Hello, friends! Today I’m so excited to introduce the newest addition to my City Holiday collection with Spellbinders – the Halloween City Holiday Collection!
If you’ve been following my City Holiday series, you already know that the original City Holiday die set was designed to create a charming apartment building decorated for Christmas. Later, we expanded its versatility with the Everyday City Holiday add-on, making it easy to create buildings for any season or occasion.
Now it’s time for Halloween! The Halloween City Holiday Collection includes two products designed to transform your City Holiday building into a spooky haunted house. But don’t let the name fool you – even if you don’t own the original City Holiday die set, these new products can absolutely stand on their own and be incorporated into all kinds of Halloween cardmaking projects.
HALLOWEEN CITY HOLIDAY INTRODUCTION VIDEO
Watch my video below or on YouTube:
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Happy Halloween Sentiments
The first product in the collection is the Happy Halloween Sentiments BetterPress Plate & Die Set.
This set includes four Halloween greetings:
- Trick or Treat & Something Sweet
- Spooky Wishes to Your Street
- Wishing You a Fang-tastic Halloween
- Have a Fabulous Halloween
Although these are BetterPress plates, I most often use them with my Glimmer Hot Foil System because I absolutely love the look of foiled sentiments. Whether I use Opaque Black or White, or Matte Gold foil (see my favorite foil colors HERE), the crisp detail you get with BetterPress plates is hard to beat.
One of the design decisions I made while developing this set was to keep each sentiment on its own plate rather than combining them into a single “one-and-done” plate.
Many sentiment sets today allow you to foil several greetings at once and cut them all out with one coordinating die. While that’s certainly convenient, I personally love foiling sentiments directly onto my card backgrounds. By keeping each sentiment separate, you have the flexibility to foil directly onto your project.
City Holiday Halloween Decorations
The second product is the City Holiday Halloween Decorations Etched Dies, a set packed with all the classic Halloween icons I could think of.
When the original City Holiday collection was released, I loved seeing all of the creative ways you adapted it for Halloween using dies and embellishments from your own stash. Seeing those projects inspired this collection. I wanted to create one small add-on set that included everything you might need to decorate your apartment building for Halloween.
The set includes three ghosts, each with its own personality and size. I also included coordinating backer pieces so you can easily add contrasting colors behind the eyes and mouths. The ghosts can peek from windows, float in front of the building, or become focal elements on entirely different Halloween cards.
You’ll also find two jack-o’-lanterns, complete with separate backer dies that allow glowing yellow or orange faces to shine through.
Of course, no haunted house would be complete without a skeleton! This little character can stand at the front door, peek out from a window, or even hide behind the building. The set also includes a few loose bones for adding extra playful details.
One of my favorite dies in the collection is the bat. The wings feature beautiful etched detail and score lines that make the die-cut look wonderfully realistic. Cut several bats from black cardstock and scatter them across your background, or take things a step further by attaching one to a Spellbinders Spinner for a fun interactive card.
Spider webs were another must-have. Instead of including just one web, I designed three different versions – a full web, a half web, and a corner web. These make it easy to decorate windows, frame card fronts, or fill empty corners with spooky detail.
The collection also includes a creepy reaching hand that can emerge from behind pumpkins, peek through a window, or become another unexpected Halloween accent.
And finally, perhaps my favorite tiny detail in the entire collection – spooky eyes! This small die cuts 2 pairs of eyes that can be adhered directly behind windows, creating the illusion that someone (or something!) is watching from inside the haunted house. Cut them from yellow cardstock for glowing eyes or black glitter cardstock for a more mysterious look. It’s such a simple detail, but it adds so much personality to the finished project.
ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES
While every element in this collection was designed to coordinate perfectly with the original City Holiday die set, don’t feel limited by that. The ghosts, bats, pumpkins, spider webs, skeleton, and spooky eyes can all be incorporated into scrapbook layouts, treat packaging, tags, and Halloween cards of every style.
That’s something I always try to keep in mind when designing products – versatility. I love creating collections that work together beautifully while still giving you plenty of opportunities to mix and match with supplies you already own.
Spellbinders Club members receive early access to the Halloween City Holiday Collection beginning August 6, with the full release available on August 10.
I also have step-by-step video tutorials coming soon featuring both of the cards shown in today’s introduction, so stay tuned if you’d like to see exactly how they came together.
I can’t wait to see how you decorate your own haunted houses!
Happy crafting!
SUPPLIES
I’m listing the products I used below. Click on the link to go directly to the product. Where available, I use compensated affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase, I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for your support!
