Meshy Mirrors

This is my entry for the Smeared and Smudged January Bloghop - the challenge is MESH IT.

I had gotten myself some nice Christmas presents, Photoshop CS5 and a book called Digital Art Wonderland by Ange Sullins and Silas Toball. So when the bloghop notice was posted, I was already knee deep in this as a learning project. The mesh idea seemed a wonderful way to differentiate their arches. I grabbed a new meshy dishcloth and an old green onion bag. Seriously, who doesn't save all of their old mesh onion bags? They were scanned into PS, given a blending mode and a layer mask (I learned how to transfer one from another layer).

Then I needed to add the undersea stamps to the sea side. They are Seahorse by Rubber Stamp Avenue, Bubbles by Impressive Stamps, and Spiral Shell by Impression Obseession. The border stamp down the middle is from Ann-ticipations, one of my favorites. I found the quote online and it seemed appropriately creepy.

If you happened upon this accidentally, check out all of the other great entries in the S & S January bloghop from the blogroll in the side bar.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 30

We all know television can be a bad influence on children. Morbidia has had this particular obsession since she saw the Amazing Racers on the Island of Broken Dolls. If truth be told though, in Morbidia's case, the townsfolk breathed a sigh of relief at her latest project.

Witch by Inkadinkado, town by Zettiology, front grave by Inkums, dolls by 100 proof Press, path with brown trees by I Love Rubber Stamps. All the PS brushes used including trees, graves, grass from EErie_Pack_by_wyckedBrush.

This is the weirdest thing I've ever stamped although I've come close before. Hope you get a good laugh from it!

31 Days of Halloween - Day 29

Stay with me....only this and one more of these to go. Even I am bored posting them, but still loving doing them. And having them nearly ready has given me time to help a little bit (very little bit) outside getting ready for the fall and help a lot in the kitchen.
This is another one of my witches, drawn using BJD pictures as models, steps traced and PS distorted from a treehouse calendar, spooky tree from Third coast, scenery right side from Beeswax (two stamps), haunted house from Stampendous, rocks left side from Stampscapes. Foreground maybe some small foliage stamps but mostly PS brushes.
This has been quite an experience for me - starting to get to know all of the Bloggers, learning so much from every one of you, and even learning a lot from the work I've been doing. There are still so many ideas percolating in my brain about Halloween! Great projects yesterday!! Don't you gals and guy ever slack off??

31 Days of Halloween - Day 28

This is one of the first ones I did and I see that I broke that rule about treating actual rubber as digital. The fence from I Love Rubber Stamps has been distorted and embossed and the stones at the bottom of the house(?) were warped to fit. The house itself is also I Love Rubber Stamps and beautiful Willa is from Third Coast.
Check out the foreground! After the scene was nearly done and I had no suitable stamp fot it, I used a bunch of filters on a bunch of kale and got that!

31 Days of Halloween - Day 26

This Where Witches Dwell might be my favorite. I adore Terra Bidlespacher's sweet little girls and witches and thought right away about having Grandalyn live in a bat cave. She is from Sweet Pea Stamps. The cave and the fire are from Third Coast and the bats are from Inkadinkado.

The second piece is a card for Millicent, of course. I'll be sending it along to Tori to forward to Kapree, but I wanted to put it up here because the background is done with my new Tim Holtz Distress Stains and I think I like them a lot. That spiky star is from Stampers Anonymous and the dress and dresser are from My Sentiments Exactly with some tiny Halloween touches added.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24

The house and fence today are not stamps either rubber or digital. They are from an old tole painting book by Rebecca Carter and this is the first time I've painted them (digitally as it happens). I have noticed that Penny Black has licensed some of the images from that book but not these two. And I bought the book a long time ago so feel okay to use them. I did use the warp tool on the house. The witch and cat are from Sweet Pea Stamps and were drawn by Elaine Cox.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23

This is the scene I made to depict my friend Pam and her "witchy life". All the details are right except the number of cats. I have plans to do my close friends and myself but unfortunately the Days are coming to a close.

Witch is Ching-chou Kuik's from Sweet Pea Stamps, cats from 100 Proof Press, Inkadinkado, Hero Arts, tiny sets, house from Good Stamps Stamp Goods, fence from Artful Illusions, trees and clouds from previously mentioned PS brushes.

Pam and I went to the Adventures In Stamping convention yesterday, both of us convinced that since it was so small we would get away on the cheap but we were wrong - so much good stuff! I felt lucky to have enough money left for lunch. Then we stopped at Hallos, a strange little store in Brunswick where they have a gazillion colors of cardstock that you can buy by the pound.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22

This scene was one I just thought up. I drew the witch. The ghost town is in the backyard of an estate for sale and I may have gotten the photo from the realtor's page. It had numerous PS filters applied to make it look like a stamp. The stamps I used were Willow the ghost girl from Tickled Pink and the other ghost is from Third Coast.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21

Don't know how I missed that ugly white line (oh well). I'm sorry I let my enthusiasm for Photoshop overtake my good sense yesterday (oh well) but it's virtually the only thing I know how to do on a computer and I love it.
I happened to find Sweet Pea Stamps while gorging myself on all of the internet stamp companies I had never heard of before and bought some of Ching-chou Kuik's lovely ladies and also some Elaine Cox and Terra Bidlespacher witches. I also tried drawing a few of my own witches with limited success. So that all fed my obsession with this project. I actually think they are going to get a bit boring to look at but they are super fun to create. I don't know if Violetta's less than total witchiness is genetic or a matter of choice - I just knew she wasn't a complete and total witch. I have a kitty named Sunny too!
Ching-chou Kuik's witch by Sweet Pea Stamps, rocks, water texture and foreground road by Stampscapes, mid ground road with cliffs by Third Coast, little house by 100 Proof Press. The clouds were done with a PS brush by Obsidian Dawn.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 16

Seetharaman Skeleton is back with page 3 of the Monster's Ball faux scrapbook. The page features a double fold program and the music playlist from the back of the program. Believe it or not, this took all day yesterday and it was almost done before yesterday. If you're wanting to go digital to speed things up, it's kind of like getting into rubber stamping to save money on greeting cards. Just not going to happen!

The music play list was mostly nicked from a Tender Thoughts greeting card my hubby thought might be useful. It was! However Moondance by Van Morrison and Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival were in the movie "American Werewolf in London", a great Halloween movie but not for kids, and Eye of the Zombie is an ear-splitting trip by John Fogerty.

Stamps include a free digi from Stampers Best, Happy Halloween House, Martha Stewart's Dracula, chair, lil bird, Third Coast's desk, 100 Proof Press's bookshelf, chandalier, clock, band members, maybe window, Artful Illusion's grand staircase, skeletons, Stamper's Anonymous' program greeter, various and sundry things by Inkadinkado. I know I've missed a lot. Sorry all you wonderful stamp companies! The ballroom scene elements were stamped and scanned and then composited in Photoshop.

I showed two shots of the ballroom, one a photograph taken without enough light for any depth of field and the second using the PS file and warping it to match the shape of the first one. The difference in color is all in the printing.

Reading through everyone's posts yesterday, it seems like a bit of exhaustion is setting in. I know that I didn't think I would get this done in time and I see it's getting close. Hang in there, we'll probably get our collective third breath any time now!!