Thursday, October 31, 2013

BOO! Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all of my favorite ghouls out there! Today concludes our entire month of Magical and Mysterious, and your final opportunity to link your own creepy creations to the Dream It Up! blog for an opportunity to win the stencil of your choice!

This has been such a fun month filled with lots of great creations from the whole team and our wonderful guest designer Alison Heikkila.  Next month we'll be showing you great ways to use your stencils to create gifts for the holidays, you won't want to miss any of it!

My card today was going to be spooky, but then I remembered that I hadn't used the scarecrow yet in any of my designs this month. I think he is so cute, so I decided to use him instead! Here he is:

The background paper was a piece I had in my "spray box" collection. Whenever I use my spray box, I start by placing a clean white sheet of paper in the bottom of the box. That way when I spray, any over spray goes on the paper and I end up with beautiful background paper!
Here's a sample of what they look like after spraying:


They vary, of course, depending on the colors you are spraying.
I stenciled the Long Sunflower (LL429) along the right side of the card and added a second large flower near the top. Clean the stencil, turn it over and stencil the flower along the left side of the paper.
The Scarecrow (LG686) was paste embossed with Matte Black Embossing Paste on a light yellow cardstock. I let him dry about 10 minutes, then used a soft brush to apply various colors of Metallic FX powders, and let it dry completely.
While that was drying I stenciled two of the Crows (LL432) with black ink on the same yellow paper, cut them out, edged them with a black marker, and set them aside until I was ready for them.
I knew I had some of the Long pumpkins (LL514) in my stash of pieces, so I found them, deepened up the colors a little so they would match everything better, and cut them out (they were paste embossed with Dreamweaver Regular Embossing Paste and stenciled with color). 
When the scarecrow was dry, I trimmed away some of the yellow paper off both sides, added a little orange ink along the yellow edges, then edged the piece with a black marker. That was mounted to a piece of orange cardstock that had been distressed and edged with black.  It was then adhered to the background paper.
The pumpkins were to long to go straight across the card so I cut them in two pieces. Adhered the smaller piece to the bottom right side of the scarecrow, then used foam tape to attach the rest of the pumpkins. Add the two crows and a little Happy Halloween sign for the scarecrow to hold and you're finished!

Check out the rest of the team's creations, as well as our wonderful guest designer, Alison Heikkila. Thanks so much, Alison, for joining us for Spooktober!
Louise Healy
Have a Spook-tacular day!

Happy Creating,
Louise

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Mysterious and Magical Week 4!

Are you enjoying being spooked, mystified and magically transported to the land of Halloween and holidays? The Dream Team train continues this week to journey through all things Mysterious and Magical for our October challenge. Our guest "engineer" is Miss Eerie herself, Alison Heikkila. October promises to be a very bumpy ride...
I made several of the little witch's hats that I showed you last week on the Retro standing cat stencil (LL3021), (click here if you missed it!), so this week I've put another hat to good use on this fun card!


LJ841 Fleur de lis  and LL3017 Cameo
Hat is LM173 Birdbath and LM183 Ice cream cones

The beautiful background stencil is Dreamweaver Stencils Fleur de lis (LJ841),  and the "witch" is the Cameo stencil (LL3017). The stylish hat was created from the Birdbath (LM173) and Ice cream cones (LM183) stencils that I showed you last week. 
All images were pasted with Glossy Black Embossing Paste, then the background and Cameo were sprinkled with Metallic F/X Nouveau Orange powder while the paste was wet. Let the paste dry, and then assemble.
The "WICKED!" stamp is from A Muse Artstamps (now a muse studio), and the wonderful ribbons are May Arts. The background paper is an old BasicGrey Halloween paper (from 2009!, I hoard paper can you tell).
You won't want to miss the rest of the team blogs for more Mysterious and Magical creations!
Happy Creating,
Louise

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Mysterious and Magical Week 3!

OK, am I the only one that feels like time has sped up! I truly don't know how it got to be the middle of October already! I haven't even worked on my Halloween cards yet, much less Thanksgiving and Christmas! Mysteriously it all seems to get done eventually...maybe that's the Magical!
Are you ready to be spooked, mystified and magically transported to the land of Halloween and holidays? Hop on board the Dream Team train as we journey through all things Mysterious and Magical through the month of October. Our guest "engineer" is Miss Eerie herself, Alison Heikkila. October promises to be a very bumpy ride...
I really love witches' hats at Halloween, I always answer my door on Halloween night dressed all in black and wearing  a tall black witch hat. Alas, Dreamweaver Stencils does not have a witch hat stencil (I've talked to Lynell about that!) so I have gotten creative once more to make the perfect little hat for our wonderful Retro Standing Cat stencil (LL3021), my own version of "Cat in the Hat" so to speak! (If you missed my first hat creation, click here to see it) Here he is:


LL3021- Retro Standing Cat  - Glossy Black Embossing Paste
Black glitter from Art Glitter, and Green linen ribbon from May Arts
 Now, to create that cute little hat that is just the right size, I've combined parts of two other stencils, LM173 Birdbath, and  LM183 Ice Cream cones,  Paste with Glossy Black Embossing Paste, cut them out, layer them, add a little glitter pen to hide where they meet and create the look of a band around the hat, add it to the cat with foam mounting tape.

LM173 - Birdbath tape off just the bowl portion
LM183 Ice cream cones tape off the cone portion



Hope you like my Cat in the Hat, and will come up with some creative ways to use parts of your stencils to create magical designs!
Here are other team member links so you can look at their wonderful creations too!

Happy Creating,
Louise

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Creative Chemistry Day 5!

I know, technically it's Day 6, but I finally got a few minutes to upload the 3 tags I finished yesterday (3 to go, hopefully tomorrow!).
Creative Chemistry 102 with Tim Holtz has been a lot of fun, and has definitely kept us busy! Here are the 3 tags I have finished for Day 5.
Day 5 Tags


Rusting with Distress Powder

Sticky Powder with Glitter

Sticky Powder with Leafing

Happy Creating,
Louise

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Creative Chemistry Day 4!

Another fun day at Creative Chemistry 102 with Tim Holtz! Today was all about alcohol inks, which I absolutely LOVE working with on projects!
If you are looking for my weekly Dreamweaver Stencil post, click here.

Here are tags for Day 4:

Creative Chemistry 102 - Day 4 Tags
Faux Patina

Tinted Tinsel
Ombre
Monoprint
Faded Layers

Happy Creating,
Louise

Mystical and Magical Week 2!

We hope you enjoyed week one of our spooky, mystical and magical land of Halloween and holidays. This week the Dreamweaver design team has another set of great creations to share with you and we hope you will consider joining our challenge. Just link your creation with the linky tool over at the DREAM it UP! blog or email a photo of your work to lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com and she will post it for you. You could win a prize! 
The month of October we have as our guest designer, Alison Heikkila. October promises to be a very creative month, you won't want to miss any of it!
Here's my design for this week:
LJ816 - Spider web, LL531 - Jack o lanterns
LS28 - Spider, LG749 - Doggy words
Here's how it's done:
  • Paste emboss the Spider web stencil (LJ816) with Glossy White Embossing Paste (angle the stencil across the upper left corner of black cardstock)
  • Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning, immediately sprinkle the wet paste with Crystal glitter
  • Let dry
  • Paste emboss the Jack o lanterns stencil (LL531) with Matte Yellow Embossing Paste in the lower right corner
  • Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning
  • Let dry
  • Return the Jack o lanterns stencil over the dry paste and use small stencil brushes to apply ink over the paste (I used Splendor Ink - Circus ink pad)
  • Paste emboss the Spider stencil (LS28) on white cardstock with Glossy Black Embossing Paste
  • Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning
  • Sprinkle Metallic F/X powder Nouveau Orange randomly over the wet paste
  • Let dry
  • Cut out the spider as close as possible to all the legs, use a Distress marker in antique linen to color the white edges throughout the design
  • Attach to the web with foam tape
  • Use the Dog words stencil (LG749), a small stencil brush and Memento Tuxedo Black to stencil the "happy" from the Happy HOWLoween part of the stencil
  • Line up the Happy underneath the first one and a little to the left, tape off only the "Ha" and stencil that, use the "pp" upside down to create the two l's (minus the round part of course!), then the "oween" next to that
  • Use a deckle scissors to cut around the words, and brush the background with the left over black ink from the brush, mount the words on a small orange mat with a deckled edge
  • Use foam tape to add the words to the card
Now check out the rest of the team blogs:


This week I have been taking Creative Chemistry 102 with Tim Holtz. Scroll down to see what we've been creating!

Happy Creating,
Louise

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Creative Chemistry Day 3

The fun continues in day 3 of Creative Chemistry with Tim Holtz. He is keeping us very busy and I'm loving every minute of it! Today one tag needs drying time, so I will have to share that another day, but I have finished the other techniques!
Day 3 tags
UPDATED with Cracked Glass

Faux Cracked Glass

Day 3 Tags - Creative Chemistry 102

Distress Glittering
Distress Glitter Rock Candy

Brayer technique

Smudge stamping

Smudge stamping - first and second impressions

Happy Creating,
Louise

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Creative Chemistry Day 2!

Updated with the rest of the tags!

Today's techniques in Creative Chemistry 102 with Tim Holtz were all about Distress products and stencils. Being on the Dreamweaver Stencils design team, I knew I was going to have a lot of fun today! I always love to learn how to apply other products to our stencils. There are several homework assignments today, so keep checking back for updates as I complete them!
Day 2 Tags:
First tag of Day2:




Mixed Media Layering
Mixed Media Layering 
Mixed Media Layering - the layers up close!



Embossing with Stencils

Embossing through Stencils
Stencil Stamping
 
Stencil Sketching

Ink Monoprint

Paint Monoprint

.

Happy Creating,
Louise

Monday, October 7, 2013

Creative Chemistry 102 Day 1

Creative Chemistry 102 with Tim Holtz began today and let me tell you, he had us working hard! We learned six wonderful techniques for the new Distress Paints. I'm thrilled because I've had them for a while now, and have used them a little, but now feel confident to incorporate them into a lot more projects. That's what it's all about, learn new things and how to apply them. It's what makes our crafting so much fun!
Here are the tags I created today (there is one tag I have not finished because I'm waiting for the UPS truck!).

UPDATED TO ADD FINAL TAG:

Eroded Metallic

Day 1 Techniques (l to r)
Marbling, Colored Crackle, Altered Surface
Stamping Resist, Industrial

Distress Paint Marbling

Colored Crackle

Altered Surface

Stamping Resist

Industrial
 Here are some close ups of Colored Crackle and Altered Surface





Hope you've enjoyed my creations, I know I had fun making them!

Happy Creating,
Louise

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Mysterious and Magical!

Are you ready to be spooked, mystified and magically transported to the land of Halloween and holidays? Hop on board the Dream Team train as we journey through all things Mysterious and Magical through the month of October. Our guest "engineer" is Miss Eerie herself, Alison Heikkila. October promises to be a very bumpy ride...

Here's my first creation for October:
LJ863 - Swirl background, LL573 - Swirly xmas tree
Glossy Black Embossing Paste
The tree was used to create the hat, use removable tape to  block off the
bottom part of the tree. A small strip of black paper was used as the brim, and orange
glitter was used as the band

LL573 - Swirly xmas tree and LJ863 - Swirls
Your next stops can be found here:

 
Happy Creating,
Louise