A Chuck Carson Scary Scarecrow Comes to Stay!

Imagine my surprise! When I first saw the new fabulous Chuck Carson Halloween stamps just released at Brutus Monroe, while I loved them, I was a bit skeptical about making them work with my “design sensibility.” Talk about honesty! So I took my narrow thinking as a challenge. Wanting a card or a tag as the end result, I started by using Brutus Monroe Detail Ink in Raven to stamp the scary scarecrow on a heavy white cardstock. Wow — beautiful detail with every impression. I am having so much fun coloring these days so that's what I did. It didn’t take much work to get great color in the smaller details & I was happy with it…so far!

Deciding on a card (4.25” x 5.5” size), I cut a card back from the same white cardstock I used for the stamps and a 3.25“ x 3.25” square from a scrap of goldenrod coverstock. Earlier, I had downloaded the “Spooky Nights’” digital paper pad from the Brutus Monroe site and decided on the flying bats. I scaled the page to 75% and printed it out on the heavy white cardstock. The digital papers in this pad are all so much fun — it was hard to choose just one! 

I fussy cut the colored stamp using my trusty little scissors. I wanted to give the background papers a bit of texture without being too busy, so I used the flat top surface of the Premium Chalk Ink in Sage to lightly “brush” the ink onto the outer edges of both pieces of cardstock . I did the swipes about an inch all around. On the goldenrod, I did another quick and light swipe using the Premium Chalk Ink in Rouge. (Erin Reed has a great video in her earlier blog post on this technique.) I cut a band from the printed digital paper. I taped the scarecrow to the goldenrod square. And, then taped the flying bats strip in place. Lucky me…I stepped outside to gather a few small pieces of straw. Using regular old Scotch tape, I stuck a flattened bunch of straw to the card back. I adhered the stamped component in place with double-sided tape making sure the straw was securely anchored. I had stamped and fussy cut the sentiment earlier so popped it in place with a few small pieces of foam tape to add some dimension to the card. I taped the card back to a card and there you go. A cute and maybe not so scary scarecrow! (Insert howling soundtrack!)

I like this so much I made a clip for my planner. Yes, while my planner stickers are usually pretty subtle in design, I wanted to add a pop of something that says Halloween to my vintage fall spreads. So a clip was born. Using the Silhouette, I cut two 3.25" scalloped circles from the printed digital paper (mirroring each other since I had only printed one side of the cardstock). Pretty easy really…I taped a second colored scarecrow in place, letting a bit of the flying bats paper frame the fussy cut stamp. I trimmed the bottom of the circles straight across the bottom so the clip would be a good height and nestle down in the pages of the planner. I sandwiched a large paper clip between the two scalloped circles and went to town with my double-sided tape, making sure to catch all the edges. The “Boo” sentiment is the frosting on the cake. I love how whimsical the clip looks in my Happy Planner. Crazy me…I like it with both fall sticker collections from my Etsy shop. (trlplansandprints) so I move it between my Erin Condren and Happy Planner. (Sometimes with my planners, I feel as if I am playing paper dolls again! Decorating and moving small paper things around. I think that is a big reason I love planning so much!))

My takeaway with all of this? Never say never! Before this…I would most likely have never used any stamps like Chuck Carson's. Pushing myself to just “try it” was a great thing. My eyes are now open to all the possibilities. Just wait…there is a Chuck Carson mummy in the works. What? 

You can find me here, of course, and on Instagram and Etsy.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trlplansandprints/

Etsy: trlplansandprints.etsy.com