Using Dies in Unexpected Ways

Hello everyone! It’s June and I’m sharing this fun Halloween card using some unexpected dies… Keep reading to see how I made this bottle using some out of the box thinking!

I had the idea of making a little potion or poison bottle and I was determined to make it work using dies I had in my stash. I started off using one of the new (releasing on October 16th): the ring from the Holiday Wreath Builder. I love building wreaths with it, but that set also has some great staple pieces for other purposes. For example, the ring makes an easy shaker element that can be used to create poison bottles, apparently. ;)

For the neck of the bottle, I used one of the pieces from the Big Excavator, and the cap/cork is a harder one to guess. Do you recognize it? It’s actually a modified piece! I used the lid of the Candy Bucket and I shortened it by running it through my die cutting machine twice in different positions, making it the perfect size to fit the bottle neck.

This shape alone makes a great little bottle, but of course I wanted to go a step further and make it clear that it’s supposed to be poisonous. The obvious thing to do was add a skull and crossbones, which I did by stamping the skull from the Halloween Icons stamp set and cutting out 4 of the turkey bones from the Big Fall Cupcake die set.

The Spooky Mug Additions includes this drippy shape that could look like dripping poison and to top it all off, I used some horns from the Build a Monster dies to theme it even further. I cut all of my pieces from colored cardstock and I darkened one side of each of them using a matching ink to add some extra dimension. I also added white gel pen details for the same reason.

I turned my bottle into a shaker and used a variety of different shaker mixes. I’m very nitpicky so I carefully selected all the shaker bits I wanted from the Spooky Sky, Spooktacular and Cotton Candy Clay Confetti. 

For the background I chose the Scattered Bats Stencil and used a combination of Tattered Rose and Saltwater Taffy Distress Oxide for the base, and Worn Lipstick for the bats. I also splattered some thinned out white acrylic paint on top. I cut out my panel using the largest of the Stitched Torn Rectangles.

For my sentiment I once again went with one of the ones from the Halloween Corners stamp set, which I stamped using brown ink to kind of bring back the brown from the cork. I finished the sentiment by stamping just the ‘wishing you a’ part of one of the sentiments from Sentiment Strips: Birthday. 

And that’s my final card! I hope this inspired you to create whatever you envision using dies you already have in your stash. The possibilities are endless! I hope to see you again soon, bye for now!