Blogger Challenge: Week 71

This week’s blogger challenge is Halloween. I have two Stampin’ Up! only Halloween cards to share from recent swaps I’ve participated in. Both use images from the Halloween Frights set from the current Holiday Mini catalog.

Here’s my card for the recent Great Swaps Girls Holiday Mini catalog swap. When I first saw this set, I kind of envisioned this card in my mind as what I’d do for the swap. Boy, am I sorry about that! This was much harder than it should have been . . .

The image panel is a brayered background with on glossy white cardstock with three colors—So Saffron, More Mustard, and Really Rust—and a masked circle moon. I’m not a brayer expert, but this part seemed to work okay. My plan was to use the Frightful Fence jumbo wheel along the bottom of the panel and embellish the fence with some images from the Halloween Frights set. That’s where the problem came in—the fence. I put a black ink cartridge in my jumbo wheel and wheeled across the panel. Looked great! Did another one—it smudged a little. Did another one—it smudged even more. I ended up ruining about half of the 15 panels I had just finished brayering. I should have given up here, but I didn’t. So, I did some more brayered panels (my wrist was starting to be a little sore at this point . . .) and tried again. Same problem. I set the project aside until the next evening, when I brayered some more panels and ruined some more with the fence.

By this time, I’ve cut all the other pieces for the card, stamped the Sanded background on the cardfronts, and I’m running out of time to finish the cards and get them in the mail and I’m getting irritated. So, I tried a new approach. I inked up the wheel using my black ink pad instead of the ink cartridge. This seemed to work a little better. I didn’t ruin as many of the brayered panels this way, even though the image was lighter than I would have liked and sometimes a little uneven. Lesson learned!

Materials Used (all from Stampin’ Up!):Halloween Frights and Sanded stamp set, Frightful Fence Jumbo Wheel and handle, So Saffron, More Mustard, Really Rust, Pumpkin Pie, and Basic Black Classic inks, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron, More Mustard, Basic Black, and Glossy White cardstock, large oval punch, 1 ¼” circle punch, Basic Black grosgrain ribbon, black brad, dimensionals, brayer

This was my second swap card with this set. I was much smarter in my approach this time. I used the same brayer technique to create the background panel for my images. Instead of using the jumbo wheel which was the cause of lots of my difficulties with the first card, I used the tree image from Season of Friendship. I positioned the bat and owl images from the set around the tree.

I used the two tag punches to create a sentiment panel, accented by a piece of Pumpkin Pie ribbon. I stamped the cute pumpkin image and one of the sentiments, then attached the layered tags to the cardfront with a dimensional.

For more Halloween-themed inspiration, stop by the other challenge participants' blogs. You can find links in the sidebar to the right. I'll be back later with a photo of Cosmo the crazy dog dressed in his Halloween costume . . .

Materials Used (all from Stampin' Up!):

Halloween Frights and Season of Friendship stamp sets, Summer Sunrise, More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, and Basic Black Classic inks, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black, Very Vanilla, and Glossy White cardstock, 1 ¾” circle punch, large and regular tag punches, Pumpkin Pie grosgrain ribbon, brayer, glue dot, dimensionals, post it note