It was a Dark & Dreary Night...

...That's how a friend from college would start out every story.  The first time he did it, we were all huddled around a campfire in the middle of the woods.  It was a fun group of gals and guys - all just friends that went and did all sorts of things together.  Well, Jim, who was a really great friend, decided that we needed to tell ghost stories around the campfire and that was what he said to get the mood going and then get the other guys to tell scary stories.  He was one of the last to tell a story and he started out the same as all the others...It was a dark and dreary night...only his story took a funny turn and ended up with his shoe getting caught in the escalator at the mall and how he had to pull his foot out of the shoe at the last minute as everyone watched the toe of it being stuck in the and of the escalator.  He was great at telling stories and had us all laughing. 

Wow, that was quite the trip down memory lane there.  And what does it have to do with stamping & stuff?  Well that is the name of the stamp set that I used for the fun dinner/swap/stamping evening that I went to last night.  Dark & Dreary.  I really have enjoyed using this set.  And will be using it in my Halloween class in October.

If you didn't know, Halloween is my favorite time of year.  I love everything about it!  And have always loved stamping for it.  So, this is a time you will not want to miss.

Last night was great fun.  It was so good to meet up with stamping friends and laugh and stamp and have some really yummy food!  Diana and I even got the Creme Brulee - which I have never tried before.  It was fab - thanks Diana!!!

Here is the card that I took to swap and have others stamp last night.  Okay, it was a bit confusing, but I will see if I can explain how things worked last night.  We met for dinner at Keegan's.  The food was great and the staff was so wonderful for letting us loud and giggly ladies take over an entire room of the restaurant.  I got an open-faced veggie sandwich.  And honestly, I have no idea how anyone could have eaten that as a sandwich.  It was definitely a knife and fork event and even then, I could not eat it all.  YUM!  Then we came prepared with materials for 8 people to make our cards.  Since there were 19 people attending total, we pre-made the rest of the cards and just swapped with the other 11 people.  So, I got to actually stamp 8 projects but came home with my 19 new samples to share!  Woohoo!!! What a great evening.  I was so excited about it that I couldn't wait to share with you and am posting this morning instead of tonight.

The larger version of this card did not photograph as well as I would have liked.  There is glitter in certain areas and if you look closely you can see it on this card.  Just enough to highlight the baubles on the candelabra and the spiderweb.

I was going for a monochromatic look in the beginning.  At the last minute decided to add the red for the candles.  It made me think of all my Twilight friends, which made me smile.

Stamp Set:  Dark & Dreary (winter mini catalog)
Paper:  Basic Black, Basic Gray, Silver and Whisper White
Ink:  Basic Gray, Real Red
Accessories:  Black lace ribbon, Dazzling Diamonds glitter and Aqua painter

Well, I am off to get some yoga in before finishing up my work.  There were so many great projects from last night and I will be sharing those over the next few days.