Happy Halloween

Send a Smile 4 Kids' current challenge at their blog is "Fall Colors 4 Kids." What is more "fall" (in the U.S. at least) than Halloween? I don't usually have much use for Halloween cards, but figured a child in a hospital might love something like this, so created this card.

I based my design on this sketch by Operation Write Home:

Since I ended up making a 4.5x7.25" card, I obviously had to make some adjustments. My main inspiration from the sketch was the banner over the circle. I felt it would be perfect to spell out the word "happy"!

I die cut the letters for "Happy" from purple cardstock, using this Hero Arts set. I had to make the pennants slightly wider than the 1/2" called for in the sketch, since the letters are about 5/8" wide. I measured & cut the pennants from green cardstock, and glued the letters to them. For the circle element, I used the largest die in Spellbinders' "Standard Circles LG" set. I traced around the outer edge to get a 4" diameter circle and cut it out with scissors. Finally, I stamped the Hero Arts' "Designer Woodgrain" with Rusty Hinge Distress ink on the circle. I spaced the pennants out on the circle, and made pencil marks to guide me when I glued them in place. After I'd glued the pennants, I ran a line of Ranger Multi Medium Matte along the top edge, and laid down a piece of purple bakers twine. I tied 2 little bows with the same twine, and glued them at either end with more Multi Medium. Then I set that aside to dry.

For the "Halloween," I die cut a label using one of the Spellbinders "Grommet Tags" dies from the same green cardstock I'd used for the pennants. I scanned that into my computer, and created the text in Photoshop, using the scanned image for sizing & placement. The I printed the text directly on the die cut label. I inked around the edges with Black Soot Distress ink.

I chose 2 patterned papers from Jillibean Soup's "Owloween Stew" 6x6" pad. I cut the spider web piece to 4.25" square, and the striped piece to fill in the rest of the front. I glued the circle to the larger piece, and attached the label die cut to the striped piece with glue & orange brads. I also glued a piece of ribbon I'd gotten some years ago from Hobby Lobby to the top of the striped panel, to act as a transition between the 2 patterned papers. Finally, I adhered both patterned paper panels to a piece of purple cardstock, and adhered that to my card base.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

a2z Scrapbooking's "Autumn & Christmas"
Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes"