Layered Halloween Background

Fall has arrived and Halloween is just around the corner, so I've decided to break out some new Halloween stamps and dies for today's card.

Believe it or not, this card started with a white panel for the background. But with lots of inking, stamping and die-cutting it has been transformed into a dimensional textured background full of interesting layers.

To create the background, I inked up the entire panel with Grape Slush Reactive Ink and a blending brush. Then I went in with black ink around the edges and Sea Salt Reactive Ink in the middle area. This white ink works great to add highlighted areas over darker colors! Once these colors were blended smooth, I stamped the Nevermore Print Bold Prints over the top with black ink. Next, I added splatters of White Iridescent Shimmer Spray and White Liquid Watercolor with a paintbrush. And finally I created some texture using the Spider Web Texture Fancy Die.

The black cat is a die from the I See Crafting Frame Cuts set. Even though this die was designed to coordinate with the matching stamp set, it works great as a stand alone die. To give the cat some dimension, I die cut it three times from Pitch Black Cardstock and glued those together and then cut it once from Pebble Cardstock for the shadow.

The sentiment from the Autumn Bounty Stamp & Cut is heat embossed with Black Sparkle Embossing Powder on Pebble Cardstock. I added some detail to the cat with a white gel pen and finished off the card with a scattering of Neutral Enamel Dots.

Backgrounds like this can intimidate me a little because there are so many steps I could mess up on. But once I started, it was so much fun! Any mistakes can easily be covered up by another element, or in as in my case with this card, a cat. I accidentally dropped my black ink pad on the background and it left a black streak across the panel. But instead of tossing it, I just worked around it when designing the rest of the card and covered it up with the cat.

Thanks for joining me today!