Mr Bone's love story

Hello friends and welcome to a first Halloween project from me....

Now to be honest, I am not a huge fan of Halloween and last year I managed not to make a single Halloween project.... This year however, after watching a Tim Holtz Facebook live where he showed some of his new Halloween products, I fell in love with some of the stamp sets... So I ordered 3 of them (ouch), so now I feel obliged to use them of course, so you can expect to see a few more in the coming weeks....

Let me give you a quick run through of this journal page....

I paper pieced the skull, i.e. I stamped it twice, first in black archival and then in Antique Linen Oxide ink.

I cut of the hat part of this second one, coloured the skull part with Distress markers and a Stabilo All pencil and then glued it onto the one stamped in the black Archival. For a bit of fun I added the two roses, because Mr Bones is desperately in love and trying to make a statement to his loved one.... (leave you to guess who that it)...

The Spiderwebs were done with emboss resist. I expect most of you know how to do that, but in case you don't:

Emboss resist:

1. stamp your image using embossing ink.

2. Emboss with clear embossing powder

3.Colour the background with any medium (aside from acrylic paint as that will dry on top of your embossed images).

4. Cover your project with kitchen roll and iron with a hot iron. The embossing will melt into the kitchen roll and you will be left with a beautiful white resist.

My background panel was done by blending different Oxide and other Distress Inks, but I think I used too many layers, because it turned out much flatter than I envisaged.

I embellished my page with another stamped image, some alcohol lift ink leaves left over from a previous project and some little flowers created with the Funky Florals dies, also by Tim Holtz.

I mounted the skull on two panels embosssed with a couple of 3D embossing folders and added two phrases from the clippings stickers by Tim that would suit my theme. The little spiders were from a free set that came with a magazine. I just stamped and fussy cut them.

I will add this page to Art Journal Journey where the latest challenge is A World of Fantasy , and like usual, thanks so much for coming by today!

xxxxx

Spooky House for Calico

Hi everyone
My turn again to show a project on the Calico Craft Parts blog, where we are showcasing Halloween projects.
Here's a sneak peek on what's on offer from me today:

I made a wall plaque, for Samhain as we like to call it here in Scotland. To see the rest, just click HERE.

Thanks for visiting and have a great week

Halloween- to die for

Hello everyone and thanks for dropping in! It's time for challenge 17 (can you believe it?) over at A Vintage Journey. The lovely Red Anne has chosen the theme HALLOWEEN TO DIE FOR.
Well, I decided to play with both aspects of the theme. This is what Anne had to say about it:

Halloween is one of my favourite times of year, I love when the children come to the door, in their costumes, to 'trick or treat'. You do not have to make anything scary (but it would be fun if you did!) but you must use at least one die on your creation and it must be strongly influenced by Tim Holtz. It can be a tag, card, canvas or mixed media piece.

And this is what I came up with:

Now, though like Anne I love Halloween, I don't actually own any Halloween themed dies apart from the little Movers and Shakers pumpkin and acorn, and in the end I did not even use that particular pumpkin, so I decided to make my own Halloween themed embellishments, using the dies I had at hand.

But, let's start from the beginning:

I wanted to use a Triptych blank that I have had in my stash like forever.

I coloured it with my new Distress Sprays (love them!!!!), I used Wild Honey and Rusty Hinge and a tiny bit of Vintage Photo, then added a first layer of stenciling using the Halloween Words Layering stencil and Walnut Stain DI.

As the card blank was not very good quality card, it soaked up the colour big time, so it needed more depth and also more stenciling for interest. I used the Shatter stencil and Walnut Stain and Black Soot DI.

Alright, now for to use some dies....

I cut three ovals with one of my Spellbinder dies. 

Ovals? Why you may wonder, - this is Halloween, not Easter. Well all shall be revealed:

Tadah!!

Home made pumpkins!! I had this idea in my head, and I think it actually worked lol. As you can see I cut a further 3 ovals, slightly smaller, so I could make a smaller pumpkin too. I layered them up as shown in the picture, one in the middle and two on either side, glued and then coloured them with the same sprays and added Rock candy Crackle paint. Once the crackles had appeared I gave a quick spritz with the Walnut Stain spray, wiped off the excess and that was it for the basic pumpkins. I then added some bits of greenery from the garden Greenery die, hand drew and cut some little stalks and added some curled raffia covered wire, - all done!

Next came some bottles: I have the Movers and Shapers mini apothecary bottles, and they of course always come in handy for Halloween projects. I cut both bottles, once from plastic packaging and once from card.

The plastic packaging ones were coloured with alcohol inks: Terra Cotta, Butterscotch and a tiny bit of Espresso. I then covered them first with Glossy Accents and then Rock Candy Crackle. When it had dried I added some depth and shadows with a Faber Castell Big Brush pen. The card one was coloured with Pumice Stone and Vintage Photo DI. I then glued the packaging one on top of the card one, to keep the glass effect, but have more depth of colour (forgot to take a photo of that, but you can see it on the project of course). I did the second bottle in exactly the same way. 

Next I had more spritzing fun with various colours of Distress Spray and some thinned gold paint and when dried cut a whole number of leaves with various leave dies that I am lucky to have collected over the years:

Alright, onto the three panels now:

I cut 3 of the large Vintage Cabinet Cards in Black card and three of the small in white.

I had to slightly trim down the sides of the black ones, so they would fit onto my Triptych.

I'll talk you through what I did with the white ones, one by one:

I stamped the witch from the Mini Halloween 4 set by Tim in Black Archival, masked her with Pebeo masking fluid and then stamped with a mix of stamps (Darkroom Door London and Clarity Trees) around the edges. I then inked with Seedless Preserves, Dusty Concord, Faded Jeans and Stormy Sky DI. I used the faux bleach technique (just using a wet brush and blotting with kitchen paper) on the moon and the light around the street lamp. I then removed the masking fluid from the witch and coloured her and the pumpkin with Distress markers.The little stars were added with a gel pen.

On this one the Skeleton from the Mini Halloween 4 was white embossed, the spider from the same set was stamped in a corner and then I did some more stenciling and inking with the same sort of colours.

The last one, which is probably my favourite, uses the same Darkroom Door stamp and the little owl is from Sin City stamps. I used the faux bleach again for the light and shadow effects.

Well, that is pretty much it. I layered it all up, added a few acorns etc still  from the Autumn Gatherings strip die and that was it.

Here you can hopefully see how the bottles turned out. I added some little labels still which were computer generated, as I don't have any of the stamps that include the cool labels.

Well, hope you like my project and sorry for yet another mammoth post, but I think particularly beginners in crafting and blogging like to have some of the detail.

The Day of the Dead sentiment was computer generated and mounted on a piece of black card.

Make sure to check out this latest challenge, my teamies, including two new ones, have made an amazing collection of projects to inspire you, so celebrate Halloween with us and play along!

Almost all product in this project are available from Countryview Crafts, our wonderful sponsors.

Now before I finish, I want to just share a couple of photos with lovely blog friends I met up with this last week. On Saturday The lovely Julie and I, (she  is one of our two newest Creative Guides at a Vintage Journey) met up for a coffee and a chat here in Edinburgh. And just yesterday the wonderful Kath Stewart and I met for a great chat at the Papeterie in Aberdeen. I am always amazed how time seems to fly when meeting with crafting buddies, so much to laugh and chat about. Loved meeting you both!!!

Julie and I outside in our street

Kath and I in front of all the Tim Holtz goodies (of course)

I have decided to add this project to the That's Crafty Challenge, where the theme is Spooky

Thank you for visiting like always

Believe in the magic

Hello everyone, thanks for dropping in....
Here is another journal page, using the new Aqua Tints I have posted about on several occasions now. I love these gorgeous bottles of concentrated water colour.

This page was just all about playing with the tints and some stamps (plus a few die cuts).

Whereas the last page was more monochrome, this one is more colourful, - child like, as really I was playing with ideas for a birthday card for my grand daughter, whose second birthday was last week. The stamps used are from one of the Sheena Douglass A Littlebit Magical sets, and no, this is not a DT piece, I just love the stamps and was having fun with them.

The background was gessoed with a pallet knife, leaving some textures and patterns for the tints to pool around in. The pumpkin is a Tim Holtz die, the mushrooms are from the stamp set, stamped on card, fussy cut and coloured with Derwent Inktense pencils.

Here you can see the magic of the tints ontop of the Gesso, their colour is just so intense. Oh the sentiment was just computer generated by the way.

The magical door way, stamped on tissue and then blended into the background. This is actually two separate stamps. I masked the doorway and then stamped the brick wall, turning the stamp the other way for the second side. Once you remove the mask, it looks as if the brick wall is behind the doorway.

When I did the birthday card I actually cut a slit in the door so it can open and put a fairy behind it, but in my haste to get it to Australia in time, I totally forgot to photograph it, so can't show you, but apparently she loved it....

Anyway, not your usual journal page, but good fun to do.
I am linking this to Art Journal Journey "deep in the forest".

Hope you will have some creative time, thank you for visiting and have a great weekend when it comes!

Halloween House for Calico

Hello everyone and welcome. Have you noticed that Autumn is well and truly on the way? It's my favourite time of the year, not least because of all the Halloween projects that are starting to pop up all over the place. Here is a sneak peek of one that I have done for Calico Crafts, using some of their wonderful Halloween mdf Craft parts:

Hope you will pop over. Oh and if you want to see more autumnal stuff, do come back tomorrow when I am hosting the next challenge for A Vintage Journey.

Thanks for visiting and keep your fingers inky!!

The Writing on the Wall....

Hi everyone and lovely to have you drop by! Welcome to all followers,  old and new.

Today I am sharing my final Halloween piece for this year:

I created this piece just for fun and to participate the the latest challenge over on the Ranger Blog.
I used a chipboard photo frame for my piece and started by adding texture to the frame with bits of tissue paper. I also added some hot glue squiggles, something that a few people have been using lately and is inspired by the work of the amazing Contadina K. It's not a new technique really, but it was great to re-visit it..

After the tissue had dried and the glue hardened, I gave it a coat of Gesso and when that was dry painted it with Antique Linen, Weathered Wood, Peeled Paint and Frayed Burlap Distress Paints, Spritzing with water to get the marbled effect we all love so much.

Next I added some  Distress Crackle Paint in Clear Rock Candy and then put the whole thing aside to air dry while working on the central panel.
I cut a piece of 5 x 7 Kraft Card and covered it with pre-crinkled Kraft Glassine paper. I then painted that with Antique Linen, Ripe Persimmon and Aged Mahogany Distress Paint, deepened it with the same colours of Distress Ink and added some Walnut Stain Distress Ink around the edges. When it had dried I stamped a script stamp in Vintage Linen DP.

I also prepared the other elements I wanted to add to my piece. Sadly I don't actually own the fabulous skull stamp by Tim Holtz, but my lovely friend Annie let me stamp it while visiting her recently, so I fussy cut that stamped image and coloured it with some Pumice Stone Distress Ink, to make it look more 3D.

I also die cut the bottle and feather with  the Tim Holtz Alterations Writing Desk set, first in white card and then the bottle again out of some acrylic packaging. This last piece was treated with some Rock Candy Crackle again, using a fabulous technique Tim shows in Creative Chemistry 102. I gave it a greenish tone with some alcohol ink. I added the little poison label, also stamped while I was with Annie and then adhered that coloured bottle to the white card one to make it more visible.

I love how it pretty much looks like old glass now.
Time to return to the frame. I deepened the colours with some home made sprays, made with Distress Ink re-inkers. I used a whole mix of colours, Pine Needle, Chipped Sapphire, a bit of Peacock Feathers and some Walnut Stain.

Here are a couple of close ups of the crackle and texture

:

Time to put the whole thing together: I  stamped and cut a couple of leaves out of Kraft Glassine paper with the Leaf Blueprint stamp and dies set by Sizzix and coloured them with Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain Distress Stains. I also added a stamped Halloween ticket and a flower cluster and then computer generated the sentiment. The final bits were to colour the feather with some Pumice Stone, to add a few bits of tissue tape to the frame and a few highlights with some inevitable Treasure Gold White Fire.

Oh, I also added some shadow with a black charcoal pencil still, to give a bit more depth to it all.
As the theme over at Simon Says Stamp and Show Monday challenge is anything goes, I will add this there also.

Hope you like it, I had great fun making it and thank you so much for visiting once again. I really, really appreciate the lovely comments you always leave me!
Hope everyone will have a creative week and look after yourselves!

Sin City Stamps Blog Hop!!!

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!! Today is the start of the wonderful Sin City Stamps Bloghop!!

If you have come from the Sin City Stamp blog, you are in the right place. If not, just click here
The theme of our hop is Autumn/Halloween and one lucky person will have the chance to win a free Halloween stamp plate!! If you want to be in with a chance to win, all you need to do is: Become a follower of Sin City Stamps blog, like their Face book page and hop along the blogs of the design team (there is a link at the bottom of this post, just to make it easy for you), enjoy their inspiring projects, follow them, if you don't already do so, and of course leave a comment. That's it, easy peasy.
For my project I decided to alter a little board book, using the wonderful Halloween Takes Flight set and the Art  Journaling with Terry Sproul set.

As there are quite a number of blogs to visit, I will keep the descriptions brief and let the pictures do the talking.
The little book started life looking like this:

I liked the fact it had the hole at the top, perfect for a ribbon. I covered it all with a few layers of Gesso, then added texture to the cover with some texture paste and embossing folders and then coloured all of the pages with various colours of acrylic paints. The stamps were all stamped on tissue paper and then adhered to the pages with gel medium.

 Here you can see a close up of the textures. I used some of the new Tim Holtz tag stencils.

Below you can see a couple of the inside pages, before I added any stamps.

I kept the inner parts light to be able to integrate the tissue paper stamped images better into the page. I will show you an example of before and after so you see what I mean:

 Here I have just added the tissue to the background. You can still see the edges of the tissue quite clearly.

Here I have integrated it into the page by painting around and over it and adding some subtle stamping to the sides. Adding some shadow to the moon gives it much more of a 3 D effect.
All the other pages were done in exactly the same way, just using some of the different stamps on this wonderful Halloween plate:

With these two pages I added some detail to the stamped witches with a white pen, I also added a few words with the help of Tim Holtz chit chat stickers.

On these pages I also used a few bits of tissue tape to add some interest.

And this is the final page, after a night of magic, day is just about dawning....
I added the ribbon and a few danglies to the cover and that was it.

Remember, you can win the very stamp plate I have used here. So make sure you visit all the others for some fabulous inspiration!  Below you find the order of the hop and I very much hope you will pay my teamies a visit too, follow them and leave them comments to be in with the prize.


Thank you so much for visiting and have a creative day!!