Halloween card using Karen Burniston dies

Nothing like a new die set arriving in the mail to get me to make a card two months before it is needed. I had so much fun with the earlier Karen Burniston that I wrote about 10 days ago (here) , I ordered her House & Fence Pop-Up set #1015, Halloween Scene #1014, and Halloween Elements #1013. I also bought Winter Charms #1018 which is going to be used soon.

Whoa....thinking about a making a holiday card this far before Christmas?  This isn't like me!

I'm not paid to sing the praises of these dies, I'm just here to say they really do work well. Both the printed instructions and videos on her website, Karen Burniston, will guide you through the assembly. I'm not going explain what she explains so well, I will just comment on what I've done.

First off, the front of the card was done after the inside was finished. The card stock was cut at 4.25" x 11", scored at 5.5 inches. The gray hillside seen below was cut on a 3.75" wide of gray paper. I smudged it with a dauber and black ink. The black fence is two pieces, slightly overlapped. I used Tombow glue to adhere the fence and tape runner for the hillside. The spiderweb is a much lighter gray, almost white. The spider was cut from black paper. His eyes are Nuvo Drops in yellow. I attached a thick but small diameter dimensional under the spider and colored the white sides that might show with a black Sharpie marker. Before attaching him, I used Glossy Accents over the entire spider and let him dry completely before placing him. After figuring out where I wanted him, I used a ruler and pencil to draw a line from the spiderweb, then went over the line with a fine nib silver pen before attaching the spider. I used clear Wink of Stella on the web.

As you open the card, this is what you see:

The sky color began with lavender paper and 5 different shades of Distress Oxide ink over it, Black Soot being the last color blended over the paper. A light spritz of water made the mottled effect. I had paper towel handy and heat set the inks when I liked what I had. Card stock won't handle a lot of water well so the key words here are "light spritz". Because I worried about the paper buckling, I used Skor-Tape but regular tape runner or glue would probably have been fine.

The moon was a 1.5" circle punched from an orangish-yellow scrap and has some orange smudges on it. The eyes of the bat, bird, and the doorknob are all dimensional due to the use of Nuvo Drops. the house also has black smudges and some cracks in it, cracks done with a Copic Multiliner.

The platform assembly is 4" wide. I cut a piece of light brown paper 4" wide and tore off the bottom half. The stamped greeting is from Simon Says Stamp (SSS101444 Trick or Treat).  The gray hands are cut from the same paper as the spiderweb. I just liked them so they are where they are, just to draw attention to the greeting.

The ghost just did not photograph well. I guess craft ghosts are just like the real ones in not being photogenic. The ghost was cut on Vertigo Pebbles by Imagine Crafts. The card did take a while to complete, but a lot of my time was experimenting with inks and trying out placement. I plan to make another card very similar to this and the background is already done.

One last picture, shot from overhead to show the spacing between elements inside the card.