Hallowe'en Tag Swap

 Good evening.

I am currently working on some "C" word stuff - presents for my family so most of my crafting time has been taken up by these but I did take time out to join in a swap. A Hallowe'en Tag Swap organised by "Artful Days" DT member, Jane Austin over in Facebook group.

My swap partner has now received her tag from me so I fell I can share on my blog now.

Starting with a plain grey board tag, I glued on some of the purple tissue paper that some of my Artful Days goodies arrived in. Never throw much away here lol

Dry brushed with acrylic paint when dry in shades of turquoise, titan buff and orange.

One of Andy Skinner's transfers from the "Curiosities" set applied (Creative Expressions). These are great when there is too much texture to stamp onto.

The MDF film strips and circle were given a touch of gilding flakes for added interest and colour.

The little coffin was handmade from greyboard waste from the back of a paper stack. Several layers cut to shape and glued together. Then painted with black and raw umber was wiped back before completely dry. The gold decoration is just a marker pen. 

Thanks for looking

July DT Project for A Inky Mess

Hi guys and gals.
I hope you are all dealing with your weather ok and not letting heat stroke take a hold. There are advantages to living in Scotland - among many other things - we seem to be getting 10deg C cooler than even England, so I would hate to live further south at this time. It's just comfortable here as far as I'm concerned.
My AInkyMess DT project this month comes in the form of a 14cm (across the parallel lines) by 9cm deep, hexagonal box.

The whole box was first covered with a dry exbossed card stock. Then painted silver after which I painted black Decoart antiquing cream. Wiped back slightly with damp kitchen towel. Then protected with satin varnish.
The "retaining bands" are more card, some small flat backed beads form the rivets, then all painted with burnt umber and quin. gold after some texture sand paste on some places before more black antiquing cream and wiped back before adding to the box.
The top was were the real fun lay.  Lots of TH cogs and a key - rusted up, some dry wall tape painted to look rusty, some rusty wire coils -  of which one is as a "barbed wire" (as inspired by my gorgeous friend Fiona Randall) and the other just a twisted wire. There are a couple of wooden laser cuts from my local craft shop (McOyster papercrafts in Cupar) that were given a rusty finish to match on there as well. A larger rusted home made coil of wire then that cute little light bulb from Artful Days.

Of course, I always finish off my boxes inside as well.
The paper I chose to use here is from the Prima "Timeless Memories" paper pad. Just the right kind of "worn" look for me.

I hope to see you all over at the AInkyMess challenge this month with your mixed media project.
Thanks for looking

I'd like to enter my box into the challenge
A Vintage Journey - Precious Metal

And Now For Something Completely Different

I have always embraced the theory that crafters need to venture outside that little comfort zone, they create for themselves, once in a while. It helps to expand and grow and, for me, helps to encourage Mr Mojo back where he belongs. This is why, when Katy Leitch from Mixed Up Creative advertised a little Shabby Chic tutorial using a kit available from Artful Days, I jumped right in with both feet. Trepidation can come later.  I really enjoyed the series of videos that Katy made and made my own version of the hanging (of course) but did use many of the techniques, some old and some new.
This is what escaped my craft desk to hang on my wall

To be honest, I have had "a few bits" of similar ephemera in my stash for eons and never really known what to do with them and loathe to throw them away (as most crafters will identify with). I think I will now bring them out of cold storage and start using them.