Just a bit of doodle fun

Just a quick post today, Firstly, thank you all for stopping by and leaving comments. you guys rock.
Secondly a quick mention that over at Haunted Design House I have just put up the swap partners list, so if you are taking part please head over and see who you are swapping with.
 And finally, this tag. I bought my first craft mag (craft stamper)  last week and the first article was about doodling,It was written by Lisa Mason, I have seen a lot of zentangle and doodle pages/cards whilst hopping  so I thought it was about time I had a play.
This was great fun as the bulk of the work is not messy, both the better half and myself grabbed some card an image and a black pen, we then spent a couple of hours doodling whilst watching tv one eve.
I cut a big oversized tag and used one of my Octopode Factory rubber stamps (the scarecrow from Oz) Isn't he cute ;) I basically followed the instructions from the mag (November edition)
Once the dooling was done I decided to add some colour, for some reason I have only seen black and white, not sure if I am breaking any carnal cardinal (thanks Neil) rules adding red but hey ho ;)
Using a red Copic I filled in some of the areas and  I painted Scarecrow with distress ink pads.
The quote is a Dyan Reaveley Stamp.
I think this will find a home on my sisters Xmas present.


Thanks for stopping by.
I would like to enter this into a couple of challenges.

The Octopode Factory challenge is 'Words'

Over at The Corrosive Challenge Blog they are having an Anything Goes challenge.

WOYWW 181

Well it's that time of the week again the WOYWW blog hop where you get to have a good nose around other crafter's work desks.
No idea what I am talking about? head over to Julias Stamping Ground to find out.

My work bench is quite tidy at the mo as the house is on the market and I need to keep the place tidy ;)

The last couple of weeks have been manic although not a lot to show so far. I have been lucky enough to have been asked to join a couple of DT's.As some of you know I have just startted with Fun With ATC's, I have also been asked to joing the amazing team over at Anything But A Card, I feel very lucky and am looking forward to stepping out of my comfort zone with the up and coming challenges. What I have on my desk is the start of my first piece for Anything But A Card, its the start of a wooden picture frame.
The second desk is looking a little less orderly, I popped over and spent Monday crafting with Neil of Neelz Expresionz we both recently picked up one of the larger Tim Holtz printer trays and decided to get started with them.I will do a propper post when the tray is finished but may share little bits as I get it finished. So far I have the tray covered and coloured and have finished my first two boxes, there may be some tweaking but I am happy so far.
The edges of the tray were taped with Tim tape and coloured with Dylusion sprays, the little box holds my little Tim angel, the back ground was made with Deco art crackle paste and paited and dry brushed with acrylic paint. black then grey and a little translucent red.
The stamped image is from Stampotique, painted with distress ink pads, the bg is also distress inks and the back ground has also been stamped with Dyan stamps and distress inks. I will be keeping this tray with a darker non cute theme Surprise Surprise ;)  more Stampotique images to be added.

Thank you for stopping by, I will try to visit as many people as I can, definitely the people that leave comments for me and all the people who share the same last number as mine.
Happy hopping.

Fun With ATC's Faces challenge

Hello and welcome, thank you everyone for stopping by, I really appreciate your time and comments.

This fortnight over at Fun With ATC's our challenge is faces stop on by to see what the rest of the awesome DT have been up to and of course I would love for you to join us.

I kind of knew what I wanted to do straight away with this challenge,  I love this skull stamp from Paper Artsy but the face I wanted to go with to start with was from a painting by Mark Ryden called Rose but I could not get her face to fit the skull so I had a quick think and this popped up. Personally I don't think she has ever looked so good ;)
I started by cutting my ATC from some mount board with my Tim Holtz die, I stamped the skull and heat embossed with black powder, the skull and red back ground were coloured by using old paper and red berries distress ink pads. I dabbed them on to my craft mat added a little spray of water and painted the areas. Thanks to Paul and my fellow DT member Butterfly for reminding me they can be used this way. You can get so many different shades/intensity of colour from the one ink pad just by adding more or less water.
After It was coloured I tore the image of the Queen in half, fussy cut around her face (image was from the net and sized to fit) and stuck her down, I made a mask for the skull and stamped the edge in black with a Tim Holtz stamp. I finished by colouring behind the Queen in black and then adding the two jems, Well it is the queen ;)

Again thank you for stopping by and hopefully I will see you over at Fun With ATC's

I would like to enter this into a couple of challenges.

Over at Smudgy Antics their challenge is Time Stands Still.. Ok I may be stretching but I am thinking that this is what happens when time stands still, you occupy all states of being ;)

At Quirky Crafts Challenges they are having a Come To The Darkside challenge, no cute images.

The Octapode Factory are having a Skulls or skellies challenge.

Poisoned Peas Please are having a Walking dead theme.I am sure the queen must be dead but some how she is still walking around ;)

The Artistic Stamper has an Anything Goes challenge this month, A great blog and a shop with some amazing stamps to choose from.

Woyww 179

Well its that time of the week and I know it has been a been a while since I have made it over to blog hop with the rest of the WOYWW'ers but it's great to be back and I look forward to looking at as many blogs as I can.
For those of you who are asking what the Hell, follow the link to Julia's page and all will be revealed (ok its a nosey mid week blog hop).

Im going to combine this post with another atc I have made as I want to enter it into a challenge as well, you can see it on the desk, bigger pic coming up at the bottom of the page.
 You can also see in the pic a wonderful stash of stuff i was sent from my blog friend Mel, The Yorkshire Fox she kindly sent me a very cool Xmas tag and some goodies to go with. I am looking forward to having a play with them. there is also another atc left over from me playing around with some gold leaf.
In the other zoomed out pic you can see my pin board where I keep all the goodies I have been sent so I have some good inspiration right infront of me, the board on the side is my semi useful bits board and has some old tags that I made but don't want to throw out.

Ok so here is the atc I made for the challenge over at Smudgy Antics  they are having a 'Tic Tac Toe' theme where you have to pic three ingredients that are in a row, I have picked Paint, Distress and Hardware/Metal.
 The back ground has been painted with Deco Art translucent paint, the little dude has been painted with Distress ink pads and my Hardware is the two Brads.'s

Stay tuned for even more Atc's over the next few weeks as I am working on several for a couple of swaps, (sorry guys, running slow) but catching up.
And as some of  you may have seen yesterday I am now a proud member of the new DT over at Fun With ATC's  so every couple of weeks we will be setting new challenges, this fortnight the theme is Fashion.

That's not all I am also gearing up for our first ATC swap over at Haunted Design House so if you want to let your dark side out on an atc and feel like taking part follow the link and put your name down. I would love to see as many of you as poss over there.

ok I have rambled enough and I shall let you get on with the hop. enjoy and happy crafting,  Mark xx

Fun With ATC's Fashion

I was lucky enough recently to have been asked to be part of the new design team over at the 'Fun With ATC's' challenge blog.
It's a great team and I am sure some of you will already know the other members.
 The theme this fortnight is 'Fashion' so we would love to see all your takes on fashion. Head over to see what the DT have been up to and of course we would love to see you there.

Now, I love making Atc's, since I found out what they were earlier this year I have had loads of fun making them, they are a great way to try out new ideas/techniques on a small scale before going big and they are great things to swap with fellow crafters.

Making this Atc was great fun, I got to step outside of my comfort zone with the theme but could still go all shabby which always makes me happy. although you should have seen the discarded pile I had at the end ;)
I started by cutting the atc out of mount board using the Tim Holtz die.Mount board is greeat, nice and thick and strong, I will be using it for all of my atc's from now on I think.( i have the vagabon machine not sure how mount board will cut with the other machines) for the background colour I dabbed the distress ink pads onto my craft mat, paper,corduroy and a little pumice stone, sprayed with some water and swiped the card through it, I dried it of with an iron and kept going till I got the right colour. The background was stamped with the paris word stamp from the Papilion set from Tim and the corset is a new buy from Katzelcraft  they were stamped in archival in sepia and coffee.
The dress form is one of the movers and shapers mini die's from Tim Holtz this was again cut from mount board, I used the Frantage embossing enamel in aged teal. Its the first time I have used these powders and I love the way the gold and silver pigment melts into the blue. I think it gives it a Japanese feel to the dress. I finished it off with a pair of scissors to help balance the silver of the dress.
 It would be great to see as many of you as possible over at Fun With ATC's

As always a great big thank you to all of you who follow and comment on my blog, new friends and older friends, it always means a lot to me to see you here.

I would like to enter this into the challenge over at Victorine Stamps  they are having a Bingo challenge, the line I have chosen is Embossing, Colouring and brads/pearls. the dress form is embossed the back ground has been coloured with distress inks and my brad is the scissors.

Haunted design house part 2

Just a quick post today, as promised here is the finished secret book I started to show on Monday, it is now finished.
 Over at Haunted Design House the challenge this week is Hammer Horror, we want to see all your Hammer Horror inspired makes, weather it is tributes to the classic actors or making your own version of their iconic movie posters we would love to see them. If you head over to Hdh you will also see what the DT have been busy creating.

So after Mondays post I needed to do the back cover and line the secret draw.
I used the same technique for the back as I did for the front,Here is a LINK if you want to read a little more detail of what's been done.  I selected another Hammer Horror movie still to use for an image transfer, a little more black on this image so the back ground colours are a little more subtle, As the colours were more muted I wanted to add more in the way of the cracks so I made sure I had a good base coat of matt medium down first as you need a non porous surface to get the best results.

For the draw I used some of my Graphic 45 Paper and cut the paper out in one piece, scored along the folds and glued it into place. I gave it a quick coat of translucent yellow oxide acrylic paint and then a watered down wash of a brownie red.
 I did try to add some gold leaf to the spine of the book, the Hammer Horror logo and some script but for some reason I could not get a clear adhesion to the modelling paste so I have re painted it for now, need to experiment a little more.

For the pages of the book I used Tim tape and again painted with translucent yellow oxide paint and then a little brown dry brushing.
I'm going to group Mondays pics here as well as I would like to enter this into a few challenges and want all the pics in one place.

I would like to enter this in to the challenge over at Anything But A Card  their challenge is Incorporate Black into your project.

Over at The Sisterhood Of Crafters they have a Halloween challenge. I think Hammer Horror and Vampires fits the bill.