Day Four of the 31 Days of Halloween

I love playing with vintage images and this one was no exception. Last year I was hung up on witches - this year it's people/bat hybrids. These wings were made for the polymer clay doll from Day 2. They didn't fit her but I never throw anything away so I popped "grandma" over them and it was a perfect fit. The bat wings are from Third Coast, the background stamp is from Stampa Rosa. The striped paper is K & Company. This was a fun little card to create!
Want to see lots more Halloween art? Click on Terra's link in the blog roll on the right side of this page and the wonders will unfold. Horrifying Hoppers - you know where to go next, Lisa's blog to see her lovely Halloween creations. And thanks to all of you who have taken the time to visit my tiny corner of the www and left a little of your time and your hearts here.

Day Three of the 31 Days of Halloween

I was going for weird and I do believe I got it. The main images are from a Lost Coast sheet and were a mite bit big for ATCs. The odd eggs are from an Alice in Wonderland sheet from Non-Sequitur although I did have to change out the numbers. I had a tree in mind but by the time I got the parts to fit onto a standard sheet of paper AND fit the cards, it was definitely a bush. You'll have to take my word for it that it's Halloween in the land of Odd, though. Their customs are so much different than ours. They are vegetarians except for Halloween and then they eat all the spiders, bats and cats they can catch. Not the ghosts - the ghosts are the ancestors whom they honor especially on Halloween. These three guys are Larry, Moe and Dopey. They do know our culture and love to name their odd offspring after our oddities.
In all seriousness, check out the rest of the 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop by clicking on Terra's name in the blog roll. She'll tell you all you need to know to enjoy all the amazing Halloween art and maybe win some awesome prizes. Or, if you've been hopping and you've gotten to here, you probably know Lisa's blog is where you're headed now. Unless you go backwards and then you'll want to click on Helen. Confused?? Me too.

Day Two Of the 31 Days of Halloween

Well, well, well, this is a shock. Goggle actually put my images in the order I added them. Of course, I was expecting the opposite but now I know and will use that to my advantage.
The project for today is the bat girl in the last picture. I showed her in front of yesterday's house for scale and also with some decorations. The head, body, arms, legs and base are all made of polymer clay. I had done a cake topper in August and had a pair of black feet that had not worked for the groom so that was the start of her. The bat wings stamps are from Third Coast. Her clothes are the coolest part. For the skirt I stamped the webs on black text weight paper, then ran it through a crimper, then painstakingly refolded each fold so that it would gather like fabric. That got glued onto her middle. For the top, the paper was a bit heavier but way short of card stock - like nice stationery. I stamped the bat and then crumpled and recrumbled the paper over and over until it was as pliable as fabric and then cut the top as if it were fabric and glued the seams. Both of the clothes stamps are from those little sets of images that are so old I don't have the packaging anymore. Just a little foreshadowing - she is far from the last batperson I'm doing this year!!
If you got here accidentally and really love Halloween as much as I do, check out the whole Blog Hop by clicking on Terra in the Blog Roll for the 31 Days of Halloween 2012. You will find the chance to win some wonderful prizes as well as seeing some amazing art projects courtesy of the participants. If you're here on purpose, your next stop is Lisa, right after me, Sharon, in the Blog Roll

Day One of the 31 Days of Halloween

Well, gals, the day has come to start the craziest 31 days of the year. That may not be true for all of you but as I limit the challenges I get myself into, it certainly is for me. I am so looking forward to seeing the wonderful creations that everyone has come up with, to spreading the love to all 37 participants and to showing off mine (hope I can keep up).
If you've happened across this page accidentally, check out the whole 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop by starting with the link to Terra's page under the blogroll on the sidebar. She's got all the info you need to know to hop along and maybe even win a prize or two.
This project started off as a prop for my Halloween decorations but I'd never worked with foamcore board before. Three days and a package of X-Acto blades later, I decided it had to become a "real" project. I thought about stamping spooky words on it but I really liked it black. I came up with the solution to add lots of polymer clay dimensional elements - roofs, windows, doors, a porch. The stamping happened as a way to   texture those elements, especially the roofs. I used mostly an old Provocraft spiral stamp but there's also a design element stamp from 100 Proof Press in there.
Okay, get back to your hoppin'. You've hung in there and you're getting close to the finish line.

A Few Art Journal Pages

I do love the freedom of "art journaling" - that I am creating something to experiment with techniques and doing it for my own gratification. Occasionally I worry that someone else won't think my work is up to snuff but I fight those feelings very stongly.

I am completely in awe of those people who manage to complete a page every day. In five years I might have finished thirty pages, but probably not. These are some of my latest. The three ladies with flowers must have been something I saw that inspired me. I got all of the backgrounds painted and all of the women pasted on in May 2011 when I did the "garden of dreams" page. And then the "gardeners dream bigger dreams" page got finished sometime in 2012. But the last woman left me wondering what she was thinking so hard about. I tried "pensive"and "contemplative" but she didn't tell me anything. I wanted flowers to match her mood but couldn't find any except on some old chintz. They were too big so I painted a few of them. And then I decided she was just sad and these song lyrics came to mind. The most worrisome thing is that there is another page ready that I'm drawing a blank on also.

The bird page was just a hoot. While my sister was here, one of the things I worked on a bit was a tag book of bird songs, i.e., songs that referenced birds. I had a bunch of stamped pieces lying around from that. Kate made a card for her daughter by using a very thin paste and piling scraps onto muslin and I wanted to try that but in my moleskine rather than on muslin. I loved how colorful it turned out, added more color plus the tree branch to make all of the images work together and found a perfect quote. I love it!!

Getting Dressed Altered Book

Kate had brought several altered books along to work on during our creative time together. I didn't have much planned so just made a few cards for the first few days. then I saw an article in the paper titled "You're Wearing That?" and took off with this little book. The book form is a child's board book, one of the cheapie ones that allow just peeling the slick printed pages out and you're left with empty, though slightly rough, pages to decorate. It really beats all that sanding!!

Kate had sent a GellyArt plate as a birthday gift to herself which we played with quite a bit. It's like a gelatin monoprint plate but you can clean it off and use it over and over - no melting! See, I'm not the only one who gifts themselves. We spent a lot of time pulling prints and ghosts of prints off the plate. My background for the "clothes make the man" was done with the plate. We decided it was a perfect two person project as one of us could be making a monoprint while the other one was cleaning off anything that got covered with paint. The GellyArt manufacturers do suggest paint rather than ink to keep from staining the plate. My birthday is way too far off!

In the book I used stamps, paint, pastel chalks, gesso, scrapbook papers and some collage. I added the zipper, buttons and lacing trim to accent the theme.

It looks like Blogger is going to put the last three pages first. But I'm taking notes - I'm sure to get it right sooner or later.

House and Home Accordion Book

I didn't have this ready for Kate's birthday in May but that was OK since she came for 10 days of pure play in June and it was finished by then. Plus I got to see her reaction which was great. We had the book stretched out on the buffet so that the "House" side was facing out and the "Home" side showed in the mirror. She saw the first side and told me how much she liked my new house book. Then I pointed out the images of her new home and of her and Bill in the mirror and told her it was her house book.

I had read about a new technique in "Flavor for Mixed Media" by Mary Beth Shaw of filling a background with patches of color with pastels and then painting over those with a layer of gesso. I used it for most of the backgrounds for the pages. It gave incredibly subtle colors. The bookform itself was a diecut kit of lightweight chipboard house shaped pieces. After the "House" side was done, I felt as if my brainpower was down to one bar or less so my friend Pam got me back in shape to work on the nine "home" collages with a few suggestions.