woyww 160

Morning and happy blog hopping, if you have no idea what I am on about head over to The Stamping Ground where Julia Dunnit hosts the weekly blog hop for nosy crafters ;)

My craft space has evolved this week with the addition of another little desk and some shelf space in the wardrobe. still looks like a bomb has gone off but hey, what can you do??

and yes, thats a skull :)
xx thank you everyone for stopping by,  mark

great great grandad's done it again

So I was rummaging around in the loft to see what else I could find in my Great great gramps's stuff, last time was a vampire heart, this time I find a whole skull (might be able to reconstruct someone at this rate). There is very little info on this trophy skull, just another reference number, I will hopefully find his journal one day.
It looks old, to early to tell if its a real skull dipped in metal or just a head hunting trophy.It looks to have been enameled at some stage in its life but the finish is almost completely gone, It must have been important as he has had it mounted, I can just imagine it sitting on his desk in his drawing room.

This has been done for a couple of challenges. Over at Simon Says Stamp And Show where the challenge is  Depth of Distress.If this was my skull I would feel pretty distressed.

Im also entering this into the Haunted Design House, their challenge is Strange Brew. there is a whole list of Ingredients that need to be used to create your piece. I am probably stretching the intentions of the challenge but lets see ;)
first there needs to be two layers, Base and then the skull.then there is one main image, the skull :) some metal bits, thats easy, the corners. Drops of black pearls,  they are the brads holding the corners on, you can just see them in the first pic.a bit of ribbon or trim,  thats the black stuff, finally there is one punched element, sadly my vagabond has not come back from sizzix, it went bang last week.  so hopefully I will be let of for that indiscretion.

Im also entering for the first time at Art With No Boundaries their challenge is anything goes, they also have a bonus round of Performing Arts.
maybe this will count as both entries as it may be a movie prop from an Indiana Jones film.

I bought this skull from ebay, its moulded from a real skull apparently. I used the tim Holtz enamal effect and one of Andy Skinners rust techniques for the skull, the base was a box picture fram turned over, covered with velvet paper and some Tim Holtz embeleshments.

Im also putting this into Incy Wincy Designs Challeng, their challenge is anything goes,
and the Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog, their challenge is show some texture and use some Material.(the velvet mount and ribbon should have the material covered, Hopefully)

Thanks for stopping by and having a look.
mark

Haunted Design House

Another scrape the deadline job for this challenge, I blew my vagabond up in the week and am with out till Sizzix send me a new one :(  really had to rack my brain for this challenge.Over at Haunted Design House   the challenge is Eerie Elegance. Now I was thinking I might do something with a nice embossing folder, cut out some fancy dies and muddle something together, bear in mind I am a bloke, Elegance is not a strong trait for me ;) With the death of my dear Vagabond friend I really needed to re think what I could do.Luckily I found this printer tray by Tando-Creative and thought I would do something with that.I also Picked up this great velvet like paper, its a more vivid red than the pic shows, its a little bleached unfortunately. Red and Black are a classic elegant colour scheme, In the top little window I sandwiched a spider web stamped piece of acetate and a spider charm, next to him I sandwiched a piece of the velvet stamped with the red 13 stamp from Tim Holtz. then there is the mini figure, Its brother is on my dark arts book cover, and lastly A flower that has been stamped and coloured with distress inks.The printer tray was painted black and the top was embossed with black embossing powders.The inside cover has some Tim corners and the velvet paper has a few more stamps.
the cover had a couple of Tando swirls again with black embossing powder and a few little sticky roses.

Challenge Piece

This week over at Simon Says Stamp And Show their challenge is 'show a bit of brown' I decided I would give another canvas ago, I new I wanted to try a rust effect and to use my melting pot again ( I love that bit of kit)
I started with the distress inks, mainly greens and then added a little vintage photo in with a tiny bit of black for the back ground. the elephant images were stamped onto tissue paper in brown stayzon and stuck on with clear bee's wax the sentiment was stamped in black.The tissue paper with the text on it was a great find In the clothing shop All Saints,  I think the use it for packing their items, there were several sheets abandoned  on the shelf last time I was in there so it made its way into my bag, well shame to have it thrown out ;)

For the rusty section I used some Dreamweaver Kanji stencils, they mean Love, Harmony and Longevity. They were then painted over in another of Andy Skinners Timeworn techniques.Hopefully there is enough brown to qualify for the challenge.

I am also entering this into Hels Sheridans Sunday Stamper challenge where it is something for the boys.
And over at Sarah Hurley's Challenge Blog where the challenge is Dimension and Texture.


Thank you everyone who looks at my stuff and leaves comments. It completely blows my mind to have you guys pop by.
mark x

WOYWW 159

Morning all, since taking part in WOYWW I am sure Wednesday's are coming round a lot quicker. No idea what I am talking about then follow the link to Julia Dunnits Stamping ground. Your chance to have a good ol snoop around the crafting world.
My desk has not changed that much since last week,  A few crackle texture products and a page I am working on.
Any way, must dash, It's my daughters Sports Day today, so i can not be late for that.
As always I will do my best to visit as many people as poss, definitely the ones who end with the same number as me.
Thank you to everyone who pops over and leaves messages, means so much.
mark x

My little book of dark arts ( well the cover is done)

Hello again, thanks to everyone who looks and follows, lovely to have you here.
A little while back I picked up a plain thick card book with about 5 thick card pages and I thought it was about time something was done with it,and with a few challenges this week I thought I could combine the effort.Over at Simon Says Stamp And Show it's anything goes. Thanks again to the people over there who voted for me last week. :) Crafty Card Makers have their 70th challenge which is NO cards, tags or ATC's
and finally Poisoned Peas Please have their new challenge which is Goth/Emo.
I wanted to go for a Gothic look for the front cover so I could enter the Poisoned Peas, and I also love Gothic.My teens I would have been goth/emo.

To start with I used some funky paper from 7 dots studio, which was masked for some extra text and then aged with distress dies, a little 2 stage crackle medium in the corners as well. The arches are from Tando Creative, their range of stuff is fantastic. They were coated in Deco art texture crackle and then painted and dry brushed. the figure and wings are from Tim Holtz and the jars are from Wendy Vecchi, they have had the same treatment, I wanted to get the Gothic graveyard feel.
The spine was covered with the Tim Holtz sticky tape and stained and the number was stained with alcohol inks to match the windows in the arches (alcohol ink and Tim stamp)

here are a couple of pics to show the texture off a little better.

thanks, mark. x

woyww 158

Well after being up late enough last night, or early enough this morning to be one of the first on woyww, I find there is no mr linky thing. so I am now rather late in posting.  dang it ;)  want to know what I am talking about?? check out the Stamping Ground , the brain child of Julia Dunnit.
As you can see I have been playing with the alcohol inks again, I love these. I have also been splurging on distress dabber things. Im coming round to how good they really are.
I will be doing my best to get round as many blogs as poss, at least the people whos number ends in the same as mine and as many of the others as I can.
have a great week everyone.  Mark

Haunted Design House Challenge

This week over at the Haunted Design House the challenge is 'perplexing pigments'

the idea is to create something gothic/horror/cute lol. but using the colours Black, Purple, Teal and Lime Green.

I made a tag this week using a new stamp I have from the Octapode Factory a great corpse bride Zombie thing.I used distress inks as water colours and painted the lovely couple, coloured the tag in citrus green alcohol ink and stamped with the cob webs from Tim Holtz's Halloween set. I added a spider charm stained with purple alcohol ink and added the sentiment LOVE. well they are getting married after all.  I guess real love IS forever ;)

Thanks for looking, Mark.

lucky me

Just a quick post, I have been really lucky this last week and have managed to win a couple of things with my Rose canvas.I found out today that I won at Crafty Cardmakers where the challenge was distress it. I was chosen to receive the prize from Hobby Arts a couple of great stamp sets.
I also won $15 of digi stamps to spend at Smeared Ink via the Haunted Design House

I am gob smacked and blown away, so thank you so much to everyone that follows reads or picked me.  mark.

Big picture of Rose is a couple of posts down.

Heart in a box

Right, so after a slow week crafting I have just about managed to get my piece done for the Haunted Design House weekly challenge, this week it was 'Truebie or not Trubie' Its in preparation for the season  prem of True Blood, we have to create something that embraces the spirit of vampires.

 I thought I would share this, a genuine Vampire heart it has been passed down through the family for generations.My great,great Grandad was a Vampire hunter and this was in an old chest that I found in the atic. 

The pictures are not that great as there is a glass window which is reflecting the light. To make this i painted a wooden heart and then added crocco crackle glaze, this was then dry brushed when it had dried, there is a stamped up back ground coloured with Tim Holtz distress ink. the wooden Shadow box/frame thing was done in another technique I learnt in the Andy Skinner workshop, It gives you a real 3d look for the peeled paint. the frame has then had a few Tim Holtz embelishments to finish it off.

I will also enter this into Simon Says Stamp and Show where the challenge is 'show some texture'

WOYWW 157

Morning everyone. It is once again that time of the week and this time it really seems to have flown round, I have no idea where the time has gone,For those who don't know its Whats On Your Workbench Wednesday (woyww) the brain child of Jullia Dunnit, thanks Jullia. It has been a slow craft week here, I have managed to make a few more atc's for people that wanted to swap in last weeks 3rd birthday swap. Wow the response was fantastic, I had not expected so many other people to want to swap as well, Thank you everyone.
So on the desk you can see two of the cards I have received so far and three envelopes that need posting with the atc's I made this week, I'm going global lol, one is off to the USA, One to OZ and One to Wales

I will do a proper post of all the ATC's once everyone has theirs, maybe next week.But for now I can share the Card I made for the swap and the two I have received so far.Above is the Atc I made for April at http://aprilscraftyescape.blogspot.co.uk/  I will go into some detail when I do a proper post of the ATC's.

 In return  received this beautiful atc with the butterflys.I love the vintage and distressed look and the detail with the button and string really ties it all together. thank you April

This atc was done by Anne at http://bollyanne.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/woyww-week-157.html what you can't see is how thick this is,I love the tim tag and the embossing folder used is one of my faves, its actually the same one I used in my atc.Thank you so much for both the cards, The swap has been a blast and roll on year 4.