So, I Really Don't Do Hallowe'en...But...

...ok, I admit it, I sure do open my big old trap and say stuff... only to go and have to eat my words a few weeks later... and this time it is no different... So... a little known fact about yours truly... I don't really like... Hallowe'en *gasp! shock! horror!* So, my Hallowe'en stash is very minimal... I have a few sets of Inkadinkado clear stamps (erm... used once) and one of Tim's sets of Hallowe'en... you know, the one with the big ink splot and the raven... not that Hallowe'eny really. Well, when I saw the new Hallowe'en set from The Duke of Distress I really did think... yuk! *hangs head down low in shame...* However... I spied the new set (Retro Hallowe'en) hanging on the wall in The Stamp Attic the other day... and mysteriously they fell into my basket! Tis true (they fell, I didn't pick them up... mmm, do you believe me??? LOL) ... I so fell in lurve with the cat, the bat and the owl... and then studied the witch and decided that she was suitably cool to come and live with me... as for the skelington, he is just perfect!




And... last week the ever so loverly and uber talented Lynn Stevens sent me a Hallowe'en Shrine, tis a beauty to behold... and her note said she was going to convert me... well, she has! I spent the whole of yesterday fiddling with the new stamps, inking, distressing, embossing, layering and generally making a right old faff of them.




You see, I had it in my *ever so blonde* head that I had another of those 9" Shadow Boxes... you know, like what I used for the Sunday Stamper yesterday? Well, I painstakingly cut out five witches, coloured them in and had plans for making them into a hangy pennanty thing for the top of the box... erm... when I found only a 6" square one... never mind, they will come in useful for something else. However, I had also managed to procure (oooh, get me, sounds like I have been a good girl instead of a baaaaaad Hels buying new stash LOL) the Hallowe'en in Wonderland Graphic 45 papers. Not being a huge Alice fan or a huge Hallowe'en fan didn't put me off these cos... they have... a checkerboard design (you know, like my Ferdy has on his roof???) Anyways... I used a piece of the checkerboard, painted with a wash of Clam Shell Eco Paint and then I made... ectoplasm!!! Ok, not real ectoplasm cos I am not a ghost, at least I don't think I am... I used Moss Eco Paint and watered it right down, sploshed it onto the top of the paper and then let it drip down the page... drippage is cool! (There's that word again... drippage... many thanks again to Ellen, I am so gonna use this word alllllll the time LOL)




I cut out a couple of Alice images and popped these into the box... then I went to pop my skelington into the box and he had a mishap... he had stuck his tibia and fibula to my craft sheet and it snapped off...but hey, he isn't complaining LOL The bat is made from Grungepaper and DI's... and isn't he just soooo cute... his little chops look ever so surprised... the owl was popped onto an old twig and then I altered an old re-inker bottle... I knew I was saving it for something... the label is actually stamped from the other Tim Hallowe'en set I have... I just coloured with DI's and splatted some re-inkers onto it to make it look old. Tis far too big for the size box I used but... I wasn't going to give up on it... not after all that faffing!




So... the box, altered by painting Eco Paints on, then Old Paper Crackle, coloured with Peeled Paint DI and then I flicked Rusty Hinge re-inker at it from an old paintbrush.... supposed to look a bit like blood that has gone old but it didn't quite end up looking like that ... but never mind... it is an adventure. So, all in all... I am totally loving Hallowe'en and yes, I am so eating my words about those stamps! Next time I will wait til I see things in the real before gobbing off ROFL Thanks for looking... have a fabby day... TTFN

Hels x