Something a little scary

For this Halloween project, I decided to make something a little scary for you! It was just a little scary for me too...I had never made a home decor collage project. Although, all scrapbook pages are sort of a collage, and I've made banners, this was different for me. Lots of steps and layers were a bit intimidating, and I placed and re-placed and positioned and re-positioned all of the elements a zillion times before I started gluing. I started by arranging (and re-arranging) an assortment of Halloween stamps onto my Fiskars stamp press as seen below.

Then, I stamped randomly on some white tissue paper using black Stazon ink.

I glued the tissue onto a thick piece of cardstock and then, I started inking with Tim Holtz Distress Inks and Stain...more randomness

I started punching and cutting...I spy with my little eye Fiskars Grandma's Doily, a small cloud (as clouds and ghosts), and a small bare tree.  I used my Fiskars Ultra Shape Xpress to cut the large tree from the Fiskars Woodland Tree Template.   And, I also used a Martha Stewart fence border punch as well as letters cut from a Sizzix Alpha die. The checkerboard-like, flocked paper for the tree is from My Mind's Eye.

 

Then the arranging and layer began (that part lasted a long time). Finally gluing.

This weekend, I'm participating in the 3rd Annual Fiskateers ORANGE Blog Hop! For more info about Fiskateers, and the blog hop, you can go to www.fiskateers.com/

 

Tag...you're it!

I don't make tags very often. In fact, I don't play tag very often either. But for this challenge...I got to "play" with tags. A tutorial over on the Fiskateer blog got me started punching, white-washing, layering, coloring, stringing, and adding ribbon, I just couldn't stop.

I started with a cereal box. 2 points for me for being "green"! I cut out 2 tag shapes and then glued on some punches (a Martha Stewart apple for one and a Fiskars "Oakey Dokey" leaf for the other). I glued these on and then started adding other items. I just started digging around through my stash of "scrap" and found all sorts of interesting things...felt circles, buttons, fringe, lace, twine. You know, all of those bits and pieces that are just too precious to throw away yet tend to sit in the bottom of your bin. Now is your chance to use that little 1 inch scrap of ribbon that you've been hoarding, I mean, saving. After I glued these items on, I added some water to some white acrylic paint and white-washed the whole tag. I wiped some off in some areas and left the white on in others.

After the tags dried, I added some color with paints, inks, oil pastels, stickles, and then added a simple phrase to each tag. I covered them all with Mod Podge and let them dry. They took a

L O N G time to dry. I had to practice my patience! Finally, I punched holes in the top and added more ribbon scraps. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I could make 1000 tags and still not put much of a dent in my ribbon scraps. Well, maybe a 1000 would make a dent.

A big "thank you" to Lead Fiskateer Cheryl for getting me to "play tag". Let's see your tags. These would be great to add to a bottle of wine as a hostess gift, don't you think?