handmade Halloween card – Stamped Smiles

Delightfully Frightful Guest Designer for Digi Doodle Studios👻

Happy Friday friends! Another weekend in October is upon us and so is Halloween! Yay! Well, I’m excited about it anyway! LOL If not for being a kid to trick or treat…for treats and spooky fun anyway!

Today I’m so thrilled to be guest designing for Digi Doodle Studios! If you’ve been around my blog, then you’ve probably seen some of my past creations with the company as a design team member. Dina is such a sweet lady so of course I’m happy to color up one of her amazing images! So be sure to check out all of the digital stamps in her store. (I just spied that there is also a design team call as well as guest design call…check it out HERE!) And…if you are more of a hands-on crafter that prefers to “ink it up”, Dina has also started a store called Ink ‘n’ Splatter for clear stamps, dies, stencils and paper pads to purchase! I think it’s amazing to have both options for purchasing these CUTE things! Let her know that I sent you over that way!

Isn’t this such a cute and fun scene?! I’ve used this adorable Kikimora Halloween Witch digital stamp from Digi Doodle Studios and created this fun scene with her using a past digital set called Ghostly Haunts Pairables which was discontinued on the digital side, but the adorable ghosts from that decided to pop up on the Ink ‘n’ Splatter store in a clear stamp set – CLICK HERE! I’ve sized and placed the images on my computer before printing them out. I also printed out an additional one as well as another on some masking paper.

The reason for printing over masking paper was so that I could fussy cut out the image…yes even the tree, to ink blend the background. (Any “imperfections” can be covered up with the coloring, so I ink blended FIRST.) You could always ink blend a background and then cut out your image(s) to place over top, but I wanted this to be a one layer with the blended background to be incorporated with it for the glowing moon and night sky with a ground area. The only thing about the image that is NOT flat are the two ghosts that I fussy cut out from an additional printing of it along with the cloud over the moon. The ghosts were partially popped up with a foam square and I glued flat the cloud. This helped with the scene to give that dimensional look. The scene was cut with a MFT rectangle die and was finished with ink blending around the edges ending with Black Soot at the very edges.

So BEFORE I removed the masks from the images to color, I also decided to take some silver paint to create some splatters in the night sky. I then took some shimmer spray to go over top of it for some sparkle. I then die cut a banner for the sentiment from the DDS Halloween Happiness digital set and ink blended some Carved Pumpkin over it to glue at the top and cut off the edge from the panel. I then layered this scene over an orange scallop edge rectangle die cut piece that was layered over an A2 top folding black card base.

I’ve also die cut a bat from my stash in black cardstock and glued it around the sentiment banner. I’ve covered the bat with a glitter brush pen for a bit of sparkle as well.

For the grounding of the images and some shadow effects from the moon, I took a Copic marker to color in some shadow under the witch, tombstone and tree. You can also see on the witch that I’ve added some highlights with a white gel pen as well as silver and gold gel pens for her outfit. I also covered the little diamond on her necklace with some Stickles Star Dust glitter. It looks awesome in person and matches her dress.

I tried, but it’s so hard to capture all of the sparkly glitter goodness over this card. The entire sky is covered with sparkle. I do hope you’ve enjoyed my card.

Be sure to check out this month’s challenge over at the DDS Challenge Blog with an October “Halloween” theme and of course you can join the DDS Fan FB Group and enter challenges there as well or just share a creation made with any DDS/Ink ‘n’ Splatter image(s)!

Thanks for dropping in and have an awesome weekend!

CHALLENGES:

Digi Doodle Studios Challenge Blog – October: Fall and/or Halloween
Two Old Bats – Anything Goes Halloween
Creative Friday – Pick 3 – I picked: Moon, Bat, Black
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring
My Time to Craft – Halloween or Fall Colors
{Cupcake Inspirations} – Halloween Fun
Double Trouble – Halloween Cuteness
Try it On Tuesday – Halloween
Fab ‘n’ Funky – Halloween

October 22, 2021October 20, 2021

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles36 Comments

Having Some Halloween Fun!🎃

Hey friends! I know it’s well into October and so you may be wondering where in the world have my Halloween posts been? Today was gloomy and foggy out…and it’s getting evening, so it was a good time to post! If you know me, then you know I love all things Halloween, but I’ve actually been in the background lurking with my Halloween projects! Bwhaa!! I just haven’t had time to sit and make a post for them yet. The reason for that is, of course, I’m taking too many classes and doing events that I’m like a “mad scientist” in the background with all of the crafting things, but haven’t been sharing them! So, I’ve decided to set aside some time to create a post with all things Halloween! (Don’t worry, there will be more special ones coming too!)

Now isn’t this one a cutie?! I’ve received this free digital image especially from the Whimsy Stamps World Card Making Day Event on Facebook that they usually hold every year and have some fun games and challenges. This image was created by Crissy Armstrong of course and she even did a cute little tutorial with it, so I had to color it up!

I’ve used Copics for the coloring and even made a shadowy creepy black/gray grass along the bottom of the pumpkin. The hat buckle was colored with a gold gel pen. The sentiment came from an older Whimsy Stamps candy corn set I had in my stash. For the background, I’ve used my favorite Whimsy Stamps Spider Web Frame background stamp to go around kitty. I then used a couple of different Distress inks to sponge around the edges and then spritzed water over it & blotted it up with a paper towel to make it even “creepier” looking. I layered it over an orange layer from my stash and then placed this over an A2 sized top folding card base. I also die cut a bat from an old freebie from Whimsy Stamps years back to glue at the top of the scene and covered it with a glitter brush pen. Super fun!

Now I want to enter this into the annual Whimsy Stamps 31 Nights of Halloween that they do every year! Check out the event with lots of Halloween inspiration & fun if you’re interested! I always love to play along and I think Whimsy Stamps has some of THE best products for crafting Halloween! CHECK THEM OUT HERE!!

And this is another card I made for the Whimsy Stamps WCMD Event challenge using a fun Autumn/Halloween mood board. (The event is over, but it was super fun!) The first thing about the mood board I noticed was all of the orange and fun jack-o-lanterns that popped out at me. Plus, this was another cute freebie digital image given to us during the event.

So I colored up this dragon using mainly orange tone Copics with a “candy corn” effect. I also used it for the die cut sentiment at the top that was cut out from the Whimsy Stamps Boo die set. Hard to tell in the photo, but I covered it with the glitter brush pen too. I popped up the “dragon guy” over a piece of the Whimsy Stamps 6×6 Haunted Paper Pack cut with the Whimsy Stamps Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle Dies. It was all layered over a white A2 top folding card base. I also added some yellow Stickles to the pumpkin’s face.

And since I’ve been doing so many classes, I thought I’d just create another gallery full of Halloween projects that I’ve done. I have actually been working on some books and journals as well as mixed media projects and not sure if I’ll get them finished up before Halloween as I’ve been busy, but it’s always fun to get creative and messy especially for all things creepy and spooky!💀 Hope you enjoy! – (If you’re viewing this on my website, just click on the photos to enlarge them to see)

This was a fun one I made using a sketch for the Inky Stamper’s World Card Making Day Event! I had to pull out the Spider set and stamp up the eyeballs for the background! The spider was die cut out over the circle with an added wobbler on him! So fun!

Whew! Was that a lot of Halloween or what?! Many of these things just give me a big chuckle and I just think they’re so fun especially now that I’ve looked back on them. Although many of these project were created earlier this Summer, I thought it would be a good time to share them with you. #MakeHalloween365 I still have more Halloween up my sleeve soon, so stayed tuned!

If you haven’t entered my give away yet, there’s still a few days left if you want to leave me a comment saying you’re interested! CHECK OUT THE POST HERE I will announce the winner by Oct 11th.

Thanks so much for stopping by this evening and I hope you’ve enjoyed my Halloween projects here! HAPPY CRAFTING

Challenges:

Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with animal
Pearly Sparkles – Autumn and/or Halloween
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes with coloring
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with featured Critter
The Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Two Old Bats – Anything Goes Halloween
Crafty Calendar – Halloween

October 7, 2021October 7, 2021

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles33 Comments

Boo!👻 It’s Halloween!!!🎃

Hello my crafty friends!! Today is Halloween and I thought it would be a great time to share several Halloween themed creations that I had made during the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat! I’m actually STILL working on the project kits because there were SO MANY of them and I’m such a slow crafter there was no way that I could’ve done them within that weekend time frame! It sure was so much fun and so many treats along with it! So happy that I decided to join the virtual event! I encourage everyone to join the next!!

So what I decided to do was to go through all of my 23 kits and pick out the Halloween themed ones to get them finished up before Halloween so that I would have them to share and give out! Enjoy the spooky creative fun:

Kit 1 – spooky green behind the eyes! Slimline design

Kit 2 – Slimline design with a spooky graveyard! The cockroach bugs were a nice little “surprise gift” from our lovely instructor for the first two kits! LOL

Kit 5 – All Copic coloring and something brand new to me was coloring a scene freehand! So scary!! But I made it!

Kit 7 – a slimline die used two different ways…LOVED the ink blending!

Kit 10 – Cutest little treat box! Added crystal eyeballs to my skull and sparkled it up with sparkly clear EP. I’ve rubbed white ink around the black edges.

Kit 11 – The ink blending on this was awesome too! I have so many new combos now! The black sparkly die cut is my fave!

Kit 16 – Last but not least, this really adorable card made me giggle the whole time! I’ve added some glossy accents to the eyeballs.

So there are still SO many more kits left to do and I look forward to crafting them and sharing more with you as I go too! Obviously these kits were created and put together by the talented group of people for Whimsy Stamps, so they’re the ones that get the credit for the creativity on these, and therefore, I won’t enter these into any challenges.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my share from the retreat and I’ll be sharing more soon!

I also have finished one more treat bag that I’ve made with the special Halloween Creative Kit from Brutus Monroe:

I used the stencil from the kit to ink over the stencil from the kit and then added the fun stamped and colored elements over the pattern paper from the kit. I used the spooky graveyard stamp and heat embossed it over the pattern paper with Raven Sparkle EP including the moon image at the top left.

I even used the ribbon and sequins from the kit to decorate with and then added a tag from my stash to tie on the bow.

This is the little poem that I’ve attached to the back of the bag that was a fun little print out from Brutus Monroe as well as the colorful strips that I’ve used on the top and bottom portions of the image panel on the front of the treat bag. I thought they were fun little elements to add and give out to my goblins this year! LOL!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Halloween projects and thanks so much for dropping in!

**Please don’t forget to add your “Monsters/Ghouls” projects to the {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge too!

Want to wish all a very happy, spooky and SAFE Halloween!🎃💀👻

October 31, 2020October 30, 2020

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles19 Comments

Pink Halloween for Digi Doodle Studios GDT

Hello friends! I hope that you’re all having a wonderful week so far! The weather has really been changing this week as we get into Fall now. Speaking of that, it’s time for sharing some fun Halloween themed projects!

I’m VERY honored to have won a guest spot for this month over at the Digi Doodle Studios Challenge Blog! So for the October challenge, the theme is “Pink and/or Halloween” You can choose to use either or both…I’ve decided to use BOTH on my creation:

As a winner, I was given this darling image to play with called Gwendoline DDS Good Halloween Witch and I thought she would be so much fun to color up in the pink and black colors! I think she turned out adorable in her pinkness!

I have also decided to print out a sentiment from the DDS Halloween Happiness Digital Sentiments Collection that I’ve used as a strip on the right side of my panel placed directly under the image panel. Both of these panels have been sponged with some pink ink around the edges. The witch image panel was popped up with some craft foam.

For the papers, I have printed out the fun pink and black dotted patterns from the DDS Wonky Halloween Digi Paper Pack and then used a sander around the edges of them for a bit of distressed look. Before attaching the black with pink dots strip in the center, I wrapped some pink metallic ribbon around it with a bow. This strip was placed behind the image panel, but in front of the layers behind the image panel. Those layers are pink metallic mirror cardstock and a scallop die cut black cardstock which was also layered behind the sentiment strip. All of the panels were placed over a black top folding 5″ card base.

I’ve added a couple of die cut spider webs from some white glitter paper and attached them in the corners of the design and then found some pink sequins with stars that I filled the centers with some pink glitter drops scattered around as well as placing an extra die cut star and sequins in the center of the bow.

And here’s a closer look at the coloring I’ve done over her using Copic markers. I’ve used a white gel pen for the dots on her cheeks as well as highlights on her legs.

It’s always hard to really show all of the wonderful shimmer and sparkle, but I’ve used a glitter brush pen over the pink stars in her dress as well as the stars surrounding her. (Her pink earrings were covered with it too.) I took a pink metallic gel pen to color in the dots on her dress and the ones surrounding her. I then took the pink glitter drops that I’ve used in the center of the sequins and add a couple more around her trailing stars and the center of the star in her wand too.

I also very lightly sponged in some pink chalk for the stars and dots area around her after it was all dry.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card for today and have been inspired in some way! Please be sure to pop on over at the Digi Doodle Studios Challenge Blog and catch the wonderful inspiration from the design team and play along this month! If you are using one of their images, don’t forget to enter it over on the DDS FB Group for another chance to win!

I would like to thank Dina, Lisa and the team for inviting me along in the fun this month! Always love playing with these adorable images!

Thanks for dropping in today my friends and I’ll be seeing you again very soon!😉

Challenges: