Limited Edition SSS Halloween Card Kit | Ghostly Greetings Halloween Cards
Do you find yourself making Halloween cards? I typically don't. I really don't see Halloween as a "card giving" holiday, but despite that, many craft companies come out with Halloween papers, stamps, and accessories to make it possible to create Halloween cards and other paper crafting goodies.
When Simon Says Stamp came out with their Ghostly Greetings Halloween card kit, I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to make the purchase. It did come with a lot of cute Halloween goodies like Doodlebug papers (which I had already purchased previously), matching cardstock papers, a sequin mix, ribbon, a stamp set, and more. However, it also came with some paper bags and battery-operated tea lights, which as a card maker, I knew I'd have no use for. I have some ideas in mind for treat boxes I will create this Halloween, but they're definitely more complex than what a paper bag and tea light would offer. Of everything in the kit, those are the only two things I won't be getting any use from. In fact, I was kind of confused why they would include such supplies in a "card" kit. Any who, I purchased the kit in the end and love the rest of its contents. Earlier this week I made some time to sit down and make some Halloween cards from the kit -- a few of which I thought actually turned out pretty cute!
The card kit came with Doodlebug's new paper collection, Boos and Brews, and as I said, I had previously already purchased the 6x6 papers from this collection, but I also had purchased the matching odds and ends die cuts. I pulled these out to complement the card kit, and create my Halloween cards.
I love that Doodlebug comes out with die cuts to match their patterned papers. It makes card making much simpler, but as someone who typically stamps images and colors them in, sometimes using die cuts makes me feel like I'm "cheating" because not as much effort is being put into making the cards.
I began my card making with making a simple shaker card using one of the patterned papers from the kit that really only needed to be cut down to size and put right on a card. To add more pizazz, I used a flip flap pocket from CTMH, inserted the cut down paper and sequins from the kit over top of it, then used my fuse tool to seal the pocket. I adhered this down to some purple cardstock from the kit leaving a 1/4" border around the pocket and that finished the card!
Once I created this simple card, I wanted to challenge myself a bit more, so I pulled a sheet of green patterned paper from the kit and my scrap purple cardstock, as well as some die cut images to create my layout. I decided to emboss the purple cardstock with a star embossing folder (which I rarely ever use) to add some detail to the paper. When I was flipping through the patterned papers, I came across a sheet that had a bunch of sentiments that could be cut out. I liked the one that said "mad about you" and thought it would go perfect with the mad scientist card I was creating. Instead of using the sentiment from the paper, I decided to use my stamps to create the custom sentiment using fonts and sizes of my choice. I finished off the card with some Lawn Fawn green twine, and I thought it turned out adorable :) A great card to give to a significant other during the Halloween season.
For my last card during this card-making session, I decided to challenge myself even MORE! I decided I would use the haunted house and hunchback monster die cuts to create a scenery card. I used the LF portrait tree die, as well as a stitched hillside die to help with creating my scene. Because I was using so many "flat" images, I wanted to create a custom background sky using distress inks. I placed this custom sky background behind my hill, tree, and haunted house. Added a few other finishing touches. Then I pulled a sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Monster Mash stamp set, "sending you monster hugs," which finished the card off well, bringing a pun into my sentiment to match my hunchback monster. Below is a modified version of the card where I added some doodlebug eyes to the hunchback monster :)
After making these 3 cards, despite the little effort put into creating them, I was pretty pleased with how they came out and the various techniques I used to create them. I haven't had much of a card-making mojo lately, so making these cards was an accomplishment :)
What types of holiday cards are YOU working on right now?
