CAS(E) this Sketch #237 - happy halloween

It's a little bit early, but I made a Halloween card this weekend. 

My design was inspired by Chrissy's sketch for this week's CAS(E) this Sketch.

Let me share my story about how I came up with the spider web idea.

I was thinking about what image I want to use for the fun "fan" shape for the past few days - when I was taking a shower, driving to work, waiting in the  checkout line at the grocery store... 
My first instinct was to place layered modern graphic shapes. Then I started thinking about some more nature-theme images. Nothing really hit me. I'm sure you all understand my feelings. I had "this-works-fine" moments, but didn't have a "Yeah, this is it!" light-bulb moment.

I went to a beauty salon on Saturday afternoon (still thinking about the sketch image while driving to the salon), and told my beautician about the challenge I was having. Hairstyling is a kind of art, and his wife is a professional graphic designer, so we often talk about art-related stuff.
Then he shared a piece of advice his wife often gives him. She says "The design software (Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.) is only a supporting tool after all. You should first draw a draft design with your own hand freely, and explore ideas."
So after I came back home, I started doodling with a pencil. It's true, I'd been  thinking about the design a lot, but just IN my head, not actually drawing something on paper.
This is one of the designs I doodled on scratch paper:

I looked for a spider web stamp, but the one I have was a little too small for the layout, so I decided to draw it myself.
I didn't find good Halloween sentiment stamps in my stash to match the cute little spider, so I created one using MS Word (font: Octavia Script). 
I test-printed the sentiment to make sure the position was right. I also stamped the spider to see how low it should dangle.

I drew the web with a black pen, and framed the front panel with the Halloween design paper.
I thought about adding a few Halloween color sequins or grey spatters to the card, but I decided not to. I wanted to keep the doodle-on-paper feeling. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Thanks for reading the lengthy post today! Do you have your own way of dealing with situations where you can't think of any good ideas?



Stamp: Googly Ghouls (Stampin' Up!)
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Witches' Brew DSP (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko)