Whimsy Stamps Digital Team Tutorial ~ Halloween Wall Hanging

Hey Whimsy friends,

this month has seen a few curve balls thrown for our lovely team,

so I'm stepping in to do the Diva Tutorial today.

Halloween is well on the way now

so I'm hoping this will inspire!

I love celebrating Halloween.
I try to create something fun each year
to decorate the house with.

I made this creation last year
to add to my existing Halloween decor
and it was seriously so fun to create, so I've put

together a little 'step by step' to share.

All the elements for this Halloween Decoration
have been created using Whimsy Stamps Dies and Papers.

You can of course swap out any of the elements in this
design with others you have in your collection,
I rather fancy doing one with our latest
Dia de los Muertos collection!

Sweet Sunday Digital Team Tutorial!

The first thing you'll need is a couple of sticks, a longer one to hang the strands from and a smaller one to create your broomstick. My small boy has a great stick collection which he was happy to share with mama. You'll also need some string or baker's twine to create your strands which you'll suspend your elements from. I used a black and white bakers twine to create mine.

The first elements I created for this decoration were the little pumpkins, which as you can see are '3D'. I've used the dies from the Build A Pumpkin Patch Die Set to create these cute 3D pumpkins. It's very easy to do. I created the 3D pumpkins from two of the dies in the Pumpkin Patch Die Set. I made two of the smaller ones for the outer strands and one of the larger ones for the middle strand. These were incredibly easy to make, but are oh so effective! 

I used a green alcohol marker to colour the Pumpkin tops. I diecut two as the base of the pumpkin. These form the two halves that are adhered either side of the string. They need to be adhered with the tops of the pumpkin facing the same way. Before adhering them to the string, the 3D aspects of the pumpkin need adding. I diecut two extra pumpkins per half. I folded these in half and trimmed the pumpkin tops off. I then adhered the two central halves back to back, but left the outer two folds free. I bent them in towards each other and then adhered them with Olba glue to the centre of the flat base. I repeated this on the other side and once they were dry, adhered them back to back to either side of the string.

The bats are from the awesome Dracula's Coffin Die Set. I adhered these just as a flat diecut, either side of the string, so when they spin they are the same both sides. The design is asymmetrical, so I needed to adhere them facing the same direction, I forgot with this one! But it was the best pic I took, typical! You can see in the centre, that I've adhered it the wrong way on this strand. The others, I made sure were the correct way around.

One of my favourite bits of this wall hanging is the wee broom which I created from some orange feathers my daughter found for me and a wee stick from my sons stick collection. I used an orange twine to wrap the feathers on after adding some glue around the stick. Such a fun element to this creation. Not quite a Nimbus 2000, but I love it!

The cute cats were cut from the fabulous Whimsy Stamps Halloween Paper pack called Hocus Pocus. I fussy cut them and because the design has the cats facing two directions, I was able to put them back to back, so when they spin, there is an image on both sides. The paper is quite thick, which is awesome, because it stands up to this sort of treatment really well, but my lil' fussy cutting scissors are getting a bit blunt and didn't leave a very nice edge on it. I think I'll go back and run my black pen around the edges, just to give it a nicer finish.

I have a thing for symmetry, so I had to make the two outer strands match and the inner strand the feature. I actually made the string for the central one too short, as I wound it around the broomstick too much and had to add some extra twine so it hung lower than the other two. I had intended to leave that strand with only the bigger pumpkin and bat, so had to think of something to add over the twine knot. Needing to cover the knot from where I extended the central string, left an opening for an extra detail. It was then that I thought up the idea of the cauldron. This last minute addition I think actually was the perfect finish for this creation. 

I used the central circle off-cuts from the witches hats to create the main round part of the cauldron. I cut freehand the little lip for the cauldron and adhered it to the back layer. I used the Bats and Bubbles Border Die Set to diecut a strip of bubbles, which I used as a template for adding the Ripened Pumpkin Nuvo Drops to the cauldron. I carefully lifted up the template and the bubbles stayed nicely placed. I then drooped some along the cauldron lip and dripped it down a bit to look like overflowing bubbling brew. To create the little feet for the cauldron, I used two of the bubble offcuts from creating the template and glued them between the round main layers. I am really happy with how it came together. A fun little extra detail I think.

The little witches hat is a tutorial all on its own, so I've created a PDF document you can download and print to follow along with. Just click on the Whimsy Stamps banner below to be taken straight to that tutorial page. I hope you've enjoyed this Halloween Wall Hanging Tutorial and if you make your own version of this, be sure to share with me and the rest of the team over on our Whimsy Stamps Facebook page. We'd love to see what you're inspired to create! I'll be back with the rest of the team next week to share the rest of our August creations and we will of course have our lovely August Digital Guest Designer Maaike Uijthoven showcased in that post.

Hugs and happy crafting from me and all the

Whimsy Stamps Digital Design Divas