Trick or Treat? Halloween ATCs

This month's ATC swap theme is Halloween. 

With no Halloween themed stamps or papers in my stash, I had to get a little creative.  I had a look through my stamps and picked out a few that I thought might work and fit in with the theme, along with a few other bits and bobs; some black tissue tape, Distress glitter, Glossy Accents, a black fineliner pen, gelli printed card with orange spots, purple and orange card, purple spray ink and orange Distress Ink.

I prepared the background for each card with a base of purple or orange card and then did a little paper blending with some gelli printed dotty card in an orange colour, and plain purple and orange card.  Strips of the different card (ripped, rather than cut) were randomly stuck over a base card of ATC size.  This was followed with a few thin coats of gesso, allowing to dry between coats.

The dried cards were coloured with a spray ink in purple by Ranger and orange Distress ink, applied using foam. 

Stamps from a number of different companies were used for these cards, including Crafty Individuals, Stampers Anonymous, Artemo, Papaer Artsy, Hero Arts, Joanna Sheen, IndigoBlu and Kaisercraft. Some of the stamped elements were directly on the card, creating the background, others were added over the top as embellishements and focal points.

A strip of black decorated tissue tape was stuck the cards and a skull and crossbones was stamped in the background of all of them.  The head of a cat appears in some of them too.

Faux bleaching on the skull

The winged skull was done by stamping the skull in permanent ink,  masking it and stamping the wings over the top.  I then used one of my favourite techniques - faux bleaching,  removing the background colour below the wings and the skull with a wet paintbrush, getting rid of the colour onto tissue and repeating until the desired 'bleached' effect is reached.  You see some staining from the inks, especially as the inking was done onto gesso, which 'grabs' the colour, but that all adds to the effect.  Some Distress glitter was added to the wings.

After randomly stamping flourishes around the edge, the card was finished off with a bright orange 'trick or treat?' banner.  These were used to embellish each of the cards and were made by stamping the frame image in dark ink onto orange card, seeing where they would fit into the composition of each card and trimming off the excess.  Trick or Treat? text was added by hand.

I always thought this 'gentleman' stamp looked a bit sinister, great for a halloween card and he became the focal point of this one.  Stamped onto glossy card with black Staz On and cut out, any white bits of card still showing were coloured with brown Distress ink, using foam. 

The background was a collection of stamped images; a wrought iron gate and keep out sign, along with the skull and the head of a cat.  The skull was again faux bleached, as was the cat, but this was then painted with grey watercolour paint.  On this card the trick or treat banner was placed to the left of the card.

The gentleman image was mounted onto the centre of the card with PVA glue and black colouring pencil was scribbled around the edge to give it some dimension.

You can clearly see the texture gesso can give

The background on this card came out really well with the spray colour, there is also some bubbling up of the gesso where the heat gun (used to dry the gesso) was applied too long, which I quite liked.  The background was finished with a 'sketchy' stamp around the top edge.  The skull and cat went on this one, bleached and coloured as before.

The lanterns were from a Chinese stamp set, stamped onto orange card, in black ink, cut out, then pumpkin type decoration was applied with a black fine liner pen.  They were finished off with Distress glitter smeared over the top of each lantern, before being stuck onto the card.  A permanent marker pen was used to draw the wire and lantern hooks.

 



The background was prepared as with the other cards, the main element of this card is the poison bottle flower vase, stamped onto purple card and covered in glossy accents.  The flowers were stamped onto orange card, cut out and highlighted with Distress glitter.  The stems were made from a thin sliver of black card. 

Once the glossy accents on the bottle was dry, the stems were fixed to the back and it was positioned onto the card, followed by the then the flowers.

Glossy Accents - it really is glossy!

The background was prepared like the other cards, with the addition of the moon in the top corner. The ink in that corner was removed with water and some kitchen paper and a circular mask was prepared with a Post-it note.  Orange Distress ink was applied into the top corner over the top of the mask.  The mask was removed to reveal the moon and a little orange ink was applied through the moon to create a moon shadow.

 

Eerie moon and spooky eyes

 



  

A tree branch stamp was stamped in permanent ink a few times directly onto the background  to create a perch for the owl.  The owl was stamped twice in permanent black ink, once on purple card, once on orange card.  The image of the owl in purple was cut out and eyes were cut out from the image on orange card, along with a little triangle of orange card for the beak.  Spirals were drawn freehand in the large eyes of the owl, these were mounted dimensionally and highlighed with clear Distress glitter and Glossy Accents.  Finally the owl was mounted on the card with glue.