Grungy Halloween

Ok, so I don't do halloween, which is strange because I generally like the spooky side of things. Halloween for me usually means me and hubby buying sweets in case we get trick or treaters, then staying in with the curtains drawn tight and the lights off so no one thinks we're in (and eating the sweets ourselves). However, I remembered I had this lovely skeleton stamp from Kaycee Crafts and with the Grungy Monday theme being Halloween I couldn't really resist.

I started off making an ATC from a few bits of card left over from a botched attempt at a card, then thought the poor old skeleton deserved more of a background.

I used a lot of Tim Holtz products - distress inks and stains, ornate frame and crown stamps, background paper, on the edge and bird dies. I loved how the fired brick distress stain worked with walnut stain to give that lush dark blood red on the main image. The red background paper was from one of Tims paper stashes and, with a bit of extra black distress ink and stamped script, I though it made the perfect spooky background.

Enough from me for now, but check out Tim's website here for lots of fab inkiness.

Sarah
xx

Wish upon a star!

It seems to have been ages since I entered any challenges and I know I won't have time for anything next week, so I made this tag to go in three challenges at once!

Firstly, it's for Grungy Monday where we have to use the Tim Holtz technique from 12 tags of Christmas 2010 day 10 (see linky here). This also means I can also enter Simon Says Stamp and Show, where the theme is show a Tim technique.

So I started off playing around with a couple of backgrounds and some embossed acetate/plastic packinging . Then I started thinking what I could do with it (working backwards as usual!). I added a few embellishments and realised that the whole thing reminded me a little of celestial charts - probably more to do with the colour than anything else - and so 'wish upon a star' seemed fitting... perfect for Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers wish theme this week.

The tag base was roughly painted with baltic blue fresco finish paint and I tried to rub some off before it dried to give it a more grungy texture. I then sprayed it with some blue/turquoise perfect pearls mist which has given it a wonderful petrol sheen (unfortunately it can't really be seen under the acetate, but I'll definitely be using this paint/pearl combination again). The tag and acetate were cut with Tim's large tag die and the acetate was embossed with a the retro circles embossing folder. The clock faces are cut from some Tim paper stash - I really loved how these looked with the circles on the acetate!

I stamped 'wish' and 'a' onto paper and used with bits from a 'make your own brad' set, and although you can't see it too well in the picture, 'upon' and 'star' are stamped around the edge of two of the clock faces.

So my wish for this week is that all the senseless violence spreading around this country ends soon. They were interviewing two teenage girls on the radio last night who hoped the riots would carry on because it was 'good fun'!!! It really makes me angry how mindless it all is, but I'll stop there before I really start ranting.

That's all for now. Stay safe and stay inky :0)

Sarah
xx

Tim, Tags and Flying Time!

This week has gone past in a flash, so time flies seems a fitting theme for the first tag I want to share.

This was my first attempt at this weeks chosen technique for the Grungy Monday challenge  - Tim Holtz's rusty /faux enamel effect - see the details on his website here.

I used walnut stain distress stain over the tag and stamped a PaperArtsy image in vintage photo distress ink. I then covered the tag with clear embossing ink to do a slight variation on the rusty enamel technique. I used vintage photo over the top of the embossing. The butterflies were stamped from the TH Papillon set in stormy sky distress ink and clear embossed again with vintage photo over the top (same colours were used for the little Time Flies tag and the scrollwork at the bottom).  The butterflies and the sentiment were stitched onto the tag. I love the little metal leaf which actually came from a pair of earrings from Tesco.

I like the finished result, but I didn't think it really came out as a rusty enamel look... So now for number 2, again using a feast of Tim Holtz distress inks, alteration dies, texture fade embossing folder,  stamps and the rusty enamel technique.

This time I used crushed olive and forest moss distress inks to colour the tag, then clear embossed and went over the top with vintage photo. Then I stamped the birds in black archival. I stamped the Tim Holtz sentiment on white card, edged with crushed olive ink and matted onto black card. The little flourishy bits were cut from the on the edge scrollwork die I also used for the first tag. The flowers were cut with the tattered florals die, embossed with a flourish texture fade folder and coloured with the same distress inks as the tag, with a little additional black soot around the edges. I then attached the whole thing to a piece of white card, also edged with crushed olive, and finally onto black card. I love the colour combination of the crushed olive and black - it really zings in real life (is that even a word?)

I decided to enter the first tag into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge ('show some stitching') and Sundays Stampers ('flying').

The second tag will be entered into Dragons Dream Tag It On ('Project Tim Holtz') and Grungy monday ' Tims faux rusty enamel technique')

Going out for dinner tonight so I better go and scrub the ink off my fingers.

Hope you're all having a good weekend :0)

Sarah 

xx