How do you make a really good looking Halloween card, that isn’t just full of witches, cats and spiders? I was completely stuck until I came across a book on Zentangles – that gave me an idea…. what if I was to write out the letters, then do a Zentangle style pattern in the middle of each one?

Some black card a white gel pen and a white pencil later, this is the end result:

The outside of the card, with a Zentangle-inspired look

The white gel pen wasn’t as opaque as I’d hoped, and some of the patterns needed going over a few times to make them stand out, but it still has a really striking effect on the black!

Inside the card – copying a Hobbit font

But for the inside, I wanted to use an orange gel pen…. so I cut some white paper to line the card, and copied a Hobbit-themed font from my computer screen to make it look a little more unique!

I knew I wanted to send a gift with the card, and I’d found the bat pattern from BeeZee Art a little while ago. I made the mistake of buying some nice thick fleece to make the bat…. and ended up having to hand crank the sewing machine, as even with a denim needle, it struggled with the thickness of the fabric layers!

I’m pleased with how the bat came out though – although the black fleece was a nightmare to work with, it gives Batty a nice plush feel, and the orange lining for his ears and wings (remnants from the polycotton lining of the Trendy bag‘s second version) lifts the black.

My topstitching on the wings came out surprisingly well, even though his nose is slightly crooked! But his new owner loved him, and that’s the whole point 😀