Halloween Card

The challenge this week on Daring Card Makers is to make a Halloween themed project. I hope this card counts, I actually made it about a week before Halloween for a Secret Swap over on Craft Telly Forum. The card had to be sent annonymously and the swap recipients posted pics in the forum on Halloween, then over the weekend we have had fun trying to guess who each "ghostly maker" was. Because of this I could not post pics on the blog until today, after we had all owned up to our cards.

Before I tell you how the card was made I need to give credit to 2 people, firstly my freind Fabyon who kindly sent me some halloween themed images stamped onto white card for me to use to create my swap as I don't own any Halloween themed stuff. The ghostie, pumpkins and spider web corners all came from Fab and are from stamps by The Angel Company. Secondly my inspiriation for the background - for that I must pay tribute to the amazing Michelle Zindorf, and in particular this fantastic card. If you have never visited Michelle's incredible blog then may I suggest you get on over there because her work is something else, and she posts the most wonderful step by step tutorials.

To make the card I created the background by very softly sponging on light orange ink from a Kaliedacolor ink pad in a rough circle to create a moon. I used a circle punched out from a post-it note pad to mask the orange area and sponged on dark inks - Adirondack Stonewashed, Denim, Aubergine and near the bottom of the card, Bottle. I removed the mask and sponged some streaky bits in the dark colours across the moon to simulate wisps of cloud. The tree and the small twiggy bits were stamped with black using stamps by Elusive Images which are from the Arboretum Themeplate and finally I sponged some black ink round the very outside edges and corners.

Next I coloured the stamped pumpkins with marker pens and then covered them and the ghost with Glossy Accents. Once the Glossy Accents was dry I cut these out and adhered them to my background with foam pads. I had chosen some lovely dark purple card stock from my stash to make my main card and I was really pleased to find Dusty Concord Distress Ink was a near perfect match for my main card when blended quite heavily onto white card. This let me first trace over the stamped outline of the spider web corners with a Sakura Clear Stardust pen to make them shimmery and then colour the white card on which Fabyon had stamped them so that the spaces between the strands of web would match my main card - these were cut out and adhered to the corners on the right hand side of the card.

I blended more of the Distress Ink onto white card and then using the Elusive Images Sketchy Alphabet stamps created the word "BOO" by spritzing the letters with water then stamping that onto the blended ink and after a few seconds blotting off the water with some kitchen towel. I then sponged a little more of the black ink round the corners and edges of this piece of card. Stamping with water onto distress ink, then blotting it off removes a lot of the ink and results in the misty and, I hope, ghostly look of the letters.

I had a lot of fun making this card, and kinda scared myself in the process too because the background I made turned out to be very sinister indeed, but thankfully Fab's jolly ghost and the brightly coloured pumpkins lighten the mood quite nicely.