dark parks.

It does, however, depict things – reading, a comfy chair, enjoying a spot of tea – that many people greatly enjoy and which may factor into some of their happy places.

I also find it to be a very serene and pleasant illustration (in a great springtime colour palette), which helps to enhance the overall sense of joy that this layout telegraphs.

The project photos shared throughout this post were taken (and watermarked too, for that matter) closer to the time when I made this scrapbook page. Therefore they were not captured in the lightbox that I picked up around the start of 2021.

Which, while handy for some sizes of cards, tags and other small items, does not work very for LOs, unfortunately.

I am still trying to hit on a solution for taking pics of scrapbook pages that I am even just quasi-happy with.

If you have any tips for taking photos of 12×12 scrapbook LOs either inside or out of a lightbox, please do not hesitate to share them with me in the comments below. I am all ears!

Products used to create this dog-themed layout

-Dark brown cardstock

-Sandy brown/beige cardstock

-Kraft cardstock

-Gold glitter cardstock – Glitter Silk Cardstock from Darice

-Printed peach tone background paper (This particular piece of paper was amongst a selection that I received as a gift a few years back from a lovely fellow paper crafter. No product information was included with it, so I am unable to point you towards where it came from. That said, numerous brands such as My Mind’s Eye, Prima, and Pion Design have released relatively similar-looking papers over the years.)

-Assorted patterned papers – most of those used here came from the Farmhouse 8×8 inch pad from October Afternoon

-Thin cork sheet (used behind photo) – Cork Sheets from Forever in Time

-Dark brown ink pad – Dew Drop Rich Cocoa Ink from Memento

-Dark orange ink pad – Dew Drop Morocco Ink from Memento

-Dark brown fine point marker or pen (for journaling)

-Assorted chipboard piece stickers (all chipboard pieces used on this LO) – Maggie Holmes Celebrate Today Stickers from Crate Paper

-Peach and pink dimensional flowers – Love Clipping from Prima Marketing

-Cream crochet trim

-Coral pink velvet ribbon – Valentine’s Ribbons from Martha Stewart

-Slightly larger gold glitter letter stickers – Marquee Love Letter Stickers – from Heide Swapp

-Slightly smaller gold glitter letter stickers – Gold Glitter Futura Alpha Stickers from Sticko

-Pink mini letter stickers – Sno-Cone Mini Market Letter Stickers from October Afternoon

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

The journaling on this fun pet page says…

“Annie lives – absolutely lives for the park. Whether playing fetch, roughhousing with fellow pups, or running from one end to the other, is on canine cloud nine.”

How to make a darling springtime hued pet themed scrapbook page

Begin by using a 12″x12″ piece of kraft cardstock as the base of your layout. Ink all four sides with Dew Drop Rich Cocoa (dark brown) ink.

Cut a piece of dark brown cardstock a touch smaller than the base layer. Adhere to base layer.

Cut the piece of peach hued patterned paper a wee bit smaller than your previous layer. Ink all four sides with Dew Drop Morocco (dark orange) ink.

Snip four equal-sized pieces of cream coloured crochet trim and fold them over each of the four corners of that piece of patterned paper, as shown. Adhere them in place then adhere that layer to the previous LO base layers.

Tear the edges on various sized pieces of mini polka dot paper, sandy beige/brown cardstock, and brown vintage ruler print cardstock. Arrange on the lefthand side of your layout, as shown.

Top those layers with one vertical piece of cork and one horizontal piece of gold glitter cardstock. Adhere layers to one another and to the previous torn edge layer stack.

Run a piece of pink velvet ribbon and a piece of cream crochet trim across the center of the gold glitter cardstock layer. Adhere.

Mat your photo with layers of dark brown cardstock, sandy brown cardstock, and mini polka dot print paper. Ink the edges of the polka dot paper with dark brown ink. Adhere photo to layers, layers to one another, and then the completed photo stack to the gold glitter cardstock layer.

Use dark brown ink to ink the edges of three paper roses/flowers. Adhere the flowers around the lower left-hand side of the photo. Tuck a cute pink die cut chipboard ticket beneath one or two of the roses. Adhere in place.

Tear the edges of a slender strip of brown vintage ruler paper and another from the mini polka dot paper. Adhere them a little ways below the photo area of this LO.

Use a mix of dark pink tiny letter stickers and two sizes of gold glitter alphabet stickers to create your page title, placing it atop the two torn edge layers that you just created. Adhere a dark pink chipboard heart at the end of your page title.

Write your journaling in dark brown ink/marker on the main peach coloured background layer, just below where you placed your page title.

Vertically arrange, then adhere, a tiny gold glitter chipboard star and two tiny gold glitter cardstock hearts to the top left and bottom right-hand sides of the peach printed layer of paper, as shown.

Arrange and adhere a chipboard banner and chipboard “love you” word piece across and around the photo stack area, (again) as shown.

Lastly, place the “big smiles” sentiment chipboard sticker piece on the bottom right-hand side of the photo itself.

And there you have it, one sweet, adorable, shabby chic pet themed scrapbook page in a warm, inviting colour palette that suits springtime to a tee!

Scrapbook page tips and ideas from this layout

-When working with background papers that include large illustrations, try to allow some open breathing room to remain on your layout so that you do not run the risk of the design looking too busy or of your photo(s) getting lost in the visual mix.

In this instance, I did so primarily above the illustration of the chair, which remains open and provides a nice contrast to all of the action going on around the photo + page title + journaling.

–Take inspiration from textures in your photos(s) for some of the materials that you use on your scrapbook page itself. This could be anything from wood/bark to snow, straw to pebbles, grass to sand (as was the case here).

If you do not have textured materials that convey a direct sense of the tactile element(s) in your picture, try using similarly coloured and/or shaped products instead.

-Photo corners do not have to be reserved simply for photographs themselves. I adore putting corners on other parts of my layouts (and cards, too, for that matter), as I did around all fours sides of the central printed paper layer here.

-And speaking of photo corners, they do not have to be made solely from paper. Just about any material that you can cut, fold or otherwise shape to look the part can make for a fab photo corner.

Some of my favourites include ribbon and trims, scraps of fabric and felt, cardboard, cork, burlap, chipboard, embossed cardstock, vellum, tin foil, glitter cardstock, metallic cardstock, felt, and paper or fabric flower petals or leaves.

-When inking or otherwise distressing your page, do not hesitate to do so on the edges/tops of your flowers as well.

You can also splatter them with paint or dye ink, emboss them with embossing powder, apply glitter or flocking, or, if the petals are suitable, even apply things like stickers and rub-ons for an extra cool effect.

-Use different sizes, colours, and/or fonts in your title lettering. This draws the eye in, is oodles of fun, and can be a great way to stretch your letter sticker + chipboard alphabet stash further.

Papercrafting is my happy place

Objectively, I have quite a few happy places, both in the real world and tucked lovingly within the walls of my mind.

And while, technically, somewhat more of an act than a place, paper crafting is by far one of my happiest places – as is the tiny room in our house that I am fortunate to be able to devote to being a witchy + crafting space all my own.

I could talk until the cows (and our black & white puppers who totally resembles them ) came home about the tremendous psychological benefits that crafting has on my life – just as it does the lives of many people the world over. But that is likely best saved for a dedicated post unto itself.

Chances are, one day, I will devote a post (or two!) to that very topic. Right now, though, as this particular entry wraps up, Annie and I are both very curious to know…

What is one of your favourite (real or imagined) happy places?

The post The Park is My Happy Place Pet Themed Shabby Chic Scrapbook Page appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire. It is time for home. – Edith Sitwell

November was but a handful of days old when the season’s first snowflakes fluttered like icy-winged butterflies to the ground.

A brief flurry, another a few days later, and then proper volumes of snow by the month’s third week.

Fall did not go gently into that good night entirely though. At least not at first.

For a brief, enchanting time there were leaves the colour of ancient clay vessels and faded Tudor tapestries alongside slender plumes of smoke rising ghost-like from neighbourhood chimneys against the unmistakable chorus of shovels being pushed with no small amount of force across snow-laden driveways.

It is said that all good things must come to an end and autumn is no exception.

Tomorrow brings with it the Winter Solstice. The shortest day, in terms of the percentage of daylight, that the entire year houses.

For myself and others – particularly witches, Wiccans, and Pagans – it is also at the heart of the Yule season.

This long night ushers in the light-filled half of the year. Though, as I am quick to note, we rarely start to see and experience a tangible sense of that for several more weeks from now.

Nevertheless, the Winter Solstice and Yule remind us of the sunlight, warmth, and seasonal joys that await us come spring and summer.

Winter, however, is not without its own bevy of charms and blessings.

While a harsh chapter in many parts of the world, the coming season of icicles and parkas is anything but dull, uninspiring, or lacking in things to do and enjoy from the very first to the absolute last moment.

Before, with sweater-clad arms, we welcome winter back into our lives again (here in the Western Hemisphere; summer is out in full force for those south of the equator), let’s take a lovely moment to reflect back on the season that is, rather aptly, presently giving up the ghost.

The Fall 2021 Edition of Magick, Crafty Makes, and Me is a link love post featuring online content that caught my eye during the past three months, coupled with a peek into what has been transpiring in my own life lately.

I hope that you will enjoy reading it every bit as much as I took pleasure putting it together for you, sweet friends.

Magick, Witchcraft, Paganism, and Spirituality

–Create an Easy DIY Advent Calendar with Crystals Inside: While it is rather late in December to start an advent this year, this creative take on a treasured holiday season favourite was too cool looking not to share.

Whether you work with crystals in a spiritual/metaphysical context or enjoy them for other reasons, chances are you are bound to delight in this awesome advent calendar that sees each date house a tiny crystal.

This advent would make for such a fantastic and meaningful Yule gift.

And there’s nothing stopping you from using advents to count down to other special events (such as Halloween or a person’s birthday) as well, if you wanted to give making this crystal-filled calendar a go before next December arrives.

–How to Make Heat Activated Spell Sachets: Creating spell sachets is something that is familiar to many witches and Wiccans. However, generally speaking, we work with them at either room temperature or whatever the mercury is up to outdoors.

Leave it to none other than beloved Pagan blogger, Moody Moons, to take this classic spellworking technique and give it a fresh new spin via the introduction of heat.

I am smitten with this concept and plan to weave it into some of my witchy workings this winter and likely for many a chilly season to come.

–Sacred Sprays for Magickal Self-Care: As someone who adores making many of my own magickal tools and ingredients, and who is a keen proponent of self-care, I knew the moment I saw this terrific how-to post from Katrina Rasbold on Llewellyn’s blog that I would be sharing it here.

One need not be a witch/Pagan to make and use their own beneficial sprays – nor, of course, to practice self-care. That is something, ideally, we should all strive to make a perpetual priority in our lives.

–25 Forms of Banishing: No matter the season, I am a big proponent of doing banishing work. In fact, I would say it is one of the most common forms of witchery that I undertake.

Few points in the year lend themselves quite as naturally, however, to banishing work and getting rid of elements in our lives that are no longer serving us well than that liminal period between late December and early January.

This fantastic list from Sidney Eileen rounds up an impressive 25 different ways to engage in banishing work, including banishing via manifesting, involving banishing in your shadow work, and conducting energetic self-maintenance.

–Witches Bells: Their History, Lore and How to Use Them: From Otherworldly Oracle, comes this great look at the past and present of a magickal tool and/or piece home décor that is familiar and adored by plenty of folks around the world: Witches Bells.

During the December holiday season, when bells are easily had at many craft, hobby, dollar, housewares, gift, and big box stores, now can be an excellent time to make your own set of witches bells or to create some for the fellow witchy souls in your life.

(From the same website and very much in keeping with the current festive season, this delightful look at Yule Recipes: 13 Traditional & Modern Winter Solstice Meals & Beverages is also well worth checking out.)

–Work With the Plant Allies in Your Neighborhood: Discovering, learning about, and forming a meaningful, ongoing relationship with all manner of plants, flowers, and trees in your immediate environment can be an immensely beneficial activity.

If you are looking for more information on how to connect with your local plant allies, then this lovely post from Astrea at the Pathos blog Starlight Witch is a good place to start (or way to further your existing knowledge on the subject).

–Your Magickal Name:  It does not surprise me one iota that a great overview look at the subject of magickal names comes from none other than esteemed Pagan author and blogger, Rachel Patterson (whose stellar book, Witchcraft Into the Wilds, I reviewed here last year).

As someone who uses their magickal name (or as I tend to refer to it, my Pagan name) not only virtually exclusively online at this point in my life, but in as many offline capacities as I possibly can too, it is safe to say that I’m big on magickal names and really appreciate that Rachel penned this handy guide on the subject.

Cardmaking, Scrapbooking, Paper Crafting, and Other Crafts

–DIY Fridge Magnets: 50 Projects for Home or Gifts: For a good stretch of my childhood, my mom collected fridge magnets. When the volume she had amassed exceeded the space available on our refrigerator, she started displaying them on metal baking trays.

Many years have now passed since then. Yet, as my mom’s own passion back in those days for magnets rubbed off on me when I was growing up, I couldn’t help but lap up each inspiring idea in this awesome selection of DIY fridge magnets.

If you are also stuck on magnets (pun intended ) or know someone who is, you will definitely want to give this inspiration-filled post a thorough readthrough.  

–DIY Lava Lamp Party Favours: There are no molten hot liquids involved with this super cute mid-century inspired craft project.

Instead, two sizes of barware glasses and a few basic craft supplies – plus the “lava” filing of your choice are all you need to whip up some highly memorable yesteryear inspired party favours that your guests are bound to adore.

Plus, how great would these homemade lava lamps be for an upcoming New Year’s Eve bash?

–Homemade Ramekin Dish Soy Candles For The Holidays: As you may have gathered by now, I really, really, reeeeeaaaaaly love candles.

Plain or elaborate, scented or unscented, store-bought or handmade, I’m totally there for candles.  

In the case of the latter type of candle, I fell hard for Marie’s fantastic DIY candle-making project which guides you through the steps involved with creating candles in ramekin dishes.

This easy candle-making project delivers a beautiful end result that you can keep for yourself or give as a lovely gift.

I feel that these beautiful homemade soy candles would suit special occasions including birthdays, anniversaries, Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, Imbolc, Valentine’s Day, and Samhain especially well.

(Also on Marie’s delightful – and very inspiring – blog, this adorable Upcycled Indoor Snowball Fight Wood Crate caught my eye. I really like festive décor that can be left out all season long, not merely for a given holiday or two, and this super fun project hits that nail squarely on the wintertime head.)

–How to Make a Flower Press: People have been intentionally drying and pressing flowers for many centuries and while this charming art ebbs and flows in terms of its popularity, it remains a beloved classic that is not likely to vanish entirely anytime soon.

If you are up for a spot of DIY and in the mood to make your own flower press at home, this handy step-by-step guide from Jessica at Cutesy Crafts will have you pressing a whole garden’s worth of blooms in no time.

(As well, on the same blog, I melted faster than a marshmallow in a mug of hot chocolate for this enchantingly pretty Christmas Deer Embroidery Pattern.)

–How to Store Stickers (in Binders): Unless you’ve got a lot of space and, potentially, quite a generous budget to spend on organizational supplies, chances are you are continually looking for ways to streamline your craft supply storage needs.

Goodness knows I am – especially since my crafting space (which I am exceedingly grateful for) is definitely on the petite side of things.

As such, I instantly fell in love with this handy and, in many cases, wonderfully space-saving approach for storing your sticker collection in binders. It’s a brilliant and very implimentable idea for a lot of folks.

(You could also do the same thing with other lightweight, relatively flat crafting supplies such as rub-ons or smaller sized sheets of specialty papers.)

–Super Tiny Mini Album with Lots of Photos: I have seen some pretty small mini scrapbooking albums in my day, but this itty-bitty creation – from none other than the endlessly talented Bea Valint – must surely take top prize on that front.

Perfect for your own memory keeping or to make and give as gifts (including pint-sized stocking stuffers), these mini albums are cute, fun, and more than likely, quite addictive to make!

–Vacation Memory Sand Jars: Now, I fully realize that at present, a lot of us are not exactly jet-setting off to tropical destinations or hopping in the car for a road trip to the beach.

However, if you are able to do so, have collected and saved sand from past trips, or have access to some lovely sand closer to home, this project might just be for you.

It is such a charming, low-cost way to bring a slice of your travel adventures home with you and is one that can be repeated with different locations time and time again.

(Note: When taking sand home, always ensure that you are legally allowed to do so based on local laws and that removal of said sand does not negatively impact the ecosystem that the sand hails from.)

What’s Shaking in My Life and On My Radar

Much like the summer that proceeded it, this autumn was one that, for a multitude of reasons, I will not soon forget.

In the early days of September, the very real risk of the massive local wildfires still loomed near.

Thankfully, by the time autumn had officially begun this risk had all but vanished and we felt safe unpacking our most important documents and belongings, which we had been keeping at the ready in case the official order to evacuate did arrive.

The start of this fall was gloriously gorgeous. Picturesque weather and temperatures, leaves so incredibly vivid and breathtaking that they nearly brought us to tears.

As it tends to do around these parts, October cooled down by mid-month. Happily though, (unlike last year) nary a snowflake fell in our neighbourhood throughout the year’s 10th month.

Come the evening of my favourite day of the year, Halloween + Samhain, the temps hovered around a nippy -2C/28F. The night itself was crisp and dry with relatively little wind, to boot.

This no doubt helped to contribute to why we received the highest number of trick-or-treaters (about 118 – up from our previous, pre-pandemic record of around 113) that we’ve had since we moved into this house nearly four years ago now.

Between that point, celebrating the day with Tony and my mom, and ample time dedicated to meaningful witchy Samhain activities, I’m delighted to say that we had one of the best October 31^sts in recent memory.

November wasted no time in tilting the scales in favour of winter weather, as touched on at the start of this post.

Yet the return of snow all but took a distant backseat to some rare and, in certain cases, incredibly devastating weather conditions and natural phenomena that rocked our province of British Columbia throughout the month.

Tornados are exceedingly uncommon in BC and even less likely, if I’m not mistaken, to occur during the second half of autumn.

This made the tornado that tore a path through parts of Vancouver early on in the month a serious surprise!

Luckily, this event was not, insofar as tornados go, too severe.

In fact, this powerful storm was given an Enhanced Fujita scale rating of EF0, with EF5 being reserved for the most brutal storms/tornados and the destruction they cause.

For many BC residents, the tornado – while a fascinating event for sure – soon took a backseat to substantially bigger weather problems.

Specifically, horribly heavy rains in the province’s Lower Mainland region (a broad swath that encompasses Vancouver and most of the towns + cities that call the lowest portion of BC home) and some other parts of BC, including the Merritt area.

BC is no stranger to flooding, but it had been a fair while since anything like the scale of rainfall, ensuing flooding, and widespread damage it caused had been seen around these parts.

Atmospheric rivers – a technical term that relatively few in BC had heard before this November, but which many of us are now well acquainted with – caused widespread flooding that destroyed homes, businesses, and other structures.

It also brought about landslides and these quite literally washed away segments of some of the main highways through the region.

Highways that connect the Lower Mainland (which is also known as The Coast) to much of the rest of the province.

This meant that in November highway travel was frequently impossible to or from The Coast.

In time, some routes would open again, though ongoing closures – much like flood evacuations in various parts of the province – continued on into December.

It also meant that supply lines were temporarily disrupted, as a fair amount of the goods that are distributed to retailers around the province come from the ports of Vancouver, as well as from farms and other supply sources in the Lower Mainland.

This sudden lack of incoming goods caused some people to adopt a behaviour that is still fresh in most of our minds from the early days of the pandemic: resource hoarding.

From the smallest mom-and-pop shop to the largest grocery store outlets, it all but looked like a plague of locusts had descended on the fresh food (produce, meat and seafood, dairy, baked goods, etc) section of many stores north of The Coast.

Tony and I didn’t participate in this at all. A, because we were not worried and had enough (fresh/frozen/non-perishable) food at home already to see us through several weeks, if needed, and B, we strongly sensed that at least some fresh goods would soon find a way up to this area.

That proved to be the case exactly. And while grocery stores continue to feel the impact of receiving less perishable goods and other products, since “the big clear out” most have been able to get in a solid chunk of the merchandise that they usually sell.

While we did experience heavy rains at times throughout November and on into early December, our area – which is a few hours north of Vancouver – did not suffer the impacts of flooding this fall.

Many people on The Coast did, however, and a lot of them have had their lives absolutely turned upside by the devastating impacts of these mighty atmospheric rivers.

Rebuilding homes, lives, and sections of highway will take time and cost the province billions of dollars.

My heart aches intensely for all those whose words have been rocked by the flooding.

Having lost a home once myself (to fire, not flooding, however), I can relate at least in part to the living nightmare that is having your house (or business, etc) and belongings taken from you in the blink of an eye and the often lengthy journey to piece your world together again that ensues.

The severity of this flooding really is profound. It brought Prime Minister Justin Trudeau all the way from Ottawa to BC in November, has had the armed forces helping with the situation, and will take a long time for the province to even remotely begin to recover from.

Whereas once, decades ago, my family and many of our relatives lived on The Coast, these days far fewer do. And, thus far, thankfully, those that remain in the area have not lost their homes or had to evacuate due to rising floodwaters.

At the time that the flooding struck though, both my mom and aunt (her only sister) were actually down in the Lower Mainland, helping to nurse my 91-year-old maternal grandma who very recently underwent major surgery.

My aunt, an elementary school teacher, had to return home sooner than my mom due to her job. However, she was met, while trying to do so, with the first day of highway closures and ended up staying in the town of Hope for a few days until a route briefly opened up that she could return home via.

My mom was closer to Vancouver itself, at my grandma’s house, and ended up staying there longer than she had planned due to the road closures. Eventually, she too was able to avail of a brief road closure on one highway north.

Had the closures stretched on much longer, she was planning to drive down through the northernmost parts of Washington state and come back into BC at one of the border crossings located in the Southern Okanagan Valley.

Thankfully, things did not come to that for either my mom or my aunt.

Some folks who were stranded and needed to get home to other parts of BC (or elsewhere in the country) did so though, with others still flying, when possible, out of the impacted areas of the province.

I am both happy and very grateful to say that not only is my grandma recovering well, but also that my mom and aunt both made it home safely in the end.

This year took a massive toll on a lot of people around the world.

BC’s floods and the destruction they caused (much like that of the summer’s brutal wildfires) are incredibly tragic, but far from the only major disasters to rock the planet in 2021.

Already weary from the heartbreak and life-altering changes that filled 2020, we were a battle-hardened lot as everything from the lava spuing Cumbre Vieja volcano in Spain to poor Haiti once again being hit hard by earthquakes came at the planet throughout the past twelve months.

These hard, uncertain times – complete with a pandemic that, due in no small part to fresh new variants, shows no sign of abating in the near future – are shaping and impacting a lot of us in ways both big and small.

We are eager to put 2021 to bed, yet also, rightfully, harbour trepidations about what the coming year may hold in store.

This is true for me/us at both a global level and in terms of our day-to-day life.

The very serious, life-altering and still undiagnosed health problems that I have been battling for over a year now can scarcely be called “new” anymore. Though in relation to my other chronic medical conditions, many of which have been present for two decades now, they could still be viewed as such.

The fight for answers and treatments regarding these “new” issues continues unrelentingly around the clock on my end.

My health greatly impacted and altered this year for me.

It caused certain important plans and goals to (hopefully just temporarily) be put on hold, including my long-standing dream of launching an ASMR YouTube channel, which I am more committed than ever to making happen ASAP (as soon as doing so is physically possible for me).

These issues also saw me all but ghost my own Instagram account at times (which I am anything but happy about), took – and is still taking – a serious toll on my mental health, and continues to be a major battle around the clock.

Yet, I know that things could be worse. So much worse. Both personally and, rough as 2021 was, globally as well.

In a lot of ways, we have been profoundly fortunate this year.

Even with medical challenges (mine, Tony’s, those of some relatives), a touch-and-go wildfire season, the ongoing pandemic, and many other not-insignificant struggles that impacted mine and Tony’s life, we made it this far into 2021.

And if you are reading this, so did you.

That is no small feat. Nor is it something that any of us can take for granted.

I have my concerns about 2022. I know there will be challenges both new and ongoing, and that it will likely be another year that unfolds quite differently from how I would ideally want it to play out.

I’m not knocking it yet though, of course. I will let 2022 blossom in its own time, seeking and giving thanks in the process for the positives that come our way next year.

As have come to do each season since launching this quarterly post series, throughout the fall I tucked away an array of online posts and articles that resonated with me in one way or another.

So without further ado – but with unceasing hope that 2022 will be a kinder year to our planet and all who call it home – let’s dive into that selection of links.

–A Haunting Photo Collection of Famous People’s Death Masks, 1300-1950: Once, particularly in the era before photography came into being, a somewhat common practice in certain parts of the world (especially amongst those of the upper classes), death masks are no created with the same frequency they were in centuries past.

Though this tradition has not completed vanished, it has waned in popularity a great deal. Yet there is something absolutely incredible about death masks that, I think, makes it hard for us as a collective whole to abandon the art entirely.

These castings of a deceased person’s face often captures a greater sense in 3D form of how an individual looks/looked than most 2D art forms ever could.

If, like me, you find these types of masks fascinating, then you will likely enjoy this image filled roundup of famous people’s death masks from across the centuries.

–Beverly Cleary Wrote the Stories Kids Wanted To Read About: Relatively rare is the North American youngster who grew up at any point over the past few decades without reading – or being read – at least one of beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary’s books.

Her popularity far exceeded this continent, however, spreading globally and impacting, influencing, and entertaining countless youngsters throughout the years.

To date, more than 91 million copies of her books have been sold globally. That is a staggering number for any author, let alone (pre-Harry Potter at least) one whose work was geared at children and teens.

Sadly, the world lost Mrs. Clearly in March of this year. She passed away at the venerable age of 104 years old.

Many pieces were, understandably, written about Beverly Cleary’s work and life in the aftermath of her death.

This one, which delves into her life, career, and the inspiration behind some of her most beloved stories stood out for me in particular.

Whether you’ve read any of Cleary’s stories or not, it is a captivating, enjoyable look at an author whose work is likely to keep enriching the lives of youngsters for many more generations to come.

–Fifty Dog Quotes That Every Animal Lover Will Relate To: As both a lover of dogs and a proud dog mama to Annie, our nearly nine-year-old Bullador (half Lab, half American Bulldog), I couldn’t help but smile and experience plenty of the “feels’, as they say, while reading through this heartwarmingly lovely selection of dog quotes.

–Grandma’s Vintage Desserts: There are so many wonderful recipes – as well as plenty of fascinating culinary history – on this website that instead of singling out and featuring just one here, I’m sharing Grandma’s Vintage Desserts as a whole.

Helmed by a passionate chap named Don, this delightful website is chock-a-block with the kinds of classic, endearing, and hugely adored sweet treats that many of us grew up with.

These recipes aren’t about the latest fads or most cutting-edge cooking techniques. They are honest, downhome, salt of the earth (or would that be sugar of the earth?) culinary creations that have been made and savoured for generations.

Be it during the holiday season or at any point in the year, if you are on the hunt for an ever-expanding selection of wonderful vintage and timeless recipes “just like grandma used to make” then this site is a must-visit + bookmark (or pin).

–How The Iconic Late Night TV Personality of Elvira Came to Be: Lily Munster and Morticia Addam are indisputably two of the most famous and beloved darkly inclined ladies. However, they’re both fictional characters portrayed on screen my talented Hollywood actresses.

Another spookily souled woman who has been delighting us for decades now is Elvira – aka, The Mistress of Dark.

Unlike Morticia and Lily, Elvira, while still a persona in part, is real. If you have ever wanted to know more about her origin story, then this wonderfully engaging look at how Elvira rose to – and has long maintained her – fame is just the ticket.

–Scientists Discover an Adorable New Species of Brown Frog: Brace yourself for some serious cuteness when you click through this link, as you are about to meet the precious little Chocolate Frog (most likely) for the first time.

This darling amphibian was found in some of the roughest terrain of New Guinea, where it is believed to exist endemically.

I adore learning about newly discovered species and continually marvel at the fact that for all of our global exploration and 21^st century scientific knowledge, there are still critters out that have yet to be documented by humans.

–Some Haunted Trees in the United States: You didn’t think I would let the season that houses Halloween wrap up without at least one ghost related link appearing here, did you?

Whether you are the biggest skeptic of spectres to ever live, have your own ghost hunting gear at the ready, or fall anywhere in between, this engaging post about some of America’s most legendary haunted trees makes for a fascinating read that might just have you looking at the oldest trees in your own neck of the woods a little differently from now on.

Celebrating both the chill and warmth of wintertime

We could likely sit here until the next Fall Equinox debating which season is cozier, autumn or winter?

Honestly, it’s a two-way tie for me. As I suspect it is a good many others as well.

Fall is my favourite season. The slice of the year that delivers us from summer’s parching heat, yet keeps the wolves of winter at bay for (if we’re lucky) at least a few weeks.

Winter is wildly cozy, too, however. Its comfort stretches back into the furthest ethers of time, resides in tradition and nostalgia, and invites us to slow down and embrace the serenity that comes from tumbling snow and the stillness it imparts to the slumbering natural world.

Throughout my life, I have gone back and forth regarding what season takes home the silver medal in my books. Each has held that spot at times, though summer and winter are usually the two that vie most fiercely for second place.

This year, as has often been the case, winter wins out. I need its tranquillity, the productivity that cool days spent indoors delivers, and the merriment of Yule, Christmas, and New Year’s – to say nothing of Valentine’s Day (or as I like to celebrate it, Valoween) a few weeks later.

Winter and I jive. Even during those years when I have experienced SAD, I love winter no less.

My witchy, gothy soul embraces the year’s dark heart. Which, really, is not all that dark in many respects.

Show me another season where we light as many candles and fires or hang up as many strings of twinkling lights both indoors and out?

Humans are astonishingly resilient creatures. Both prior to, and in the years since, electric lighting came into our lives, we stood our ground against even the most powerful of arctic gales via the use of flames.

As though the warmth we generated could melt, if only symbolically, some of winter’s intense chill.

This tradition continues to the present day. It is the heat generated on stoves and in fireplaces, the joys of classic comfort food that invite us to linger in the warmth of good company and wonderful conversation around the table.

It is each simple tealight and heady seasonal candle we watch slowing burn down. Scents of everything from pine to cinnamon to cranberries gloriously filling our indoor environments.

In the glistening of a menorah’s nightly lighting, the multi-coloured bulbs nestled between the needles of Christmas trees, and even the fireworks of New Year’s Eve, we ensure that light is never far from our lives throughout the winter months.

The experiences these activities bring generates treasured memories and helps to remind us that even the chilliest January night can only last so long.

Winter is not the enemy though in my books. It is an ally to my creative process, my spiritual path, and the holidays I embrace annually. Just as it is for countless others around the globe.

Sure, by early March, I will practically be begging for summer, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be a touch blue to see winter go.

We are old friends at this point. A Canadian born and raised lass and a season that frequently consumes this nation for five, six, or even seven pages of the calendar.

Tomorrow, as winter officially returns, I will smile and give thanks for the ever-turning Wheel of the Year and for the beautiful serenity this season houses.

To say nothing of the holiday time joys that we are presently enmeshed in.

Much like its predecessor, 2021 was an intensely challenging year for many of us – be it personally, globally or both.

It is impossible to know with any certainty what this winter (or summer, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) will bring in terms of the pandemic, climate change, and myriad other things.

But what we can, as a general rule, count on is the familiarity of winter. From its icy bite to its festive feasts, its sweatshirt grey skies and the promise of sun-kissed new life that lays beyond its snowy borders.

May this winter find and keep you well, safe, and, in all ways possible, wonderfully warm and happy.

What were some of the standout elements of this autumn for you? What aspects of winter are you most looking forward to?

The post Fall 2021 Edition of Magick, Crafty Makes, and Me appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

I knew at once that this was what I wanted to share here for the second week of September.

As you may be aware, in the fall of 2016, my husband and I lost our home, very nearly everything we owned, and infinitely most devastating, our beloved cat (Stella) in an arson fire.

This is a subject I discussed in greater depth here and which, while it does surface from time to time on this site, I generally do not wish to put at the forefront of most of my Witchcrafted Life posts.

However, the fifth anniversary of the life-changing date is fast approaching.

It will arrive on October 13^th, bringing with it half a decade of existence since our world was turned on its head faster than you can dial 9-1-1.

If I lived until the last flicker of light in the universe burned out, I will never forget that fateful day, nor the extraordinary challenges, changes, redirections, and outpouring of kindness that followed in the aftermath.

In the house that we lived in at the time of the fire, my crafting space was in the basement in a room that served both as a craft corner, photo studio, packaging centre for the items I was selling via my (then) Etsy vintage shop, and sundry other uses.

On top of the flames that tore through the entire structure, our home was further damaged by the substantial volume of water that pumped onto/into it to keep the fire from quickly spreading to other closely situated homes.

Of course, that was a smart move and did a lot to help prevent the fire from leaping to additional houses.

However, multiple feet of water sat in the basement of our burned-out house for weeks on end (as the fire department, police, and insurance companies each did their own thorough investigations of the structure), quickly causing mould to grow and rodents to set up camp.

Even if that hadn’t been the case though, the flames alone would have caused nearly as much damage and virtually everything in my craft room – as with the rest of the house – would have been obliterated.

When people find out that we experienced an arson house fire and that I’m a paper crafter, they often ask me how I decided if I wanted to keep crafting or not.

There was never a shadow of doubt in my mind that as soon as I possibly could, I would begin paper crafting again.

Far from deterring me from picking up this beloved part of my life, the fire drove home all the more how phenomenally important it is (for me) to document and celebrate our life together, my childhood and family, trips we take, holidays we celebrate and so much more.

Just as the staggering outpouring of compassion, support, and generosity we received from friends, relatives, and complete strangers alike served as a reminder of how vital it is for me to create and give handmade cards (and other projects) to a wide range of people in my life.

As a naturally tenacious and highly driven person, even when the chips were down and I had quite literally nothing but the clothes on my back, I knew I would paper craft again.

And so, awesomely, joyfully, and blessedly, I have. My current craft space is a lot smaller – as is the stash of products it houses.

It wasn’t economically possible for us to replace most of what was lost and, by and large, I have not tried to do so. The goal is not to replicate what was, but rather to create a safe, happy here and now that is conducive to who we are and what we love doing in the present.

With the fifth anniversary of the fire just over a month away, I wanted to take a little while to stop and reconnect with some of the pre-fire Halloween projects I made that I most adored.

The blaze destroyed not only all of my completed projects (save, of course, for those that had been given to others as gifts over the years), but all of my craft supplies, as well as our computers and external hard drives.

This means that, in terms of my pre-fire craft projects, I only have photos of those makes that had been shared online pre-fire (and which were still online at the time of the fire).

As a result, without photos of some of my creations, numerous projects will forever exist simply in memory form for me.

Thankfully, however, care of various internet sources, I’ve been able to gather up images of some of the paper crafting projects that I made between 2010 (when I began scrapbooking and card making) and 2016, the year of the fire.

Join me then, won’t you, as we revisit some of the pre-fire Halloween projects that I adored the most and which continue to inspire my current makes to this day.

A handful of my very favourite pre-fire Halloween scrapbook page and cards

Note: As the lists of supplies used to make these projects were kept in notebooks and lost in the fire, I cannot detail all of the items used to create them. Many of which are, objectively, long out of stock/production at this point anyhow.

That said, if you have any questions about the materials or techniques used on this Halloween makes, please don’t hesitate to ask and I will gladly do my very best to deliver a helpful reply your way.

As well, please bear in mind that these photos, while digital, are several years old and that they are downloaded copies of the originals (thus the image quality may have been compressed or otherwise altered by whatever site/platform they were/are hosted on).

Also, both cell phone and DSLR image quality have improved considerably since then – as have my skills behind the lens . Plus, at the time these pics were taken, I was really into somewhat overexposing my project share photos – something that is generally not my approach at present.

Halloween (1985) scrapbook page: In this distressed, shabby chic orange and black page we hop back to the mid-1980s with a glimpse of me and my mama enjoying All Hallows’ Eve together (check out this recent project share post for a layout featuring the two of us on my very first October 31st).

My talented mom made the adorable ghost costume that I’m sporting here. Aww!

To date, this layout stands as one of my favourites that I have ever created.

Double, Double, Cuteness & Trouble scrapbook page: I wish the image quality was better for this page, as it was such a cute, fun one. Hopefully, you can still get a sense of it here all the same.

In this layout, we progress ahead another year or two as this was me on either my 3rd or 4th Halloween – naturally, I went as a witch.

Again, my sweet mom made my festive outfit. A few years on (as we will see in a later scrapbook layout detailed below), my little sister would sport the same darling witch costume.

When Witches Go Riding Halloween card: An eye-catching and somewhat unexpected colour palette of classic orange, black and white partner with shades such as pale lavender, teal, and turquoise in this chic bow bedecked Halloween greeting.

Halloween Princesses scrapbook page: This sweetly spooky page celebrated the fact that, a few years apart, my sister and I wore the same pretty pink (store-bought) princess costume.

I adore the pre-made die cut jack-o-lantern paper that played a starring role on this layout and would love to see a company release something similar again today.

Pumpkins (Bear’s Fruit Stand) scrapbook page: Growing up, my family had a wonderful tradition of vising some of the local produce stands and farmer’s markets in our area each autumn.

In this circa 1993 photo, my siblings and I are sitting on a mountain of beautiful pumpkins at our family’s very favourite fruit stand, called Bear’s, located in the tiny South Okanagan community of Keremeos.

Hope Your Halloween is Crawling with Fun Halloween card: A classic colour palette and Halloween critter – the spooky spider – take the lead on this rhinestone and glittery black arachnid-filled card.

Halloween Helper Kitty scrapbook page: Two photos – one in black and white, the other in colour – accompany journaling about the fact that our beloved late cat, Stella, who usually left our spooky season decor in peace, had a real penchant for playing with this particular pumpkin decoration.

All Hallows’ Eve Costumed Kids scrapbook page: Another layout that I really wish I had a better quality image of. Still, anything is certainly better than nothing when it comes to documenting lost paper crafting projects.

This fun Halloween layout shines the spotlight on what my brother, sister, and I wore for a fun-filled night of trick-or-treating in the mid-1990s (note, as mentioned above, my sister is rocking the same adorable witch costume that I had worn around the same age).

I madly adore the 3D beaded bats peppered around this layout. If memory serves me right they *may* have been from either Prima or the Michael’s house brand, Recollections.

If anyone ever sees similar bat embellishments for sale online at a site that ships to Canada or in person here on Canadian soil, please do not hesitate to let me know (TY!).

Wishing You a Very Happy Halloween card: Border punched layers, pretty flourishes, and glitter-adorned pumpkins galore call this teal and earth-toned card home.

Swap out the sentiment and this lovely greeting could easily work for other fall time happenings as well, such as Mabon and Thanksgiving.

She’s Got Halloween Spirit scrapbook page: While my sister’s favourite holiday is Christmas, much as with my mom and me, she adores October 31st as well.

This sweet photo of my sis as a toddler shows her helping to scoop the guts out of a pumpkin that would soon be carved in our family’s grinning jack-o-lantern that year.

Trick or Treat scrapbook page: A bevy of embellishments, cheesecloth (that I hand-dyed), and spiders collide on this shabby chic Halloween layout that shows what my siblings and I wore for Halloween 1991.

The inspiration for this layout’s colour palette stems directly from the costumes that the three of us sported that night (note the Unicef box – who else remembers collecting for this important charity on Halloween night as a youngster?).

This scrapbook page is another that rests firmly amongst the ranks of my all-time favourite that I have ever made.

Have a Bewitching Halloween card: Distressed and border punched edges, elegant rhinestone trim, harlequin print paper, and an eye-catching black coloured witch silhouette sticker add up to a fun meets classic Halloween card that I’d happily replicate again today, if I still had the same supplies.

I might give it a go with similar, but different items, for a 2020s take on this greeting that was made close to a decade ago now.

Which of these festively fun, spookily sweet, and marvellously macabre paper crafting projects is your favourite?

Looking back, looking ahead

Far from causing me pain or tearing open wounds that have, mercifully, done a pretty good job of healing, looking back at these projects brings me a lot of joy.

I love being reminded of my past creative makes, what elements of my paper crafting style have stayed the same and which have changed/evolved/improved since then, the stories these projects tell, and the happiness – both in myself and, when applicable, in others – that the end results delivered.

As we head towards the official start of fall and all throughout my favourite chapter of the year, I will be sharing numerous freshly made autumn, Thanksgiving, and Halloween/Samhain related paper crafting projects here with you.

This point also delivers a bevy of joy my way and I can hardly wait to unveil my fall 2021 crop of crafty makes.

Each project that a creative soul brings into being is shaped in some way – be it tiny or large – by what they’ve previously created.

As crafters and artists, we don’t need to stand on the shoulders of giants, we are our own giants and muses.

The projects highlighted in this post each helped to hone and further develop my skills and style, the very things that I love to share here with you via my project posts all year round.

For September 2021, the pre-fire projects shared here are my latest entry for #MakeHalloween365.

Save for some of the cards and other items that were given as gifts, all of these projects are long gone in corporal form, living on instead in spirit and digital photos.

They did not get a chance to appear in the moment as part of #MakeHalloween365, as I just created this fun Halloween project share hashtag earlier this year.

They get the opportunity to do so now, however, and I hope that while they are not the newest of makes, they are able to inspire you and embody the heart of this hashtag all the same.

I may not make the fire the centre of many of my blog posts, but when I do, I generally want there to be a positive element to the end message of such entries.

In this instance, for me, that is one of hope and perseverance, of not letting the unthinkable rob you of your passions, and of finding a way back to the light of positivity even on the darkest of nights.

Thank you, cherished friends, for being here with me on this site and on social media, and for experiencing the poignant journey that is my post-fire paper crafting and life in general.

There will never, not in all the languages of the universe, be enough words for me to convey just how much that means to – and motivates – me.

If I could, I would make fall and Halloween themed cards for each of you, but as that isn’t possible, I hope that you will look upon the projects I post online as a way of conveying my heartfelt gratitude to each of you.

Here’s to the magnificence, inspiration, nostalgia, and, in turn, present-day happiness of pumpkin spice, crunchy leaf, and grinning ghost season – may it be as kind to you as you, sweet souls, are to me.

The post A Handful of My Very Favourite Pre-fire Halloween Scrapbook Pages and Cards appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

For many of us, however, autumn’s unofficial start took place earlier this week on September 1^st.

And for others still, fall commenced even earlier, at some point (such as Lammas) in August.

No matter when you opt to officially roll out the red (or would that be orange and black? ) carpet for fall, it’s a safe bet to say that many of us jump at the chance to celebrate and make the most of this gorgeous chapter of the year.

For my fellow paper crafters – and indeed, crafty and creative souls of all kinds – fall provides boundless inspiration for our projects.

I am the first person to not just jump, but pole vault when it comes to creating craft projects for special autumn events and holidays such as Thanksgiving (both Canadian and American, respectively), Mabon, Halloween, Samhain, Día de los Muertos, and Remembrance Day (November 11^th).

However, sometimes one wants to shake things up and make cards or other paper crafting projects that are fall-related, but not strictly for the major holidays.

You can, of course, bestow a fall theme onto nearly any type of paper crafting project – from birthday to get well cards, mini albums to tags. Goodness knows I do so with gusto!

It can be a lot of fun though to have a cool launching pad for your creativity that you might not have drawn inspiration from often, if ever before.

To that end, I have compiled a list of some of my favourite classic, unique, poignant, and just plain charming happenings and beloved events that can deliver big time on the fall paper crafting inspiration front.

Each entry is accompanied by a paper crafting item that corresponds to the topic at hand. Naturally, in many instances there are others on the theme to be had as well, so don’t be shy when it comes to Googling for what you’re after.

Whether you are making cards, scrapbook pages, mini albums, canvasses, art journal pages, traveller’s notebooks, pocket letters, MemoryDex cards, home décor item, or any other type of paper crafting project, I hope that the following list helps to stoke the (bon)fires of your creativity all the more this autumn – and for many more to come.

45 Special Occasions and Fun Reasons to Make Cards (and Other Paper Crafting Projects) For This Fall

1. The harvest season: A boundless treasure trove of inspiration lies in the autumn harvest season and the scrumptious bounty that it produces.

Apples, pears, grapes, figs, cranberries, corn, squash, parsnips, cabbage, beets, garlic, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, pumpkins, wheat, barley, and honey are just some of the many delicious fall harvest foods that can serve as a fantastic source of inspiration not only for your meals and seasonal décor, but also for your paper crafting projects.

2. Spirit Day (October 15^th): This annual event draws attention to, and strives to provide support for victims of, the continued widespread abuse and bullying faced by many LGBTQ+ youth around the world.

Use Spirit Day (which is represented by the colour purple) as an ideal time to send cards of support or good cheer to the young LGBTQ+ people in your life.

3. Native American Day (USA; 4^th Friday in September in some states, 2^nd Monday of October in South Dakota and Wisconsin): The roots of this important celebration of Native American culture stretch back to 1939.

Native American Day deserves widespread recognition and observance. It serves as the perfect time of the year (though doing so should be an ongoing lifelong happening, especially for those who live in North America) to further educate oneself about, and celebrate, Native American history and culture both past and present.

(Note: For those in Canada, a similar observation, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, occurs annually on June 21^st.

4. Oktoberfest: Though the ongoing global pandemic has caused the cancellation of Oktoberfest again this year, the spirit that it embodies can still be celebrated all the same.

Whether one enjoys a hearty pint of lager or simply wishes to pay tribute to their German heritage (where applicable), Oktoberfest – which is a sixteen to eighteen-day event that begins in mid and runs until the first Sunday in October) is a time of merriment, hearty food, and plenty of beer.

One need not drink, however, to celebrate Oktoberfest, be it in real life or in paper crafting form. I myself do not drink (or more specifically, have been unable to drink alcohol of any kind for two decades now due to medical reasons), yet as someone with a hefty slice of German ancestry, I use Oktoberfest as a time to reflect on and honour this part of my family tree.

5. International Mountain Day (December 11^th): The world as we know it would be a radically different place if it was devoid of mountains and the ecosystems that these vital natural structures house.

Hailing from a part of Canada (the province of British Columbia) that is all but overflowing with mountains, I have quite the soft spot in my heart for these majestic marvels of nature and have frequently used them as a source of inspiration in my paper crafting.

Whether you live in the Rockies, Swiss Alps, or the flattest part of the globe, it can be a blast to incorporate mountains into our paper crafting both on International Mountain Day and all throughout the rest of the year.

6. Monthly birthstones: While, naturally, often thought of in the context of jewelry, birthstones can also be a marvellous source of creative inspiration (think birthstone colours, rhinestones, and sentiments such as “You’re a gem”) and a memorable way to help celebrate someone special’s birthday.

The following are the most common modern-day birthstones for each of the fall months:

-September birthstone: Sapphire

-October birthstones: Tourmaline and opal

-November birthstones: Citrine and topaz

-December birthstones: Turquoise, tanzanite, and blue zircon

7. Grandparents Day: When I was growing up, Grandparents’ Day seemed to be observed more often here in Canada and I fondly remember making cards and gifts for my grandparents throughout my youth. While, rather unjustifiably, if you ask me, not as well known or widely observed as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, respectively, Grandparents’ Day takes place on various dates in different countries around the world.

Here in Canada, as well as in the US, Grandparents’ Day takes place in the first half of September. Interestingly, officially, Canada did away with Grandparents’ Day in 2014. However, it is still observed by many, most of whom simply use the US date to mark this meaningful celebration.

This year, Grandparents’ Day falls on Sunday, September 12^th in the States. You need not wait though for this day to honour and celebrate the grandparents in your life. Why not send a heartfelt greeting to your nana, pawpaw, bubby, or granddad this autumn and let them know they’re in your thoughts all season long?

8. World Card Making Day (1^st Saturday in October): Really and truly, you could not find a more apt day to day to create cards on, or for, than World Card Making Day itself.

A beloved annual event amongst crafters around the world, this delightful celebration of all things card making related took root at least a decade ago now and continues to grow in popularity each year.

9. National Taco Day (USA; October 4^th): I don’t know about you, but personally I haven’t met too many people thus far who didn’t enjoy at least one or two types of tacos

If you flip your shell for a great taco or know someone else who does, use National Taco Day as a charming reason to serve up a taco themed card, tag, or other paper crafting project. It’s bound to house all of the fun of the real deal, with none of the risk of your taco shell breaking!

10. The Fall Equinox (September 22^nd): For many an autumn lover the world over, the Fall Equinox alone can power our creative engines all season long – and for good measure!

Fall is an exquisitely beautiful and highly meaningful chapter of the year that offers us a welcome respite between the extremes of summer and winter, and which can be translated in countless ways through our craft projects, be they be paper-based or otherwise.

11. World Post Day (October 9^th): Much as with World Card Making Day, World Post Day is ideally suited to paper crafters.

This annual fall time event was established in 1969 and aims to bring awareness of, and recognition to, the many important roles that the postal system plays in the lives of billions of people around the globe.

As a paper crafter, I see this as the epitome of a great reason to send out some “happy mail” to fellow crafters and plenty of “thinking of you” mail to friends and family around the globe.

12. Bonfire Night (UK and Ireland; November 5^th): Also commonly known, when observed on the 5^th of November, as Guy Fawkes Night, this post-Halloween celebration is a mainstay in parts of Europe, though less so elsewhere in the world.

If you live outside of a country that officially takes part in Bonfire Night, why not use the crisp, chilly days of early November as a wonderful time to celebrate bonfires (and heart fires, too) in general?

For example, in order to do so via paper crafting, you could make a card or tag for someone featuring an image of a fire, fireplace, or glowing candle with a sentiment such as, “You warm my heart” or “You light up my life”.

13. National Cat Day (USA; October 29^th): This meaningful day aims to raise awareness about the many thousands of cats that need rescuing across America. Though this issue is, of course, is a widespread global one as well.

Cats are closely associated with fall (in particular with Halloween and Samhain), so why not use this autumn as an excellent time to spread awareness about rescuing cats via your paper crafting (and/or by adopting a precious new fur baby yourself)?

14. A sense of balance: This one pertains to the Fall Equinox/Mabon in particular, but is also applicable to autumn as a whole.

As one of just two days of the year (the other being the Spring Equinox/Ostara) in which the hours of light and dark are roughly equal, the Autumn Equinox helps to remind us of the importance of seeking, creating, fostering, and celebrating various forms of balance and harmony in our lives.

Use the serenity of fall and the blessing of balance as a meaningful springboard for various creative projects this season. In addition, you may wish to utilize fall’s sense of balance in your self-care and wellness-focused activities, too.

15. International Bacon Day: If bacon is your jam (or if bacon jam is your jam ) then why not take a hearty bite of inspiration from one of the world’s most beloved pork products and celebrate International Bacon Day on September 4^th with a project that incorporated a crafting version this very moreish meat?

(Naturally, those who prefer non-pork bacon, such as beef, turkey, or chicken, as well as vegetarian and vegan bacon options can just as easily raise a fork to International Bacon Day, too.)

16. Canadian and American Labour Day (September 6^th): While not necessarily the first holiday that may spring to mind as an occasion to make cards for, Labour Day can in fact provide a wealth of paper crafting inspiration.

Use this annual event to create a scrapbook layout, mini album, card or other type of project that honours either your own career path or the profession of someone special in your life.

17. International Volunteer Day (December 5^th): This important annual event celebrates and raises awareness of the work that volunteers around the world contribute to society.

Utilize International Volunteer Day as an excellent opportunity to acknowledge and thank the hard working volunteers in your own life and/or community.

18. Fall leaves: I know that autumn flowers and foliage appear as an entry elsewhere on this list, but much as with pumpkins and the broader harvest season, so too do fall leaves deserve their own entry.

Synonymous with autumn in much of the Western Hemisphere, crispy, crunchy earth and jewel-toned leaves are a gorgeous element of fall and a poignant reminder of the cyclical nature both of the seasons and of life in general.

Awesomely, no shortage of leaf-themed products (from stamps to metal dies, stickers to stencils) exist in the paper crafting world, many of which suit the splendours of fall time foliage to an absolute tee.

19. World Kindness Day (November 13^th): On the list of things that there can never be too much of on this planet, kindness ranks extremely high up there in my books.

If you’re equally keen on kindness, I encourage you to use the middle of November as a fantastic time to acknowledge and thank some of the people in your life whose kindness and care have made a lasting impact on your days.

20. National Ampersand Day (USA; September 8^th): If you’ve ever looked at the humble, elegant, and very hardworking ampersand (aka, the “and symbol”) and thought that it deserved its own special day of recognition, then National Ampersand Day is for you!

Plenty of paper crafting products (particularly stamps and dies) feature ampersands, which means that should have no trouble coming up with lots & lots of charming craft project ideas that feature or include this beloved symbol.

21. Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October): As one of the most common cancers in the modern world, rare is the family that has not been touched in some way breast cancer.

If you have a cancer patient or survivor in your family, friend group, or elsewhere in your life, October can be an excellent time to let that person know you’re thinking of them as they’re battling this extremely challenging disease or that you are super proud of all they’ve accomplished in their fight with breast cancer.

As well, you may wish to look into if any of the oncology departments or clinics in your area accept handmade cards, and, if they do, create some supportive greetings for strangers who are battling not only breast cancer, but cancers of all types.

(On the cancer awareness front autumn is also home to both prostate cancer and ovarian cancer awareness in September, and stomach cancer and pancreatic cancer awareness in November.)

22. National Pumpkin Day (USA; October 26^th): I know, I know, pumpkins definitely fall under the first entry on this list, but as one of the most iconic and universally beloved symbols of fall, there’s no way I could deprive National Pumpkin Day of its own entry here.

Be they classic or cute, silly or spooky, pumpkins and the grinning jack-o-lanterns we carve from them are one of the best and most enjoyable ways to instantly convey fall time fun in your paper crafting projects.

23. World Tourism Day (September 27^th): In this time of serious ongoing global challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, most of us are not doing a great deal of international (or even national) travelling. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t still celebrate our passion for adventure via our paper crafting.

Whether you make a project pertaining to your own travels or a card for a wanderlust-filled loved one, this fall is a terrific time to acknowledge highly meaningful role travel plays not only in our own lives, but in those of countless others across the globe.

24. Fall time flowers and foliage: It is natural to associate spring and summer with lush, gorgeous gardens teeming with blooms as far as the eye can see. However, fall is not without its own wonderful crop of flowers and greenery as well – any and all of which can provide a host of inspiration to crafters everywhere.

Amongst the star players when it comes to autumn flowers you’ll find such beautiful offerings as chrysanthemums, sunflowers, flowering kale, dianthus, shrub roses, cosmos, autumn sedum, heuchera, goldenrod, croton, black-eyed Susan, hydrangeas, snapdragons, purple fountain grass, amaranthus, marigolds, beautyberry, helenium, cornflowers, pansies, violas, and plenty of hearty varieties of roses.

25. International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19^th): Ahoy, maties! If it’s the pirate’s life for you, then your timbers are apt to be shivered and your creativity fuelled by this thoroughly fun annual event, which provides no shortage of paper crafting inspiration.

26. The Northern Lights: While the Northern Lights (aka, the Aurora Borealis) can be seen throughout the year in various parts of the world, according to NASA, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you are twice as likely to spot this breathtaking natural event during the spring and fall months than you in the winter and summer.

Though many people do not live in areas that are northerly enough to witness the Aurora Borealis in person, happily, we can whip up our own dazzling Northern Lights displays via our paper crafting, particularly via ink blended and/or stamped skies.

27. National Beer Lover’s Day (USA; September 7^th): Raise a pint to one of the world’s most beloved and frequently consumed beverages by brewing up a card or other paper crafting project that pays homage to the sudsy tipple that is beer.

28. Fall fashion: Cozy sweaters, chunky knit scarves, fleece shirts, warm coats, opaque tights, and cute gloves are but a few of the fabulous fashion elements that call autumn home.

If, like me, you tend to (vastly) prefer dressing for the cooler half of the year or if you know someone who does, then fall is the ideal time to celebrate your passion for autumnal fashion via not only your wardrobe, but also your paper crafting.

Think cable knit patterned embossing folders and papers, adorable sweater-themed stamp sets, and super cute stickers depicting scarves, to name but a few creative possibilities on this fun and festive front.

29. World Teacher’s Day (October 5^th): Fall and the start of the school year have, in many parts of the world, gone hand in hand for centuries. Autumn is a wonderful and very fitting time to celebrate and honour the teachers in our lives and families, as well as to reflect back (such as in scrapbooking form) on those educators whose impact remains with us to this day.

30. Pumpkin spice everything: Though I’m the first to acknowledge that not everyone flips their lid for pumpkin spice flavoured foods and beverages (be they coffee-based or otherwise), for those of us who do, we’d gladly consume little else from the first day of September right on until the Winter Solstice.

If pumpkin spice makes your heart skip a beat, try whipping up some fun, festive fall themed paper crafting projects that embrace your – or a friend’s – passion for this thoroughly beautiful flavour melange.

31. National Women’s Friendship Day (USA; third Sunday in September): Yaaasss!!! As someone who is a massive proponent of women supporting women and the importance of friendship amongst women, I am 110% in favour of National Women’s Friendship Day.

I’ve quickly some to adore using this annual event as inspiration to make and send cards out to some of my cherished female friends around the globe.

You can easily do the same, too, and do not need any special supplies to create cards or other paper crafting projects for the gal pals in your own life.  

32. Fall time farmer’s markets and produce stands: Growing up, my family had a treasured annual tradition of visiting some of the beautiful and abundantly stocked farmer’s market produce stands in a tiny community less than an hour’s drive south of us. Later on, when as an adult I returned to the same town I spent much of my youth in, I continued this tradition with my husband.

Though we now live considerably further north in the same region and don’t make it that far south most falls, we continue to seek out, celebrate, and support local produce stands and farmer’s markets throughout the autumn months. And rare is the year that some, if not all, of the pumpkins, gourds, squashes, ears of corn, apples, and pears we purchase for Halloween/Samhain don’t hail from such sources.

Whether you are fortunate to have your own local sources for autumnal produce or not, you can easily celebrate this fall time mainstay via the plethora of seasonal paper crafting products that tap into autumn farmer’s markets and create projects that are no less invitingly gorgeous than the real deal.

33. International Rabbit Day (the 4^th Saturday in September): Did you know that, following cats and dogs, rabbits are the third most common pets in numerous countries?

And for good measure! These cute, clever, and charming long-eared animal friends are beautiful creatures that deserve our respect and love, whether we opt to keep one (or more) in our house or not.

The paper crafting world houses, rather fittingly, a proliferation of cotton tail related products, meaning that you can just as easily create rabbit-themed projects in the fall as you can come springtime (the season many of us associate most closely with bunnies).

34. Fall time weather: Just as rain showers can symbolize spring and sunshine is the epitome of a natural fit for summer, so too can we look to the weather for autumn paper crafting inspiration.

Blustery wind, golden rays of sun, vivid autumn sunsets, and even the first frost can all lend a helping hand on the creativity front when looking for themes this season.

35. National Pasta Day (USA; October 17^th): Much as with tacos, rare is the person who doesn’t like at least a few varieties of pasta!

Be it made with wheat, gluten-free alternatives (such as corn, rice, quinoa, buckwheat, or chickpeas), almond flour, shirataki, or other types of ingredients, pasta is a beloved staple in many cuisines and households around the world.

Let this versatile and thoroughly tasty food make for a delightful source of inspiration when dishing up a fall time paper crafting project.

36. The full moons of fall: Perhaps no other full moon is more famous than the breathtaking harvest moon of early autumn (technically the harvest moon is the full moon that occurs closest to the Fall Equinox). Yet each of autumn’s full moons is a gorgeous sight and occurrence that is worthy of being celebrated in paper form.

The year’s monthly full moons are all known by various names across the world. In English speaking countries, some of the most common names for the fall time full moons include:

-September: Harvest Moon, Autumn Moon, Corn Moon, Full Corn Moon, Barley Moon, Falling Leaves Moon (also used at times for October’s full moon), Rutting Moon, Child Moon, and Leaves Turning Moon

-October: Harvest Moon (if the full moon closest to the Fall Equinox transpires in October), Hunter’s Moon, Blood Moon, Sanguine Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Frost Moon, Migrating Moon, and Dying Grass Moon

-November: Beaver Moon, Frosty Moon, Mourning Moon (this name is most commonly applied when November’s full moon is the last full moon before the Winter Solstice), Digging Moon, Freezing Moon, and the Oak Moon, though the latter is also given at times to December’s full moon.

-December (some years – including this one – the full moon falls during the fall time portion of December): Cold Moon, Oak Moon, Moon Before Yule, Long Night Moon, Snow Moon, Drift Clearing Moon, Midwinter Moon, and Hoar Frost Moon.

There are oodles of moon-related paper crafting products out there that can make celebrating the full moons of autumn all the more possible, though one can certainly do the same with some basic paper crafting supplies, such as circle punches, ink blended skies that include a moon, or moon themed stickers.

37. International Day of Sign Languages (September 23^rd): Globally, more than 300 different sign languages are spoken.

The meaningful annual observance of International Day of Sign Languages (the date of which was selected to coincide with the founding in 1951 of the World Federation of the Deaf) honours and celebrates sign language, and is an excellent motivator to learn more about this diverse, incredibly important form of communication.

38. Dictionary Day (October 16^th): And speaking of language-related entries, how about celebrating Dictionary Day via your paper crafting this fall?

This odd to lexicology takes place on October 16^th (the birth date of Noah Webster, the founder of Webster’s Dictionary) and is the ideal time to bust out your favourite dictionary related scrapbooking and card making supplies, or simply celebrate the important role that words play in our paper crafting projects the whole year through.

39. Candy Corn Day (October 30^th): In my experience, much as with raisins, people tend to either love or loath candy corn. Personally, I adore it – not just eating the real deal, but creating with craft versions of this sweet, adorable fall time staple as well.

Thankfully, one need not enjoy consuming candy to do the same. Plenty of paper crafting brands offer candy corn-themed goodies that are just the ticket for making some of the sweetest fall time cards, scrapbook pages, and other projects around.

40. International Daughter’s Day (September 26^th): This observance strives to acknowledge daughters around the world and, in doing so, to help raise awareness of the challenges, struggles, and plights experienced by many female children and adults globally.

It can also be an excellent time to honour one’s own daughters and/or, if applicable, the fact that you are a daughter yourself.

41. Vintage fall and Halloween: From campy, fabulous movies (see: Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, for example) to highly collectable yesteryear Halloween décor, looking to the past as inspiration for present-day autumn craft projects can be an awesome way to imbue a strong sense of nostalgia into one’s fall time creative makes.

42. National Cookie Day (USA; December 4^th): It’s only fitting, if you ask me, that National Cookie Day transpires in the same month as many of the best known and most beloved winter holidays (for which cookies are often an integral sweet treat for a lot of folks).

Falling on December 4^th, however, National Cookie Day is still squarely in the realm of autumn and can be a fantastic time to whip up some delectable cookies (aka, biscuits for those in various parts of the world, such as the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand) – be they the real deal or those rendered in equally welcome paper crafting form.

43. Fall zodiac signs: This autumn begins on the last day of Virgo and spans, as each fall does, the signs of Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius. If you or someone in your life has a birthday during the autumn months, why not look to the stars for some celestially guided paper crafting inspiration?

44. Button Day (November 16^th): Rare is the textile or paper crafter who hasn’t worked with buttons at least a time or two. For many of us creative folks, buttons are a beloved mainstay in our craft supply arsenal.

This November, embrace your love of this charming fastener by whipping up a project or two (or ten!) that includes buttons – be they the real, die cut versions, button themed stickers, stamped button images, or anything else your creative, button adoring heart can dream up!

45. International Coffee Day (October 1st): Feeling a bit knackered from all the exciting paper crafting you’ve been doing this fall? Then why not brew up a hefty cup of your favourite java and use this delightful event to celebrate your – or a fellow joe adoring friend’s – passion for the beloved pep-inducing drink that is coffee?

*Bonus 46^th reason* #MakeHalloween365: The super fun hashtag #MakeHalloween365 that I created and launched earlier this year.

I am all for using hashtags as inspiration for our crafting, as the projects we share with them can, in turn, help to delight and inspire others.

If you’re not doing so already, I welcome and encourage you to use the hashtag #MakeHalloween365 anytime you share any sort of creative project, blog post, or photo online that pertains to Halloween.

I check this hashtag regularly and love to feature posts that use it on my Instagram stories.

Let’s band together and help #MakeHalloween365 grow and become all the more of a thriving hub of spooky season creative inspiration for fellow All Hallows’ Eve fans around the globe.

Note: The dates listed here for national and international observances are for the year of 2021. Dates may differ in future years but are apt to still fall around the same general points on the calendar.

Please also note that images used in the above list are copyright of their respective sources. To learn more about a particular image and/or the product that it features, please click on the link in the caption directly below a given image.

Welcome September, welcome autumn!

Personally, my mind, spirituality, and heart begin attuning with fall come Lammas, at the beginning of August.

However, there is just something about the first day (and week) of September that instantly makes it feel like fall has begun, regardless of whether the temperature outside is still hot enough to fry pancakes on the sidewalk or chilly enough to make ice cubes out back once the sun has set.

Like many of us, I am elated that September has returned and am embracing fall’s resplendence with the most open of arms. Not only for its own marvellous merits, but also because this summer has been quite the doozy on multiple fronts and I am eager to soon file the current season away and move onward both with the year and with my/our life as well.

I will save going into further detail there for the next edition of Magick, Crafty Makes, and Me (which should be appearing here shortly before the Fall Equinox). Suffice it to say though, that for a multitude of reasons, this will be a summer that I won’t soon forget!

I’m hoping that when all is said and done, I can make the same statement about fall 2021 – however, ideally, for considerably more positive reasons than those that made this summer quite the standout!

As many of you know, I am absolutely, hands down, no two ways about it madly obsessed with autumn!!!

This point is reflected in both my online and offline life all throughout the year, but I try to let it shine even more powerfully come the enchanting days of fall time itself.

With any luck, autumn 2021 will be no exception there. I’m all but bouncing off the (festively decorated) walls with excitement to share a slew of seasonally related blog content with all of you. Just as I am tremendously excited to see and be inspired by your own awesome fall shares.

Here’s to the hope for a safe, happy, relaxing, beautiful, and thoroughly inspiring autumn, dear friends – may it be amongst the loveliest that we have ever experienced!

Which of the fun and unique fall happenings mentioned above jumped out at you the most? What additional autumn time entries would you add to this list?

The post 45 Special Occasions and Fun Reasons to Make Cards (and Other Paper Crafting Projects) For This Fall appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

In turn, give or take a few days, there is about a month before the next edition of my quarterly blog post series, Magick, Crafty Makes, and Me.

I tend to save the majority of my life updates and accounts of recent happening for those posts. Sometimes, however, I want or need to speak about topical happenings in the moment.

Before we launch into the #MakeHalloween365 project share that is at the heart of today’s post (sneak peek above), I am going to do just that for a little while.

The local BC wildfire situation here in the North Okanagan

There are certain things in life, including some that are far from ideal, which become part and parcel to our years.

For those in various corners of the world, one of those is an annual forest fire season.

Typically beginning in earnest come May or June and running until September or even October here in our area, this season isn’t exactly one to get excited about.

We live in Canada’s most westerly province of British Columbia, a portion of the country that is often amongst (if not “the”) hardest hit each year by wildfires in this nation.

The wildfire season of 2021 has been especially brutal. Record smashing temperatures, exceedingly little rainfall in many parts of the province, and other climate change-related impacts have brought about one of the worst summers BC has ever experienced from a forest fire perspective.

As I shared in my Instagram Stories a few days ago, Tony and I have, at times as of late, been put on wildfire evacuation alert.

Mercifully, however, we have not actually had to evacuate our home yet, nor has our property/neighbourhood come under immediate threat of likely destruction.

That isn’t to say things haven’t been tense or stressful at points. They certainly have been.

The first evacuation alert we received came on Tony’s birthday (August 6^th) – what are the odds! – and lasted for about three days. During which time a hailstorm of falling ash pummelled our area and the skies took on a deep brownish-orange hue, as seen in the photo above.

The second evacuation alert arrived the following Saturday and lasted well into the week that is currently wrapping up.

At its beginning, we saw skies so red and chocked with smoke and ash it would not be unreasonable to describe the sight as apocalyptic. Or, as my mom astutely observed, perhaps what the skies of Mars might look like if you were standing on that planet and gazing skyward.

In both cases, the alerts were largely the result of the substantially sized nearby White Rock Lake Wildfire. Though this blaze was not the sole reason for the smoke, ash, and eerie colours in the sky, as scores of other forest fires are burning both near and further afield to our area of British Columbia.

Presently, the White Rock Lake Wildfire (also known as both the White Lake Fire and Monte Lake Fire) is sitting at a touch over 80,000 hectares in size, and continues to remain as being classified as out of control.

In recent years, Tony and I have been keeping well-stocked go/bugout bags at the ready for all manner of potential disasters that could arise at any time.

The moment the first alert came in on the evening of his birthday, we packed up our most important essential items (vital documents, computers, cameras, health necessities, etc) and created a “go pile” near our door, to be loaded – along with our bugout bags – into the trunk of our car immediately if word came that we needed to evacuate.

Of course, our own lives and that our cherished dog, Annie, always come first, but if there is time to save some important items during an emergency, it behooves us to be ready to do just that.

Having lost our home and virtually everything we owned at the time to an arson fire almost five years ago now, we know firsthand the damage and devastation that a serious blaze can cause, and want to be as prepared as we realistically can be should a forest fire ever get close enough to envelop our home.

On the worst days thus far, we’ve heavily drenched our property and house with the hose and used sprinklers to help keep the ground and structure wet (these measures can sometimes help to lessen risks such as live falling embers).

Currently, we have four different plans in place regarding where we would most likely stay should we get evacuated. We are keeping our gas tank full around the clock so that we can not only flee town if need be, but be able to get by for several hours if traffic slowed to a crawl on the highway or we had to enact one of our plans that involves staying at a location outside of our region of the province.

As I type these words, we are not currently on evacuation order. Save for our laptops (which can be grabbed in mere seconds), we have not unpacked, however, and will not be doing so until the local wildfire situation is much less of an imminent threat.

Evacuation orders, dangerously bad air quality, and the risk of having to get out of Dodge, if you will, aren’t fun. They are small potatoes though, of course, compared to what those who have been/currently are evacuated and/or who have suffered property damage from any of this year’s wildfires have been dealing with.

We count our blessings, but do so with a heavy and immensely understanding heart for everyone – both in BC and elsewhere in the world (including Greece) – who has been experiencing the wrath of forest fires throughout 2021.

Zero pun intended, but we are far from out of the woods at this stage on the wildfire front. It will likely take a few more weeks and hopefully quite a bit of desperately needed rain before that state returns.

Having been born, raised, and later returning in my late 20s to BC, I am intimately acquainted with wildfires and the risks they pose.

Yet, for all the fires that have torn through British Columbia over the years – including the Garnet Fire of 1994 that ravaged parts of Penticton, where my family was living at the time – this summer is the first time that we have personally been put on evacuation alert.

While stressful at times, no two ways about it, we are holding up well, and are immensely grateful that thus far neither ourselves nor any of our loved ones in this province have lost their home to the unforgiving siege that is wildfire season.  

This is certainly not the August we had envision or planned for, but it is not altogether surprising either given BC’s annual battle against forest fires of all sizes.

As you might imagine, our usual routine has been disrupted somewhat by everything this month, and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get another project share posted before August drew to a close.

Happily, however, a little earlier in the year (before the recent short-term e-commerce website building job – mentioned here – for a local business that consumed the bulk of my and Tony’s available time between May and the start of August) I had a chance to make a heartwarming Halloween themed scrapbook page.

As I have not been crafting much in recent weeks and needed a spooky season-themed project for August’s #MakeHalloween365 entry, now is the ideal time to share it.

Born Halloween lover scrapbook layout

If there is a Halloween loving gene, I am certain that I was born with it. For as far back as I have memories – and as photos like this one of me as a costume-clad babe in my mother’s arms attest – prior still to that point, I have adored Halloween.

Much like the season of autumn itself, no other day of the year fills my heart with as much glee, excitement, contentment, spiritual connection, creativity, or inspiration as October 31^st.

This off-the-charts passion was a big driving force in the launch, earlier this year, of my #MakeHalloween365 hashtag for fellow Halloween adoring souls around the world.

Just as Halloween has been the inspiration springboard for countless other things throughout my life.

As a Pagan witch, I choose to celebrate this date as both Halloween and Samhain. To my mind and own spiritual path, the two are inseparably interwoven and I can scarcely fathom observing the end of October any other way.

While I have felt I was a witch since childhood, I was not raised in a house with Paganism, witchery, or Wicca, so in those early days, October 31^st was Halloween pure and simple for me and my siblings.

Like genes in general, I am convinced that I got my gene for loving Halloween from my sweet mama.

She adores Halloween herself and has always done everything she could to not only help make All Hallows’ Eve a fun-filled event for her kids, but she has also helped to support my passion for October 31^st in countless ways throughout my entire life.

I am grateful beyond measure for this point and wanted to create a scrapbook page that not only celebrated my adoration of Halloween itself, but also the love and appreciation I have for my fellow spooky season-loving mom.

Enter this layout, which stars a mid-1980s photo of me dressed in a cute white cat costume and my mom, who, while not in costume, did rock a great witch themed button on her pretty yellow top.

And speaking of yellow things, this photo (a scan taken from a photograph that had been stored for decades in various non-archivally safe albums) shows its age and storage methods a bit. Instead of seeing that as any type of determent, I leaned into this image’s colour palette for the rest of my scrapbook page itself.

The end result is a classic colour palette of cream, yellow, orange, brown, and gold that is as much at home for fall and Halloween as it was for plenty of interiors during the 1970s and 80s.

The metallic cardstock on this page – and indeed, this layout as a whole – was a bit tricky to capture on camera in our relatively low (interior) light setting, I hope that this gist of this page comes across in the project share photos throughout this post all the same though.

I added several of my favourite scrapbooking techniques and elements to this Halloween layout. There’s plenty of paper tearing, inking, punched edges, handwritten journaling, layers, (faux) stitching, and embellishments – not to mention a cozy fall colour palette.

Plus, the charming Pebbles brads that I included here are just so sweet and festively fun!

I led off on the lefthand side of the page with a classic Halloween witch themed brad in a nod to the fact that the little girl shown in this photo would one day grow up to a passionate October 31^st adoring real life witch. (As well as that the witch on that brad very much resembles the one in the button my mom was wearing in the photo. )

I’m wild about how this Halloween scrapbook page came together and look forward to sharing it in person with my mom herself come the return of All Hallows’ Eve season.

Now, let’s take a gander at the supplies and steps involved if you would like to whip up a similar October 31^st scrapbook page of your own.

Products used to make this shabby chic Halloween scrapbook page

-Cream, sandy brown, warm medium brown, dark brown, and black cardstock

-Gold metallic cardstock – from Recollections (Michael’s brand)

-Orange metallic cardstock – from Recollections (Michael’s brand)

-Elegantly shaped tag die (or tag die/punch or premade tags of your choosing)

-Fall leaf and orange striped patterned papers (both from) – Pumpkin Spice 12 x 12-inch paper pad from Craft Smart (Michael’s brand)

-Vintage handwriting print paper

-Halloween words cut-apart paper – After Dark Spellbound paper from Crate Paper

-Doily edge border punch – Lace Doily Border Punch from Martha Stewart

-Dark orangey-red ink – Dew Drop Ink in Morocco from Memento

-Golden yellow-orange ink – Dew Drop Ink in Cantaloupe from Memento

-Brown ink pen – EnerGel Liquid Gel Ink 07 Pen from Pentel

-White gel ink pen – Uni-Ball White Gel Pen from Signo

-Orange and white polka dot letter stickers – Julie Nuting Bootiful Alpha Stickers from Photo Play

-Black glitter letter stickers (I received these as a gift without their original packaging; I suspect they are from Martha Stewart’s product range)

-Thin cream and black yarn, twine, or embroidery floss/thread (the thin yard used here is from the dollar store “Craft” brand)

-Fall coloured and patterned chipboard flourishes – Autumn Song Chipboard Pieces from Bo Bunny

-Set of Halloween brads – from the brand Pebbles (no product name was specified on the packaging)

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

How to make a fun tag filled Halloween memories scrapbook page

This festive Halloween scrapbook page begins with a sheet of 12×12-inch cardstock. As this cardstock is completely covered by the next layer of paper, it can be any colour you wish.

Take a piece of fall leaf print paper from the Craft Smart Pumpkin Spice pad and ink it on all four sides with Memento Dew Drop Morocco Ink. Adhere to your base layer of cardstock.

Next, rip all four edges of a piece of sandy brown coloured cardstock so that the final size of this piece is a little smaller than the leaf print layer. If your cardstock has a white core, embrace that and let it shine on the ripped areas. Adhere this piece of cardstock to your previous layers.

Repeat the same process with a cream (or light yellow) coloured piece of cardstock, inking, in this instance, all four edges with Memento Dew Drop Cantaloup Ink. Adhere to your previous layers.

Cut a piece of dark brown cardstock and top this piece of cardstock with a slightly smaller sized piece of orange striped paper (from the Craft Smart Pumpkin Spice paper pad).

Hand draw faux stitching with a brown ink pen or fine tipped marker around the sides of the orange striped paper, then ink the edges of that piece with Morocco Ink. Adhere those two layers to your previous layers.

Using brown cardstock and orange leaf print paper (from the Pumpkin Spice paper pad), create various layers with border punched edges (using the Martha Stewart Doily Lace border punch). Ink the edges of the orange leaf print layers.

Rip the edges of some pieces of sandy brown cardstock and vintage handwriting print paper, and arrange both these layers and the ones you just made above in the center of your layout, as shown.

Mat your photo with a layer of cream cardstock, a layer of dark brown cardstock, and a layer of orange leaf print paper. Adhere layers together, but do not adhere the matted photo to the layout itself just yet.

Next, create two blocks of cardstock, one in warm medium brown. Write your journaling, in white gel ink pen, on these blocks and adhere them to your layout.

Once your journaling is complete (and dry – especially important when using white gel ink), attach these blocks to your layout, then adhere your photo to the left of your journaling.

Next, using orange and gold metallic cardstock, die cut five tags (I opted for three gold and two orange metallic cardstock tags here, alternating the colour order that I adhered them down).

Cut out the Halloween words, mat each one on a piece of dark brown cardstock, and draw faux stitching with brown ink on each of the word pieces. Adhere one matted word per metallic cardstock tag.

Loop black (or brown, if desired) and cream (or white) yard/twine/floss to the top of each metallic cardstock tag, alternating colours as you go.

Adhere your completed tags along the left-hand side of the layout using foam dots or other dimensional adhesives.

Intersperse four of the Halloween design Pebbles brand brads amongst the tags.

Note that you may find it easier to do so if you use wire cutters or small tin snips to remove the prongs on the back of the brads first, though this step isn’t strictly required.

Adhere brads using hot glue or another very sturdy adhesive of your choice.

Use letter stickers to create the title of your layout.

Arrange Bo Bunny chipboard flourishes so that one pokes out from behind the photo and the other from the righthand side of the layout.

Place two additional Pebbles Halloween brads around the larger of the two chipboard flourishes.

And there you have it, your “Born Halloween Lover” scrapbook page is now complete.

As a fun alternative to a Halloween layout, this same colour palette and design (perhaps with different brads or other embellishments in place of them) would be great for a Thanksgiving or other fall related page as well.

And the general design of this scrapbook layout could be utilized for countless other types of pages, too – including those for winter holiday season projects.

(The journaling on this layout says: From my earliest of days, I have loved Halloween beyond measure. I am immensely grateful to my mom (pictured here with baby me in the mid-1980s) for always supporting and sharing in this adoration of October 31^st. )

The very real risk of losing everything again

As a paper crafter who has already lost all of their supplies, scrapbook albums and other completed projects once, I am keenly aware that living in a part of the world that deals with serious wildfires annually means that I could easily lose everything in a blaze for a second time.

This might, understandably, cause one to wonder why I would risk putting myself through that heartache again by continuing to papercraft. (Or to live here – though moving away is neither presently desired nor very feasible for us.)

Valid though this question is, to me the positives and joys, the blessings, creativity, and fun of papercrafting far outweigh the pain and challenges that losing my work and supplies for a second time would cause.

Experiencing that (be it due to fire or any other reason) would be horrible, of course, and I hope with all my might it never happens. However, having lived through it once, I know that rebuilding and connecting again with your greatest passions in life is possible.

Not necessarily easy, straightforward, or inexpensive, but certainly doable in many instances.

And in my heart of hearts I know that, much like my undying love for Halloween, darn near nothing could shake my adoration for paper crafting to the point where I would willingly drop it from my life for good.

Naturally, I hope and pray we that never find ourselves standing amongst the ashes of our home again. If we do though, I will take strength and solace in the fact that we pieced our world back together again once and could surely do so – with time, strength, and perseverance in spades – again, if need be.

For just as I’m a born Halloween lover, I am also a very tenacious born fighter and be it fire, my health, or any other challenge life throws my/our way, I will go on fighting tooth and nail until the very end.

Hopefully, within a few weeks, this year’s wildfire season will have finally calmed down and we can embrace autumn’s return (the second now since the Covid-19 pandemic began) in high spirits and with no shortage of jubilation for what is both mine and Tony’s very favourite chapter of the year.

From fires to floods, Covid to earthquakes and much more, 2021 has been another year of immense challenges for the inhabitants of this world.

Know that whatever you and/or your loved ones may be going through this year, my thoughts, support, and uplifting energy are with you – and that I’m always just an email away if you never want or need to chat with someone about anything that you’re going through.

As I began this entry by saying, there is just one brief month left to go until fall comes calling again. Whatever life may throw our way between then and now, that fact alone will help to bolster my spirits and keep a smile on this perpetual Halloween lover’s face.

Has your area been impacted by wildfires, flooding, or any other natural disasters this summer? Do you consider yourself a die-hard born Halloween (and/or Samhain) fan as well?

The post Local BC Wildfire Situation Update + Born Halloween Lover Tag Filled Scrapbook Layout appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

As I have discussed here previously, my husband and I lost a lifetime of photos in the arson house fire we experienced back in 2016.

This can, as you might imagine, make finding suitable images to scrap quite challenging at times.

Thankfully though, between some photos that were online at the time, others that loved ones have shared with us, and newer images that we’ve captured in the years since that life-altering event, I’m not completely without some snaps to scrap.

Case in point, the photos on this Halloween layout were housed on the vintage fashion and lifestyle blog that I ran from 2009 – 2017.

They tug at my heartstrings on multiple fronts – not the least of which is that the house depicted in them is the one that we lost to the fire.

Instead of dwelling on that though, I chose to acknowledge the feelings seeing images like this call forth, and then to focus on the positives instead.

These pictures were taken on Halloween 2014. In them, I’m wearing a costume that was sold under the name Sinderella – a dark and spooky take on the classic fairy tale character, Cinderella.

Though it transpired more than 6.5 years ago now, I remember that Halloween night as though it was just yesterday.

The weather was crisp and cool in that telltale way only autumn can deliver.

As was tradition for us back in those (pre-Covid) days, we hosted a small family Halloween party at our house that evening. Candy was handed out abundantly to the 30 – 40 or so trick-or-treaters from around the neighbourhood that came calling.

Oodles of fun, festive eating, and good cheer was had by all and the night lingered well after the calendar had officially transitioned into November.

Sweetly spooky red rose, pumpkin, and ghost themed Halloween scrapbook layout

There are nearly as many reasons why we scrapbook as there are scrapbookers themselves. Unquestionably, however, one of the main reasons is to preserve some of the memories that really matter to us.

I would still recall this particular Halloween night quite well without these photos. However, having them and the ability not just to look upon, but to also craft with, these images is a sincere blessing.

For this October 31^st themed scrapbook page, I took a lot of inspiration from both my costume and the pumpkins pictured in these two festive photos.

While not entirely devoid of the colour (think vampires, blood, bonfire flames, and crunchy crimson hued leaves, for example), red isn’t the most common Halloween hue.

I’m all for utilizing unexpected or less common colours for various holiday projects – those pertaining to Halloween very much included.

In this instance, the impetus for the use of red was the hits of this bold colour that appeared in my Halloween costume and coordinating wig.

The delightful red eyelash trim is a nod to the tattered strips of fabric on my Sinderella costume.

Red roses appear here in two forms: the rose print paper that was used both as a photo matting layer and as one of the (purposely angled) layers towards the bottom of the layout, as well as in the dimensional red paper roses that dot this Halloween layout.

And speaking of dots, red returns again care of the cute red and creamy-white Swiss dot print paper.

These pictures were taken as the last vestiges of daylight slipped into the inky embrace of evening, so I thought it would be fun to create a nighttime themed background. (Plus the moon mirrors the glowing porch light that is visible in one of these photos.)

In honour of the portion of our lost home that is visible in these shots, I also wanted to include some cute haunted house themed paper as well.

Ghosts and Halloween are perpetual BFFs. I’d been itching to use this adorable “boo” ghost themed paper for quite some time now, and as its colours harmonized wonderfully with this particular All Hallows’ Eve layout, onto the page it went.

An array of pumpkins (including a strip of smiling jack-o-lantern print paper), red star embellishments, midnight black fabric leaves, plenty of paper and cardstock layers with torn edges, and a wee bit of journaling penned on a tombstone shaped journaling spot round out this sweetly spooky Halloween layout.

…Which is my creation for this month’s #MakeHalloween365 project share.

Products used to make this festive Halloween costume themed scrapbook page

-Black, white, and dark red cardstock

-Various Halloween themed papers (including journaling spot) – Mischief Manon 12”x12” Paper Pad from Craftsmart (Michael’s brand)

-Full moon print paper and red rose print paper (both from) – The Immortal Love 12”x12” Stack from DCWV

-Red and white Swiss dot print paper – Life In the Country Strawberries with Ice Paper from Maja Design

-Red paper roses (Craft Brand from Dollarama)

-Black fabric leaves (bought at a Halloween Alley popup store)

-Tiny 3D pumpkins – Idea-ology Mini Pumpkins from Tim Holtz

-Red star shaped embellishments – Red Star Cabochons from Jolee’s Boutique

-Red eyelash trim

-Reddish-black ink pen (for journaling) – Vision Elite Red/Black 0.5 mm Pen from Uniball

-Red foam letters – Rosey Foam Letters from Thickers

-Glue gun and glue sticks (optional, but highly useful for adhering the mini pumpkins and other embellishments)

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

How to make a sweetly spooky Halloween scrapbook page

Begin with a piece of 12×12 inch dark red cardstock for your base.

Take a sheet of the full moon print paper DCWV’s The Immortal Love 12”x12” Stack and tear the top and bottom to create a somewhat jagged, tattered looking edge. Adhere to cardstock base.

Cut a piece of haunted house print paper (from the Mischief Mansion paper pad) so that it covers most of the full moon print paper, but leaves the full moon itself visible. Tear the top edge of this haunted house print paper and adhere to the base layers of the LO

Cut and adhere layers of jack-o-lantern print paper, ghost print paper, rose print paper, and red dotted paper to the layout, as shown. (Note: the dotted paper goes under the bottom of the full moon print piece of paper).

Mat both photos with black cardstock, rose print paper, white cardstock (tear top edge), and a final layer of black cardstock. Adhere to haunted house print paper.

Write out journaling on tombstone shaped journaling piece and adhere between photos.

Adhere red eyelash trim around a portion of the layout and top with eight Jolee’s Boutique Red Star Cabochon embellishments, as shown.

Arrange and adhere red paper roses, black fabric leaves, and Tim Holtz mini pumpkins around photos.

Spell out your desired layout title (in this case the word “Sinderella”) using Thickers red foam letter stickers.

Sit back and let the exciting energy of Halloween night wash over you as you gaze upon your completed layout.

(The journaling on this layout says: “For Halloween 2014, I dressed up as “Sinderella” – a wonderfully dark take on Cinderella. Such a fun, memorable night.”)

The ghost of Halloween past

So much has transpired in our lives since these photos were taken on Halloween 2014. Honestly, it feels like twenty or thirty years have elapsed since then, not “just” six, soon to be seven.

I’m grateful for the memories and photos that remain from that frightfully fa-boo-lous evening, just as I am for every experience and recollection from the thirty-six different Halloween nights I’ve experienced so far in my life.

These memories are happy, friendly ghosts of the Casper variety, if you will, that stoke the fires of my passion for Halloween and ensure that I get even more excited for All Hallows’ Eve each year.

Much like creating Halloween themed projects, such as this sweetly spooky scrapbook layout, does as well!

Even before the fire, I did not have photos of every Halloween I’ve experienced, and following that fateful happening, I have far fewer still.

This is all the more reason why I’m actively scrapbooking those that I am fortunate to have and ensuring that we take new photos each October 31^st.

Future layouts to, no doubt, follow!

If you enjoy Halloween and aren’t already doing so, I invite you to join me in scrapbooking your memories of this marvellous annual event and hope that you’ll tag your craft projects with #MakeHalloween365 so that I can see (and be inspired by!) them, too.

The post Sweetly Spooky Sinderella Halloween Scrapbook Page appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

As autumn began here in earnest during the final days of September, that means its duration as a snowless season was only about a month long.

While snow has not fallen daily since then, we have had numerous flake filled days and there’s a you-can-bet-on-it certainty that scores of others lay ahead of us as we inch ever closer to wintertime proper.

It is not uncommon for fall to be quite brief around these parts, but this was an especially short crunchy leaf season.

No matter what Mother Nature may be up to, I love to continue honouring and celebrating fall straight on until the Winter Solstice.

In reality, this is something I do the whole year through as well.

There is never a month (or even a single week of the year) when I don’t think about fall, weave it into my daily life in a multitude of ways, and eagerly look forward to the next autumn all throughout the other three seasons.

The scrapbook page that I’m sharing here today isn’t a new project. It was made in 2017, a little over a year after the fire – with a photo that was taken two years prior, back in 2015.

While my current craft stash is relatively modest in size, compared to where it was at about three years  ago, it has definitely grown in leaps and bounds (as craft stashes are apt to do! ).

At that time, while I had (thanks to some money that I received as a gift for Christmas 2016) my current Sizzix die cutting machine already, I didn’t yet have many dies yet.

Now, I don’t use dies (or embossing folders, etc) on all of my projects, but I sense that had I made a page similar to this now in 2020, some die cutting would have been involved.

There are a few other things I might have done differently, too, but that is the nature of crafting. Our skills, styles, preferred aesthetics and various other factors often change or are honed further as time goes on.

I adore this page though, please do not get me wrong. In it, I see elements of numerous layouts and cards that I made pre-fire. As well as a certain emerging fine-tuning, if you will, of my paper crafting style that has typified the majority of the projects that I’ve made in more recent years.

Fall leaves shabby chic scrapbook page

The photo featured on this page was taken at a small lake on the way to a larger lake (named Yellow Lake) in the Southern Okanagan.

I adore the way the still water beautifully reflected the surrounding fall foliage as well as the arid surrounding hills that exemplify the desert landscape of this corner of British Columbia.

To me, this photo perfectly captures what fall often looks like around these parts and I was keen to memorialize its timeless loveliness in a scrapbook page.

While a die cutting machine wasn’t involved here, as touched on above, another of my favourite craft products was: paper punches.

Two of them, to be exact. One for the charming leaf boarder, the other for the doily-esque border.

The colours in this photo were the jumping off point for this layout’s autumnal palette. I pulled shades both earthy and rich in brown, orange, green, and marigold yellow from the picture, pairing them with splashes of complementary shades, such as dusty peach and dark red.

Another of my faves (as you might of guess, I have plenty of those! ) paper crafting products came out to play on this fall time layout: pleated ribbon.

My stars, how I adore pleated ribbon!

I well remember when it was having a serious moment in the paper crafting world a few years back (aided by the offerings at the time from brands such as Webster’s Pages, Teresa Collins, and Melissa Frances).

Plenty of us still reach for this type of ribbon and it has become easier to find in recent years, thanks in part to community marketplaces websites such as Etsy and AliExpress.

There is so much versatility housed in pleated ribbon – which as the large heart shape featured on this layout demonstrates, can be positioned in various arrangements of your choosing.

Everything from circles to squares, ovals to hearts, diamonds to triangles can be made from pleated ribbon – as can gorgeous rosettes and rolled flowers.

If I could, I would have a vast rainbow of pleated ribbon in all manner of colours and fabrics (satin, grosgrain, cotton, etc). My current stash of pleated trim isn’t anywhere near that extensive, but it does house several colours at present.

I reach for them regularly, doing so most recently for my Blessed Harvest Season Card.

I tend to find that I’m especially drawn to pleated ribbon for fall and winter projects, but it really is a year-round material in my books.

How to create this charming fall leaf scrapbook layout

This page begins with a base of golden-orange coloured textured Bazzill cardstock, which was then topped with a piece of woodgrain textured cardstock that I tore and inked the edge of one side.

Some lovely text print paper and another layer of the same woodgrain cardstock were added on top of the base cardstock layers, as were the myriad of distressed, punched, and hand-torn papers on the bottom half of the layout.

Next came the center heart area. I used the same text print paper for the background of the heart, which was then topped with my matted photo, various die cut shapes and assorted embellishments, and finished off with a border of both adorable white mini pompom trim and elegant matte gold hued pleated ribbon.

The title words, a journaling square, and a few more embellishments here and there finished off this festive fall time scrapbook page.

I feel like, in the three years since I made it, some of the embellishments may have shifted a little – including one of the chipboard buttons. That’s okay – especially since I can’t recall exactly where the wandering button may have originally been placed.

(I also noticed that the white pompom trim inched away a little bit from its original placement squarely against the gold pleated trim on one side. That I will fix now that I’m aware of it.)

Scrapbook page tips and tricks from this project

-Keep an eye out for pre-embossed cardstock and paper. These products are a stellar way to cover larger areas with embossed cardstock, the dimensions of which may exceed that of your die cutting machine.

Numerous brands offer pre-embossed cardstock and papers. I’m a big fan of the books of embossed cardstock that you can sometimes find from the Recollections brand at Michael’s stores.

-When tearing/distressing the edges of your paper or cardstock, consider inking some and leaving others bare – especially if the exposed edges are all the same colour or in a complimentary tonal range.

I really like the hits of white of the un-inked torn edges here. They’re a lovely contrast to the autumnal hues of the rest of this fall time layout.

–Go big or go home with trims sometimes! It’s safe to say that one of the first things you’re apt to notice about this scrapbook page is the large heart-shaped frame of pleated ribbon (inside of which is a border of mini white pompom trim) and that is exactly what I was aiming for.

We often think of ribbon and trim as being items we use in small, complimentary doses on our projects. They can – and do – certainly shine in this capacity, but they can also be the star of the show sometimes.

If you’ve got a ribbon or trim that you adore and want to use abundantly, I say have at it! The more the merrier! Carpe diem!

–Cork is a wonderfully versatile material that often plays excellently with fall toned products thanks to its neutral brown colour.

The charming, relatively flat cork butterflies here are premade stickers. If you didn’t have a similar product to hand, you could die cut, stamp and cut out, or even free hand trim some shapes of your own from cork instead.

Products used to make this fall leaves shabby chic scrapbook layout

-Golden orange coloured textured cardstock – Orange Juice cardstock from Bazzill

-Sandy brown textured cardstock

-Dark brown woodgrain embossed cardstock – Chestnut Woodgrain cardstock from American Crafts

-Peachy-orange coloured cardstock – You Are Here Orange/Pink Map paper from Simple Stories

-Brown and white text print paper – French Riviera Collection Respirer l’air de la Mer by Frank Garcia

-Green tone-on-tone leaf print paper

-Brown tone-on-tone leaf print paper – Wild At Heart 12 x 12 inch paper pad from First Edition Paper

-Brown wood grain print paper – Wild At Heart 12 x 12 inch paper pad from First Edition Paper

-Journaling spot + assorted die cut leaves – Samantha Walker Orchard Harvest Die Cuts from Creative Imaginations

-Small acorn die cuts and red sparkly leaf die cuts – Tim Coffey Fall Die Cut Shapes from K&Company

-Leaf border punch – Falling Leaves border punch from EK Success

-Doily edge border punch – Doily Lace border punch from Martha Stewart

-Cork butterfly stickers – DIY Shop Cork Butterfly Stickers from American Crafts

-Chipboard buttons and twine – Spring Market Buttons and Twine from Webster’s Pages

-Leaf stick pins – HF-277 Leaf Stick Pins from Little Yellow Bicycle

-White mini pompom trim

-Gold pleated ribbon

-Memento Dew Drop Ink in Rich Cocoa (brown), Olive Grove (green), and Peanut Brittle (caramel-y brown).

-Dark brown fine liner pen or marker that doesn’t bleed much (for journaling)

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

The journaling on this layout says: “Autumn in the Okanagan is spectacular! The desert hues mingle with the season’s enchanting palette. I live for those few fleeting weeks and their bevy of gorgeous fall leaves.”

Not every project share has to be a brand new creation

There are many perks to the internet and social media. However, IMO, one of the downsides to the “share now, immediately rush towards the next project/post” mentality that frequently accompanies life online is that it becomes all too easy to forget that not everything we share publicly has to be brand spanking new.

I would argue that for paper crafters like myself who are not able to craft daily or weekly (or sometimes even monthly), tapping into previously unshared (or even revisiting favourite past shares) projects can be an especially handy + fantastic way to flush out your supply of available content.

It can also be a godsend if you’d like to post for a specific holiday/reason, but don’t currently have a new project ready to go for that event.

Few amongst us would deny that it’s fantastic to share our latest makes. I adore doing so myself and most of the projects I’ve posted here so far were made in the past twelve months.

I see no reason though why I have to limit myself to recently created makes, however – especially given that this blog was just launched on January 1, 2020 (and did not I share my paper crafting projects on social media before that time).

Much as how a photograph you like/care about can usually be shared long after it was taken, again, by all means, if you have some older projects that you’d like to share, I actively encourage you to do so.

Whether older or newer, chances are that this will be my last fall related project share for 2020. With just a few weeks left to go in a year that few of us are ever going to forget, I hope to get in some winter and holiday season makes.

Fall is forever in my heart and always close at hand when I craft, though, so there’s a high chance you won’t have to wait until August or September 2021 to see more autumn/harvest season/Halloween related projects from me here.

Do you ever post older projects on your blog and/or SM or do you prefer to stick with sharing your most recent makes?

Project share

Pin the image below – or any other in this post – to Pinterest, pop it into your Instagram Stories, post in on Twitter or Facebook, or share it anywhere else you wish to help yourself find it again and to inspire others at the same time.

If you make a project based on or inspired by this scrapbook page – or want to share any of your other handmade crafts with me – please use the hashtags #WitchcraftedLife and #WitchcraftedLifeMakes on social media so that I see can your beautiful creations.

The post Fall Leaves Shabby Chic Autumn Scrapbook Layout appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

Later this month, my maternal grandma is on track to do just that.

My grandma – or Grannie (she prefers to spell it with an “ie” ending) was in 1930 as the Great Depression was just starting to get underway.

Her parents came north for the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s and, even though they didn’t strike it rich, loved the untamed Yukon wilderness so much they stayed there for decades after the final waves of eager gold-seekers had crossed the Chilcot.

She was the last of eight children – seven girls, and just one son. And as such, heartbreakingly, these days she is the sole surviving child of her family.

Like many people, my grandma is multi-faceted induvial. Strong and, at times, stubborn. Caring, nostalgic, loving, and tough as an ox.

She’s had to be that way. Life, from her birth in the freezing arctic to battling and overcoming cancer for the first time in her 80s as been anything but a cakewalk.

Severe chronic illness struck her early in life – proceeded by tuberculosis (which, much like breast cancer, she was able to beat). Widowhood entered her life at the age of just sixty, proceeded many years prior by the untimely death of her only son.

She has lived in various spots across North, Central and South America, can draw far better than she lets on, never remarried, is a packrat in the extreme, played a mean game of tennis for decades, and makes the best darn orange chiffon cake I’ve ever tasted.

At (almost) ninety, my grandma still lives on her own in the same house she’s called home since the early 1960s.

She drives (during the daylight hours), volunteers, has never had a smartphone, and savours her near-daily walks along a street that, over the decades, has morphed from a sleepy rural road to a multi-lane thoroughfare.

There are many ways in which we differ, but no shortage of others that we share in common. Through thick and thin, my grannie has never failed to inspire me and be a source of unwavering strength in my life.

Sadly, due to the need to social distance and remain as safe as possible, a family birthday celebration of the kind befitting nine decades of life will not be possible.

We’ll still do all that we can though, of course, to help ensure that she feels loved, celebrated, and honoured come the big day.

Card, gifts, flowers, phone calls, and other forms of socially distanced connecting will stand in for the birthday fete that up until the pandemic struck, we’d long imagined holding for this awesome occasion.

October Birthday Girl Heritage Scrapbook Page

My Grannie is rarely one for fuss, pomp, or pageantry. Her style is understated, somewhat tomboyish, and fairly classic.  

In creating a scrapbook layout to honour her October birthday, I wanted to celebrate the season, while staying true to this style.

There are layers and details, but I intentionally kept things a bit refrained – opting to let this vintage photograph of her, taken sometimes around the late 1940s, sparkle as the deserving star of the show.

For the background of this scrapbook page, I turned to one of my oldest and most favourite tricks in the paper crafting book and used a piece of corrugated cardboard as the base layer.

Sometimes I do this when I know that I’ll need a lot of strength to support all the layers and embellies on a given project, and sometimes I do it simply because I love the look and texture that classic cardboard offers.

Over the years, various companies have sold precut pieces of cardboard (some of which were even billed as being archivally safe), but I’ve rarely purchased them. Cardboard is plentiful in most peoples lives or can easily be obtained, if you don’t have any to hand.

That said, if creating a project that is archivally safe is paramount to you, I’d highly suggest either buffering the cardboard with a base layer of acid free cardstock or paper, tracking down acid free cardboard, or using an archival preservation crafting spray, such as Archival Mist (product and brand share the same name) or Make It Acid Free from Krylon.

As my grandma’s birthday falls in the heart of October, I went for a full-on autumn colour palette, leaning heavily on earthy tones that are reminiscent of nature while also leading the layout a vintage feel that is in keeping with the yesteryear photo used here.

How to create this autumn themed family history scrapbook layout

This layout began with a 12 x 12 inch sized piece of cardboard which I lightly distressed, inked and painted the edges of (black ink, gold paint).

Once dry, I topped the cardboard with layers of black and orange cardstock, turning down two of the corners and tucking pieces of tulle + small chipboard circles beneath the folds.

Next came the layers of patterned paper, including the central decorative shape piece which I painted the edges of with grey acrylic paint.

I added the trim, matted and selected a position for my photo, scattered various stickers and embellishments around the design, created my title, and handwrote my journaling on a piece of polka dot print paper.

This layout came together quickly and is not very complex, which I feel really suits the type of person my grandma is: no nonsense, lovely, and timeless.

I adore how the floral print on the decorative edge central piece of paper brings a ton of visual interest to this layout, with zero added bulk. I’m all for dimension as a general rule, but sometimes it’s fun to scale things back a tad on that front, which is what I did with this LO.

Scrapbook page tips and tricks from this project

-Make friends with cardboard! As touched on above, I adore working with the material in my paper crafting projects. Be as it an entire 12 x 12 inch base, a small accent, a die cut shape, or anything in between, the sky is the limit!

You can distress, sand, paint, stain, ink, stencil, embellish and do oodles more still to cardboard. And of course, you can leave it as is – either with the top layer of thin brown/kraft paper removed or simply as it stands intact now.

I like to save clean, not too thick pieces of cardboard from packaging, mailing materials, and suitable boxes. That way, when a project arises that could benefit from some cardboard, it’s always at the ready.

-Don’t hesitate to dress up decorative shaped papers all the more. In this case, the scrolling/scalloped edge piece of Kaisercraft paper was gorgeous, but I felt it could use a little something-something extra. Acrylic paint to the rescue!

A purposely shabby chic style coating around the edges was all it took to jazz up this elegant paper and help it feel more individual to my own project.

–Have fun with photo corners! I’m a big fan of photo corners and utilize them often on my layouts. They can work like a charm with pics from any era, but when crafting with antique and vintage photos, they have an extra special ability to look fantastic.

In no small part, this stems from the fact that photo corners were a mainstay of the albums where many images from decades past were originally housed. As such, they can instantly help to lend a lovely yesteryear feel to most any project.

Whether you buy premade photo corners, use a die or punch, or freehand them (hint, basic triangles, as with the golden orange paper used here, do the job fabulously!), photo corners might just be what your next project needs for a bit of extra pizzazz.

-Layer your trims. A great way to add subtle – or not so subtle, as the case may be – interest, colour, and texture to a scrapbook page is to layer two or more trims.

In this instance, I began with a thin layer of tulle, followed it with a wide layer of open design gold hued trim, then topped that with some fun and funky blue and green fringe trim in a colour palette that looks as though it was borrowed from a peacock.

When layering trims, try to ensure that some of each layer remains visible. A mix of solid and airier trims, as used here, can look especially fab, but all open weave or all solid trims can rock just as well, too.

-When using multiple word and/or letter stickers on the same page, aim for a degree of continuity between them. Colours, sizes, fonts, etc can all help. This lends your finished page a cohesive, beautiful look.

Though, that said, sometimes it’s great to mix things up, toss the rules out the window with your lettering and word stickers and just have a blast mixing things up.

-Butterflies and feathers might not instantly scream fall to the same degree that they do spring and summer, but that’s no reason not to utilize them in autumn related projects – especially if they’re in seasonal hues like the earthy browns and blues here.

If you don’t have premade fall coloured butterflies or feathers, consider stamping or die cutting and colouring some in the fall shades that best compliment your project.

Products used to create this fall birthday scrapbook page

-Piece of brown/kraft coloured cardboard measuring 12 x 12 inches (30.5 x 30.5 cm)

-Black, golden orange, and pale aqua cardstock

-Fall tree real photo print paper – Fall Harvest Paper Pad from American Crafts

-Cream and mustard yellow polka dot print paper – Autumn Crisp 6 x 6 inch Paper Pad from American Crafts

-Decorative scalloped edge paper – Hidden Treasures Collection Token from Kaisercraft

-Black ink pad – Dew Drop Tuxedo Black Ink from Memento

-Orange chipboard flourish and both circle shaped chipboard pieces – Autumn Song Chipboard from Bo Bunny

-Various word and image stickers – Rhapsody Element Stickers from Photo Play

-Hello Word Sticker – Bloom Element Stickers from Photo Play

-Fall word bunting banner sticker – A Perfect Autumn Afternoon Element Stickers from Echo Park

-Orange letter stickers – Citrus Alphabet Stickers from Bo Bunny

-Gold glitter letter stickers – Marquee Love Letter Stickers from Heidi Swapp

-Gold acrylic paint – Gold Metallic Paint Dabber from Ranger

-Grey acrylic paint – Gray Wolf from Martha Stewart Crafts

-Gold and cream damask print washi tape

-White tulle trim

-Fringed blue and grey trim

-Wide gold oven weave design trim

-Yellow painted metal flower charm – Timeless Memories Metal Trinkets from Recollections

-Grey marker/felt tip pen (used for journaling)

-Dimensional foam, pop dots, or similar to elevate some of your layers

-Adhesive, such as a tape runner, of your choice (I often use my Scotch Tape Glider)

The journaling on this layout says: “My maternal grandma, Bernice J. Schill, was born on October 14, 1930, in Dawson, Yukon, Canada. By total coincidence, 74 years later, in 2004, Tony and I married on that same special date.”

One day, three importance celebrations

My grandma’s 90^th birthday is unquestionably the milestone highlight of October 2020. Interestingly, and coincidentally, however, it is not the only special event that falls on the 14^th of this month.

That date also happens to by the birthday of my dear Uncle Bill, as well as mine and Tony’s wedding anniversary. Plus, just two days later, my beautiful sister’s birthday returns as well.

As you can imagine, traditionally, this has made for a week of ample family gatherings, celebrating, and feasting.

Especially when you consider that, when it falls on the latest possible date that it can, Canadian Thanksgiving technically takes place on October 14th once every few years.

Talk about one full and exciting date!

None of those events are going to unfold this time around they usually would.

Yet, much as with my Grannie’s birthday, we’ll do what we can to honour the spirit of these meaningful occasions and (especially) the loved ones who are at the heart of each important mid-October event.

Right here and now though, as the 10^th month of the year gets underway, I must dash. 90^th birthdays come but once in a lifetime and I’ve got a festive card to whip up and mail out.

Project share

Pin the image below – or any other in this post – to Pinterest, pop it into your Instagram Stories, post in on Twitter or Facebook, or share it anywhere else you wish to help yourself find it again and to inspire others at the same time.

If you make a project based on or inspired by this scrapbook page – or want to share any of your other handmade crafts with me – please use the hashtags #WitchcraftedLife and #WitchcraftedLifeMakes on social media so that I see can your beautiful creations.

The post October Birthday Girl Heritage Scrapbook Layout (in Celebration of My Grandma’s 90th Birthday) appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

AliExpress.com – often called AliExpress, or simply Ali – is a highly popular online retail site that features a huge range of consumer goods being sold by a multitude of different sellers.

Most are based out of China, though some are located (or at least ship from) elsewhere. For example, I’ve received purchases from AliExpress sellers that were postmarked from countries such as Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, various parts of Eastern Europe, and even my own country of Canada.

Owned by the Alibaba Group (of drop shipping fame, amongst other things) and started a decade ago now, in 2010, AliExpress is an online platform for sellers to offer their wares, often at very reasonable prices. It is currently one of the most popular and highly trafficked e-commerce websites int the world.

Ironically, while the vast majority of Ali’s sellers are located in China, AliExpress itself does not allow customers in Mainland China to purchase from this platform.

While the community marketplace aspect of AliExpress may remind some, at first glance, of sites such as eBay, rates are typically fixed and items are not auctioned off.

Buyers purchase items for the prices show (though sometimes in-site coupons can be applied to orders), sometimes playing little to nothing for shipping (much more on that later in this post).

AliExpress is an e-commerce site that facilitates the buying and selling of goods. Merchandise is not stored in a giant Ali warehouse (alla Amazon, for example), but rather the responsibility of each individual seller who uses AliExpress’s platform.

From kitchenware to Halloween costumes, pet supplies to teething rings, there is a seemingly endless array of retail products on offer from the legions of sellers on AliExpress.

For the purpose of today’s post however, we are going to focus primarily on my personal experience of buying craft supplies from AliExpress.

That said, a lot of the information included herein applies to AliExpress in general and can be useful to many non-crafters as well.

How I came to use AliExpress

I’d love to conduct a poll of thousands of AliExpress buyers from around the world asking them how they first found out about this website and what their initial purchases were. That isn’t possible for me to do, but I can tell you about my own buying experiences and let you more about how to get started with purchasing from this popular e-commerce website.

While I’d heard about Ali here and there over the years online, I really started to catch wind of it on YouTube in 2018.

Intrigued, I began watching videos about buyer’s experiences, as well as AliExpress hauls that a wide range of folks were sharing. Specifically, I focused on Ali hauls pertaining to crafting, fashion, beauty, and witchcraft and Pagan related items, as these are some of my main interests and areas that I shop for.

From the very get-go, I had mixed feelings from an ethical standpoint about buying from a site whose entire premise and business model relies a good deal on fast consumerism, mass-market products, potentially questionable working conditions (and wages) of those producing the goods sold on Ali, and the risk of shoddy, dodgy or otherwise suspect merchandise.

We will dive into the deep end of knockoff goods later on in this post.

That said, objectively, I found the reasonable prices offered by many sellers appealing and after giving serious consideration to the pros and cons of AliExpress, opted to give it a go.

How to start buying on AliExpress

It is free to open an account as a buyer on AliExpress. Please be aware however, that new customers are usually requested to provide some rather personal information shortly after they begin using this website.

While I’ve heard this can vary, generally speaking, new customers who have placed anywhere from 1 – 6+ orders will suddenly find that their account is frozen from placing further orders until you send Ali’s customer service team scans/photos of at least one piece of government-issued photo ID and one credit card.

Yep, you read that right. A credit card.

Eyebrows raised? Mine were, too. Big time.

I watched a slew of YouTube videos assuring buyers that this was standard practise and so, very apprehensively, submitted the requested information.

I was told that I’d hear back about my approval process within 1 – 4 days. If memory serves me right, it took less than two days for my account to be approved.

Once it was, I was able to purchase as usual. I have never been asked to provide any further ID or credit card information and I have no reason to suspect that my data has been compromised or used illegally. Two things that I was concerned about the moment they requested images of my ID and credit card.

Once your AliExpress account has been approved, you can shop to your heart’s content (bank account permitting, of course!).

There is a handy add to cart feature that allows you to place up to a maximum of 100 items at a time (be they from the same seller or a multitude of different sellers) to your AliExpress shopping cart.

Alternatively, you can “buy now” for single items (or multiples of the exact same item from the same seller) for one-off purchases.

With your AliExpress cart, you can either purchase all of the items you’ve placed in your cart at once or you can use the checkboxes located to the left of each item (as well as beside the name of each seller whose products are in your cart) to only purchase certain items that are presently in your cart.

Make sure when you’re checking out, that you’ve only selected the items that you wish to buy at that point in time.

Please be aware that it is somewhat easy to accidentally place an order for the entirety of your cart, when you may not have wanted to do so.

Buying on AliExpress

Think of just about any consumer good you might like – especially if it’s a general term (e.g., glitter glue instead of the brand name product Stickles) – and chances are at least one person is selling some version of it on AliExpress.

Of course, there are products that are not offered there (I myself have searched for several things that I was unable to find results for), but a surprising number are and it seems like more come along every week.

When you buy on AliExpress, you will typically set your currency to that of your own country. This is very helpful because it means that you don’t have to deal with the hassle, potential confusion, and nasty surprises (if numbers were miscalculated, for example) of currency exchange rates.

Most sellers on AliExpress do not accept PayPal. While I cannot speak for sellers in all categories of merchandise offered on Ali, I’ve yet to come across many in the paper crafting and beading worlds who take PayPal.

While a small number of payment options do exist on Ali, most of the time international customers are apt to pay for their purchases directly with a credit card.

Given the widespread prevalence of PayPal, it’s surprising in a sense that AliExpress has done so well without this payment option being a sitewide standard feature.

Keep in mind, as with all overseas/international purchases, you may be hit with customs, import and other postal service related fees when your order reaches you in your respective country.

This tends to be less of an issue with very inexpensive AliExpress orders, especially since many sellers declare (whether it’s factually accurate or not) an incredibly low value on the packages that they mail out to their customers.

To date, I can only think of one time that I’ve been hit with customs fees on an AliExpress order. That is saying a lot because Canada Post has a seriously low threshold before which postal system users are smacked with hefty customers and import fees.

How low are AliExpress’s prices?

This is a great question and the simple answer is, pretty darn low… sometimes… and for some types of items.

The cost of goods offered on AliExpress is going to be somewhat relative to what those, or similar, items would typically cost you in your own respective country.

If you cannot, or can’t easily, find a particular item in your country, then I would compare it to the rates that you typically see (and would personally be okay with paying) from another international source for that same kind of item.

As someone who lives in Canada, a vast country with over 35 million inhabitants, yet a shockingly small number of both online and real-world sources for crafting products, there was an immediate allure to the near-endless virtual aisles, so to speak, of goods on offer at AliExpress.

I can only imagine how, for those with even stronger currencies than the Canadian dollar, such as the British Pound, the Euro, and the American dollar, the deals must seem even more impressive.

Conversely, if you live in a country with a weaker international currency, Ali’s prices might not seem like quite as much of a bargain. There is certainly a degree of relativity at play with the pricing on AliExpress.

While some sellers do offer (genuine) brand name goods, plenty are not branded or are sold under labels and company names used only by the specific sellers offering certain goods. As such, it at times be tricky to make a direct comparison between the prices charged by brands outside of Ali’s platform and those on the website itself.

In the crafting world (again, please keep in mind that I’m shopping in Canadian, not US, dollars), I would say that prices are generally about ½ to 1/6^th of the cost of similar items offered by brand name companies and independent retailers.

Occasionally items may in fact cost more than you might be able to find certain similar pieces for elsewhere online or at bricks and mortar shops.

Where a comparable craft product is available, I personally find that the cost is about 1/2 to 1/3 that of the brand name item here in Canada.

What is the quality of AliExpress merchandise like?

This is where we start to get into murky water.

Before answering that question, I want to preface the following information by saying that, as with most multi-seller e-commerce sites the world over, there are all kinds of different sellers. Some are legit, some are a bit shadier, and plenty know darn well that they’re selling knockoff/counterfeit merchandise.

Likewise, the quality of goods offered by various seller son AliExpress can vary dramatically.

Reading reviews and ratings is a decent way to get a sense of the quality of the merchandise and the customer service provided by a specific seller/shop on AliExpress (customers are invited to leave optional reviews and ratings between 1 and 5 stars for each of their Ali purchases).

It is not, however, foolproof, as AliExpress will give five stars to sellers as a default if a customer does not leave feedback of their own within the allotted timeframe permitted to do so (this varies from sellers to seller, but is generally anywhere from 2 to 3 or even 4 months from the date you placed your order with a specific seller).

As such, I tend to rely a bit less on the trustworthiness of the star rating system and more on the review comments that some buyers opt to leave for their purchases.

One of the main types of paper crafting products that I’ve bought on AliExpress so far has been metal cutting dies. Specifically, wafer style dies.

Comparing them to the cutting quality, ease of release, ability to cut through various types of thin materials (paper, cardstock, very light felt, etc), overall quality of the die cut shape that is created, and so forth of brand name dies, honestly, in most cases I’ve been fairly impressed.

While the metal of the dies is sometimes flimsier, it can also be on par – or even better, occasionally – than many brand name dies that I’ve tried.

To date, I’ve not had any of the AliExpress metal dies that I’ve purchased break on me, damage my cutting plates beyond the normal wear and tear of metal dies, jam my machine (a Sizzix Big Shot), or completely fail to cut a shape from the material that I partnered a given die with.

That may happen one day, and I do tend to play it safe in terms of what I’ll put through my die cutting machine in the first place, but so far it has not and I think that says something about the quality of the dies I’ve purchased from AliExpress.

Beyond dies, I’ve bought a number of other paper crafting products. This include, but are not limited to the following items:

-Clear acrylic stamps

-Sequins

-Wooden veneer shapes

-Brads and eyelets

-Buttons

-Metal, plastic and acrylic charms

-Beads and jewelry findings

-Metallic cardstock

-Paper flowers

-Artificial leaves (paper, fabric, plastic, etc)

-Ribbon and trims

-Various types of twine

-Tulle

-Felt

-Crepe paper

-Paper drinking straws

-Assorted embellishments

For the sake of brevity, I will not go into detail about the quality of each of the items mentioned above, but I will share a few notes on some of these products.

As one might expect, the quality of the acrylic stamps sold on AliExpress is – much more so, I personally find than with metal cutting dies – a question of, you get what you pay for.

Some are excellent, on par with various mainstream brands, others are what might be termed “dollar store” quality (that isn’t to say, terrible, but by the same token, unlikely to usurp the best polymer stamps anytime soon), and others are can be a bit subpar.

I’ve found that in the latter two camps, the biggest issues are often a lack of proper depth given to components of a stamp’s design resulting in shallow and/or uneven surface areas for ink to adhere to, thus frequently giving an uneven final stamped design (even when stamped multiple times using a stamp positioning tool, such as a Misti), and a general lack of detail to the design.

So far, I’ve had the most issue with word and sentiment stamps stamping properly and laying down a suitable enough image to allow them to produce a satisfactory result when used for embossing.

In general, keep in mind that while some products will be surprisingly good or high quality, not everything you’re buying on AliExpress is the Rolls Royce of the crafting world.

If you’re not paying very much, you have to be realistic with your expectations. You shouldn’t have to settle for a truly inferior or defective product, no matter the price point.

However, if a decent sized sheet of acrylic stamps, a few yards of trim, a hank of beads, or a nested die set, for example, costs you less than $5.00 USD, is it really fair to expect it to the best of the best of the absolute best?

Personally, I don’t think and I keep this in mind when I’m shopping on AliExpress.

How does AliExpress shipping work?

As mentioned above, each individual seller is responsible for packing up and shipping out orders to their own customers.

One of the first things that may catch your attention on AliExpress – it might even have been what lured you to that website in the first place – is the remarkably low shipping costs offered by many sellers.

This tends to be especially true of very lightweight/small sized items, a header that a lot of different types of crafting supplies fall under.

Whether free or inexpensive (think, in the range of $0.25 to $3.00 USD per item or even per entire order), you may, rightfully so, wonder how and why sellers are able to offer free, $1.00 or otherwise rock bottom shipping prices on items that are, themselves, already so reasonably priced.

Without getting too into the nitty-gritty of things, this is possible due to two main factors:

1. The actual cost to the manufacturers and the sellers of the goods that are sold on AliExpress. It is all too easy to forget in this day and age that most mass-produced consumer goods have a decent amount of markup and in turn a fairly sizable profit margin. If an item only costs, for example, $0.03 to manufacture and a seller lists it on AliExpress for $5.00, even factoring in operational costs, employee wages, etc, there is often enough room in the margins to bake shipping costs into that $5.00.
2. Order are often sent via some of the very slowest and least expensive shipping methods offered by the Chinese postal system. As such, many orders do not include tracking numbers that are able to be tracked once a package leaves China.

While some sellers – often, I’ve found, those charging slightly more for their shipping – do provide tracking numbers that follow a package all the way to your door, again, many do not and as such there is a greater risk that packages will get lost (or stolen) en route to their destinations.

No doubt the sheer volume of mail processed by the Chinese postal system also causes a percentage of packages to go missing, and once items reach their intended countries, loss, delivery to the wrong address, and again, the risk of theft are always possible, too.

How long does AliExpress shipping take to arrive?

A few factors will contribute to this answer. They include, but are not limited to:

-The shipping method (surface mail, airmail, express post, tracked or untracked, etc) used by the seller.

-The processing and delivery speed of the destination country’s respective postal system.

-If your order went out during a peek mailing time, such as the winter holiday season or when sites such as AliExpress and Wish.com hold sales, thus driving up the volume of mail leaving China all the more and in turn potentially slowing down delivery times.

-What country you live in.

-How long it takes for an order to clear customs in your country.

While I’ve heard plenty of US AliExpress shoppers on YouTube and social media talk about receiving their orders in as little as 8 to 10 business days, generally speaking, things aren’t that speedy – even for US buyers.

Though I have had a few packages reach me in less than 2 weeks, I find that 3 weeks to 2.5 months is the norm for delivery time to my own country.

If patience is one of your virtues, you may get along famously with AliExpress.

Is AliExpress shipping reliable?

This, my friends, is a tricky question to answer. By and large, folks don’t make a point of publicly saying how many of their Ali orders arrived and how many failed to reach them.

You’ll sometimes read or watch stories about specific orders that failed to arrive, but again, total failed orders per customer are stats that just aren’t made public by and large.

I can tell you this, to date I’ve had many dozens of orders (not, items, but orders; the item count would technically be higher still, as plenty of those orders were for multiple items from the same seller) that simply did not arrive.

That said, I’ve had far more orders reach me than those that failed to. Still, after so many orders that simply did not arrive, I’ve grown warier of buying from AliExpress and am finding that I tend to purchase more and more from Ali sellers that I’ve had reliable delivery results from in the past.

What happens if an AliExpress order fails to arrive?

Each order you place on AliExpress comes with a timeframe in which it is supposed to arrive. This varies a bit from seller to seller, but is generally anywhere from 6 to 12 (or even 16) weeks, depending on the seller and whether or not they provide what is known on AliExpress as Buyer Protection on a given order.

If your order has not arrived within the allotted delivery time frame, you can – and should – open a dispute and request a refund on your purchase.

Important note: You generally have just 10 – 15 days from the date where the timeframe to open an order claim starts and when it ends. If you miss the window of opportunity to open a dispute, you will generally be flat out of luck – and, moreover, out what you paid for your item.

Keep a very close eye on the delivery time frame and “window to dispute” dates. I’ve been burned a few times there, much as I try to keep very good track of these things for all of my purchases.

Most of the time, at least 95% in my personal case, however, because I’m vigilant with the dates and ensuring that I keep track of which of my AliExpress orders have and have not arrived yet, I’ve been able to file a dispute in the allotted time frame.

Once you’ve done so, AliExpress’ customer service team steps in to decide if your request for a refund will be approved or not.

That approval process usually takes about 5 business days. If your request for a refund (which, I should note, includes any shipping costs that you paid on your order, not just the item itself) is approved, then the funds that you paid on that order should be returned to your payment method (i.e., your credit card) within about 1 to 2 weeks.

So far I’ve not had a single order that I filed a dispute for end up arriving after the dispute. If that were to happen, I’d do the ethical thing and contact the seller, asking if it was possible for me to pay them again, so that I wasn’t receiving the item for free.

Does AliExpress offer refunds?

Yes. AliExpress has a surprisingly decent refund and return policy. To be honest, I think they just know that with so many orders being sent around the globe every day, it doesn’t make sense to operate any other way.

You can open a dispute on AliExpress for various reasons, including if you receive an incorrect item, if your order is damaged, if you receive a partial order (some of your items are missing), or as discussed above, if your order fails to arrive in the allotted delivery timeframe.

Just as with filing a dispute for items that do not arrive, your request will be processed and an outcome returned to you within a few business days.

Objectively, in a lot of cases, especially for inexpensive items, it does not make sense to ship an item back to China. The cost to do so from many countries may equal or (far) exceed what you paid for that item in the first place.

You can, of course, send an item back if you prefer, just make sure you contact the seller and follow the proper channels to file a return claim on Ali.

Generally speaking though, filing a dispute, detailing the problem and reaching an outcome that you’re comfortable with receiving from the seller is often a better and less expensive approach.

Does AliExpress sell knockoff items?

You bet your favourite ink pad that some sellers do.

I wish that I could tell you otherwise, but the cold, hard truth is that there is no shortage of sellers on AliExpress who sell items that are either remarkably similar looking (at best) or blatant copies (at worst) of existing products.

In terms of paper crafting products, the two most common areas where you’re apt to run into this on AliExpress are with acrylic stamps and metal dies. I’ve also seen some remarkably similar die cut ephemera shapes and stickers, the actual brands of which I recognized immediately.

This issue is not confined merely to crafting supplies. It runs rampant on AliExpress in general, just as it does on certain other sites that sell products that are primarily or entirely made in China.

With sellers who list knockoff craft supplies, many make no mention of the brand(s) and products (let alone the designers of those original items) that they’re selling.

Some will use, how shall we say, creative wording to alert potential customers that what they’re offering is a knockoff product of an existing brand.

Very few sellers use the entirety of an existing brand’s name in their item titles or listings. However, if you search for certain keywords such as “Lawn” (for the brand Lawn Fawn), and “Mama” (for the brand Mama Elephant), you will sometimes find knockoff copies of some of the products produced and sold by those legitimate brands.

Of course, the issue of knockoffs and counterfeiting goes well beyond AliExpress, and I am by no means singling them out on their own.

This issue is real however, and it goes deeper than just carbon copying a brand’s existing designs.

How AliExpress hurts the paper crafting world

Spend much time looking through the photos that accompany many stamp and die listings on AliExpress and you’re apt to quickly realize that in addition to copying and knocking off existing designs from various paper crafting accompanies around the world (particularly those in the UK and US). Plenty of sellers also steal and use photos of completed projects from paper crafters.

Some sellers remove, blur, or coverup watermarks on these original photos. Sometimes a seller is so brazen (or lazy) that they just repost as is, leaving everything right down to the watermark in place. I have never once seen an Aliepxress seller credit the original paper crafter whose image(s) they, presumably, used without permission.

In fact, if you recognize a photo on AliExpress as belonging to a certain paper crafter or paper crafting product brand, A) it’s an almost certain dead giveaway that the listing is for a knockoff product, and B) consider contacting the crafter or company in question and altering to them this unscrupulous use of their original work.

Virtually no one wants to have their photos stolen and used without their permission – let alone potentially passed off as someone else’s work.

This is just plain wrong and it would behove AliExpress to seriously crack down on this rampant issue.

In some instances, buyers (especially if they’re new to paper crafting and/or to AliExpress) may have no idea that the item they’re purchasing is a copy.

No one, not even the biggest and best known names in the scrapbooking and card making industry can possibly know every product that is released by every single paper crafting brand in the world.

As awesome as that might be, it’s flat out unrealistic.

Unfortunately, because we might not recognize a certain product as being a copy of an existing design from an established brand, it is possible to inadvertently buy a knockoff. Believe me, I’ve done it before myself.

Sometimes one may never know that they’ve done this. In other cases, you may discover the fact later on.

It is not my place to tell you what you should do in that instance. It is up to you and your personal ethics as to how you wish to proceed with using (or not) the product or products in question in your own crafting.

Whether one knowingly buys a knockoff or does so inadvertently, you’re taking business away from the company that produced the original item.

Even if this does relatively little to the bottom line of certain companies, that doesn’t make it any less detrimental in the grander scheme of things. Plus, there are plenty of smaller paper crafting companies out that that need every sale they can get to help keep them afloat. 

Keep in mind that if you plan to submit your work for publication in magazines, certain challenge blogs, and other sources where you’re required to provide a list of the materials used, it is possible (understandably) that some of these places will not accept works that include products from AliExpress. At least not those items that are copies/knockoffs of known products from established paper crafting brands.

The industry is too small, too close-knit and too supportive at the end of the day for this to be a common practise. And thank goodness for that!

How AliExpress helps the paper crafting world

Okay, we’ve tackled some of the unpleasant sides of AliExpress, now let’s explore some of the more positive ones.

Let’s call a spade a spade. Not everyone lives in a country with nationwide chains of craft supply stores, big box shops teeming with crafting items, much in the way of independent shops, or cores of online paper crafting retailers.

And even if you do, that doesn’t mean that some or all of these things are going to be viable, let alone affordable, options for everybody. Plus, sometimes, it’s just nice to have additional options out there. For some people, AliExpress fits that bill.

Plenty of paper crafters shop on Ali, just as many do not (or no longer opt to do so).

It is up to each of us to decide if we want to avail of AliExpress and what we’re going to buy if we do choose to shop there.

In general, especially these days, I like to use AliExpress as a source for various types of generic products that are very unlikely to be knockoffs of existing brand name goods.

In the paper crafting word, some of these more generic items include, but are certainly not limited to, the following:

-Basic shapes and styles of metal dies

-Ribbons and trims

-Washi tape

-Wood veneer pieces

-Small paper, cardstock, chipboard and wooden tags

-Buttons of all sizes, shapes, colours and materials

-Flatback charms and embellishments

-Beads (including seed and bugle beads for shaker cards)

-Sequins

-Twine and other types of cord (including waxed cord)

-Jewelry making supplies

-Pearls and rhinestones

-Premade fabric bows

-Paper flowers and leaves

-Vinyl sheets

-Velum

-Acetate sheets

-Adhesive tape, dimensional dots, and various types of glue

-Paper drinking straws

-Tulle

-Felt

-Fabric

-Yarn

-Embroidery and cross stitch supplies

-Sewing supplies

-Planner, traveller’s notebook and journaling supplies

-Some types of stickers

In addition, it is important to note that there are some sellers – such as the AliExpress shop called Alina Craft, for example – that work with designers to create original products for their shops.

These items, in theory, are not straight up knockoffs of existing products from other brands. In fact, sometimes the very products that those AliExpress shops commissioned end up being knocked off by other Ali sellers.

As well, we’re starting to see more and more paper crafting focused AliExpress shops work with their own design teams comprised of crafters from around the world. This is an exciting positive, as it means, in theory, that the projects featured in listing photos will be original works, not those that have been blatantly stolen from other sources.

It is easy to focus on the negatives of mega e-commerce sites like AliExpress, Wish.com, and eBay, but in doing so, we run the risk of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

AliExpress offers relatively affordable products. They have a very good refund policy in place. New items are added to many seller’s shops on a regular basis, and Ali can be a great place to discover some products that you might never have encountered otherwise.

As well, the lower prices and free or inexpensive shipping offered by many sellers can be a serious boon to many crafter’s and their personal shopping budgets.

This is not something to immediately brush off or sneeze at.

In fact, the ability to stretch a dollar that much further is no small part of the reason why I sometimes buy certain types of paper crafting supplies from AliExpress.

AliExpress YouTubers

With the rapid growth in AliExpress’ popularity over the past several years, it stands to reason that some shoppers would start to share their purchases, as well as some of the crafts that they create with those items, on the good ol’ interwebs.

Two of the most common areas where you’ll find AliExpress purchases being shown online these days are on social media and YouTube, respectively.

In the paper crafting world alone, there are scores of YouTubers who post AliExpress haul videos and project shares.

Some do so occasionally, others make these types of videos a focal point of their channel.

Whether you favour scrapbooking, card making, paper crafting swaps, junk journaling, mixed media, or just about any other kind of paper craft, chances are there’s at least one or two YouTubers who have created videos pertaining to that topic and AliExpress.

Try searching YouTube for a few keywords such as “scrapbook haul AliExpress” or “AliExpress design team package” to check out some of these videos.

In addition, some of the bigger and often more legit (as in, they do not tend to sell knockoff items) AliExpress sellers, such as KS Crafts have their own YouTube channels as well, which can be a great way to find out about new products that these sellers are releasing.

Additional important points to keep in mind when shopping on AliExpress

In addition to the information provided thus far, I’d like to mention the following assorted points about shopping on AliExpress:

-As the majority of sellers are located in China, you’re apt to encounter various levels of proficiency in English. From nonexistent to terrific and everything in between. I do not say this in any sort of judgemental way whatsoever. It’s simply a fact of life when buying from a country where the main language(s) spoken differ from your own.

-Once you’ve made a purchase from a given seller, they may “spam” your AliExpress message box with messages. The two most common types that I receive are messages letting me know about new products in a given seller’s shops and others informing me of upcoming sales. You may or may not find these messages irksome.

–When shopping on AliExpress, always read the listing descriptions, including the measurements provided carefully. Trust me, if you shop on Ali for any amount of time, chances are you’ll experience at least a few cases of, “wow, I didn’t think it was going to be this big (or small)” when your order arrives.

-Double-check that the item you’re buying is the one featured in the picture(s). Many sellers highlight finished products to showcase a particular die, stamp, etc, and the focal point of the project(s) shown may not actually be the product that the listing is for.

-Once an item sells out from a particular seller on Ali, there’s no guarantying they’ll restock. If you see something you want, love, or need and have the budget room for it, you may want to pounce while you still have the chance.

-As per the point about language above, listing titles may not always use the most accurate and/or logical wording. In some instances, seemingly obvious keywords may be missing entirely.

-When searching through your personal shopping history in your account, you have to use the exact spelling (including either singular or plural forms of a word – i.e., butterfly or butterflies) to find what you’re looking for.

–Not all items are packaged equally well/securely. Damage, breakage, dirtiness, etc are all possible.

-Some products, depending on what they’re made from, may arrive with strong/unpleasant odours, which may or may not dissipate/lessen over time. Thankfully I have not run into this issue many times so far.

–AliExpress holds sales a small number of times each year. While participation in these sales is not currently mandatory for all sellers and some opt out of taking part in them, many sellers do join in.

Making purchases during a sale is an excellent way to stretch your dollar even further. (Consider loading up your cart a few days in advance and making your purchases once the sale begins, to save time and hopefully ensure you get the items you’re after before they potentially sell out).

-AliExpress has a handy phone app that allows you to shop directly from their platform anytime you’re on your mobile or tablet (and have an internet connection).

-If you use a free cashback plugin or app, such as Rakuten (formerly eBates) when you shop on AliExpress, you can often earn a percentage back (it varies, but 2.75% back has been the going rate there in recent months) on your purchases there.

Just ensure that you’ve activated Rakuten’s plugin or app before placing your order, as the cashback offer cannot be applied to purchases after they’ve been placed.

An important note about buying online during the Corvid-19 pandemic

As I type these words, it is currently early August 2020. For the past few months, our planet has been under siege by the profoundly devastating Corvid-19 virus (aka, the Coronavirus).

Many of us are – or have been – in either volunteer or mandatory lockdown, isolation or quarantine. For those who mail is not delivered directly to their home (and in some cases, even then), this may mean that you are unable to presently retrieve your mail.

You may have stopped buying online or are only doing so for items that are strictly necessary (food, toiletries, etc).

Most postal and courier services are operating at reduced capacity and some have temporarily suspended various operations for the time being.

Plenty of us are experiencing profound financial challenges and the last thing we may be thinking about is ordering crafting supplies online.

With every ounce of my heart, I understand and am in the same boat. These are incredibly challenging, uncertain, stressful times for nearly all of us.

The information provided in this post is intended to be of help to those for whom it may presently be applicable, and to many others down the line when some semblance of normalcy and a great deal more safety has hopefully returned to our world.

Is AliExpress right for you?

At the end of the day, only you can answer that question.

For some crafters, AliExpress is never going to appeal to them, others may be fairly neutral on it, and plenty adore the site.

While there are certain aspects of Ali that I would immediately change if I had the power (and I do wish that a higher percentage of my orders actually reached me) I enjoy and appreciate AliExpress.

It isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. But for the millions upon millions of people – plenty of paper crafters included – who use it every day, it can be a handy, enjoyable way to score some fun finds at reasonable prices.

Just make sure you’re willing to wait anywhere from a couple of weeks to three months for your orders to arrive. If you’re down with that, then you might just end up on team AliExpress before you know it!

What’s your take on AliExpress from a paper crafter’s perspective? Have you bought from this popular e-commerce site before?

Note: This post is not sponsored, endorsed or in any way directly affiliated with AliExpress or any other website or company. All information provided is believed, in good faith, to be accurate at the time of writing, and all opinions stated herein are my own.  

In addition, this post may be updated, as needed, to reflect further relevant information about, and/or notable changes made to, AliExpress in the future.

The post The paper crafter’s complete guide to buying on AliExpress appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.