Imagine my surprise! When I first saw the new fabulous Halloween stamps from Brutus Monroe, while I loved them, I was a bit skeptical about making them work with my “design sensibility.” Talk about honesty! So I took that as my challenge. Thinking a card or a tag as the end result, I started by using Brutus Monroe Detail Ink in Raven to stamp the scary scarecrow on a heavy white cardstock. Wow — beautiful detail with every impression I made. I am having so much fun coloring these days, I used my colored pencils and colored away. It didn’t take much work to get great color in the smaller details & I was happy with it…so far!
Deciding on a card (4.25” x 5.5” size), I cut a card back from the same white cardstock I used for the stamps and a 3.25“ x 3.25”-ish square from a scrap of goldenrod coverstock. Earlier, downloaded the “Spooky Nights’” digital paper pad from the Brutus Monroe site. I chose the flying bats paper, scaled it to 75% and printed it out on the heavy white cardstock. The digital papers in this pad are all so much fun — it was hard to choose just one!
I fussy cut the colored stamp using my trusty little scissors. I wanted to give the background papers a bit of texture without being too busy so I used the flat surface of the Premium Chalk Ink in Sage to lightly “brush” the ink onto the outer edges of both pieces of cardstock going in about an inch all around. On the goldenrod, I did another quick and light swipe using the Premium Chalk Ink in Rouge. (Erin Reed has a great video in her earlier post on this technique.) I cut a band from the printed digital paper. I taped the scarecrow to the goldenrod square. And, then taped the flying bats strip in place. Lucky me…stepped outside to gather a few small pieces of straw. Using regular old Scotch tape, I stuck a flattened bunch to the card back. I taped the stamped component in place with double-sided tape making sure the straw was anchored. I had stamped and fussy cut the sentiment earlier and popped it in place with a few small pieces of foam tape to add some dimension to the card. I taped the card back to a card and there you go. A cute scary scarecrow! (Insert howling soundtrack!)
I like this so much I made a clip for my planner. Yes, while my planner stickers are usually pretty subtle in design I just wanted to add a pop of something to my vintage fall spreads. So a clip was born. Using the Silhouette, I cut two scalloped circles from the printed digital paper (mirroring each other since I had only printed one side of the cardstock). Pretty easy really…I taped a second colored stamp in place letting a bit of the flying bats paper frame the fussy cut stamp. I trimmed the bottom of the circles straight across the bottom so the clip would be a good height for the planner and nestle down in the pages. I sandwiched a large paper clip between the two scalloped circles and went to town with my double-sided tape. making sure to catch all the edges. The “Boo” sentiment is the frosting on the cake. I love how whimsical the clip looks in my Happy Planner. Crazy me…I like it with both fall sticker collections from my Etsy shop. (trlplansandprints) so I move it between my Erin Condren and Happy Planner.
My takeaway with all of this? Never say never! Before this…I would most likely have never used any stamps like these. Pushing myself to just “try it” was a great thing. My eyes are now open to all the possibilities. Just wait…there is a Chuck Carson mummy in the works. What?
As you may know, I had the good fortune to be a member of the Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team in 2016. I thought it would be fun to share my posts from that blog with all of you here. Hope you enjoy!
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