Halloween spirit

Today I Created | A decorated frame in the Halloween spirit.

This project began with an oak frame. I rubbed the oak with steel wool and painted it black using acrylic paint.

I used an orange piece of paper embossed with the Texture Fades, Pumpkin Patch pattern. I sprayed it with brown, red and olive green Glimmer Mist and sprinkled salt on it while it was drying. The salt created the "stars" in the top corner near the moon. After the paper dried I rubbed black ink to make the pumpkins stand out.

I used a Tim Holtz Scaredy Cat die cut that I first applied Picket Fence Crackle Paint and then rubbed black ink to create a rough texture.

The fence is the On the Fence, On the Edge die that I inked and sprayed.

The moon is cut from Glow in the Dark paper using a circle punch.

To assemble the piece, I glued the fence and cat to the front of the picture glass. I glued the moon to the background paper and applied foam spacers along the edge of the paper to add some dimension behind the glass.

The last thing I did was to add the blood splatter. I used my glue gun with the intention of making it look like a spider's web in the corner but the glue fell as droplets. This gave me the idea to color them red with alcohol inks and turn them into blood droplets instead. A happy accident.

Accountant's Rollodex

Today I Created| A Rollodex card for my accountant.

My accountant must like numbers or at least I hope he does. I used a piece of cardstock that had columns of numbers and formal alphabet stickers that states: CPA.

But my accountant also enjoys raising sheep and collecting antiques so I had to make his card a little less stuffy. I painted an area white and will include his information there. I wanted the paint to be informal just like he is.

Type Tray Flowers

Today I Created | Flowers for my type tray.

The background image, both inside the type tray and used on the grunge flowers, is of pink tulips that my boyfriend had sent to me. They were a very bright pink and the colors were too vivid for my design. I used Photoshop to soften the colors and printed out the background image and a larger version that I applied to some Grungepaper.

I cut the flowers using the Tim Holtz Tattered Flower die. Then I inked and stamped them to wear them down a bit. I used Perfect Pearls in a copper color to decorate the petals.

I used Pearl Brads from s.e.i. for the flower centers. On the larger flower I used a round piece of chipboard that had a shiny coating then applied Crackle Paint in Old Paper. The paint crackled but when I tried to ink it some of the paint chipped off. I sprayed Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold to hold the paint on the chipboard.

Behind the flowers in the type tray is an old cigarette card of a rose. I collect cigarette cards and the old roses are one of my favorite designs.

Alcohol Ink experiment

Today I Created | A decorated CD using alcohol inks.

I like creating things out of recycled items. I found that there are unprinted blank CDs used in packaging the unwritten blank CDs. These seemed like the perfect medium to create art using alcohol inks.

On this sample I applied alcohol inks and then rubber stamped a swirl pattern with StazOn blank ink. On the opposite side I applied a thick coating of Rock Candy crackle paint. This wasn't as visually interesting as I had hoped. I stamped brown ink on top of the dried crackle paint to add interest.

I learned that crackle paint works best on porous surfaces.

Postcard Card

Today I created | An embossed Postcard using a Tim Holtz Texture Fade by Sizzix and Core'dinations paper.

I have had this unused paper in my stash for a while so it seemed like a good time to pull it out and use it. The Texture Fade hasn't been released to the market yet but I made this paper to play with.

After embossing, I sanded the paper but it wasn't enough. I inked the edges and still wasn't happy. I finally used some Crackle paint and reinked parts to make it look interesting enough.

The tape is from cutetape.com. The butterfly is a paper punch. The charm is from my Tim Holtz stash.