Spooky Halloween Card Tutorial

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I downloaded the bat punch for My Digital Studio last night and then started thinking about an idea for a spooky looking card.   This is what I came up with:

The center photo is a picture of pumpkin we carved several years ago.  The original photo is not that spectacular.  It was taken as night and is a bit fuzzy.  But by using the Photo Effects function I was able to easily change it to something rather fun.

There are several different techniques I used for this so I thought a tutorial might be helpful.
1. Open a New Project - Greeting Card - 7 X 5 Landscape - Create Your Own - Name your project -Blank Page.

2. Under stamps select Vintage Overlays (purchased download).  Choose the third one down and cover the background.

3. Choose the 1.25 Square punch and stretch it to cover the entire card.  Paper fill it with Basic Black Grid Designer Series Paper (this comes with the MDS program).  Reduce the opacity to 40.

4. Add a photo box, enlarge it to size and use the Photo Shape button to change it to a circle.  

5. Add a photo.  Using the Photo Effect function choose Negative to alter the picture.

6. Add a bat punch.  Double click on the bat to bring up the Object Settings box.  Make sure the Keep Proportions box is checked and change the width to 913.  Reduce the Opacity to 55.  Center it horizontally using the Arrange - Align - Center on
Page Horizontally function.

7. Add the flourish stamp from the Extreme Elements set (comes with the program) to the page.  Change the size to width 185 (with the Keep Proportions box checked again).  Reduce the opacity to 75.

8.  Copy and paste the flourish 3 more times.  Rotate each 45 degrees.  Position one in each corner.

9.  Add a text box and type the greeting.  I used the color picker to select a blue from the pumpkin.  The font that I used is one that came with Word for Mac called Cracked.