Some Halloween Fun

Happy Halloween Everyone!! I hope that you are handing out some candy tonight OR going trick-or-treating with the little ones. 

Halloween is a fun holiday and it can be so much fun to dress up and just "not be yourself" for a day. haha!

For this post I thought I would share some Halloween Projects that I have created this season. Some of these I have shared previously but some you haven't seen before so this should be fun.

For starters I have to share my daughter's make-up that I helped her do. She wants to be a Zombie-ish Prom girl, our goal was to just make her scary looking. Here is the outcome of the make-up I did for her

Fun right?! We think she looks quite spooky

I made this altered jar for a really close friend of mine, I used a napkin that I found at JoAnns on clearance and mode podge for the lid, added some ribbon, a knob on top and some charms, oh and of course candy!! 

Next I made this fun candy box with Eileen Hull's new Vintage Kitchen Stove Die, this die will be available in mid November.

The candy inside makes it complete, don't you think?

Next I made some ATC's and cards for a Halloween themed swap on the Stampotique's group Facebook Page We always have a monthly ATC swap and it has been so great to participate and get ATCs from around the world

Here are the two I created for my partners

All of these fun stamps can be found at Stampotique Originals

The following are some ATCs I got in return, the first one was made by Magda Polakow, Magda is one of the Stampotique Stamp designer's too. She made this really cute little ATC sleeve too

The Second ATC was from Helen Cooke, She sent a little card along with hers

The next Halloween creations were from the Altered Playing Card Challenge, the theme a few weeks ago was Halloween and I made these spooky Altered playing cards 

My next project was for Linda Ledbetter's Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge, The theme that week was "Effects Powders" and I decided to make a postcard for that one, I loved using the powders on my spider and graves! 

For my last project, Stampotique had a new stamp release in September and I wanted to created something Halloween themed with some of the new stamps, I made this Halloween Card using Stampotique's new stamps Skull Moon By New Artist Arwen McCullen

and Connie Shows Off Her Nails by artist Daniel Torrente

Thanks for coming by the blog on this Halloween Day, I hope you have a wonderful, spooky fun Halloween. Don't eat too much candy!!

CHEERS!!

Favorite Colors - Stampotique Challenge 171

Welcome back everyone, today there is a new challenge over at the Stampotique Designers Challenge Blog and our hostess this week is the super Nellie Van Leeuwen

She has chosen the theme, Use Your Favorite Colors

What a great theme! I am excited about this one!

For this challenge I chose to make a mixed media canvas

I used the Stampotique Stamps:

Paris Lamp Post, French Journal Page, Comfort Zone all by artist France Papillon

My favorite colors are those of Fall, I just love the browns, oranges, reds and yellows that come with the Fall season and so I used all of these colors on my burlap panel.

(Oh my goodness, I just realized there is a moth sitting on my canvas in this photo haha!!)

Here is a photo of the tissue tape around the edges

I used metal butterflies for each corner of my canvas

I created a lot of texture in this background with embossing pastes, fabrics and paint.

Come on over to the Designer's Challenge Blog and join in on this challenge. You could be the lucky winner of a 30.00 gift card to spend in the store.

Cheers!!

Ghouls and Goblins Stampotique Challenge 170

Hello all, thanks for coming by the blog again. As you know Wednesday marks another fun challenge over at The Stampotique Designer's Blog and this week our hostess is the great Kristen Catalano and she has challenged us to do some Ghouls and Goblins. Being that it's so close to Halloween, what a fitting challenge.

I decided to do a journal page for this challenge and I used Stampotique Stamps:

Buru!, Spider Wings, Circles Cube and Lovelyarethesound all by artist Daniel Torrente

Barcode Text #2 - By Artist France Papillon

This is my finished journal page, I love how the background came out with the embossed paper and the acrylic paints but the star of this page is Lovelyarethesound and Buru! It looks as though Buru has become discombobulated! haha!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Altered Playing Card Challenge Week 8

Hello all and welcome back to week 8 of the Altered Playing Card Challenge, I really hope your all having fun!!

Here are the links to the previous weeks of the challenge

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6 
Week 7

and our Facebook page

Facebook Group

and the Pinterest Board link

Pinterest Board

This week it's all about hearts and love
For my first altered card I added color to my background using gelatos and a water brush
(I had previously made a heart by drawing into my gesso)

I simply colored on my color and used the water brush to blend them together. Gelato's are so smooth and creamy and a water brush is all you need to blend them, I sprayed my card with water and then blended using the brush
You can use anything here if you don't have gelatos, paint, sprays, whatever you'd like

Next I used a Donna Downey Stamp and some ink colors that matched my background and simply stamped here and there

I used my Faber-Castell black oil pastel around my heart to make it pop a little more (I like the oil pastels because i can use my finger to blend them out and make the color and edges a little softer)  I then also colored in my heart with a red gelato

I then took a Faber Castell black fine tip pen and wrote my sentiment, you can use whatever black pen you want to I just like these because they write on anything and it comes in a finer tip 

Lastly I edged with the archival ink and added the "love" word

Here is my first finished card - I love that the texture from the gesso is still visible even with the gelato colors and such

For my next card, I went with a really simple but effective background. I used some watercolor paints, I love watercolors but I don't really use them as much as I should
I started with three colors and just put them in these little cups and added some water

 With a paintbrush I brushed the paint across the top of my card, I then added a bit more water and let the paint "drip" down the card face
(again, I had drawn my heart previously)

I added a second color and did the same thing

I added one last color and again the same

Once my card face was dry I used a circle punch to make a black circle and used a Sizzix Bigz die to create my heart out of cardboard
I then used a green Sharpie marker to color my heart green
I also edged my heart with black marker

I wrote the word "LOVE" onto the heart and drew around the mini heart with my white gel pen
This is where I was thinking that I really just like the simplicity of this card and didn't want to do much else with it

I ended up drawing some stitches around the rim of my card and edged with the black archival ink and I thought it looked done!
Here is my second finished card

and the two together

Thanks for coming by once again, I always love to see what you all do during the week so keep the photos and links coming.

I am having surgery on my foot on Wednesday so I might not be able to do my post next week. I am really going to try and get my cards done and posted but If I miss next weeks post I will definitely get back to posting on November 3rd
Thanks for following along everyone!!
CHEERS

Black, Purple and Pink Stampotique Challenge 169

Hello all and welcome back to the blog. Wednesday always marks another fun Challenge over at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog and this week our hostess is the wonderful Carol Fox

Carol has challenged us to use the colors Black, Purple and Pink.. incredibly these are some of my favorite colors and I just love them together

For this challenge I really wanted to do a two page journal spread

I used Stampotique Stamps

Young Ignis , Ignis Heart by artist Magda Polakow

Circle Cube - By artist Daniel Torrente

I started out by adding wash tape to the binding of my page and painting some black acrylic paint for my background

I then added two different colors of purple circles here and there

I also added some handwritten quotes to my background

I stamped my Young Ignis, and Ignis Heart stamps onto a separate sheet of paper and colored them with copics

I stamped the circle cube stamp onto pink paper with embossed dots that I had colored some of those black, I cut those circles out and added them to my background

(note - I added the stitching to the teddy here, the original stamp has no stitching)

What a fun page this was to create. I hope you will join us for this week's challenge. You could win a 30.00 gift certificate to Stampotique Originals

Cheers!

Spooky Treats

Hello and welcome back to the blog.  I'm so excited to be a guest designer for the Eileen Hull inspiration team!! How exciting and fun, yay!

 Today I have a spooky treat for you This project was made  with Eileen Hull's Art with Heart Challenge in mind. This month it is all about "Tricks and Treats" and what a great time for it too. 

I wanted to make something spooky but fun for the kids so I decided to use Eileen's new Vintage Kitchen mini stove 

This die will not be available until November but I got to play with it a little early.

I didn't do a full tutorial with this one but If you have any questions on how it was created please just shoot me an email

I started out by treating my matt board with distress paint

I then used some various stamps and embossed with clear embossing powder

I then went over my clear embossing with black paint

I used black enamel accents to create this spider web, which I just hand drew

I found some of this funky grass stuff at Michael's and decided to spray it orange with Adirondak color wash. I used it as grass for the graveyard

I also used clear packing cellophane for my oven window

I simple cut it to size and glued it inside

For my graveyard, crow and cat I used Tim's dies to cut them out I used black distress glitter on the cat and crow and adhered them to the top of my oven

I also added swarovski eyes to the little skull beads, I used Tim's enamel tags and Remnant Rubs for my spider

This was such a fun project and I had a fantastic time making it. Eileen's dies are so fun to alter and make new things out of them. 

I hope that you will check out the

Art With Heart Challenge over at Eileen's Blog and enter your own creation. You could win a Sizzix prize pack, how fun!!

I am entering this into the Sizzix Challenge, "Halloween" is the theme for October
I used Sizzix Dies: Graveyard, Mini Bird and Cage Set (Bird), Mini Cat and Raven (Cat), Oven 3-D (out in November)

I hope you have enjoyed my project for today. Have a spooky Halloween!!