Hi, crafty friends. I’m back with another Halloween card. I don’t make many Halloween cards, and the few that I do make are more on the cutesy side than the scary one. This little Dragon Scared of Spider image from Lee Holland Designs definitely fits my kind of Halloween card. I’m not sure who’s really scaring who in this stamp, the spider is running away, after all.
Halloween isn’t really a big thing in Norway, but this image was so cute I just couldn’t resist. I colored up the ground, pumpkins and leaves before asking my “twin” Liz for a color suggestion for the actual dragon, thinking in my mind “please don’t say purple”. What did she choose? It was inevitable, I knew she’d say purple, she even said which purples to use. I actually think he’s cute in purple, and I don’t think I’ve colored one of Lee’s dragons purple before, so I guess it was about time.
Once I finished coloring, I embraced the purple, stamping the Boo! sentiment from the Itty Bitty Boos stamp set from My Favorite Things using Deep Iris ink from Altenew. I then die cut the largest frame in the Scallop Frames die set from Pretty Pink Posh from Amethyst Allure cardstock from Papertrey Ink, adding two additional white die cuts behind it for dimension.
The outside dimensions of the die cut frame are 4 x 5″, so I cut 1/4″ off the height of my card base, making it 4 1/4 x 5 1/4″ instead of the normal A2 size to get an even white border on the outside of it.
The sentiment is tiny, and to draw the eye to it I decided to add a couple of gems. These are from the Meraki Sparkle Red Illusion jar. They’re color changing glass rhinestones, and this color was perfect for this card.
If you look at the various photos in this post, you’ll see that these rhinestones appear to have different colors depending on how the light hits them, it’s a really cool effect. In this photo, you can also see the dimension added by using stacked die cuts.
Fairly simple color palette for this card. It was a pretty quick image to color too!
I’ve created a very simple card this time, featuring this cute little car from the new 
I did some simple no line coloring of the image. I hadn’t done no line in a while when I created this, so opting for this tiny image was perhaps not the most brilliant idea ever. It’s kind of what I do, though, I jump in. I used a grey Copic to give the illusion of someone sitting in the car, used a couple of blues for some simple shading near the tires and kept everything very simple.
Using four different shades of blue ink (Distress Inks in the colors Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans and Stormy Sky, in addition to Iceberg ink from Altenew), I softly ink blended an ombre sky before sprinkling on Chunky White embossing enamel for a snowy effect that I love having on my cards. I heated the panel from the back, melting the granules and adhered the panel onto a top fold card base I created from white cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
Using the sentiment die from The Penguin’s Waddle die set from Mama Elephant, I created a chunky sentiment by adding several die cuts together for a stacked, dimensional look. I adhered it to the top center of my card and finished it off by placing a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards near the car.
I love a dimensional die cut sentiment, it kind of says I mean business and adds so much to a simple card!
Simple color palette for this one. It’s a simple card with a tiny image, so it’s kind of a given.
I colored up 
Once the coloring was complete, I used the largest die in the A2 Double Stitched Rectangles STAX die set from My Favorite Things to turn my panel into a rectangle with a nice faux stitch around the edges. I then added a thick layer of Glossy Accents to the heart and let that dry.
Using the Geometric Landscape stencil from Altenew, I ink blended a bit of yellow in the top right corner using Distress Inks in the colors Mustard Seed and Squeezed Lemonade, letting the lighter shade of the two fade to white. I then adhered my panel onto a top fold card base I created from Stormy Sea cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
I die cut the word wishes four times from the same color cardstock using a die from Mama Elephant. I stacked the die cuts for a dimensional look and adhered them on top of my ink blended section.
Using two stamp sets from My Favorite Things (Bitty Birthday Wishes and Itty Bitty Gifting), I heat embossed sub sentiments onto strips of Canyon Clay cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I die cut those using the Itty Bitty Strips dies, also from My Favorite Things, before finishing off the card with a few yellow enamel dots from the Pocketful of Sunshine pack of enamel dots from Altenew.
This was a fun color palette to work with, and I think the finished card echoes that. I’d say it’s my usual style of card, just not my usual color palette. I need to branch out more often, I had a blast using these colors.
There’s a stamp set in the release which includes a wreath and six different critters you can put inside, as well as a few individual stamps that go well with the wreath. I chose the wreath and the reindeer in the set for this card, making sure Rudolph was stamped a little crooked peeking into the front of the card from the side, I thought that made for a dynamic card design.
Using my Copics, I colored Rudolph and the wreath and also one of the smaller images, which I also fussy cut.
I trimmed my panel down so that it was 1/2″ more narrow than the card base and mounted it on foam tape onto a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″ piece of Clover cardstock from Concord & 9th. They have the most gorgeous color range! Their cardstock isn’t very thick, so I don’t use it for card bases, but their colors are magical. This panel I adhered to a top fold card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
I stamped a sentiment from the 
To finish off the card, I decided to add a layer of black glaze pen to Rudolph’s eyes. This makes them shiny and also adds a tiny bit of dimension. Once dry, I put a white dot in each eye using a 05 Gelly Roll pen. I also added Glossy Accents from Ranger to the berries and Rudolph’s nose for some extra shine.
Rudolph and his shiny nose say hi. It’s really shiny!
Fairly simple color palette. This card was so much fun to make, I love the playfulness of Rudolf with his head tilted in from the side of the card.
This card features the same stamp from the Snow Cute stamp set that I used on the previous card I made with stamps from this release (
I created my card base from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, and I wanted a blue gradient near the bottom, fading into white at the top. I pulled out a couple of blender brushes, the Lapis Lazuli inks (Azurite, Ultramarine, Eastern Sky and Iceberg) from Altenew and started blending from the darkest at the bottom to the lightest at the top.
Once I was happy with my blending, I die cut a bunch of snowflakes. I used an old die from Marianne Design (CR1335) which cuts plenty of snowflakes, as well as the Snowflake Confetti Fancy Die from Hero Arts. This is actually a cover plate, but as the name suggests, it creates confetti in the shape of snowflakes. I put the positive die cut back into the packaging to use for another card and glued the snowflakes to my background. The stark white of the snowflakes was a little too white for the sentiment I was putting on top to stand out, so I went back over with more blue ink once the snowflakes were adhered. This toned them down a bit, just enough for my die cut word to stand out.
Speaking of die cut word, I used this wishes die from Mama Elephant and die cut three layers of white cardstock, which I glued together for dimension. For the polaroid frame, I used the Precious Polaroids die set from My Favorite Things and die cut three of those as well.
I adhered the polaroid frame and the die cut word to the card front, popped the little penguin into the opening of the polaroid using some foam tape and completed the sentiment with a stamped word from the new sentiment set from Lili of the Valley, cut down to a strip and adhered with a couple of additional strips of cardstock behind it. Because dimension is life!
I colored the image with Copics and die cut the panel using the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 die set from My Favorite Things, before adhering it to a card base I created from Sour Apple cardstock, also from My Favorite Things.
On my cluster cards, I usually choose two to three colors from the image to create scraps from. This time I chose green and yellow with a little bit of gray. Neutrals are always a good thing to add. I keep die cut scraps in stamp storage pockets on my desk, sorted by color. Whenever I want to create a cluster, I choose the storage pockets with the colors I want, dump the contents on my desk and start PLAYING.
For this card I wound up using scraps from 3ndypapir, Karen Foster, Sunny Studio, P13, Magnolia and Papirdesign. By limiting the size and colors of my clusters, the design stays harmonious and you can’t tell that I’ve used patterned paper from 6 different companies. I adhere some directly to the layer below, some using foam squares. As a base, I used half a doily from Doodlebug Design that I had in a drawer. I love these tiny paper doilies, they’re perfect for this.
Using VersaFine Onyx Black ink, I stamped a sentiment from the 
These cluster cards are so fun to make. They make my piles of scraps shrink EVER so slightly, but anything’s better than nothing, and I love the dimension they add to the card.
I used quite a few colors for this one.
I colored the dragon with my Copics and fussy cut him right up against the black lines of the image. I put him aside while I worked on the rest of the card.
Onto a top fold white A2 card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I ink blended Azurite, Ultramarine and Eastern Sky inks (all from Altenew) towards the top of the card, fading to white near the bottom. I splashed some water droplets on top for a cool effect. Dye inks are water based and react with water, so this works with most inks you probably have. The darker the color, the bigger the impact.
From Cement Gray cardstock from My Favorite Things, I die cut two layers of the skyscraper skyline in the Slim Film City die set from Mama Elephant and adhered them at the bottom of my card. Using the cloud die in the Slim Basics die set, also from Mama Elephant, I die cut the cloud shape three times from Stamper’s Select White cardstock, stacked them and adhered them to the top of the card.
Onto the card base, I stamped a sentiment from the 
I adhered the dragon partially on top of the clouds, using foam squares behind the parts hanging off the clouds for even dimension, and sprinkled a few gems and sequins from the Seashore mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards around the dragon and sentiment to finish the card.
Suuuuper simple color palette for this dragon.
I wanted to add a little bit of interest to my flowers and did some simple ink blending. I used Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks for the yellow, Fresh Leaf ink from Altenew for the green and Vintage Timber from My Favorite Things for the brown. I also added additional diecuts to build dimension and interest to these flowers.
Onto a white card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I stamped a sentiment from the 
This is a very simple card, and in hindsight I kind of wish I’d used a different color for my card base, or even ink blended a gradient blue with on the card base, but the white makes the yellow pop and is very clean, which is usually my preference on simple cards.
Here you can see a little bit of the dimension on the card. I used white diecuts behind the the yellow ones (I don’t have a lot of that Buttercup cardstock and wanted to use as little of it as possible), which worked out great. The white almost disappears against the white of the background, making it look like the flowers are floating on the card, it’s such a cool effect!
This time I’m keeping the focus on 
I used a lot of green for this card. Not too many markers, but I feel like most of the card is green. I actually had to refill all the greens I used for the fields and trees halfway through. They hadn’t been refilled in a couple of years, so it was about time, I use these greens a lot.
I needed a pop of color to counteract all the green and decided on a corally pink color combination that I used for the party hat and balloon. I dug through my colored cardstock looking for a match, and wound up with Fire Coral cardstock from My Favorite Things. I created a top fold A2 card base from it and adhered my colored panel onto it to the left side, it wasn’t wide enough to cover the entire card front.
In the fall of 2020 I was running seriously low on X-Press It blending card, which is the only cardstock I use for my Copic coloring. It was hard to get hold of back then, but I lucked out and got a pack from Amazon UK. It was A4, which kind of blew my mind a little bit. Up until that point, I didn’t even know A4 X-Press It existed, I’ve always bought letter size. A4 is less wide and taller than letter size, which means I only get two panels that cover an A2 card front from one sheet. I used one of the narrower pieces on this card, which left me with about 1/4″ extra width on the card base. I debated cutting it off, but I feel like the pink strip on the right provides a little bit of balance, the card would be very green without it.
Onto a separate piece of Fire Coral cardstock, I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Til mannen stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS, before die cutting it using a speech bubble die from Altenew. I popped it up on 1/16″ foam squares from Gina K for a tiny bit of dimension.
You’d think that with a close to full panel of coloring that I’d use a lot more colors than this, but the four greens near the left end of this graphic were all I used for the grass and the trees, which covers most of the card.
I colored in the image using Copics, before fussy cutting it, right up against the black lines of the image. I put the image aside while I worked on the rest of my card.
I actually worked directly on the card base for this one. Using the Big Balloon stencil from My Favorite Things, I ink blended two balloons using Distress inks – one using Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick and Abandoned Coral; the other using Mustard Seed and Squeezed Lemonade. And in the words of Laura Bassen – the magic’s in the overlap.
Once the balloons were done, I used the mask in the Big Balloon stencil set to mask off the balloons while I used the Slimline Cloud Edges stencil, also from MFT, to create the illusion of clouds in the distance. I used Eastern Sky ink near the top of the card, Iceberg ink towards the bottom, both are gorgeous colors from Altenew.
I free hand cut a grassy hill from Parsley cardstock from Concord & 9th and adhered it to the bottom of my card. I die cut the Happy Birthday die from My Favorite Things twice using white cardstock from Papertrey Ink (same cardstock as my card base) and adhered the two layers together for a tiny bit of dimension and adhered my layered die cut on top of the balloons.
To finish off the card, I drew in balloon strings using a 0.35 Copic Multiliner, popped the tortoise (I can’t bring myself to write the word “turtle” when this is clearly a tortoise) up using some 1/16″ foam squares and added sequins from the White Orchid sequin mix from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards for a bit of sparkle and shine.
Simple color palette for this small image.
Papirmølla 