First off, this card was inspired by the super cute Christmas door with critters stamp set recently released by Mama Elephant, called Meowy Woofmas<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(which is sadly sold out). But I knew I could alter an old Katy Sue Designs The Door Stamp Collection that I had picked up in a clearance sale for $1 for the scene I wanted to create for a Halloween card.
\n<\/a>I decided I would make a tall easel card so I stamped out the door with a bit of space above and below it and doodled on rows of bricks above the arched door and drew front steps (taking care to try to keep the depth perspective with the angles) below. \u00a0To make it more Halloweeny, I used a Copic Multi-Liner Pen in 0.05 pt to draw in cracks, spider webs, spiders, and cracks in the windows. For some fun details, I used the\u00a0little fence and the bats from the\u00a0Lawn Fawn Happy Haunting<\/a><\/span> to add some details to the doorway. Then I used an X-Acto blade to hand cut the door so that it could be swung open. For even more realism, I stamped the door stamp on the inside of the door too so that when it is opened it has all the details that the outside image has.\u00a0To create the “screen door,” I took a polka dot scrap of vellum, colored the back side of it with a Copic purple in V06 for a nice touch of color, and glued it to the door opening. When the battery operated tea light is turned on behind this, there is a beautiful glow. The rest of the mansion entry is lightly colored with Copic greys in N1, 2, and 3 with hints of luminescence in the transom window and stairs with V91.<\/p>\n

<\/a>For the ghostly couple\u00a0residing in\u00a0the haunted mansion, I used the Lawn Fawn Booyah stamp<\/a><\/span> and die set<\/a><\/span> to make up a Mr. Batty Ghost and a Mrs. Frankenstein Ghost. The coloring was simple with a bit of Copic V91 for a pale purpley ghostly hue and C7 for a black, but not solid black look. The Mrs is peering out from the doorway, as if to say, “Welcome!” and the Mr. is attached to the front door with a strip of clear plastic that I salvaged from some packaging so that he swings out to say “Booyah.” \u00a0To maintain the “realism” of the couple (LOL), I stamped and die cut out the Mr Batty Ghost two times and sandwiched the plastic strip between so that from whichever direction you see him (front or back), he looks complete. I stamped out “Happy Haunting” from the stamp set, matted it (doodling some jaggedy lines for some detail with a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen), and popped it up on double sided foam adhesive to create the stopper for the easel mechanism.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Then Copic colored up a three of the Lawn Fawn Critters in Costume<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and die cut and fussy cut them out (two were masked and combined — I didn’t want the white space between them — so using the matching dies wasn’t possible). The following are the Copic colors I used:
\nBumble bee dog: Y15, YR24, W0, W3, W7, E50, E11 and V91
\nPumpkin dog: E21, E11, E33, YR12, YR24, YR04, YR07, G24 and G94
\nAngel squirrel: E70, 71 and V91
\nI also added clear Wink of Stella on all the wings as well as on the Mr. and Mrs. Ghost for a little magical sparkle.<\/p>\n

To match the walkway with the steps of the mansion, I blended on Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Milled Lavender for the ground where the trick-or-treating critters were coming up. To have the costumed critters propped up, I simply cut up and folded scrap card stock that I also inked to match\/disappear into the walkway and glued them to their backs.<\/p>\n

The following is a video share of this card:<\/p>\n