Belated Halloween & Snow Day Fun with Paper Issues!

Hi there.

I made this for Natasha for Halloween but had some internet problems where it was a bit hit and miss so never got it loaded.  I’d had this idea running around in my head for a while and wanted to make something for her that would make her smile.

It’s a little Tic-Tac-Toe (or Noughts & Crosses) gameboard, 11cm x 11cm.  I just LOVE how it turned out!  Those little pumpkins make me smile!  If you don’t know the rules of the game generally you just draw a 3 x 3 grid onto paper. One player using the symbol X and the other uses the symbol O.  Each player takes it in turn to write in their symbol into a space on the grid (in this case lays down their orange or purple pumpkin onto an empty space on the grid!)   The object of the game is to complete a row of three of either X or O (his/her own pumpkin in my version)  The person to get three in a row first wins the game.  There are a lot of variations because the game is so simple.  Easy to play, but still great fun! (Just in case you were wondering, she LOVES it, the little smile on her face when she opened the box was magical!!)

I used the pumpkins from Paper Smooches set ‘Halloweenies’, coloured them using my Copics and backed them with some blue foam that my man, Ian, sells for his Wargaming hobby.  There’s only 9 showing here but I actually made 5 of each colour and stamped and coloured a few extra as spares.

The board (which is 10mm thick) behind the pumpkins (which is 3mm thick) was made using some of the blue foam too!  The picture on the left shows you the underside of the board before detail was added.  The picture on the right is after it has been texturised using THE most amazing tool in the world… a ball of silver foil!  This gives the bumpy texture.  The grid was then drawn on using a ruler and the end of a ballpoint pen (pen tip end) and little detailed ‘cracks’ added before painting in black and then dry brushing with white.  Soooo much fun to make, lots of black fingers afterwards too because I painted the edges and underside of the blue foam on the back of the pumpkins with a black Copic pen.


If you pop over to Ian’s website, (please do try not to switch off where it’s all about wargaming!!!  I know it's yawn worthy to us cardmaking creatives but the foam is worth the visit lol) ps - don't tell him I said that lol

You will find the blue foam packs there.  He will happily ship internationally, it doesn’t cost a lot extra because the foam is so light.  It’s amazing stuff, you really can use it for so many things and it makes great embellishments too. It’s like the new chipboard in this house, you can even die cut it!! 

I’m entering this into the Paper Crafts October 11 Challenge, all about Halloween and also the latest Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge that inspired the orange and the idea for texture of the little grid.

I had hoped to add my little game over at Paper Issues for the Halloween challenge but it didn’t happen, silly ‘puter!  Anyway, we now have another new fun challenge running, called ‘Snow Day’.  I made this little snowman card for it using some old Cosmo Cricket papers and my PTI Holiday Button Bits & Ad Sense stamp set and die.


This is my most FAVOURITE time of year, the Autumnal weather, the colours and the excitement leading up to Christmas.  LOVE it SOOOO much!

Have fun!  Back tomorrow with another project for the new Play Date Cafe Challenge.