Halloween Cards

I love the idea of Halloween. I love the imagery and the colours and the fun. The only thing that I have trouble with is handing out huge amounts of candy to children - not because I am some sort of stingy scrooge. I just don't want to play any part in their health downfall. All that sugar scares me. Well at least that is in the spirit of ghosties and ghoulies! Halloween is supposed to be scary. I am just not sure if I have it right....

I love this time of year!

Well one thing that I am down with is Halloween card making! As my regulars will know, I am a sewist and I make bags and quilts most of the time. But I paint too and crochet. I love making jewellery and cards are my hobby. I have filled several scrapbooks and I like macrame. Okay, so I do a bit of everything. Except knitting. You do not need to see my knitting.

This post is all about the cards. And in particular, a bit of ink blending that I did on these two with Tim Holtz Distress Inks....

Cannot beat Halloween for card inspiration!

I love blending and I could do it all day. if my editors, to whom I owe work didn't have an opinion on it, I would indeed do it all day!

I used some darker silver glitter paper for the stars, And some stitching - it can be hard to put a border on a darker coloured card. Machine stitching to the rescue! And if it is too full on, tone it down with some ink.

These cards are mostly die cuts (thank you Sizzix) and some embellishments but this time, I really want to concentrate on the blending of the background itself.

Loving that glow!

I started with a piece of plain white card stock and some squeezed lemonade, wild honey, seedless preserves and black soot ink

I used a blending tool and loaded with squeezed lemonade and started in the centre, just slightly off the middle

go for a circular motion to get an airbrushed effect and never stop too long in the one place.

When I was happy with the yellow glow, I introduced wild honey to the edges and blended some more

Do be prepared to go back to the previous colour each time to help with a seamless blend.

You can go back into squeezed lemonade to keep it seamless too. Next came the seedless preserves, just a little at first and then a fair bit more

It is interesting at this point how the card still looks light. like daytime. But what happens when we add black....

I think that I will make a galaxy card out of this one. I can see a nebula there now...

I went in with black soot from the sides and then right up to the seedless preserves

Here again, you can go back to purple and blend.

And there we go! When you put the witch or the house over this, you will get an eerie glow. 

Splatter some white paint 'stars' to add texture to the background. i use DecoArt Americana Warm White

The house card is the same deal but swap out twisted citron for seedless preserves.

The moon is stamped onto glitter paper with an Altenew 'to The Moon' stamp set. It took several goes so use a stamping platform for best results.

I am going to work on another colour palette for Christmas now but first I have a mind to stencil a background or two. My Mother-in-law's birthday is coming up.....

Here is the Autumn inspired card that I made for my mother-in-law.

See you next time!
Debs
xx