Cards made with my new Sin City Stamps images

I have been playing with the journaling stamps from Sin City Stamps for a couple of months now and I really like them.  There are so many stamps in their collection that I want that it is very hard to decide what to add to my stash first!  So last month I decided to order their 1 lb. grab bag and let fate decide which stamps I get to play with next.  I like to order stamps this way from time to time because it’s an envelope full of surprises!  And who doesn’t like a good surprise, right?

This package had stamps of backgrounds (fabulous for journaling), children & silhouettes (always fun for Mother’s Day, etc) and…Halloween!  And not the happy-funny-smiley Halloween either!  MY kind of Halloween!  I have always made my Halloween cards dark and scary. To me, that is the best kind of Halloween.  When I saw this graveyard stamp I couldn’t wait to play with it.  And I love the spooky font on the Oct 31 stamp.

I started by choosing bold colors.  I love how orange and blue look together and every spooky Halloween deserves a big bright moon so I added a vibrant yellow.  Then I stamped all of my images in all of the colors so I could play around and get the right combination of layers. 

It’s a scary card that can even go to the young people on my holiday card list because the colors are bright and bold and the coffin isn’t too scary.  

Of course, I couldn’t resist playing with the coffin on another card.  I used the direct-to-paper method and my little mini inkpads to get a nice background going.  I stamped some texture images around the sides and randomly in the middle before placing the main image on the card.  

A little coloring and then I sponged more ink around everywhere except the moon. The gray is a chalk ink and gave it a nice muted effect.

Two very different cards with one stamp – those are my favorites!  I love stamps that can be used over and over again without repeating a design. 

Thanks for stopping by and following me on this creative journey.  Please feel free to leave me a comment or like/follow my page.  Happy stamping!