Hello Lovely Friends,
I've really been enjoying making Halloween cards this year, but I know they aren't for everyone. I tend to give a lot of "just because" cards that lets me put Halloween cards to good use, but even then, it's hard to invest in a lot of specialty products for such a niche occasion. You may have noticed, I've used the same "Let's Be Frank" set in a lot of cards/posts lately. :)
I designed today's cards around a non-Halloween set from Trinity Stamps. It's called "Summertime Sips" but I bought it with Christmas cards in mind and as a happy accident, it worked really well for these two cards too! The stamps and small dies are an ancient set from Spellbinders. I think they came from Michaels. And then there are some bats from Kat Scrappiness.
For inspiration, I turned to some of my favorite challenges:
Colorful Options: Outrageous Orange! I really love this challenge. It seems simple. Every month there's a single color picked as the focus. Some months, this is magically easy. I LOVE teal. Let's pick teal every month. But for months when it's orange or brown, it really pushes me to try new things.
DoubleD Challenge: Orange and Black This is a newer challenge for me, and there are some really spectacular cards submitted for each challenge!
Card #1
This was designed using the Craft Roulette parameters:
--Square
--Black Background
--Sweater(s)/Jacket(s)
--Markers
The shakers bits include some squares from black glitter cardstock. The squares are in the Trinity die set, I think it's a tiny ice cube.
The "Jacket" is a coffee jacket, the purple band around the cup. There's no die for it, but it was easy enough to make. I cut a strip at 1.25". I laid it on the front where I wanted it and held it in place with some temporary tape. I turned the cup over and scored along the sides of the cup with a stylus. I removed it from the cup and scored again leaving a little over 1/8" to accommodate the sides of the shaker, and then I wrapped it around the back. Because of the angle, I couldn't just wrap and glue. I trimmed the sides and back so they were even with the front. Then I cut and glued a matching piece of 1.25" cardstock on the back to complete the jacket.
Finally, I used a marker to darken the white margin around the bones.
The surprising success of this card is the background. I had never used distress spray stains before. I sprayed this panel a few days before and then had no idea what to do with it. Maybe I knew this card was coming!
Card #2
I actually started with this card, but thought I had completely messed it up (like swear-word-level messed it up.) The die set comes with an insert to easily make a shaker, but the walls around the cup are really, really thin on the sides.
Instead of cutting 1,457 layers of cardstock to build up the shaker, I used fun foam. On both cups, I glued a piece of thick black cardstock to a piece of black fun foam I stole from my kids. On the back of the foam, I added double sided adhesive. On the Craft Roulette card, I only added one layer of foam, and everything worked out really well.
But on this one, I really wanted to add eyeballs to the shaker, so I got brave and added two layers. It went badly. I had cardstock in-between the two layers of foam, and they got sort of squashed in the die cut machine and weren't popping back up well. It was late. I was tired. There were odd wedges along the sides that were sure to catch all my shaker bits. I nearly cried.
To try to fix it, I used glossy accents to fill in the gaps (note to self, it filled them in nicely). But glossy accents is 1. glossy, and 2. it really darked the background anywhere I didn't get it perfectly in the gaps. Basically, it was a hot mess. I set it aside to dry and started over, creating Card #1.
The next day I came back to it and filled in the entire background with glossy accents. You can really see how much it darkened things when you compare the backgrounds of the two cards. They were cut from the same panel. In the end, I really like how this card turned out, even though it felt like I'd ruined it about 4 times.
SUPPLIES
STAMPS
Sassy Pants Spooktacular Stamps, My Favorite Things
Out of Stock ☹ If you do some digging you might be able to find a used set.
DIES
Trinity Stamps, Summertime Sips [TNS]
A super ancient stamp and die mini set from Spellbinders.
BACKGROUND
Distress Mica Stain, Halloween Set [SBC]
Burning Ember
Harvest moon
Pumpkin Orange Cardstock
Shaker Pieces
Black Fun Foam From my Kids Messk
Simon Says Stamp,
Eyeballs from my Kids' Craft Drawer
Everyday Tools:
I've been making cards for over ten years and there are a few things that get used on a daily basis. They make cardmaking more joyful for me. I hope this list is helpful for you. Some items are listed with an affiliate link which offers me a small commission at no cost to you (items noted with an asterisk), while others are linked here just because I think these products are the best!
Misti Stamping Tool [SCB]*
Craft Pick and Embellishment Wand--Trinity Stamps Pickup Stick [SCB]*
Spellbinders Platinum 6 Die Manual Cutting Machine [SCB or SPL]*
Big Momma Foam Tape Roll [SSS](1mm thick, which is about half the width of most foam tape)
Thanks for coming! I hope you enjoyed today's project!
-Sara Lihz
OMG aren't you the clever one! LOL Love what you've done here!! Thanks so much for joining in the fun at our Double D challenge! Good Luck and we hope you’ll come back often. We appreciate your support!
Darlene
<a href=https://daranddiane.blogspot.com/>DOUBLE D</a>
<a href=http://www.darscraftycreations.blogspot.com/>DAR’S CRAFTY CREATIONS</a>