Showing off, just a bit

Well, wouldn't you?  After all the discombobulating surprise of being contacted by Tim Holtz over my October tag, and being so chuffed with his comments, and not a little (actually a LOT) excited by the fantastic array of Halloween goodies that arrived in the post, I just had to find a way of keeping all that wonderful memory intact.  And yes, show off a bit. I don't get called 'brilliant' and 'amazing' very often. I like it.

So here is my memory box frame (IKEA Ribba frame), containing my tag and a scaled down version of the original email from tim and using many of the items that he sent to me.  This one is going on the wall, right in full view of my desk, so if I get a little stuck I can have a look and be encouraged to stick with it. 

Thanks again Tim and Mario, I've calmed down a little now, but still grinning quietly to myself. So lucky.

Oh, and a little decoration I did using the leaves die set I also was given.

 

These dies are gorgeous.  I cut out the leaves using a mix of papers, some of them Kraft core, some not, but all good autumn colours, or as near as I could find in my stash.  Once I had done that I distressed them by sanding edges, inking with a mix of frayed burlap and barn door distress inks, splattered them with black distress stain (from a tooth brush) to make a few black spots here and there and then covered with rock candy crackle paint.   The leaves curled all on their own as this dried.  A few of the smallest oak leaves are painted with bronze crackle paint for extra interest. 

I used a sizzix fancy chevrons card front die as a background, and distressed a piece of ribbon with mustard seed and vintage photo stains.  Not bad for a first attempt, I love the colours, very lifelike but in miniature.

 It looks like I've raided someone's bonsai garden.

Spooky Doings - Tim's Tag for October

*I love the Zombie die (and the others) that Tim used to make this months tag, but this being the UK, and therefore a month or two away from these being available, quite a lot of improvisation was required this month.

I love the dimensionality (is that even a word?) in Tim's tag, and wanted a similar 3D effect. Had no idea how to achieve it so slept on it. Amazing how your brain works, I woke up remembering I had a stash of Tim's Kraft resist Halloween themed papers, and that there was a skeleton in there somewhere.  But once I had a look I realised that the witch would be perfect for this tag, because I could colour her green to reflect Tim's tag.  And frankly she was a lot easier to layer than the skellie.

So, this is the paper, befor chopping it up

I cut out all the witch faces from one sheet, and coloured them lime green using an American Craft stamp pen as I didn't have that colour in distress pen, though I used other ones to add shading.  I then used 3 different layers to build up her face, including cheekbones, eyebrows and eyes.

Layers!

I had to cut out and layer up her hat to make it pointy, (otherwise she would be a witch from Wales) and used picket fence pen to whiten her teeth and pupils.

The background for the tag is from Tim's 8x8 Seasonal Stash, as are the 'spooky' letter squares.  I didn't have the splatter layering stencil or the black distress stain Tim used so I mixed up a bit of iced spruce and weathered wood stains and dribbled that on the background to get a similar effect, and used a random round er..thing I found in my drawer to get a 'coffee cup' stain.

I coloured some white rayon ribbon, added a spider charm and also a bit of orange rickrack to finish to tag.

 I like the wee ghostie peeking out from the back :-)

Here's a picture of everything I used, apart from a heat gun, which wouldn't fit in the picture. 

Okay, I forgot about it. :-/. Oh, and some fasteners and a loop pin.

And yes, that's a toffee hammer, used to bash a dent in the fasteners. Needs must.

I was so chuffed with this one I posted it in Facebook.  Couldn't wait for Halloween!

*****************************************************************************************************************************

Well it seems that I wasn't the only one to like this tag as, after posting my link to his 12 Tags blog, TIM HOLTZ (the MAN HIMSELF) emailed and said I was 'brilliant'! 

Woot, wooty woot woot!

I can't tell you all how overwhelmed I am with everyone's kind words, thank you to all who left a message, I really, really appreciate it.  You know how it is with crafting, it's like creating in a bubble with not much contact with the 'outside world' and to get this response is just gobsmacking.

Pressure's on for next time now!

*****************************************************************************************************************************