Welcome to our October Designer Challenge with a theme of HELLO, PUMPKIN! I challenged the team to use pumpkins in their cards. As usual, you will be delighted by their creativity.

For my card and video I created a Halloween Cupcake Tree using an alternate assembly of the Cake Pop-up. This definitely started as an experiment but I ended up loving the finished card and see this as an easily transferable card design for other holidays.

Learn how I made this card by watching this video:

My card measures 4.25" x 4" when closed and can be mailed in an A2 envelope. For the front of the card I combined Halloween Borders, Halloween Phrases Clear Stamps,  Dessert Elements, a cupcake from Cupcake Add-ons and a jack-o-lantern face from Halloween Elements.

As the card opens the cupcake tree starts to pop up.

Inside the card the alternate assembly of the Cake Pop-up makes a wonderful generic 3-tier pop-up that can be decorated in a variety of ways. I covered it in Dessert Elements cupcakes, decorated with Halloween Borders until it resembled a tree. The scalloped frame was made using Rectangles and Labels - Crosshatch.

I think this cupcake tree would be wonderful in a Christmas, Birthday, Fall or Easter theme as well. Check out our border dies for other small items to decorate the cupcakes. Nautical, insects, pets or cocktails would also work well as cupcake topper themes.

Ready to give this card a try? Here are the dies and supplies used in the video:<

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Before we jump into the Design Team cards, we have another retirement to announce. Frances Byrne has stepped down from the Design Team. Frances started on my design team when I was a licensed designer for Sizzix almost 20 years ago. She came with me to join my next licensing team and then came with me to start this team almost 10 years ago, so when I say Frances is the O.G., I really mean it! She has been our Design Team Lead for several years, organizing all of our Blog Hops and Design Team Calls. Frances's talent is unmistakable. Her ability to combine stamped images with die cut shapes and patterned paper is absolute perfection. I can always spot a Frances card with its clean precision and clever layers. Most importantly, though, Frances is just an all around wonderful person. She's kind, funny, talented, clever, devoted to her family and friends, and so, so creative. (Also, tall!) I have loved our occasional Zoom calls where I can hear her Australian accent. I feel so honored that she has spent so many years with us. As Frances said when she let me know of her departure; "It's been a fabulous ride." I could not agree more! We love you, Frances, we thank you, and you will be missed, my friend.

Now let's take a look at the amazing ideas from the Design Team. In each case you can click on the designer's name to go to their blog post. On their blogs you will find additional photos, supply lists and, in some cases, full video or photo tutorials.

Suzanne Smit will often create two cards while the supplies are out (sometimes 3!) and it's very smart! For the challenge she has made a duo of Haunted Tiny Houses. I love all the details, like the ghosts flying out of the boarded-up windows. Click over to Suzanne's blog to see a video of her cards in action. Amazing!

Lois Bak created the perfect pop-up pumpkin card for the challenge. This uses the Mini Ball Pop-up along with Character Add-ons 1 to make the ball into a jack-o-lantern. See it in action by watching the video on Lois's blog and check out the clever way she added the closure to the back of the card so she could use a full journaling card on the front. Brilliant!

Sandy Diller created a card that you really need to see in action! Click over to watch the video of this card opening to see how the Little Twist Panel expands a wonderful candy collage atop her giant jack-o-lantern. This is such a clever use of the Little Twist Panel. Love it!

Jen Webster put her amazing coloring skills to great use on this spooky pumpkin patch raising ghost card using the Stocking Pop-up mechanism. (What a sentence!) Her shading on the pumpkins is amazing but also the details she created on the birds. Click over to see the front of this fabulous card!

Nicky Foden took the challenge as an opportunity to make an anniversary card in a fall theme. What a wonderful idea! I love the different pumpkin colors and the combination of the Landscape Rectangle Accordion with the Fence Add-ons. If you click over to Nicky's blog you can see a full photo tutorial for this stunning card.

Well we hope you feel inspired to use a pumpkin on your next card. Join us next month on November 4, 2026 for Designer Challenge 111 with a theme of FALL COLORS! We will be making cards featuring fall colors, although the theme does not need to be autumn. 

Happy Crafting!