Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!!  I love to make things for Halloween, I have never been trick or treating, my generation here in the UK never even had Halloween when we were children. Now though we make a night of it, hubby carves a pumpkin while I decorate the mantelpiece and make soup and other treats before we turn off all the lights, OK so we pretend we are not home, settle down and watch all our favourite old horror films. If its after about 1970 then we are not interested, it has to be either Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee!!

     So over the years I have made a lot of decorations, some for design team assignments and some in swaps and some just for me. This years new decoration is my very cute Halloween House made with my Silhouette Cameo machine and by SVG Cuts. I am so pleased with it and my little Voodoo Dolls are just the right size to attack it!!

Here is this years mantelpiece decorations

The books at the end are all altered books on Halloween themes. Skelli was a plastic skeleton from the pound shop I covered in book pages and painted then made him a top hat and dressed him ready for a night on the gravestones!

This wonderful Dracula is one of my favourite ever swaps He stays out all year in my craftroom.

Two more small houses I made this year with my Cameo, these are from LD Designs

Lastly my witch doll, printed cushion and Day of the Dead shrine completes the look!

Its amazing how a collection grows over the years. If anyone who's art is here is reading this thank you! As you can see your work is treasured and comes out each year to be admired.

Halloween mixed media frame

   I have a little Halloween project to show you today that I have made for the Fruit Pixie using some of the wonderful mixed media things she sells.

I began with one of the Crafty Individuals chipboard frames which I painted with the Cosmic Shimmer paint Midnight black on both sides along with one of the chipboard swirls from the same sheet.

When the paint had dried, it did need 2 coats I smeared on some PVA glue. I wasn't worried 

 about how well it covered, then rubbed in some of the Cosmic Shimmer polished silk glitter, I used Sahara gold. I did the same on the swirl too

I then ran some more PVA glue around the swirl, the inside of the frame and the top of the frame and poured some of the Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Jewels Midnight Snow,

 pushed them into the PVA , poured them off and let them dry thoroughly.

Once everything was completely dry I made up one of the flowers from the Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells collection and added some glitter glue and one of the Creative Expressions vintage black buttons to the centre. I also made a couple of paper streamers from scraps of the Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells paper. Then I stuck them onto the middle of the swirl and the swirl to the corner of the frame.

I wanted my frame to hang so I punched a couple of holes in the top swirl of the frame and made up a couple of paper beads by rolling a small strip of the Graphic 45 paper around a cocktail stick. I threaded a length of wire through the bead, gave a few twists to secure the bead on the wire and then through one hole, left a short length then back through the other hole and through the other paper bead and twisted the wire off to secure as you did the first. I had left some wire at both ends to curl to finish it off.

Then all you need is something to fill your frame with. I used one of the Graphic 45 Steampunk spells images in mine but you could use what ever you like.

You can find the things I used in The Fruit Pixie shop here -

Chipboard frames - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/crafty-individuals-chipboard-399-c.asp

Cosmic Shimmer paint - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-paints-nproducts644curpage-2-644-c.asp

Cosmic Shimmer Polished glitter - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-polished-silk-glitter-600-c.asp

Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Jewels - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-glitter-jewels-603-c.asp

Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells flowers - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/steampunk-spells-614-c.asp

Creative Expressions Vintage buttons - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/creative-expressions-embellishments-nproducts464curpage-2-464-c.asp

Scary Halloween paper doll

Krysty Designs, who I design for, has a new Halloween digital kit out today. Its called Scary and is available through Mischief Circus.

     Even though it is a digital kit it is very easy to use it to make what ever you want. For this kit I decided I would make a Halloween paper doll.

You can find Krystys kit here - http://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/

    Now I have been creating altered art now for many years and up until a year or so ago I thought an ATC was an Artist Trading Card, a card 2.5 x 3.5 inches which is then decorated in your style and traded with another collector. I have a great deal of these wonderful cards which are all filled away safely and treasured.

   Now though there is a new kid on the block  ( sorry )   an Artist Trading Block or Cube. This cube can be any size you like and decorated on all sides then traded with other collectors. The nice thing about these are they are easier to leave out on display and gives you a lot more space to decorate.  I have known about these cubes for a while now but have just not gotten around to making one but now I have made one for The Fruit Pixie.

I made the base of my cube from brown card stock and decorated it before I stuck the cube together.

Then used the Marion Smith Designs Time Keeper papers to cut mats for each side

and then cut out the different images with in the papers to collage over the top.

These papers make it so easy to make up our collage

There are so many lovely images to choose from and they are very easy to cut out.

I decided to make little feet for mine. I made them by cutting thin strips of the leftover paper and then rolling them up into a paper bead. I made 2 then cut them in half to form the feet.

These papers are available from The Fruit Pixie online shop - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/

You can find these lovely Marion Smith design papers here - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/marion-smith-designs-680-c.asp