Fright Night

I had originally created this card for the 31 Days of Halloween event held at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity. It was so fun to make, and I enjoyed using non-traditional Halloween colors. I loved the background, a sort of aurora borealis, or evening light as dark begins to descend .... 

My make :

For this card I have used all images from Lost Coast Designs. The awesome dude is from The Isle of Aud Creatures and the tree background is a stamp called  Grunge Tree Background.  

I had fun on the background, its made with a water color effect using my Neocolor II's. I used water color paper and spritzed it with water. While it was still wet I held each neocolor close to the paper and used a wet paintbrush to pull the color off the crayon and onto the paper. Because the paper is already wet, the colors move and merge. What I especially love about the neocolors is that when they dry they are permanent so I could add multiple layers onto the paper to add depth and interest.

When it was dry I stamped the tree in brown archival ink, then the creature in black versafine. I colored in any of the detail on his body and darkened him with an artist pitt pen. I then added some shading and depth to my tree with a dark brown marker, and a few white sprinkles of acrylic paint. Finally I edged the card with versamark and embossed it with a dark chocolate embossing powder.

Here is a close up :

Thanks for stopping by, please leave me a comment if you feel inspired :)

 Please come and join us at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity to see our future challenges and events, there's always something fun and inspirational going on over there :)

Dia de los Muertos

At the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity this month, we had a Day of the Dead event, or Dia de los Muertos. This means it's All Soul's Day, as celebrated early November in various European and Latin American countries, especially the Mexican observance of this day. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family who has passed, and help support their spiritual journey.

Here is my make, 3 ATC's featuring the Skull Flourish from Lost Coast Designs :

For these ATC's I wanted a very textured background. I used molding paste and colored it with grey acrylic paint. Then I applied it to the ATC base with a pallet knife and stamped into it with the skull flourish while the now grey paste was still wet :

 I then left the molding paste to dry and went to clean my stamp. I just used an old toothbrush and bar of soap. Its important to wash the stamp before the paste dries on it :

I sprayed the ATC background with black and white dylusions and let it blend and drip. Then I left it to dry. When it was dry I tore the edges off, and sponged lightly with grey ink.

I stamped the skull flourish in black ink onto La Blanche card stock, and added a little embossing powder while the ink was still wet and heat set it. I fussy cut it and glued it onto my textured background. I used a C3 copics to go over some of the shading on the skull.

See the texture : 

I typed the words on my typewriter and added the flowers and embellishment.

Finally I matted the textured ATC front onto grey card stock that I had edged in grey ink and stamped the mini skulls. It is very faint, but if you look closely you can see them along the edges. 

Here are individual pics of the three ATC's :

Thanks for stopping by, and if you feel inspired to do so, please leave me a comment :)

Nikki x

Trick or Treat

This is my second make for the 31 Days Of Halloween, which is taking place over at the Smeared Ink blog, sponsored by Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda. You can check out the Design Teams daily inspiration at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity.

Here is my make, featuring Carmen's Veranda stamps Large People Skull and Grunge white swirl background. I also used the Old Typewriter Alphabet from Lost Coast Designs :

The skull image is so great. I stamped it onto glossy card stock in black versamark and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I then added more definition to the shaded parts of the image using grey distress ink and a cut n dry pen nib.

I really love the grunge backgrounds, they are so versatile. I used the white one here stamped over a distress ink background and acrylic splatters. The words are white heat embossed.

The 'Trick or Treat' amused me, both words are pretty relevent to this image ... LOL. Love the sexual innuendo :)

Thanks for stopping by x