Whimsy Stamps ~ Halloween Wall Hanging

Boy have I had fun yesterday creating this Halloween Wall Hanging! I've created it almost entirely with Whimsy Stamps Dies and Papers. 

The cute cats were cut from a fabulous paper in the recently released Whimsy Stamps Halloween Paper pack called Hocus Pocus. I fussy cut them and because the design has the cats facing two directions, I was able to put them back to back, so when they spin, there is an image on both sides. The paper is quite thick, which is awesome, because it stands up to this sort of treatment really well, but my lil' fussy cutting scissors didn't leave a very nice edge on it. I think I'll go back and run my black pen around the edges, as on a close up like this, my ropey cutting is a lil' too obvious! Hehe. 

I created the 3D pumpkins from two of the dies in the Pumpkin Patch Die Set. I made two of the smaller ones for the outer strands and one of the larger ones for the middle strand. These were incredibly easy to make, but are oh so effective! I used a green Promarker to colour the Pumpkin tops.

I diecut two as the base of the pumpkin. These form the two halves that are adhered either side of the string. They need to be adhered with the tops of the pumpkin facing the same way. Before adhering them to the string, the 3D aspects of the pumpkin need adding. I diecut two extra pumpkins per half. I folded these in half and trimmed the pumpkin tops off. I then adhered the two central halves back to back, but left the outer two folds free. I bent them in towards each other and then adhered them with Olba glue to the centre of the flat base. I repeated this on the other side and once they were dry, adhered them back to back to either side of the string. 

The bats are from the awesome Dracula's Coffin Die Set. I adhered these just as a flat diecut, either side of the string, so when they spin they are the same both sides. The design is asymmetrical, so I needed to adhere them facing the same direction, I forgot with this one! But it was the best pic I took, typical! You can see in the centre, that I've adhered it the wrong way on this strand. The others I made sure where the correct way around.

One of my favourite bits of this wall hanging is the wee broom which I created from some orange feathers my daughter found for me and a wee stick from my sons stick collection. I used an orange twine to wrap the feathers on after adding some glue around the stick. Such a fun element to this creation. Not quite a Nimbus 2000, but I love it!

The little witches hats I'm well chuffed with. I had to work out how to make them and managed with a lot of help from the Whimsy Stamps Pierced and Stitched Circles Die Set. This was really fun to create and didn't actually take as long as I thought it might! I'll do a wee tutorial on this later. But it's a blog post on it's own, so won't add here. I'll link it when it's done.

I have a thing for symmetry, so I had to make the two outer strands match and the inner strand the feature. I actually made the string for the central one too short, as I wound it around the broomstick too much and had to add some extra twine so it hung lower than the other two. I had intended to leave that strand with only the bigger pumpkin and bat, so had to think of something to add over the twine knot.

 

Needing to cover the knot from where I extended the central string, left an opening for an extra detail. It was then that I thought up the idea of the cauldron. This last minute addition I think actually was the perfect finish for this creation. I used the central circle off-cuts from the witches hats to create the main round part of the cauldron. I cut freehand the little lip for the cauldron and adhered it to the back layer. 

I used the Bats and Bubbles Border Die Set to diecut a strip of bubbles, which I used as a template for adding the Ripened Pumpkin Nuvo Drops to the cauldron. I carefully lifted up the template and the bubbles stayed nicely placed. I then drooped some along the cauldron lip and dripped it down a bit to look like overflowing bubbling brew. To create the little feet for the cauldron, I used two of the bubble offcuts from creating the template and glued them between the round main layers. I am really happy with how it came together. A fun little extra detail I think.

Witches broom, cats, pumpkins, bats, even a bubbling cauldron, a playful fun Halloween Wall Hanging. It was a fun day of creating and I think it'll be pulled out every year now along with our other Halloween decorations. Now I just have to work out how to safely store it!! I hope you enjoyed seeing my creation and reading the process, if you're interested in the Witches Hat tutorial, I'll be back with that very soon, so watch this space. I'll be back very soon with another crafty adventure. Hugs and happy Halloween crafting!

Challenge Entries:

Crafty Catz: #480 ~ Anything Goes

Crafty Cardmakers: #244 ~ Halloween

Shopping Our Stash: #407 ~ Halloween

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Fall/Autumn Colours

As You Like It: Favourite Papers and Why ~ Gosh I have SO MANY favourites. Paper is my thing, I don't craft much with inky backgrounds and the like, because I JUST LOVE pretty papers. I'm a big fan of digital papers, because I can then control the weight I print on to suit whatever medium I'm working with. But I have to say, this Halloween, my favourite papers are from this fabulous Whimsy Stamps Hocus Pocus pack. I've used it several times recently. So this is entry 1.