The Ghostly Witch

Hi, all!  It's so nice to have you visit me today.  We are having some lovely Fall weather and I'm really getting into the Fall spirit.  It's one of my favorite times of the year.  I love everything about it. Since tomorrow is October 1st I'm going to share my first Halloween project of the year with you today. 

I've always loved Halloween.  I remember sitting at our dining room table with my mom a few weeks before Halloween putting together treat bags for the kids who would come to our door.  I didn't particularly like dressing up but I loved all the jack-o-lanterns and other decorations that appeared in the stores in October.  Back then there wasn't all the gore and zombies that are around today.  Just witches and ghosts and jack-o-lanterns with big goofy grins!  It was a fun time of year.  I still feel that way.  I love decorating my house with pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns and lots of fun Halloween ephemera.  Every year I add to my collection of mixed media projects and tags.  I love making them! 

Here is my newest one.



I love ATBs, so I thought I would make one for Halloween.  I just bought the lovely witch stamp and decided to make her the focus of the ATB.  And, why use one cube if you can use three!  So, I painted each box with black paint and covered the sides with white, purple and orange lace printed paper from Authentique's new Halloween collection.  I outlined the paper squares and the bottom of the witch's cape with Black Soot Distress Glitter.    I stamped the witch on cardstock with black archival ink and used a Distress marker to color the jack-o-lantern.  After gluing the boxes to one another I wrapped a glittered die cut from Michael's around the bottom box.  I glued the witch to the front of the second box. I attached a glittered flourish from the same group of die cuts on the top box and then a beaded witch's hat as a finishing touch to the top of the ATBs.   I added smaller scrolls and paper flowers to the tops of the other boxes.  I dipped the tops of the flowers in glue and then in the Distress glitter.  Here are some details.





 

 

 



I'm really pleased with my newest Halloween decoration!  I love the way the witch stamp looks.  I named her the Ghostly Witch because she looks rather ephemeral, I think. 

I'm going to enter this in the Frilly and Funkie challenge that is going on now called a Haunting Halloween. 

Thank you so much for visiting.  It's great to have you and I hope you have a wonderful week and get some time to spend creating.

A Flapper's ATB!

Hello all!  I'm pleased you could join me today!  Its a beautiful Spring day here and all the flooding rain is behind us.  I hope everyone who suffered during that never ending storm is doing okay.

I'm excited because I made my first ATB, Artist Trading Block, for those of you who had never heard of an  ATB before.  I hadn't heard of them until about a month ago.   I saw some on Pinterest and I loved them.  They have six 2 1/2" sides that can be embellished any way you chose.  What fun!  Eileen Hull has a nifty new die that she designed for Sizzix that cuts the boxes in 3 sizes.  It not only cuts mat board and chip board but it also scores it.  Scoring it makes it very easy to fold into shape.  Brilliant!  Well, without further rambling here is my first (but definitely not last) ATB.

 

 

 

I used Graphic 45's Couture set of papers.  I love that set.  I love '20s and '30s fashions as well as all things Art Deco.  So, when these papers came out I was thrilled.  But, I was trying to decide how I wanted to use them.  When I finally got my ATB die I thought of these papers.  I raided my stash of ribbons, lace, feathers, buttons and ribbon flowers to use as embellishments.  I added some stick on rhinestones and started to collage each side.  I painted the edges of each side black and scuffed up the edges so they would look worn.  Then I covered each panel with a striped paper from the collection.  I used some cut a parts to be the focal on each side and added the embellishments.   Here are some details of the each side.

 

 

Side One

 

Side Two

 

Side Three

 

Side Four

 

 

In the pictures you can see that I used turquoise fire polished rondels for the feet!  Once I had finished the sides I decided to do something different for the top.  I covered it with a different paper from the collection after cutting slits from the middle to about 1/2" in from the edge.  That allowed me to roll the cuts back to reveal a picture below.  Here's a picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I chose the picture I wanted to feature and glued that to the back of the paper with the slits.  I glued the whole thing down to the top and rolled the cuts back.  A little glue holds them in place.  I then embellished with rhinestones and Kaisecraft Sparkles. 

 

 

I can't wait to play with this idea more.  ATBs are so much fun to do and because they aren't that big they don't take a lot of time to make.  I've decided to enter this in the Frilly and Funkie challenge this week which is "On the Runway". 

 

Thank you so much for visiting today.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.