Quick and Simple Halloween Cards (& VIDEO) .

Hello, my crafting buddies! I recently had a number of people ask me about a technique I used for a card that I made on World Card Making Day. Here's a quick look at the card (click to enlarge):

I was asked how I did my watercolor background. It's really so simple! I thought I would do it again using this month's card kit from Studio Calico (there's a video at the very end of the post). I ended up making 4 very simple cards in just 25 minutes or so. I love simple cards!

Here's all 4 of the cards! They are all very similar and use the same techniques...except for the one on the right...but I'll get to that!

I started by cutting and folding my cardstock to make an A2 size card. Then I cut down my watercolor pieces to give a 1/4 inch border. Next, I took one of my large acrylic blocks and a few colors of SC ink - Sunny Day, Orange County, Well Red, and Doc Brown. The block that I used has wavy edges, and that transferred onto my piece. I quite like it, though! I took my inks and smooshed them down onto the acrylic block. Each color covered about a quarter of my block. Then I sprayed my block three or four times to get the color moving and pressed my block into the watercolor paper.

Now....this spatter effect is the result of not holding my block away from my work surface when I sprayed the water. I got ink all over this piece of watercolor paper and all over my craft mat. It was kind of a happy accident for me! But, if you don't want this to happen to you, I recommend spraying your block away from your work surface!

I decided to stamp my pumpkins while my watercolor pieces were drying. I used the rock and roll technique on my pumpkins to give some dimension to a flat image. For the particular pumpkin shown, I inked up the pumpkin image in Sunny Day ink and then rolled the stamp in the Orange County ink...only inking up the edges...and then stamped on my paper. I used the same four ink colors as previously mentioned to stamp my pumpkins. I also stamped the outlines and the stems in Doc Brown. I thought that the little stem looked silly on the larger pumpkin since I was also using it for the little ones, so I freehand cut a stem shape from some scrap brown paper. I used my Cutter Bee scissors to fussy cut all of my pumpkins and stems. 

I cut a few strips of paper from the patterned paper pad and angled the corners. Then I layered them onto the watercolor paper and layered the pumpkins on top. I used Tombow Mono Multi Glue to stick them down. 

I used the same sentiment on all four cards, but I used Doc Brown ink and Versafine Onyx Black ink and used different placements to make each card a little different. 

Unfortunately, I made a mistake. I thought about editing it out...but I make a lot of mistakes, and I thought I'd show you how to fix a simple on like this! 

As I was stamping my sentiment, I dropped my acrylic block and I got brown ink splotches in a couple places. No problem! I pulled out my new Studio Calico sequins (I used Orange County and Woodshop) and stuck a few here and there to cover up my error! I put sequins on a second card just because I could! 

Just in case this is a little confusing....here's the video! 

Thanks for hanging out with me today! I'll see you soon with another card!