May's Design Team Throwdown

The Design Team Throwdown is the brainchild of Terra and Tori of Smeared Ink and owners of the forum Smeared and Smudged. For more details - head on over via my link and have a nosey.


Regular readers of my blog (are there any?) will have seen my projects for both Smeared Ink and for Haunted Design House in the past.

This project is as a member of the Rick St Dennis Design Team.
The theme was chosen by the winners of the last throwdown - Quoth the Raven blog DT - and my sincere congratulations are extended to that awesome team.
TOOTH AND CLAW
The collection of projects can all be viewed on the Airless Chambers Blog. My other teamies, Monique and Miranda, have worked their magic and you just HAVE to go look at their wondrous projects as well.

My project started taking shape in my head when Rick emailed some images and asked if they were ok. More than ok for me! I have only got 5 of them coloured and mounted so far, but there are more in the collection and room in my little book when completed.
So what would you do with these? These are not yet available in Rick's Etsy Shop but there are so many more there to sate any appetite.

 Medusa

 She Wolf

 Vampyr

 Voodoo Zombie

Witch

I made a little book

You remember those mix and match tops and bottoms books when you were a child? Well this is my version.

 The front cover has been stamped with stamps from the Zombie, Build a graveyard and the Ravens from the Holy City rubber sets from Smeared Ink.

Matching charms of a tooth and a clawed hand on both top and bottom sections. Hinged top and bottom with chain. The BP is from a set called Creature Feature from a discontinued line of papers from Crafty Chaos. 

The mesh bg here is made from stamping and heat embossing with copper. The stamp can be found in the Smeared Ink set called Quoth The Raven.  25 different combinations of tops and bottoms can be made with just 5 images. Here are just a couple.

Each "top" half of the images are mounted on black cs and then attached using a homemade spring wobbler.

That's about it from me. Don't forget to look at the other team's entries and cast your votes for the favourite collection of TOOTH AND CLAW projects.
Voting starts Tuesday May 28th.
Thanks for looking

I'd like to enter this into the challenge over at
613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes
Lacy Sunshine Challenges - Anything Goes

Love Rubbah and RSD

Rick St Dennis and Smeared Ink are collaborating. Hopefully this is the first set of many. The first set -

MORTE

- is going to be available in June. It can only be obtained from the Smeared Ink Rubber Club. Get on over and check it out. You'll kick yourself if you don't.

Aren't these just to die for?
As a member of the Smeared Ink DT, I got to play with a preview image. Happy bunny here.
Only a tag for now, and I can't wait for the other images to plop on the doormat.

The gate, as you can see, is hinged to allow the true beauty of the image to be seen.

This was cut from a memorybox die that I picked up at Samuel Taylors stall at the last SECC craft show.

The image was coloured with promarkers and the BG was created with distress inks.

The words "I'm watching you" are from a Smeared Ink set - The original L'il Grumpies - again from the Smeared Ink Rubber Club.

The crackle on the tag was created using a Sheena Douglas stamp from the A Little Bit Sketchy range as was the corner colour of the image piece.

Want to see some more?

A preview of the image I'm going to be using for my Skull-a-bration piece. This just happens to be another of the images available in the stamp set. For more information on this event please visit the forum over at Smeared and Smudged.

There will be more to it than this, I hope you realised that.

I'd like to enter my tag into the challenge at

Crazy 4 Challenges - NO Patterned paper. I used distress inks and stamping to create my BG

Addicted to Stamps - Anything Goes

Steampunk for Delicious Doodles

Morning peeps. I hope that everyone is safe following the horrific events of this week, both at home and abroad.
It's been a fickle week with the weather here in Scotland. With heavy snow, hail, rain and sunshine all in the space of a few hours, it's hard to decide what to wear let alone plan ahead a few days.
I have not done a great deal of crafting this last fortnight due to DH and his recent stroke but I am happy to report that he is improving, if only slowly. I only wish that the extra stress didn't have such an impact on my fibro, oh well, that's life!

Any way, I have spent a bit of time in my crafty area and come up with a card for the new challenge this week over at Delicious Doodles. The theme this week is STEAMPUNK.

A simple card from me though.

I have used the new "Steampunk Mermaid" and the "Steampunk Corner", both from the Delicious Doodles shop. The layout of the card was based on the sketchy over at Sweet Sketch Wednesday.

Coloured with promarkers before masking and brushing distress inks. Some copper paint to highlight the metal rivets, tail struts and corner cogs. Then matted onto burnt orange and brown.
The BP is from the docrafts "chronology" range, matted onto brown and blue.
The corner cogs are TH diecuts that have been heat embossed with marine frantage enamel in parts for a distressed look.
More diecut cogs in the bottom right of the mermaid, this time from the chronology range.
A copper coloured and blue rikrak ribbons with a couple of punched fleur de lis. Some pearls to finish.

The words "happy birthday" stamped onto another, smaller TH cog diecut.
.
Get those fantasy, time pieces, cogs and metallic bits together and make a steampunk themed project. Then come and link it into the challenge blog so that we can ooohhhh and arrrrrrrrr over it.

I'd like to enter this into the challenges at
Sweet Sketch Wednesday - their sketch
C.R.A.F.T. challenge - colour combo (blues and browns)
Crafty Bloggers Network - Tic Tac Toe. The row I chose was gems, stamp, ribbon

A Grumpy Box

Haha, the box has Grumpies on it, the box might be grumpy - I didn't take time out to ask it.
"Alter a box" is the challenge over at Smudgy Antics this fortnight. This is the second week of the challenge run, you therefore have just under a week to get those altered boxes finished and linked into the challenge so that we can ooooooo and aahhhhhhhh over it.
I had this small collection of old cigar boxes and it's one of these that got the feel of paper and paint this week.

The surface was covered with card that had been well crumpled then given a coat of blue paint. When dry, was dry brushed with orange which gives the box the older and well handled appearance.
Some orange and blue ribbon came next.
Then there are Grumpies stamped onto circles of shrink plastic stuck to the front with two of the sentiments that come with the set. The Grumpies are from a rubber set previously available from Smeared Ink. The digi format is available here.

The rubber set comes with two different sizes of our cute little friends and it is the smaller version of the set that was used on the handle. Stamped ans coloured up with distress ink before adhering to a TH facet with glossy accents. When dry, a small length of chain and a screw in eyelet attaches it to the lid of the box.
Round the sides, here we have the full sized version of the image. Again stamped, die cut and coloured with distress inks. The eyes have been given a comic treatment in to form of some large "googly eyes".

For the top - more die cuts. This time, some "label holders". These were heat embossed with frantage embossing powder before sticking over the labels.

The sentiments are the same as those used on the shrink plastic discs. Some screw effect brads had their feet cut off and glued down as well.
The inside of the box did not get over-looked.
This was covered with one of a set of papers from a shop that is, unfortunately, not still operational. Crafty Chaos' "Creature Feature". Printed out and stuck inside.

There we have it folks. A simple box that I know one large person is itching to get their hands on.

Get those boxes linked in as I suggested to the challenge. That prize could be used towards any of the sets available as a member of the Rubber Club - tell them Croms sent you - or towards any of the many digis in the Smeared Ink Shop.

I'd like to enter my box into the challenge over at
Craft My Life - Non Card Projects
Fashionable Stamping - Anything Goes
Quirky Crafts - Myth and Magic - must use paint. (I know the Grumpies are magical, they can make most people smile)
That Craft Place - Makes for Men

ABAC for Delicious Doodles

ABAC - or Anything BUT a card is the theme over at Delicious Doodles this week. Things happened in the cubbyhole this week that prevented me from finishing this on time. Hubs was rushed into hossy on thursday early morning. "Suspected stroke", lucky for us all it was one of those mini-strokes, not a really bad one. As he passed the swallow test and no more than physio and time will help, he is, thankfully, back at home. It has left me having to do a few more things for him though until he can do them for himself again, and he will!!!

So....... these were half done before life took over. I've taken a bit of "time out" to get them finished.
A pair of candles, gift wrapped in their own box.

I used the Beach Huts digi, colouring in the image first with pencils before scanning into my pc.
Covering a piece of A4 printer paper with tissue paper after a quick spray of re-positional glue then printing the coloured image (flipping one). The re-positional glue left on the tissue helped keep it on the candle whilst adhering with a heatgun.

Some ribbon, gems and some die-cut shell shapes finish these off.
The box was custom made and has the original image adorning the top. More ribbon, die-cut shell shapes and some dewdrops to finish

That's about it. All wrapped up and ready for their new home.
The other girls in Delicious Doodles' Team A have made some gorgeous items for our inspiration, really worth a look - especially if that old mojo has gone into hiding.

I'd like to enter this candle gift set into the challenge at
My Heart Pieces - Anything Goes
Divas by Design - Anything Goes

Rose Madder

Hi everyone, are you still in the mood for some Haunted Design House fun? We're into our second Stephen King nightmare fortnight. The other minions have produced some fantastic depictions of some of the scarier Stephen King stories and are well worth a third and fourth look. The blog links are all on the HDH blog posts for the last two weeks.
I thought long and hard trying to decide which of the many tales to depict. There are loads!!!
I finally went along with "Rose Madder". While this might not be the scariest book in his collection, the story line does depict a very scary situation for many unfortunate women. It is about a woman, Rose, who finally escapes from a very abusive marriage. She then goes on to be stalked by her psychopathic policeman husband. Her redemption comes in the form of a painting picked up from a local antique store.
It is because the story line is bound by a picture that I have chosen to use a canvas as my base.

The canvas was first coated with gesso and while still wet, I layered on a stamped image of the gothic archway. by Sheena Douglas This was stamped onto printer paper so that the paper could be removed when all dry.
ok, when the gesso was dry, the paper was dampened and a finger used to rub it off. Then some Andy Skinner masks and black embossing paste to decorate the corners and the skull representing death. Of whom? You'll have to read the story.
The main image is by Rick St Dennis and is called Drusilla, the Covent Garden Ghost.

I've coloured her with promarkers, fussy cut her out and layered onto silver card, to add a bit more of that ghostly feel. This is because Rose herself felt she was fading away. The die cut fencing to represent that caged in feeling she experienced.  The home made roses, feather and bunches of tulle to reflect the accessories she's wearing here.
Finally the entire canvas was surrounded by grey lace and a metal look embossed diecut  from stash. This was purely because every picture needs a frame.
Get those thinking caps on peeps, choose your SK tale and come show us at HDH what emerges from your crafty space.

A more detailed method on making this canvas can be found on the Rick St Dennis blog "Airless Chambers"

I'd like to enter my canvas into the following challenge
Craft your Passion - Floral Delights
Craft My Life - Any Non card projects
Stamping Sensations - Any kind of embossing + texture - here is stencil + paste
Crafting Musketeers - Anything Goes
Left of Centre - Use a digi image