Make a punched skull - tutorial

Here’s how to make a rather cool punched skull which you can use to embellish a rock chick card for a teenage girl, a fun pirate card for a younger boy or – as someone pointed out to me as it never occurred to me – a Halloween project.  This idea is totally a team effort and it all began like this...

I was stamping with one of my downlines, Kelly (who is super-talented, by the way – visit here here) and showed her how I’d brayered some Night & Day paper to change the colour. She loved the look and commented that it looked quite “rock chick”. I said we should make a punched skull and so the creating began. I will show you the completed card tomorrow. 

You will need:

The following Stampin’ Up!® punches:

1 ¾” circle punch (a smaller one might work, too)

Large oval punch

1” circle punch

Boho Blossoms punch

Word Window punch (optional)

¼” circle punch (optional)

Other supplies

Whisper White or Confetti White cardstock

Basic Black cardstock

Stampin’ Write journaling pen

Rhinestone brads (optional)

Stampin’ Pastels

Sponge dauber

First punch a 1 ¾” circle from white cardstock. Stick the circle to a piece of scrap paper and punch again to remove a crescent shape.

You should have created this shape for the head.

Punch a large oval from white cardstock.  Now carefully feed one end of this oval into your 1” circle punch, to take off one of the pointed ends, as shown.

This is what you should have now. Discard the "crescent" shape. 

Attach the head piece and the shortened oval together to create the skull shape, as shown. 

Using your Stampin’ Pastels,  sponge some grey chalk around the top of the head to reduce the starkness.

Using the Boho Blossoms punch, punch out the middle-sized flower from black cardstock.  Trim down to just one petal to create the nose. Alternatively, you could draw the nose on freehand.

Doodle the mouth and some hatchings using the Stampin’ Write Basic Black journaling pen. 

For the eyes, you can punch ¼” circles from black cardstock or use rhinestone brads. If using rhinestone brads, as shown in the first picture of this post,  punch the holes with the Crop-A-Dile™ so that they sit flat. You will also need to pop up your  skull as they are quite bulky.

If you want crossbones, you can either cut two small strips of cardstock freehand or use the Word Window punch. Punch two Word Windows and then attach them to scrap paper and punch again, to create narrower strips.

With the Boho Blossoms punch, punch the smallest flower from white cardstock four times. Trim down to two petals, creating a heart shape. Attach these to the ends of your white strips.

And you're done! Aaaaaar!