It's Halloween - Let's tag it on!

Well, that's the theme over at Our Creative Corner for this month and the wonderful  Julia has given us a Halloween Challenge.  Julia has asked us to create a Halloween tag with some surface texture on it.

I absolutely love using stencils and I am getting better with embossing paste (I won some Wendy Vecchi paste recently and it is wonderful to use) but I chose to use a dry embossed base for my tag.

In fact, a lovely American blog friend sent me this Tim Holtz embossed background and I knew it would be perfect for this tag.  It has a beautiful raised texture which I sanded and then went over it with Pumice Stone Distress Ink to give it even more definition.  The cat and bats are die cuts, as is the fence.  The sentiment is from Tim Holtz Simple Sayings set.

The cobweb in the corner is my new Tim Holtz strip die, I love this one!  On the right side, I wanted to add even more texture to the surface of the tag and I used Frantage - Aged Black Embossing Enamel which has a lovely sheen to it.

The ribbon is vintage seam binding which I coloured with Ripe Persimmon Distress Paint and then stencilled over with a burlap stencil.  The skull and crossbones is Idea-ology and I just glued this to the ribbon, after giving him some orange Ranger Stickles eyes.

I really hope you will pop over to Our Creative Corner to see what my talented teamies have come up with and then I hope you will join in this wonderful challenge.  You never know, you could be our winner and be spotlighted or one of our top three.  We would love to have you join us and you have until the 28th to get your entry in!

I must say a big thank you to my latest followers, it is lovely to have you along.  Thanks so much for visiting, hope to see you soon.  Big hugs, Anne x

Forgotten Things at Our Creative Corner

It is that time again - mid-month and time for some more inspiration for the challenge that I have the pleasure of  hosting this month over at Our Creative Corner which you can find HERE.  I hope you will go over and see what my talented Teamies have made.   Full details and rules can be found through the above link if you would like to join in, you have until 28 September - so lots of time left.

When I was cleaning up and clearing out my craft room I came upon this fabulous Tim Holtz Assemblage Clock base which I bought last year and had totally forgotten about (how could I?!). I do love how Tim's products can take both grungy and feminine approaches.  This is what I did, just click on the photos for a closer view:

This is the 'bare'clock, it is lovely and shiny but very plain.  It does have a glass front so that you can put lots of embellishments inside (and they will keep clean) or make it into a working clock, as I have done.  Tip: if you are making a working clock then you will need quite small hands on the mechanism and I bought a 'silent' mechanism as the ticking one I had in stock was quite noisy!

My clock went through four make-overs before I found a combination that I liked,  it has been black, red, white and now pale blue.  It nearly went in the bin, but I persevered.  I have sanded the blue back a little so that you can see some of the white below.  I used Fresco Finish and also Tim Holtz Distress Paints to cover the clock, over an initial base of Gesso (and unintentionally several other coats of paint!).

For the inside of the clock I laid down some lace on the inside edge, which I had tinted blue with Broken China Distress Paint and I cut a circle from some gorgeous BoBunny paper to make the clock face.  The numbers are Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs.

I wanted to add a pocket watch to the side, but the Tim Holtz one is a little large so I have used a Prima - Finnabair mini one.  I added a Renmant Rub clock face, added the word 'time' and then filled the void with Glossy Accents to give a clock face look.

For the front and second side I added some lovely flowers, the large ones were gifted to me by my lovely friend and fellow Teamie, Jenny (Buttons).   They started off as pale pink and I spritzed these with a mix of London Blue Dylusions spray and Broken China Distress Paint which I mixed in a spray bottle with a little water.  The paint toned down the London Blue beautifully and was a dream to work with.  It does not add texture but really give the flowers a firm feel.  I added a couple of stamped and coloured butterflies for some added interest.

To finish off the back I added some more of the sprayed flowers and a butterfly.  The clock back still comes off so that the batteries can be changed.

Thanks so much for looking, I hope you have been inspired to find some 'forgotten things' and join in the challenge at Our Creative Corner.  Big hugs, Anne x