SPOILERS! 13 Days of Craft-o-Ween Day 2. Step by Step Tutorial

SPOILER ALERT: Welcome the 13 Days of Craftoween 2025 Advent Calendar — and we can’t wait to show you what’s inside! If you love spooky season as much as we do, you’re in for a real treat (no tricks here). Whether you’re into cute and quirky or dark and dramatic, the 13 Days of Craftoween is packed with creative potential. Each day unveils a new mini crafting treasure designed to help you conjure up cards and more — all perfect for October makes and haunted happenings.

Ready to peek behind Door 2? Today we’re featuring a project by Marie Heiderscheit.

Catch up on all the spooky surprises and creative inspiration from the rest of the countdown:
Day 1

From cute critters to haunted houses, each reveal is packed with frightfully fun inspiration you won’t want to miss!

Welcome to Day 2 of Spellbinder’s Craft-O-Ween!

The Day 2 die set features the creepiest (and CUTEST) little crow in a top hat and monocle. There’s also a skull included in the set that our crow friend can perch on.

Join me as I give a step-by-step on how to put this crow together with a color-block background for a fun Halloween card!

• First, we want to cut out and assemble all the little pieces for this little guy. The folder the set comes in has a picture of the finished project for you, as well as all the dies shown with the outline of where the dies are placed on the packaging sheet. This is so helpful when you want to keep all your dies organized! Since the dies in the set are small enough, I am pulling cardstock colors from my scrap bin today. Great way to use up scraps!

• Here are my pieces all cut out. Some of the die pieces I cut twice, like the monocle. This is so I can cut two different colors, and then layer the pieces together. So instead of just one color, I can craft the monocle to have a separate color for the string and the circle part. I also cut the wing/beak die twice, once in black for the wing and once in yellow for the beak. It’s up to you! Change up the colors however you want!

• Here’s our feathered friend all assembled. I gave him a dark brown top hat with red accents.

• Next, we need to create a background for our crow. I’m going to use one of my favorite techniques for bold and playful backgrounds- color blocking! I chose three colors of Distress Oxides and grabbed some tape and an ink blending tool.

• To begin a color-block background, you’ll just block off areas to fill in with color. So I used tape to block off the bottom of the background at an angle, and then applied the Black Soot with my ink blending tool. Once you have the area completely blended, carefully remove the tape, and then place it down on top of the color-blocked area right along the edge of the color.

• Then, you can add another piece of tape at another angle (you can choose your angles and however many block to color!) and fill that in with color, as well. For the second block, I used the color Candied Apple, and the third and top block you see in the above picture is the color Saltwater Taffy.

Pink for Halloween? I think, YES!

• That’s it for a color-block background! Easy to do, and fun to choose different color combinations. I chose the black and red because I was inspired by the Gothic feel of the crow, and then I added in the pink to lighten it up a little and help it feel more playful.

• Now we want to add the crow over the background to make it the main focal point. I die cut an arched piece of black cardstock, and penciled in where I wanted the sentiment to go before I stamped and heat embossed it.

• I just used some white embossing powder to emboss the sentiment. This white sentiment on the black cardstock pops!

• I arranged all the pieces on the front of my background using foam adhesive to add dimension. My crow and skull is placed on the left-hand side to help frame the sentiment.

• And that finishes the card! I would attach this card front to a card base before mailing or hand-delivering.

Now, you don’t have to stop creating with just one card! I am sharing some extra pictures for more ideas on how you can change up colors or card designs to keep creating.

This card features another color combination and a frame around the crow instead of a cut shape on foam adhesive.

And if you don’t use cards for Halloween very often, you could always create tags for candy bags or treats! I used the same nested arch dies I used on my featured card to make a tag here. Then, I combined the crow with some other Spellbinder’s flowers I had in my craft stash to add some fall colors around the skull. I love it!

Thanks so much for joining us for Day 2 of Craft-O-Ween! Keep checking back as all the days are revealed, and you will never lack for creative inspiration.

Until next time,
Marie Nicole

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other supplies

Variety of colored cardstock, scissors, glue, Distress Ink, ink blending tool, foam adhesive, embossing powder, embossing ink, heat gun, stamp block,