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.

Here’s how to make it:

Make a card from a 5-by-10-inch piece of deep-lavender cardstock.

Cut a piece of purple striped cardstock (such as “Ghastly” from the Heebie Jeebies collection by We R Memory Keepers) to 4 1/2 inches square. Cut a piece of green striped cardstock (I used my own) to 4 1/4 inches square and adhere it, centered, to the purple cardstock, with the stripes from both pieces in a horizontal direction. Punch a hole through both pieces, 1 inch from the top of the green paper and 1 1/4 inches from the right edge of the green paper, and insert an over-sized, silver-colored metal brad. Adhere this piece, centered and with the stripes in a horizontal direction, to the card’s front.

Adhere a 4-inch-wide silver cardstock die-cut of a fence (I created one using my Making Memories Slice Elite, a 4-inch-wide mirrored fence die-cut from the “Spook Alley” design card and cardstock from the neutrals pearlescent collection by Colorbok), 1/2 an inch from the bottom of the card and aligning it with the card’s left edge.

Stamp a cat image (such as Pretty Kitty by Paper Inspirations) in Versamark ink, positioning the stamp so that the cat is “standing” on the fence.

Immediately cover the stamped image in black embossing powder and emboss it with a heat gun. The image will have gaps by the die-cut because the surface is not flat. Fill in the gaps with black glaze pen (mine’s by Sakura).

Distress a metal tag (mine’s by Making Memories) by pressing one side onto a StazOn jet-black ink pad.

Stamp “BOO” (I used “BOO” from the Making Memories Spellbound collection) in silver ink (such as ColorBox Petal Point Pinwheel collection in silver) onto plum cardstock.

Immediately cover the stamped image in silver embossing powder and emboss it with a heat gun.

Using a pencil, draw an outline around the stamped image and cut it out. Ink its edges in purple ink (I used a Marvy LePlume II marker in No. 108 black cherry). Adhere “BOO” to the metal tag. Affix a black rhinestone (mine’s by Michaels) over the tag’s hole, if necessary. Adhere the tag to the bottom-right corner of the card’s front, close to the right edge and lined up with the bottom of the purple striped cardstock. Affix several small, silver-colored rhinestones to the top portion of the green striped paper, creating a “starry sky.” Use a glitter gel pen (mine’s a Sakura Gelly Roll pen) to create “pupils” for the eyes on the cat image.