Whimsy Stamps ~ Happy Halloween! Foolish Mortals.

The big day is finally here friends! I've given out oodles of treats to our little local trick or treaters and had such fun doing so! All that remains is for our Final Halloween Hop to kick off tomorrow morning for me as I'm writing this! I'll be up early getting all organised for the 'go live'. This has been such a fun Halloween term at Whimsy Stamps and we're excited to wrap up the fun with a final fabulous Halloween Hop. I hope you're able to join us over on Instagram for this, but just in case not, wanted to share my makes with you here too. (This card is going live on blogger a little before the hop starts, because my posts keep getting taken down, so I want it to be 'vetted' and live for the hop.)

This gorgeous Something Wicked image is stamped on silver cardstock so it looked a bit like a reflection in a mirror. I had the Evil Queen from Snow White in mind when I created this card. I just think this image is so striking and enchanting! I've heat embossed it to get the best finish and I initially thought I'd use black ink and clear embossing powder, but stamping on the silver it was a little patchy, so I ended up using fine black embossing powder and it filled the gaps nicely and gave a better coverage. Tricky stamping on specialty cardstock, but I used VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink as the base and it gave a pretty good coverage with repeated stamping using my MISTI. 

I glued the image directly to the beautiful patterned paper and then added a black glitter foam frame around it, which sits slightly proud of the image thanks to the foam aspect of it. The texture from the glitter and this Thorny Frame shape is just delish up close! I completely adore this background paper from Whimsy's BOOkeh Paper Pack too. With all those flying bats, it reflected the image so well, I think it's a great pairing. 

I took the bats theme a step further and with one of Whimsy's newer releases from this Halloween season added the fabulous branch of sleeping bats from the Bat Branch Die Set. I pulled out an older set called Dracula Going Batty that has some fabulous bats in it too and cut three from that. I've layered all the bats first with glow in the dark 'foil' and then with black cardstock over it for a fun glow in the dark pop of colour! The final touch was to add the diecut sentiment Foolish Mortals. I did this in tone on tone purple cut from a lovely cardstock by Spellbinders called Plum, which is a rich dark purple colour and matched this patterned paper so well. 

I lost the second diecut sentiment halfway through my process, but had a white version I'd cut already, so I just grabbed some VersaFine Clair ink in the colour Monarch and inked the white cardstock to match the plum cardstock. I also used the Monarch to colour up the edges of the square 7x7 card base as I wanted the base to be a toning shade of purple. I trimmed the edges of the image panel with my Tim Holtz Deckle Trimmer. I wasn't sure when I bought this, that I'd get enough use out of it, but it's been a great investment, I use it a lot and love the subtle but different finish it adds to makes. I did pop up the image panel with a mid-loft foam. 2mm I think it was, just for a bit of depth and dimension. 

Believe it or not friends, this is only the first of several creations I've made to share as part of the hop. But I will share each in their own post, otherwise it gets a little overwhelming to share more than a few words on each and I think it's nice to capture the whole creative journey. (You'll know that about me if you've been following a while and sorry, I know it's a lot to read sometimes! So feel free to skip past the bits that don't interest you.)

Studio Light provided an incredibly generous parcel of stash for the Whimsy Team to work with. Which included some fantastic Glow In The Dark elements and some Plywood Frames, which sadly, because I live in New Zealand and we have strict laws about receiving wooden items by post, I couldn't be sent. But I encourage you to check out my teamies creations in the hop, as I know several of them have created with these frames and they look amazing! I hope you can join us for the hop and I'm excited to share my next creation from this hop with you very soon. Hugs and happy hopping, Wends xoxo

(I share thumbnails to the elements I design with in order to make your search for them easier, in case you like something I've used. I do use affiliate links where possible, which gives me a tiny commission but costs you no extra whatsoever. It helps the companies I design for to improve their marketing practice and track my contributions. I am deeply grateful if you use them for these reasons. I am proud to design for the companies I do and always feel happy to share where my inspiration and where my crafty stash comes from. I am occasionally gifted products to use, but I only design for companies whose products I absolutely love and buy for myself. My opinions are always my own.)

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