Fun With ATC's Writing

Well if you are still with me Thank you, 4th post in 3 days, I should stretch things out more ;)
 Today we are starting our new challenge over at Fun With ATC's the theme for the next two weeks is writing, nice and simple, we just want to see an element of something written, it can be a text stamp or even your own hand writing.
 My ATC as always was cut from mount board, I used a cover the card stamp and heat embossed the image in black powder and used Dusty Concord distress ink to add the colour.
 The script stamp is from The Artistic Stamper and was stamped onto some craft card, torn out and coloured with Distress inks to give it a shabby vintage feel.
 The pen nib is from Tim Holtz and I used a feather charm from the Bead Shop in Brighton. I glued it in place with some pinflare glue and glued it in place with some pinflare as well.

Head on over to Fun With ATC's to see what the awesome DT have created for some inspiration and as always we would love to see what you can come up with.
Thanks for sticking with me over the last couple of days, I shall leave you in peace now. x

Smeared Inks no colourd pens or pencils, GDT

Ok so here is post three in two days.
 This month I have been lucky enough to have been invited to be the guest designer for Smeared Ink and they have just started their new challenge. Use colour but NO copics/pro markers or coloured pencils etc.
You can use inks, paints, sprays,chalks, pretty much anything other than the usual colouring suspects.
 I started out with a plain bisque tile and have used acrylic paints from deco art.
the image is one of my rubber stamps from smeared inks as death set, they also do this as a digi image.
The phrase is from the same set.
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 The wire mesh stamp is from the Poe set and has been stamped with versa mark ink and had perfect pearls brushed over. The tile was finished off with a couple of coats of satin varnish giving a wet sand in between coats to give a smoother finish.

Head on over to Smeared Ink and check out some awesome inspiration from their Design Team.

There is also a week left of my Guest Designer Challenge on their forum. head on over and join in the fun, they have so many things going on over there it is well worth the visit.

Thanks as always for stopping by, Ive kept it short and sharp today. One more post to come tomorrow and then I shall leave you in peace for the rest of the week ;)
Mark xx

Anything But A Card Spring or Alice in Wonderland

Hello again and welcome back if you have already stopped by today. I was not joking about the buses ;)

Over at Anything But A Card we are entering into our second week of our current challenge which is Spring or Alice in Wonderland.
 I love the Alice in wonderland story and I love the Octopode Factory's images, especially the AiW so it was a no brainer that I would use one. I went for the Mad Hatter and coloured him with copics, fussy cut him out and coated him with clear embossing powder.
 The back ground is a piece of Stamp Board,Im not sure what the top coat is made from but it takes colour brilliantly and really makes the bright colours pop, you can also scratch into it to bring back the white.
 I started by using Dylusion sprays starting with lemmon at the top and working my way down with pink, a little orange and then purple drying each colour off as I went.

 The leaves were stamped with archival ink in black and are from Dyan Reaveley and the doodles along the bottom are also from one of her stamp sets.
The colour has been added using Distress re inkers, mown grass, Picked raspberry, peacock feathers and ripe persimmon. they have been painted on and then dabbed carefully with kitchen towl. I also added some stars with a great stamp from The Artistic Stamper using white ink.
 To add some hi lights I used a scoring tool and scraped away to reveal the board underneath.
I finished of with a sentiment from Tim Holtz.
 Thanks for stopping by, No more posts for today I promise ;) but beware of tomorrow x

The Octopode Factory are having a going green theme, The leaves and top hat are my bits of green.

Over at the Altered Alice they are having a Mad as the March Hair challenge, I have used the mad hatter for my piece.

Smeared Inks Throw Down No 2 Faux finish

 Well my blog seems to be like waiting for a bus recently, Nothing all week and then 3 turn up one after the other, So I hope you bear with me over the next couple of days. As always thanks for stopping by and a big welcome to my newest followers. It's great to have you here.
 Now a few weeks ago Smeared Ink started a new challenge on their forum for Design teams, called the DT Throw Down, this is open to any design teams all you need is a maximum of three people to take part in the theme that has been set, after the deadline the forum members take a vote for the best collection of entries.
 Over at Haunted Design House we jumped at joining in and we were lucky enough to have been voted the winners of the first challenge, as well as bragging rights we got to pick the theme for the next challenge.
 We chose Faux Finishes. If you follow the link to Haunted Design House you will see what the other two members of team HDH have created and of course we would love for you to stop by Smeared inks forum and have a look around and join in the voting, They are a great bunch of crafters and there is always something going on.

If you have stopped by before you may have noticed that I like to use faux finishes quite a lot. For this challenge I made a steam punk inspired book cover from one of the new range of Neil Walkers  Tando Creative book kits.
the top section of shaped chip board was thin enough to go through the diamond plate embossing folder from Tim Holtz and was given an acrylic paint technique I learnt from Andy Skinners Time Worn online course, the second layer of card is to thick so some craft card was cut to shape and embossed with the sheet metal folder from Tim Holtz and was given a Copper Verdigris paint technique from the Time worn course.I added the Tim Holtz key hole and book plate, and again gave them a a tarnished brass faux finish. I used one of Tims tickets and some crackle accents to finish it off.


All the stamps are from De Stempel Winkel if you have not heard of them go check them out, they are a firm based in the Netherlands and have hundreds of sets with pretty much every style you can imagine, stream punk, botanical, oriental, art deco, you name it they probably have it. A lot of the stamps can be bought individually as well as in a set, Jetske presses a lot of the designs herself, she also sells the inks and paper crafting essentials.The plates I have used are Mannen 1 and Nuts and Bolts.
 The Stamps were stamped with archival ink in black, to add the colour and distress I dabbed some blue and brown distress ink pads onto my craft mat and spritz with water, I then swiped my card through and ironed dry/flat again, I repeted this to get the colour intensity I liked, the very dark brown splodge is from the walnut stain re inker. Some eyelets were added to protect the covers over time and the O rings were also given the same tarnished brass finish.

The inside covers and back cover were covered with some design paper that fit the theme and have had a little distress inking around the edges. I have not gone mad here as I intend to add pockets etc in time and as the pages get added.
Ill be using it to collect pages, tags etc but more of that another time.

Thank you for sticking with my rather wordy post.
Hopefully we will see you over at the smeared Ink forum and remember you can see the rest of the HDH entries here.

Over at Sugar creek Hollow they are having an Altered State challenge.

Crafty emblies are having an anything goes theme this month.

The new challenge blog Left Of Centre are starting their 2nd challenge if you are a traditional crafter you can follow their theme or if you are a little left of centre it's anything goes ;)

Haunted Design House 'A Divine Comedy'

Well I'm lucky to be here this week, I have been suffering with the Man Flu. and thought I might not have made it.
 Anyway we have just started our new challenge over at Haunted Design House the theme this fortnight being ' A Divine Comedy' or Dante's Inferno.
 We want you to create something inspired by the travels through the 9 circles that Dante faced. failing that any Hell inspired piece of work ;)
Details on the Circles of hell can be found on the Hdh page as well as some awesome inspiration from the DT.


 For this challenge I made a tag and a little box, I only started to feel human again on Saturday and my mojo seems to be under the weather as well.
I started by doing an internet search for Divine Comedy images and found a couple of Gustave Dore prints I liked, I think they may be etchings for old books. The image for the tag shows all the lost souls circling.I used the Andy Skinner mask Tornado and inked through with yellow and blue distress inks, I then with the mask still in place painted over with matt glue n seal.I then inked the rest of the tag with red distress inks getting darker towards the outside, I then swiped and blended the distress inks with a damp kitchen towl, the glue n seal acts as a resist so the colours come through.
The letters forming Dante are from Tim Holtz and have been buffed with treasure gold.


For the box I used another of Gustave's prints and made a little gluttony box, big enough for a stash of chocolate ;)
I used an image transfer technique over a painted bg, I tried to lay my bg down with the red where the body would sit and some cooler colours to sit behind the main demon.

The rest of the box was covered with modelling paste with some texture added. it was then painted with various reds and dry brushed to pick out the details. it was then finally given a rub and buff with some Treasure Gold in emerald to pick out the high spots. and to bring out the cooler colours in the bg.
the main image was given a coat of gloss varnish but this has made it a b**ch to photograph.







As always we would love to see you over at Haunted Design House and remember we are now a fortnightly challenge so there is twice as long for you to take part. Also head back next Monday to see what other inspiration the Dt have for you.

Oh and this theme was my idea so please play other wise they will gag me in the future ;)

Fun With ATC's Gothic or Halloween

 Well I can not believe how fast seems to be going at the moment, and the time has come for us to start a new challenge over at Fun With ATC's, this fortnight we are challenging you to come up with a Gothic, Halloween or spooky style ATC.
Head on over to see what the uber talented DT have concocted for your inspiration.

Now for me this was a great fun challenge, It gave me a chance to play with the little plastic war hammer skeletons again. For a long time whilst I was making this it felt like the effort going in was not going to pay off but even if I do say so myself I really like the outcome, I think thats part of the journey when playing with paints, using washes and dry brushing.

I started by cutting a couple of ATC's from mount board, I marked out a frame and carefully cut the middle out with a craft knife, I added some sticky gems around the frame and gave it a rust finish that I learnt on the Andy Skinner online workshop Time Worn, there is a link on the side bar.
 I gave the bottom ATC a coat of gesso, marked out where the frame would go and applied Deco Art's crackle medium, whilst it was wet I pushed the skeleton in so the paste would crack around him.
The little plastic skeleton was given a thin base of gesso and then painted with acrylic paints. I cut his lower legs of and bent him a little so it would look like he is bursting out of the ground.This was all done before pushing him into the crackle paste.
 The crackle paste was given a slightly watered down dark brown base coat and then dry brushed with several lighter shades of paint to bring out all the details.

 The coffin lid was sent to me by my good blog friend and fellow Haunted Design House DT member Glo Bug ,and will be available in here Etsy shop soon, details are on her blog It was the perfect size for this ATC and was just a stroke of luck as it turned up last week as part of an ATC swap we did. On the right is the                                               ATC I did for swap with GloBug.



If you fancy getting your spook on, It can be anything at all, gothic architecture, a zombie collage, let your imagination go wild, we would love to see you join us at Fun With ATC's

Simon Says Stamp And Show are having a Shaby chic/vintage challenge, I have chosen to go with the Shabby side of the challenge rather than the Chic side ;)

I would like to enter this into a new challenge blog called Left Of Center Creative they are having an Alternative style challenge for those of us that are weird they are also running a buttons and or bows challenge for the more traditional crafters x

Smudgy Antics GDT Anything But A Card

So how is every one doing this Monday? Over here in Blighty it's bloody cold more snow with more on the way, great fun (not)
 Firstly a great big thank you for stopping by and a great big welcome to my newest followers and of course a big hello to those of you that have been here before as well.
 Secondly, a boob by me means I had to piece this together this afternoon rather speedily, what happened was, I got the dates wrong for the new challenge that has just started over at Smudgy Antics the theme is Anything But A Card. I thought I had till the 15th, (dumb ass)
Anyway as part of my Guest Designer status I have come up with a fat page for my little book of dark arts.
 I started off by painting the page with some read and green Acrylic paints and then doing a second coat using translucent red and green,
The Smeared Ink stamp is from the rubber version of the As Death set and has been stamped with white ink, I also added a little bit of a script stamped randomly with black archival ink to break up the colour a little.

The two skulls have been made with black Dream Weaver paste applied through Andy Skinners Skull stencil, the one stencil has the images, the small and large skull and also a profile, these will work great with the Smeared Ink Anatomy set.
Once the paste was dry I used some Treasure Gold in Spanish Topaz, I only got this product at the weekend and I am loving it, It is just another rub and buff, it is more like a soft moose in texture than some of the thinker guilding rubs but works just the same,  there are some great colours in the range as well. The Tim Holtz book plate was also given a go over with the Spanish Topaz rub and one of Tim's word tickets was cut to fit inside.
The edges of the page and a little bit of the surface was also given a light rub just to give a little shimmer in places.
To finish it off I used one of Tims frame corners in the top corner.The small pic is just to show it is in fact a page and not a card ;)

Head on over to Smudgy Antics to see what the DT have created for inspiration, I'm sure you will not be disappointed by their makes, Some truly creative pieces.
Whilst your there why not join in, we would all love to see what you can come up with.

Again, thank you for stopping by and hopefully Ill see you again tomorrow x

Anything But A Card Green or Paddy's Day or Irish

So how is every one getting on this Mothers Day (uk)?
 We are entering into our second week of our fortnightly challenge over at Anything But A Card. With St Patrick's day around the corner we are having a paddy's day, Irish or use Green theme, Now I drew a blank for ages, I just could not make the Irish theme fit with what I like to do so I ended up going the Green route.
 I have made a couple of tags using some digi images.



This Tag was made using Images from Dilly Beans the skulls and the little dude have been coloured with Copics. the BG behind the little dude has been painted with acrylic inks, I have just started using them, they are a great medium, very fluid and a great colour intensity, the red atc was also coloured with the acrylic inks. The images have then been covered with 2 coats of clear embossing powder.The tag it's self was coloured with Distress Stains as were the ribbons. The flower was made using Tim Holtz's tattered floral die and is a left over from some that I made for a tag last week.They were also coloured with acrylic inks and stamped with Tim Holtz images.








This tag has been made using the Hulk image from the Octopode Factory and has again been coloured with copics and then given two coats of clear embossing powder.
The tag was coloured with Black Soot Distress Inks and then swiped over with Antique Bronze. the letters are the plastic letters from Tim Holtz and once stuck down they were rubbed over with Treasure Gold Emerald. It's a new product for me, I have seen people using it in blog land in various colours, I really liked it, it is basically a guilding paste that can be buffed. Its like a soft moose and my fingers are still green but I really like it. The ribbon was coloured with Distress Stains and also some of the Treasure God so it ties in.


This Iron man  Atc is not part of the Green theme but I want to enter it into a challenge along with the Hulk tag. x
Also coloured with copics, the bg is black distress inks and the 0's and 1's are from one of Andy Skinners new masks.

Thank you for stopping by, Head on over to Anything But A Card to see what the awesome design team have been producing for inspiration and if you get a chance we would all love to see you take part. x

I would like to enter the Hulk and Iron man tag and ATC into the challenge over at the Octopode Factory, they are having a Hollywood challenge.

I would like to enter the little dude tag into the challenge over at Crafty Emblies, I am entering this into the paper crafting part of the challenge where the theme is things with wings

Dilly beans are having a Green theme.

The Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog is having a Bit O Green theme.

I would like to enter these tags into the challenge over at The Artistic Stamper they are having a Tag challenge this month.

Grotesque wooden box, Smeared ink Throw down

So how is everybody? I'd like to say thank you as always for stopping by and spending your time here, I love having you all visit.
 Today I am posting my Grotesque box, this has been made for a new challenge hosted on the Smeared Ink forum, the crazy girls over at SI have just launched a Design Team Throw Down, for all the details head over and have a look, basically this is open to any DT's out there, all you need is to submit a banner for your DT and then have a maximum of three of you create a piece that fits the challenge theme, there is then a round of voting by the forum members and the team with the most individual votes gets the bragging rights and a cool banner for your blog.

It really is a great community, they mainly cater for left of centre creations and have a great Digi store, but everyone is made to feel welcome, there is loads going on, they have monthly swaps, tutorials and challenges. Head on over and take a peak and see who is creating what for the very first Throw Down.
 The first theme is paint and Splatter.
 Ok, so there will be a few pics in this post (sorry).
 My grotesque box gets its name for what I have placed inside, more about him in a mo, first the box.
 It started life as a plain wooden cigar box and has had pretty much everything thrown at it, all of which has been picked up on the Andy Skinner workshop club at my local store.

 I have used a mix of modeling paste and texture crackle from Deco Art to create the textures and some Dream Weaver paste through one of Andy Skinners new stencils, the skull. I have added some Wendy Vecci resin embellishments and some beads for a little bit of interest.Above is the top and to the right is the front of the box.Everything was given a base coat of white acrylic paint and then colour was built up with various Acrylic paints from Deco Art blended together randomly. A top coat of a semi translucent high pigment yellow was applied and when dry I added a wash of black and then some dry brushing to bring out the different textures.

Here are the sides and back of the box.I then flicked bark brown and white paint all over so I could get my splatter effect, I also went in with an embossing pen and randomly added some frantage embossing enamel in vintage white

Here is a close up od the top showing some of the texture in the modeling paste and some of the frantage powder and white paint.To finish off I coated the whole box with a satin varnish.


Now this little chap, the Grotesque, was painted in this months class. he started out as a plain Bisque wall hanging and was given the same sort of paint treatment as the box and fits inside nicely. I also learnt that the difference between a grotesque and a gargoyle is that a gargoyle has a spout for water to pour from the mouth.
Here he is hanging on my fence in the garden.




Well thank you again for stopping by and sticking with the waffle, believe it or not I do try and keep it shortish ;)
If you find yourself with some free time why not stop on by the Smeared Ink forum and join the party, have a look around and thenn stop on by and vote for your fave creation. there is a new challenge every two weeks.
 And remember we have just started our new challenge over at Haunted Design House  we want to see all your undead inspired creations, it can be anything  at all, think, vampires, zombies, walking dead etc.

Well I hope you all have a productive and crafty week. x

PS,  I forgot I needed to use a stamped image, either digi or rubber so I did the inside lid of the box, the skulls are from Paper Artsy. The script stamp Is from the Artistic Stamper and the BG stamp behind the skulls has been designed by my friend Neil Walker it's a fantastic cross hatch texture design, he has just released his first load of stamps, also by the Artistic Stamper. worth checking out both his blog and the new range of his products.


I would like to enter this into the challenge over at Smudgy Antics, they are having a crumble it theme. My box is crumbling away and all sorts of distressed ;)

Haunted Design House 'drop dead gorgeous'

Hello and welcome, I hoe you are all having a great Monday.
 I have no idea where the year is going but we are getting through it, and being a Monday it's that time again for the new challenge over at Haunted Design House now remember we are now a fortnightly challenge so there is twice as long for you to come along and have a play.
The theme this fortnight is Drop Dead Gorgeous, now we want to see all your un-dead makes, think Vampires, zombies and ghosts  etc. Head on over to Haunted Design House to check out what the rest of the Dt have offered up and remember to check back next Monday for more inspiration from the DT.

This week I decided to make a little fold out book for some of my Favourite Octopode Factory Characters.I turned 3 of them into ATC's, I used Lilly's Nosferatu, Headless Corps, And Frankie.They are digi images and have been coloured with copics, the main image has then been painted over with Matt Glue N Seal which acts as a resist for distress inks, the bg was coloured with old paper and the edges aged with vintage photo and walnut stain, the stamp is from Tim Holtz and has been stamped with Pumice stone, you can then wipe clean the main image carefully with a kitchen towel or baby wipe.Once stamped and coloured they were given two coats of clear embossing powder and the gem and eyelets were added for a little interest.
The cover images and inside cover heart are also from the Octopode Factory and have also been coloured with copics and clear embossed.

The booklet has been made from some thick light grey craft card that had a little bit of texture, I sprayed it with brown Dylusions randomly, dried it and then sprayed with the blue Dylusions. I then went over the whole thing with gathered twigs distress inks to mute the colours and age it up, the edges were given a little black soot as well.It was then folded carefully allowing for the thickness of the ATC's and the gems.The Atc's are held in place by some design paper that has been cut to fit inside the the pages and the tabs have been cut using the Tim Holtz die. A ribbon was added with a magnetic fastener to help keep the booklet closed.



















Thank you for stopping by and I hope to see you again and of course I would love for you to stop by the Haunted Design House and maybe join in, It's always fun to play with madness ;)



I would like to enter this into the challenge over at the Octopode Factory, they are having a Hurray For Hollywood theme, The characters in the ATC's are the stars of countless Hollywood Horror movies between them.