Altered Cabinet Card Swap

I joined in on an altered cabinet card swap hosted by the wonderful Caroline at Glitter Tart Design.  We signed up for a particular genre of card altering and then were partnered up according to our preference.  I of course picked traditional Halloween colors/palette because I HEART HALLOWEEN!  I didn't have a true cabinet card, so I created my own by using a large format vintage image, shown below.

There was just something about this girl that really called to me to be used for this project, so I agreed!  To who, I don't know, but I agreed.  Initially, before I even found my image, I wanted to do a type of zombie image (probably heavily influenced by my new favorite show The Walking Dead), but when it came down to it, I just couldn't bring myself to alter her in that manner.  We were also to create a pocket or envelope for our card to be housed in, here it is...

I created it from a larger mailing manila envelope, and cut it so that you would see a hint, or peek of the cabinet card contained inside.  I used decorative paper with a spider web pattern, taped the edges with spider web decorative tape and put a skull accent near the top opening.  Contained within this envelope is my altered card...

...and here she is!  I went with a witch motif in the end.  I double printed her image and used pop up dots to raise her up for some dimension.  Gave her a witches hat, painted a black robe, and put a fun crepe paper collar on her.  Accented with a skull and put lots of glitter pen in the background.  It's hard to see in the picture but I added a fun purple hue to her shirt and glittered up her belt too.

I also tried my best to add a witchly green hue to her skin using a variety of Prismacolor colored pencils (my favorite pencils).  They are rich and creamy and blend well.  Here's a closeup of the side view of her too, so you can see some dimension.

Overall I had a lot of fun with this swap and I want to thank Caroline for hosting such a fun theme!  I'm definitely in the market to try another altered cabinet card in the future!  Can't wait to see what the other ladies in the swap have created!

Halloween Cards 2012

I had an opportunity yesterday to sit down and work on creating some Halloween cards.  I really LOVE Halloween, so I always look forward to making cards every year.  There is just soooo much fun stuff that comes out at this time of year, and it's really hard for me to resist most of it, although I was a very good girl this year and didn't buy too much at all beyond the stamps I wanted to use this year.  Speaking of stamps, the majority of images I used were from Inkadinkado's Halloween releases. I also incorporated crepe paper into the cards this year to give a ruffley texture to them.  I've really been into using it lately, I need to curb myself!  :)  I made 7 different designs this year, here's the first batch.

I made some of the cards vertical, and some horizontal.  I went with really bold colors this year and had fun coloring the images with my favorite Copic markers.  All images were stamped with Memento dye ink so the alcohol in the Copics does not make the stamped lines bleed.  Here's the second half of the batch.

The pumpkin card in this second set uses some fun eyeglass and mustache brads that I found this summer.  He's an angry pumpkin in disguise!  The web card used an embossing plate for the Big Shot machine that I also picked up this summer.  I am going to have to watch the quality of card stock that I use in that thing because it almost ripped the paper inbetween the pieces of the web.  I didn't have a spider punch to put a spider in the web, so I decided to use a variety of other items to have caught in the web and the inside sentiment (not pictured) says "Gimmie the candy and no one will get hurt!"  Cute I thought.  Overall, I had a great time making these and I could have kept going and made a whole bunch more, but didn't have the time.  Maybe I'll find some time later this week (doubtful though!).  But a girl can dream right?!