O' Halloween Tree, O' Halloween Tree

When I was a child, my mom had a book of Halloween carols, basically it was a book of Christmas carols that someone added Halloween lyrics to. It was decorated with pictures of Peanuts characters. I loved that book. One of my favorite carols was O' Halloween Tree, O' Halloween Tree (Do I have you singing yet?). So when I saw all of the wonderful Stampendous Halloween stamps that were just released, I knew I had to make my own Halloween tree.

I started by gathering my supplies: a sheet of Taskboard, shrink plastic, Copic markers, VersaMark and StazOn ink, a pair of sharp scissors and a craft knife, 120 grit sandpaper, a heat tool and of course Halloween stamps. If you want to make one too, you need one more supply, Stampendous Embossing Enamel. This is an amazing product that comes in several very cool colors. For my tree I used Aged Black.

I started by drawing a tree on the Taskboard. I cut it out and traced it on more Taskboard to create a second tree. I then cut slits in both trees (one from the top and one from the bottom) so that I could slide them together to make one free-standing tree.

Next, working in sections, I inked each tree with VersaMark and generously poured Aged Black Embossing Enamel over the inked areas. After tapping off the excess enamel, I used my heat tool to melt the enamel.

The very cool thing about Stampendous Embossing Enamel is that it isn't just one pure color. It's a chunky mixture so when you heat the Aged Black, you see flecks of gold and silver as well. Once the tree was completely covered with melted enamel, I simply slid the two pieces together. Next came the ornaments.

I stamped each of the new Stampendous Halloween images onto shrink plastic using StazOn ink. After letting it dry a few minutes, I turned the sheet over and sanded to rough up the surface. Before I colored with my Copics, I swiped a babywipe over the surface to get the sanding dust off the sheet. After coloring, I cut each image out, making sure to leave a border around each one. I punched a hole in the top of each one and used my heat tool to shrink them.

To attach my ornaments to my tree, I punched holes in my tree and hung the ornaments using a jillian vance designs Pear Pins. These are the best pins for attaching baubles or trinkets to your cards and scrapbook pages. I then tied bows around each one with this fabulous May Arts ribbon. In this close-up you can really see the flecks of gold and silver in the embossing enamel...LOVE it! I finished by creating a few tombstones with some left over shrink plastic that I diecut before shrinking.

I created this tree for this month's Stampendous Challenge. The theme is embossing. But it really is also a great way to kick off next week. The Stampendous Design Team is collaborating all next week with May Arts so please stop back and check out my projects as well as those on the Stampendous blog.

Thanks for visiting today! Have a great weekend.

Noteworthy Supplies: