It’s Halloween, and I have a trick and a treat.
Last week, I wrote what was meant to have been my final Halloween post for the year. Well, that’s not true. I have a “bonus boo” for you.
Whether you have a die-cut machine or pre-made items, this card is easy to create. I chose to have my monsters exclaim, “OOO!” “EEE!” and AAH!” with “BOO.” on the inside of the card, and wrote these in black ink. Don’t forget to add some “bling” for the eyes!
Happy Halloween!
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.“Macbeth,” William Shakespeare
It’s the final weekend of October, which means this is my last Halloween card for the year. Time to bid farewell, holiday o’ spirits and costumed foolery.
My final patterned paper design is vellum adorned with green bubbles. I added glittery paper, a shiny die-cut, plenty of “bling” and silver cardstock to complete this card. Don’t have silver cardstock? If you have metallic ink, swipe it on light-colored cardstock and rub it in with a paper towel.
So grab a cauldron, some crafty ingredients and gather ’round to cast a creative spell. Happy Halloween!
As Halloween approaches, I’ve been finishing up my secret DIY costume and my final two cards. One of the papers I’ve made has stripes in green, gray, black and white. At first, I thought the design just looked cool. When I began pondering how I’d use it on a card, the pattern made me think of an eerie, foggy sky.
I bought a stamp featuring a stylized image of a cat. With steady hands, I carefully stamped her onto a die-cut fence and embossed her with black powder.
A large brad for a moon, some tiny rhinestones for stars and a distressed metal tag with “BOO” in silver give the card a rocker-chic feel.
This feline has attitude.
Apothecary labels are popular for Halloween, and this year I wanted to make my own for a patterned-paper design.
Out of the six Halloween-themed designs I’ve created, I had the most fun making the apothecary labels. There’s something about concocting strange names and ingredients … (insert witch’s cackle).
When I found a stamp set with images of old-time apothecary bottles, my card idea was in place. I used my patterned paper as a background and cut out a few labels to use on the bottles. Though I gave the design a bit of distressing in Adobe Illustrator, I took it a step further on my cut-out labels by stamping on them with a metallic-beige ink for a long-past-expiration-date look.
When a card I made was selected as a winning project for a Hero Arts challenge in July, my prize was $50 in Hero Arts products of my choosing. My card used the company’s Make Your Own stamp:
I loved using a vintage-inspired image in a humorous, modern way.
So when I saw the Sew Stylish collection by Hero Arts, how could I not get it?
What would I make with these? How about a Halloween card?
What would I do without glitter? It’s sparkly, fun to use (as in, it makes a mess), it adds texture, it glows in the dark …
It must be one of my Halloween creations if it glows in the dark. Case in point: this glow-in-the-dark ghost.
This is the time of year when, after I turn out the lights in my craft space, there’s a glowing orb on the craft table. It’s the bottle of glitter, which always is easy to find!
Indeed, the cardstock city below is under attack by a Purple People Eater sugarcoated in glow-in-the-dark goodness. But this card also displays another fun technique I hadn’t yet tried with my trusty Slice Elite: using a marker tip instead of a blade. Die-cut machines are able to do this with a special tip that replaces the blade, so that the shapes are drawn instead of cut. I used a green tip to make the background of spooky words. It was easy to do, and I really like the result.
I also added one of my Halloween paper designs to the background for more dimension.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the challenge of putting together my costume (I’ve already started this year’s), and though my neighborhood rarely has trick-or-treaters, I’ll have glitter-covered decorations on display.
By August, I’m already brewing ideas for Halloween cards. Last month, I designed a set of patterned papers for Halloween, including the transparency for the card below. I bought the spider stamp around the time I created the spider-web design, which makes a great backdrop for the apathetic arachnid. It’s just hanging out, with a look that seems to say, “Eek. Did I scare you? No? Whatever.”
Since I designed patterned papers to use on my Valentine’s Day cards, I’ve been wanting to create another set. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I designed papers that show some of the latest trends in paper crafts:
