Happy Halloween

A last pumpkin for the season!

Corrugated card, some dictionary page scraps, gesso, a random tag, a pumpkin made from paint chips & a sign!

A scrap of string through 2 brown eyelets (bought in the Middle East over 30 years ago!)

Trick or treat everyone? I'm off to the pub!

Happy Halloween

I had an idea brewing.... So after working on various ideas/elements for the past couple of days.... I am now ready to show you my latest tag!

I coloured the tag with peeled paint, crushed olive & spiced marmalade distress stains then did my distressed edges with black soot ink. Some "blood" runs & splats using stamps from Recollections - festive berries for those :-)

I've stamped bats & cauldron (Martha Stewart) in black archival

I've used TH Branch Tree die inked with walnut stain - the branches that hung off the edge have been used on the opposite edge, after sticking these down I added a crow from the same set of stamps. 

I stamped a spider web over the paper reinforcer 

The silver cage came off eBay & the orange bat was part off a set of Halloween trinkets from a trip to the Dollar Store last year. I used foam pads to raise the cage so that the bat would look trapped. 

A couple of cuttlebug pumpkins & skull (die-cuts) sit at the foot of the tree and a Spellbinders shrink plastic pumpkin (coloured with promarkers) sits in the tree branches

Bits n bobs

I was having a rummage for something that led me off at a tangent!

The upshot was that I ended up making some Christmas cards using bits n bobs that were lying on my desk & stuff that I'd forgotten about....

These baubles (inkadinkadoo) were stamped almost 2 years ago! I've added paper scraps, damaged wreath sections for these.

Die cuts +papers that a friend gave me together with cuttlebug embossed die cuts from a fund raising raffle prize 4 years ago!

Paper scraps & new Tim Holtz  "reindeer flight" "big pine" dies with some holly leaves "festive greenery".

There are more bits to be played with so let's see what comes next :-)

Doodle

The theme over at twinchie challenge #7 is doodle

I decided to take a Craft Stamper freebie and do some work on it! I don't seem to have many plain stamps or they are too big....

So here is my Rennie Mackintosh rose stamped with sepia archival and doodled with a sepia Pitt pen

the background is a piece of very lightly colour shiny card, cannot for the life of me remember what I coloured it with beyond the fact that it came in a spray bottle.

Storm

The storm has not been near north east Scotland so it's not been an issue up here but some of you that read this may have been affected :-( so I do hope that you are all safe.

Over at every inchie Monday the theme this week is thunderstorm so I thought id see what I could come up with....

I had a little inky remnant that was dark blues on one side & plain-ish on the other half, the blue became the sky the the pale had some trees stamped on in 2 shades of green + some sepia Pitt pen added to give a little definition. I've added some fork lightning with a gold Sharpie.

Recycling

I decided to have a tidy up of some of the drawers & desk top today....after my Halloween manicure!

I re-found the handbag inchies from a few weeks/months ago and decided to play with a new embossing folder. Thus was born the handbag industry

Take 1 dishwashed food container, remove edges & run through cuttlebug... Wonderful riveted surface :-) attach said inchies with brads & voila!

3 ATC sized items for swaps/toppers or whatever

Cat

Cats are the theme over at moo mania & I just happened to have one that I had diecut sitting on my desk.

A scrap of oil pastel coloured paper, my spellbinders kitty & a couple of very flat gems for eyes and we have a colourful cat with spooky golden orbs for eyes

Halloween time

Show us your twinchies challenge this month is Halloween so here is my "sweet" share

A cupcake in traditional Halloween colours of brown, purple, orange & green, I wonder if it's yummy?

creative Stamping cupcake, Tim Holtz flourish 

Party

TIOT - the current challenge is all about Halloween, of course! But the amazing coincidence is that I made this tag before I read what the challenge was to be :-)

So here is my entry:

Purple (dusty concord)& silver(brushed pewter) distress stains with a little DI in seedless preserves. Some cobwebs (Martha Stewart) Tim Holtz skull on cream card with white teeth thanks to a Gelly Roll pen, the glass & 'tash are this months freebie from Craft Stamper and his hat is from Paper Artsy's Lynn Perella stamp sheet 003. A few gems & a Jolees Boutique skull finish this party invite off!

Boo! 

Trees

Over at 'less is more' the subject is trees and I got rather carried away....

A case of "can't see the wood for the trees"? Well, it seems I have quite a few tree stamps of one sort or another! And that's before we even look at christmas ones although 1 did creep in as I was itching to ink up my new mini blueprint one!

I've used a free Craft Stamper stamp for my entry, used some left over inkiness as a background ( shades of copper & metallic) added a little extra colour to the leaves with various pens, edged the images with a copper Sharpie that I picked up in the USA & also used it to extend some lines. I can't decided which I prefer but 1 will be making its way to a friends house next week when she turns 65! SHSSSS!!!

Whilst I was at it I made a few autumnal ATCs

Top row I've used Kanban trees on inky leftovers, bottom left is Tim's blueprint inks, a Woodware freebie, Kanban tree with pearlescent dots as gems!

 Woodware up close.

Mini blueprint - another version :-)

Maybe I'll look at the Xmas ones next.

Night

Across at "fun with ATCs" the subject is NIGHT.

I've kept this one very simple & seasonal....a piece of inky blue paper, a Chocolate Baroque Halloween stamp that's been stamped onto the background & some white paper. The image has been fussy cut, the moon coloured with an ivory Promarker & then stuck down to the blue. How scary are those bats!

Pink

Show us your twinchies challenge #6 is for PINK - I can't actually work out if the challenge is closed or not! It says 21 days to go but #7 has now been posted....

So here is my pink share which may not count....

A piece of "wrinkle free" pink paper a Chocolate Baroque stamp and a little extra colour from a felt pen.

Storm

No, not here! Over at every inchie Monday :-)

So here is a little something for the subject...

Sorry the picture looks a little blurred, the light has gone now so I can't remedy the matter.

A small piece of marbled paper (scrap from a wildlife calendar years old!) and a shrink plastic umbrella that I used the Tim Holtz die to cut- coloured with Promarkers 

October

Tim's latest tag is a challenge & a half for me!

No distress paints (got stains though), none of the dies but I had bought a couple of Spellbinders (vintage lace motifs will kind of work for the frame and witches brew for cat, witch etc). I also picked up a QuickKutz spider in the bargain bucket. I have a cuttlebug die with bats that I got last year so something should be feasible!!! And finally... None of the glitter. I'm not big on glitter and what I do have has come as freebies.

I played with the stains....Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint, Spiced Marmalade & a touch of Picket Fence. I dragged & I spritzed, added some Antiqued Bronze & spritzed some more....I managed to get 2 tags out of the inkiness that seemed OK. The rest will get recycled!

The lace frames have had the glue & purple glitter treatment followed by glossy accents to seal. Thank goodness the edges needed inking with Soot as I did have a few bare patches. The crescent moon is part of a circle off cut, more glue, gold glitter & glossy accents :-( whilst the full moon is a circle inked with Mustard Seed then Covered with Versamark & some iridescent glitter. I die cut a witch on her broomstick, cat, spider & 2 bats from black card. They then got the versamark treatment but this time I had some Anita's Art EP in Midnight Sparkle (black n glittery!)

I've used a Chocolate Baroque Halloween stamp for the script

Here are my 2 tags!

Up close you can see the little stars found in my stash :-)

My witch is mounted on foam pads.

the cat has had green gems added for eyes!

I don't think I will be trying to get my hands on any of the TH glitter....even if it is a blast to work with.

 Off to play now.....

Eyes

The "about to end" challenge across at moo Mania is all about eyes so here is my last minute share:

A paper scrap (make unknown) a Paper Artsy stamp that I've coloured with colouring pencils

Guys

The holidays are over & I am back in the dreary Scottish weather :-( so I thought I'd cheer myself up by sharing last week-end's activity!

Bill & I cooked up a plan to keep the grandchildren amused over Columbus day, first we got some pumpkins that Emily & Lucas painted on Sunday afternoon - 3 faces per pumpkin no less!

We sprayed them them with some clear sealant so that the paint would not run in the rain (when it happens, as it no doubt will)

On the Monday, summer wardrobes were swapped out for winter ones and we managed to salvage some clothes that were heading to goodwill - charity shops to some of us :-).

I got the kids raking up leaves in the garden whilst I set to putting drawstrings through hems and attaching bottoms to tops by various methods. We filled the pants/tops with the leaves, put hoodies over the top as these were destined to hold the "heads" on to the guys. Lucas insisted on covering a ball with duck tape before adding the features and Emily used a pumpkin candy bucket as her head.

All in all it was a successful days activity with no arguments & a small fraction of the gardens leaves got raked up!

Happy Halloween memories for the kids :-)

More stash

I found more stash to add to my suitcase (this is my 2nd shop)

Foliage, distress stains, metallic Sharpies,keys, skulls, winged insects, mask, shamballa bracelets, spider punch....

The end of the alphabet

Here are the last 4 tags that I made

W for wine, stencilled background, rescued topper (bottle) & grapes (freebie)

X x-ray... Skeleton stamped on card, masked with masking fluid and background coloured.

TH skull stamped onto acetate & also shrink plastic, dymo tape label .

Y for yacht... This photo seems to have disappeared from my archives :-(

Z for zetangle . I've used a free flower stamp as a starter for this one. 

More tags

Here are T,U,V in the alphabet tags...

Paper Artsy tailor plate, buttons plate, lace.

Scissors (Hobbycraft) dummy & sewing machine (free) 

Ribbon, buttons & press studs from stash.

U is for umbrella & a tag I ade following Tim Holtz tag challenge (3/12)

Tim Holtz stamp, tattered garland die cut flowers.

V for villa in Tuscany from the Echoes of Italy Chocolate Baroque plate

Texture

The challenge cross at Try it on Tuesday is all about texture. So, although I am away on holiday, I actually have some photos of some ATCs that I made before coming away using scraps from the September Tim Holtz tag challenge where I used texture paste. 

This second one is the one for the challenge, you can see more of the texture on this one :-)

Fall colours

Went for my usual USA vacation treat this morning, mani & pedicure

Q,R & S tags

I've been shopping again....and I m really itching to get back to play with my goodies! 

Finally got some TH dies I've been after for ages, also some distress stains....but none of this is related to the title of the post so enough with the waffle & on with the pictures!

Q is for Queen, she comes on holiday to Balmoral every summer and it's only 45 minutes away from where we live. I've used Paper Artsy stamps, some stencils, royal mail stamps, made my own rosettes (no fancy die cutter for those!) and some brads.

R is for rose

I've used paper from my stash, an Anita Art stamp & a couple of bling flower shapes.

S is sea shore, shells, sand dollars & seagulls

here I've used a paper scrap for the tag top & bottom, the beach scene is a Michael Powell stamp, the shells, sand dollar & seagull are Inkadinkadoo.