This Beautiful Gallery Happy Halloween Card I thought was somewhat of an original idea when I made it, but then I saw that Sara Douglass had made something very similar on Instagram on the @stampinupofficial account! I got the idea to use one of the scenes in the Beautiful Gallery 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper as the background for a Halloween card from seeing people buying framed paintings of scenery like in a thrift store and then painting extra things on the picture. I think I also saw something on an Instagram story from one of my favorite gift shops that reminded me of that. It all made me think of the Beautiful Gallery paper as a background for the two stamped characters in the Spooky Halloween Stamp Set .
I’ll tell you how I did mine, then tell you about Sara’s, and show you what the paper looks like on its own. My card base is made with Crumb Cake cardstock. I chose a scene in the Beautiful Gallery DSP that I thought could work with the two Halloween characters. It has a grayish/brownish sky, some green hilly land, and some white stalky flowers in the forefront. I cut this paper down to 4″ x 5 1/4″ to fit the front of the card. Before adhering it, I colored in the sky a little bit to make it look a little spookier. I used a Small Blending Brush to lightly add some Petunia Pop ink in the clouds and some Pumpkin Pie ink in the lighter horizon area just above the trees and hills.
The two characters were stamped from the Spooky Halloween Stamp Set on Basic White with Memento ink. Normally I would color them with Stampin’ Blends markers, but I felt they might be too vibrant for the Halloween scene so I used Watercolor Pencils instead. I chose a variety of colors of the pencils from my old set. You can choose from Assortment 1 HERE or Assortment 2 HERE. I used to love to color with these pencils! After coloring, if you like, you can use a Blender Pen to smooth out the lines or blend some colors. If you are using Basic White, you want to color lightly and not overdue it or the paper will pill a tiny bit, Or you can stamp on watercolor paper. You could also use Water Painters, which are now back in stock. I forgot I bought the Spooky Halloween Dies so I fussy-cut these two costumed characters. You can buy the stamp set and dies together in the Spooky Halloween Bundle and save 10%.
The two Halloween guys are popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals, some little bitty pieces, although you could adhere them flat on the card as well. The greeting is in the Spooky Halloween Stamp Set and is stamped in Petunia Pop ink on Basic White, then cut apart with Paper Snips scissors. I also used my Small Blending Brush to add a little bit Pumpkin Pie ink to make it look a little spooky. The greeting is also popped up on Dimensionals. The little stars in the sky are from a gift a special friend brought back for me from Japan as she visited all kinds of stationery stores on her trip!
This was such a fun card to make and I’m happy with the way it turned out. This is what the paper looked like before I started.
On the @StampinupOfficial Instagram account, Sara Douglass used one of the other papers, the one with the cottage. She used reinkers in Gorgeous Grape and Smoky Slate with a Water Painter to add color to the sky. She used White Craft ink to draw in two little ghosts in the foreground and one tiny one farther and added eyes to the ghosts with a Black Stampin’ Blend Marker. I love what she did with the scenic paper and the little ghosts! Go check it out.