Spook-tag-stic

... I know, I know, it is only August but... Hallowe'en is fast approaching... and those brand new Tim Holtz Hallowe'en stamps are fab. I know we Brits don't go for Hallowe'en as much as our American cousins do but I can't help getting just a smidge excited by the whole spooky festival. When I was a kid, I used to get a swede and hollow it out (scoffing the hollowed out bits, I lurves swede - I know, strange child) I used to use a grapefruit spoon.... do they still make those? You know, like a teaspoon with a jaggedy edge on the pointy bit? Well, I used one of those and then chopped out the eyes and mouth (usually injuring myself in the process lol) and then a little stubby candle (the same one every year) and some string to make a handle. I was set then to go out and annoy the neighbours with my BFF Elaine - we had very angelic faces though and always came back with some booty.



Anyways, the reason for all that reminiscing is because I have been playing with those brand new Tim Holtz Collection Hallowe'en stamps. I have all of Tim's Hallowe'en stamps, collecting them over the years... I love the whole skelington, crow, skull thing. And now, even better, there's an owl! Yipyah and thrice, I do love owls and this little fella is especially cute. The sets I used are the Hallowe'en Cut Outs and the Apothecary sets - with a spidey and a border from the Mini Hallowe'en set.


The background was one of the tags that I made last week using the "mist with water and spray" Dylusions technique. The colours are the most gorgeous Squeezed Orange and Black Marble. I love how the sprays have dried into a swooshy effect.


An oft asked question I get asked is... "how do you get the stamping layers?" So, I thought that I would show you an inbetweeny stage, background dried and stamping started. The stamping was all done with Jet Black Archival Ink. I love Archival Ink because it is permanent and when set (with a smidge of heat) it is waterproof, so you can stamp first and then apply paints, inks, watery things over the top and it won't budge. You also get a really nice crisp image. As a rule of thumb I always heat set anything I have stamped using Archival. This is a good habit to get into - stamping onto normal card sometimes won't warrant a zap with the heat tool but you can guarantee that the time you don't set it, you will get a smudgy inky fingerprint. Best safe than sorry eh?


Anyways... back to the tag: the spiders were stamped onto one of my favest products: Clearly For Art from the fair hand of Wendy Vecchi's Studio 490. This stuff is fab, I used the clear flavour to stamp the spiders (again using Archival Ink and heat setting) Once dried I cut them out and then gave them another zap with the heat tool. Clearly For Art is heat reactive but doesn't shrink so you can mould it into lots of different shapes, very versatile. The finishing touches are some bits of ribbon (seriously, I bought about 20 sets of ribbon, all different colour families, about 103 years ago and I found it the other day, still unused lol) I added a Wire Pin and a gorgeous Idea-ology Owl, isn't he just goooooorgeous?!


Right, I had better get myself moving. I had a rotten night sleep so am feeling a bit like a zombie today - I think a little play with some paint and ink might perk me up though. Thanks for looking... TTFN!

Hels x