Gillybean Crafting : West Coast Creators Blog Hop - Happy Halloween! (September 2021)

It's that time of month again - team blog hop! And this time the theme is Halloween! This created a small problem for me as I don't buy Halloween themed stamp sets or paper. I just don't seem to have the need, but that's just me. Stampin' Up!® definitely makes some of the cutest sets for Halloween so it does take a bit of willpower, even for me, to not buy at least one.

Anyway, I got creative with what I did have and I'm REALLY pleased with the end result!

This adorable card was made possible by using the Sweets & Treats stamp set in the current mini catalogue and tying in some great papers, ribbons & embellishments to round out the theme.

After deciding on the layout (courtesy of a Penguin Place card I'd seen by Alison Solven), I knew I would use the Black Glitter Paper and the Black Glittered Organdy Ribbon. Now, for some DSP with orange.... ahh, the Expressions in Ink Specialty DSP will work just fine thank you very much! I embossed the DSP with the Tasteful Textile Folder to mute it out a bit, which I preferred as a background

Major decision time - candy apple or caramel apple. Personally, I prefer a caramel apple and also when I started playing with my blends to create the caramel effect, I loved how much depth you could create with blending several colours & shades.

I wanted to share my blending process with you as I really think it provides a nice rich caramel look. I had a lot of fun playing around with what colours to use and which order to layer them in!

1. First step was to use the dark Pumpkin Pie Blends marker as shown here.

2. Next, using the light Cinnamon Cider Blends, I coloured in the entire shape.

3. Now I went over the 'accent areas' again but this time using the Dark Cinnamon Cider Blends marker.

4. And lastly I used the light Pumpkin Pie Blends marker to further shade the entire area and blend in the accent areas with the overall shape.

I should mention that to stamp this stack of apples, I just carefully lined up the clear stamp image over and over, with only partially inking the image for the middle layer. You could, of course, use the masking technique as well but I found it was very easy to do it this way without the added step of the mask.

I then fussy cut the apples as a whole and layered this directly over the platter, which I had stamped in Staz On ink on the matte piece from the Silver Foil Specialty Pack. I used my dimensionals strategically to ensure the images sat together perfectly.

Now without a Halloween stamp set, I didn't have a perfect greeting so I just stamped the word treat from the Sweets & Treats stamp set on a die cut from the Tailor Made Tags (but shortened). Slip it over an apple stick, tie a twine bow on it and voila! Last but not least, scatter on some embellishments from the Sequins for Everything pack and the Shaker Shapes and we've got ourselves a card!

Also did a bit of blending behind the apples using Mango Melody to match the cardstock base.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog. Be sure to 'hop' to as many of the others as you can!

You will be so inspired by all the amazing designs!