Too Cute to Spook Halloween Cards

First I want to apologize for the quality of the photos. It's fall and the natural light in the house is gone till spring. I live in the Pacific Northwest so it will be rare to see the sun much from now on. So I just took the photos on my desk.
I had a ball making these cards and would have made more but Halloween is almost here and I needed to get these cards on their way.

First up is the Boo to you. This is made with a 6 x6 paper pack I found in the dollar section in Target at least two or maybe three years ago. The Boo and ghost stamps are dollar stamps from Michael's.

The black embossed paper that the ghost is behind is sprayed with perfect pearls. I trimmed it with the wavy blade on my paper trimmer. I inked the edge of the card with Black Soot distress ink.

On the ghost I embossed it with versa mark and clear embossing powder and for fun I used some google eyes.

I can't remember where I got the idea for this card. I believe it was on someones blog but I can't find it now. I love the witches shoes and socks. It was also a dollar stamp as is the witched hat. It is a scrappy card as all the paper were from scraps. For the witches hat I used black ink on white cardstock and clear embossing powder. I used a green marker on the hat band. The shoes and socks were inked in black ink on white cardstock and embossed with clear embossing powder. I used a green and purple markers on the socks. Then cut them out.

All the paper I used is from Creative Memories. I roughed the edges of the orange circle mat with a paper distresses and inked with black distress ink. I also inked the edges of the boo sign and used a white pen for the stitches around the edges. Stamped the boo with white ink. The spider punch is a Creative Memories punch and I covered it with glue and used Onyx glitter from Martha Stewart with a black gemstone in the middle of it's body. Cut out a circle from black cardstock inked the month and date with white ink and did the stitching on the edges with the white pen. Cut out the witches hat and glued it on top of the circle. Stamped the spider web in the corner and added a scalloped strip of black cardstock on the left side.

 

Now the idea for this card came from Michelle Bertuzzi's Spooky Boots Tag from pg 40 in the Sept/Oct issue of Paper Crafts magazine. But instead of keeping it as a tag I used it on a card.

I just love the witches shoes. They are so fun!

I stamped the tag which is made from white cardstock with the envelope stamp from Hero Arts in black ink and inked the edges. I made the shoes the same way as the card above and attached them to mini clothes pins and glued the clothes pins onto the tag and tied a purple ribbon at the top. I arranged two different sized rectangles (again the paper is from Targets $ spot) onto green cardstock and adhered the tag in the middle of the rectangles.

This was a quick and cute card. Again the paper is from the $ spot in Target. I used black cardstock as the mat for the pattern paper. I played up the spider on the paper by adding google eyes . The sentiment is stamped with black ink onto green paper and is backed with black cardstock. I added a spider punched out of black cardstock to the corner of the sentiment.

This is the last card and it is like the second card I just changed the paper and instead of a scalloped strip on the edge I used jumbo black rick rack and added the purple and orange gemstones.

Here you can see the embossed hat and the glitter on the spider. The paper on this card is all from Creative Memories.
I have one more Halloween project to share with you but I need to take the photos before I can post it.

Are you all ready for the Trick or Treaters? I am. I have the candy. I just hope I don't eat it all before Halloween!

Ghost Bag Toppers

I was checking my emails this morning before I started getting my daughters Halloween pkg ready to send out. I was going to fill some sandwich bags with some candy and send a couple of others for her friends. I was thinking I would like to decorate the bag with a topper but had no idea what to do.

Well it just so happened as I scrolled down my facebook page that Creative Memories had posted a cute ghost topper. When I saw it I knew that was what I was looking for.

So straight to my craft room I went and rounded up what I needed:

Three sandwich baggies filled with candy, white cardstock, glue, scissors, stapler, paper trimmer and google eyes.

First I measured the width of the bag and decided how far I wanted the topper to cover the front. Then I cut three toppers out of the white cardstock with those measurements and folder each in half.



Here is all three:

Next I stapled each topper to the top of each bag. (don't worry the staples won't show)

Then for the strips of paper I just used scraps of paper and cut them the width of the topper by 1/2". I think each topper took 6 1/2" strips to cover it. And don't worry about the lengths of the strips as long as they are longer then the width of the toppers because you will just cut them all even after they are adhered.

After the strips are cut you then distress the edges with a distress tool or scissors. This part was fun! The more nicks and chunks you take out of the edges the better it looks. I also feel better about buying my distresser over a year ago and only using it a couple of times. It was so worth having it for this project alone.

Now you are ready to start gluing your strips down. I started at the top and worked down. By the last topper I figured out that the more you angled the strips the better it looked so my last topper looks the best. Angle each strip in the opposite direction from the last. Once you have the strips all adhered down trim the ends even.



All that is left is to add the google eyes. I really should have used larger eyes but these were the biggest I had on hand. I thought about running into town and seeing if I could find bigger ones but time was not on my side this morning so I went with what I had.

They didn't turn out quite the way I wanted them too but they will do and are on there way so they will be there in time for Halloween.

 I was thinking it would have been nice to ink the edges of the strips with Pumice distress ink to give a little more depth to the strips but again I didn't have the time. I think they would have looked a lot cuter with larger eyes. The ones I used were 12mm if I remembered right.
Now I am off to finish decorating a pumpkin I started a week or so ago. I also have some more Halloween cards to share in my next post.
Have a wonderful fall day!

More Cards From Inspiration Showcase

Here are two more cards that I made during Inspiration Showcase and I forgot to post them.



 

I was pleased with the way they turned out. Especially the butterfly card. I used an edger die on the sides of the cards and really like the look. So I guess that means I need to add a few more to my die collection ;). I made the cards pretty much the Jennifer did. I stamped the butterfly and snowflake on watercolor paper and the narrow strips are also watercolor paper inked with distress ink straight from the pad.

 The butterfly was stamped with Versa Mark ink and embossed with white embossing powder. Vintage Photo and Barn Door distress ink were used to paint the butterfly image by pressing each ink pad onto my craft sheet and spritzing with Pearlized water. Then I just mixed the ink and water with a paint brush and painted it onto the stamped butterfly. Let it dry then cut out.

For the strip in the middle I inked white cardstock with Vintage Photo straight from the pad. Next I inked a flourish stamp with Barn Door distress ink and misted it 3-4 times with Pearlized water then stamped it on the inked paper. It is really hard to see how it shines in the photo but in real life it is gorgeous.

Next the sentiment was stamped with Versa Mark ink and embossed with white embossing powder and added the buttons.

The snowflake card was done pretty much the same way. The middle strip was inked with Faded Jeans distress ink. I took a bunch of different snowflake stamps and put them all on a large acrylic block big enough to cover the inked strip of paper and inked with Tumbled Glass distress ink. Jennifer used Pumice Stone which I have not been able to find where I live. But I do have it now after ordering it online. Before stamping the inked snowflakes spritz with Pearlized water and stamp.

Add the sentiment embossed with white embossing powder. Next add the two narrow strips of  watercolor paper after inking with Broken China distress ink.

Ink the large snowflake image with Broken China, Faded Jeans and Chipped Sapphire ( I didn't have Chipped Sapphire so I used Tumbled Glass). Mist a couple of times with Pearlized water then stamp on cardstock, let dry and cut out.

Add gems as desired. As a finishing touch I inked the edges of both cards with distress ink.

I still have several cards to make from the class. So far these are my favorites. I have everything on my canvas adhered and it's ready to hang.
Tell me what has been your favorite cards or techniques from the class?