Add Some Texture - Simon Says Stamp Guest Designer

This may be my favourite theme of all the October posts for which I've been in the Designer Spotlight at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this month... let's Add Some Texture.  And with Halloween fast approaching, my texture definitely has a spooky quality to it!

As always, it's been a delight to be part of the inspiration team at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this month, even as a temporary member!  

I'm so grateful to the team for inviting me, and it's been a joy playing alongside the fabulous creatives and crafters on the regular Design Team, especially this week as we Add Some Texture!

As ever, Simon Says Stamp are sponsoring the challenge, with a lucky prize draw to win a voucher for a shopping spree in their fabulous online store.

I love adding texture to journal pages, especially when I'm working in one of my altered hardback books. 

There aren't really any making-of photos in this post - though of course I'll talk you through what I did with some close-ups... but you'll be able to watch the whole process over on my YouTube channel from Wednesday.  (I'll come back and add a link here when it's live.)

So make a note in your diary, and you'll be able to see the layers of texture building on this page spread in all the detail you could possibly want!

For now, let me share some of the steps and the products I used to achieve them.

It all started with a layer of gesso to soften the book text and prepare the pages for the wet media to come.  I glued in some scraps of my PaperArtsy Printed Tissue PT08, leaving plenty of wrinkles, plus bits hanging over the edges of the page... lots of texture already.

Next, I used the Tim Holtz Shatter stencil to ink some cobwebs into the corners using Pumice Stone Distress Ink.  The little spider comes from the Mini Halloween 3 stamp set - though he had migrated onto my Apothecary set!  And the little bits of script detail are the text stamp from Apothecary, one of my all-time favourite script stamps.

I glued down some frayed linen ribbon and strips of Idea-ology Mummy Cloth next to Shakespeare (!), and used a spatula to add Ranger Distress Opaque Crackle Paste in various places.

Obviously, you need to leave that to crackle and do its thing.  Once it was dry, I added Pumice Stone DI and Distress Crayon over it to highlight the cracks.

Time for some collaging...  I had some snippets left over from the Add Some Text project in week two... typewriter letters made with the large Typewriter Embossing Folder and Black Kraft Stock.  I thought they would be great elements within the collaging, and also add some more dimension and texture.

Otherwise, I grabbed bits and bobs from various packets of Idea-ology Halloween ephemera that I've collected over the years - both paper and metal ephemera.  

I can't say for certain what came from which edition, but you can find this year's collection here (and of course you can also buy the packs individually).

And there's one of the Halloween Paper Dolls too, of course.  (Again, she's from a while back.)

She's the fortune teller who might take a hand in how your fate unfolds by using one of her poisonous potions on you.  You'll hear more about all that in the video when it comes out on Wednesday.

Once again, there are a few of the Curator Snippets labels in the mix... I don't know where I would be without them!

I think that's about your lot!  It's certainly my lot for this month in the Designer Spotlight for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  Head over there to see what the Design Team have got in store for you - it's bound to be inspiring.

They'll pick out a few favourite projects at the end of the week, and one randomly-drawn winner will go shopping at Simon Says Stamp with a prize voucher.  All you need to do is Add Some Texture!

I hope you've enjoyed this spooky little detour into the pages of my altered book journal.  And don't forget to pop back on Wednesday to get the direct link for the process video.  Of course, if you already follow my Words and Pictures YouTube channel, then you'll spot it when it pops up anyway!!

Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll have a wonderful week adding texture to whatever you are making.  Happy crafting, all!

There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.
August Strindberg

BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
Ambrose Bierce, from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Halloween Storytelling

Hello all, and happy Halloween!  I hope you've got a spooky night ahead on 31st October if that's your thing.  And if so, I just wanted to drop in to let you know that I've got a couple of helpings of Halloween Storytelling for you over on my YouTube channel, Words and Pictures.

The videos are flip throughs of a couple of Halloween journals I've made in previous years, each of which is packed with unnerving tales of the dark side of human nature.

Halloween Storytelling Part 1 - click here!

If creepy stories are one of your Halloween pleasures, then I invite you along for the fireside (or at least candlelit) storytelling.

Halloween Storytelling Part 2 - click here!

If you're of a nervous disposition, then maybe steer clear... you have been warned!!  (Or just come and watch with the sound turned down and enjoy all the Tim Holtz Idea-ology goodies layered up in the pages and pockets and tabs.)

I hope you'll all enjoy celebrating this All Hallow's Eve in whatever ways you choose.  And I'll be back soon with some more autumnal creativity and some more samples from my latest stamp launch too.  Happy Halloween, all!

October was always the least dependable of months … full of ghosts and shadows.

Joy Fielding

Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve.

Ray Bradbury

There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.

From Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Secrets in a country churchyard

Hello all, and greetings to you on All Hallows' Eve.  There's a dark tale for you here today despite the surface beauty of the tags.  This post will probably still be up on All Saints' Day, but I'm fine with that because the story does takes place in a graveyard, so for those visiting on Sunday just don't look too closely and you can simply enjoy an unsuspecting sun-dappled walk in the country churchyard.

However, if you are paying attention, you'll see that the ivy hasn't quite covered up the evidence of something rather unpleasant going on, and definitely better fitted to All Souls' than All Saints'.

These tags are all about the layers... layers of ink and stamping and ephemera and die-cuts, of course, but also layers of time and evidence and hidden secrets under cover of the creeping ivy tendrils.

There's the sun-dappled greenery of a country churchyard on a sunny autumn day in the backgrounds of Distress Ink and Oxide smooshing.

There are the stony arches of the small country church (the test cut from the die packaging, smooshed in some Pumice Stone). There are ancient clerical texts and filigree wrought iron gates hovering in the layers.

But dig a little further down and you find the bony remnants of certain parishioners, buried in the undergrowth.

How many of them?  It's hard to tell, they're mostly parts and pieces, not in proper graves.

And what are these labels hiding under the ivy leaves?  Could they be evidence of foul play?

How exactly did those parishioners meet their respective ends?  We need a Miss Marple in the village to find the clues and uncover these dastardly crimes.

But these voices calling from the grave can't make themselves heard above the tolling of the church bells.

If only someone would take heed and dig in the cemetery, they might find some of these objects and start putting two and two together.

But no, the breeze whispers through the leaves of the ivy and carries the voices of the dead away on the wind.  Spooked yet?  I hope so... that is rather the point.    

As with the Fungi Poisoners, it's my favourite kind of eeriness - something which looks fine at first glance, and in fact even rather lovely, but then you look more closely and the cracks start to appear revealing something dark and horrible at the heart of things.

I wish you a good Samhain, and I hope the darker months whose arrival it heralds don't prove to be too dark.  Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great weekend all.

Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.
Edgar Allan Poe

Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.
From Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

So it's one final entry for the Country View Challenges October theme, Halloween - Make a Scene

And for All Hallows' Eve at Tag Tuesday

And my bony skeletons are Embossed so I'd love to share these at Try It On Tuesday where that's their theme this fortnight

#newbloggersucks

It's been a busy Halloween week here, which is unusual, so if you missed anything do check them out...

Fungi Poisoners

More Skull Distraction

Distracted by Skulls

or get your spook on with some Rusty Tin by Candlelight

Happy Halloween everyone!

More Skull Distraction

Hello all.  I hope you're all doing okay.  Here's another eerie tag which was thrown together in between packing stints.  Again, almost all the bits were already done - the backgrounds, the leaves.  All I did was stamp and cut out the skull and the skeleton and then a bit of arranging and gluing.

The backgrounds were some of the ones I made while I was in the Czech Republic recently, and which flew back with me on the plane because there was nothing in the travelling stash that worked well enough with them for me to want to go ahead and finish them.  You know how blue and brown always makes me happy, and I wanted to find the right topping.

I love the Oxide stamping - so cool how such a pale blue can hold its own against the earthy browns underneath.

And the delicate cobwebs add another bit of extra textural detail to the look.

The poison labels were lying around because I'd snatched a few minutes to stamp them on some ink-smooshed paper a few days earlier.

And there are always autumn leaves hanging around on my craft table at this time of year.

These, if I remember rightly, were done on kraft paper for a nice dark, earthy look.

This skull has always been a favourite stamp - it was in one of the very first Tim Holtz stamp sets I ever bought, and as I was saying about the "Yorick" die yesterday in Distracted Skulls, he's been used far more often than just for Halloween.

The tall skinny skeleton wasn't as easy to fussy-cut as the skull sadly, but every now and then the fiddly cutting is worth the effort, and I think this was probably one of those times.

I layered up a few of the stamped ephemera poison labels... 

... and added a couple of contrasting stickers from the Idea-ology Halloween sticker book.

And I added a couple of Halloween Typed Tokens to the mix...

... with the words highlighted with white acrylic, as is my wont.

And I think that'll just about do for now.  I've got one more set of spooky tags to share with you, so I'll be back tomorrow - this time at the witching hour, so really it's not officially until Friday that I'll see you again here... 

... but I may catch you elsewhere in Craftyblogland in the meantime (packing permitting).  In the meantime, stay safe, stay well, and stay creative in this scary world.

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.
Andre Maurois
Hmmm... I can't think of anybody like that, can you?!

I'd like to join in at Tag Tuesday where they are playing All Hallow's Eve as the theme

At More Mixed Media it's Anything Goes with Optional Orange - not taking up the option this time, sorry!

#newbloggersucks