By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog “Coffee Pot People”.
Do you ever miss happy mail? You know, going to the mailbox and pulling out something other than a bill or piece of advertising? I sure do, and I know for certain I’m not the only one, with email so dominant, this year I decided my treats for Halloween were going to be something that would bring a smile at the mailbox. I’m sending postcards!
As I was cleaning up my craft table the other day, I noticed that some foam letters had arranged themselves in a group that looked very like the beginning of a skeleton. Ooh, I thought. Could you make an entire skeleton using them? The answer was YES, and in a few minutes I’d created a skeleton stamp.
If you’d like to make one, too, you’ll need:
Foam alphabet stickers, all caps, about 3/4″-1″ tall:
- 1 Q
- 2 E’s
- 2 P’s
- 4 L’s
- 2 I’s
- The centers from 2 O’s
A backing/support for your skeleton. I used the lid from a whipped topping container, which was translucent.
Arrange your letters something like this:
The original thought was to add a hat, but I decided to leave it off.
As you can see, only two of the letters need to be reversed–one E, and one P–to form the left sides of the ribcage and hip bones. Those two you will glue to your support piece, rather than using the sticker’s adhesive.
Cut tiny triangles from the O centers to create fingers.
You can play with the positioning of the arms, legs, and head, until you find a pose you like. Keep in mind that if you’re arranging the stickers with the adhesive side down, your stamp will be a mirror image of what you see. If you want to see it as it will stamp, turn the letters face down. Once you’ve created the pose you want, peel off the protective papers and stick the letters to the support/base, starting with the head, and working down. For the two letters that you’ll glue, make sure they’re exactly where you want them before you remove the papers; otherwise, they’ll stick to your fingers when you try to move them and not let go! (And yes, that IS the voice of experience, lol.) Once the glue on those two letters is dry, you can pat a little talcum powder on them, which will take away the stickiness.
You now have a skeleton stamp to play with!
To make a postcard using my new stamp, I took some cardstock I thought had that “Halloween feeling”, and cut it to postcard size. (USPS allows a maximum size of 6″ X 4.25″, and a minimum size of 5″ X 3.5″, or 15.2cm X 10.8cm and 12.7cm X 8.9cm)
Then I stamped the skeleton on it, using three of my new word stamps to say “Happy Boo Day”. The first time, I used black ink for everything, but then decided I’d like the skeleton better white, after all. I took a stiff bristle brush and painted on white craft paint, and over-stamped the original skeleton. (You have to love a stamp base you can see through!)
Of course, after that, I had to see what it would look like if I just used the white, without the black underneath:
Personally, I like it better with the black under it, as the skeleton seems to show up better.
Last step: Turn your new postcard over and divide it in half so you have one side for the address, and the other for a brief message. You can simply draw a vertical line, or use another stamp:
For another easy card, cut a postcard-size piece of cardstock that pumpkins would look good against. I chose one that looked kind of “vine-y”. Now cut three or four circles of pumpkin-Design paper or cardstock. Arrange them on the card in a pleasing arrangement. Placing the larger disks near the bottom of the card, with the smaller ones nearer the top will give a sense of distance, as your mind interprets “smaller” as farther away, and “higher” as being the far horizon.
Once you’ve decided on your placement, you can pencil in jack o’ lantern faces on each of them, and then black in the features. Glue them in place on the card and write or stamp, “Oooooooooooh” in a curvy line across the card. Last step is to turn the card over and divide it in half as you did the other one.
