Sparkly Halloween

I love Halloween and I love the pumpkin carving party my hubby and I have thrown every year since 1999. I also love making invitations for the party and I was super excited when I came up with this year's design. It's a fun mix of stamps, patterned paper and sparkly ribbon that is almost elegant but not stodgy, if that makes any sense. Because the ribbon is so shimmery, I'm sharing the card with this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Blog Challenge: Shimmer and Shine and also with QKR Stampede Friday's anything goes challenge.

The springboard for the design was definitely the sparkly orange sequin wired ribbon I found at the Dollar Tree. I decided to pair it up with a piece of fun retired Halloween mosaic patterned paper. I adhered both next to each other to a 4" x 5x1/4" mat of basic black card stock. Even though the mat is covered up, I needed it to wrap and hide the edges of the ribbon and hemp twine. Using SU snail adhesive on the gold wired edges of the ribbon worked perfectly to adhere it to the mat.

I used memento tuxedo black ink to stamp the sentiment from the Halloween Bash set on more mustard card stock. I added a basic black mat, rounding the corners of both layers with the small corner rounder punch. I placed the sentiment where it straddled the ribbon and designer paper and attached it with 3M double sided tape. I find that tape is plenty strong to handle the different textures of the two surfaces.

I stamped the spider image from the Piece of Poison set on Really Rust card stock with versamark ink and heat embossed it with detail black embossing powder. Even though the embossing powder isn't metallic, it still helps the spider catch the light and shimmer a bit along with the ribbon. I punched the spider out with the large oval punch and added a basic black mat punched with the scalloped oval punch. I then punched a hole in near the spider's rear end with the 1/16" hope punch and threaded a piece of black hemp twine through, securing it in the back of the basic black scalloped oval with more 3M double sided tape which also served to attach the spider to the ribbon. I ran the hemp twine up and wrapped it around the mat to look like the spider's thread.  The last step was to attach the mat to the basic black card base with yet more 3M double sided tape.

I hope you and our party guests like this year's sparkly Halloween party invite as much as I enjoyed designing it.

Recipe:

Paper: basic black, more mustard, really rust, Creepy Crawly designer series paper
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, versamark
Stamps: Halloween Bash, Piece of Poison
Accessories: detail black embossing powder, large oval punch, scalloped oval punch, small corner rounder punch, black hemp twine, orange sequin wired ribbon by Greenbrier Inc.