Halloween

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Here is the last of the series, with a thoroughly gruesome poem snippet. Heh.

Supplies:

  • Golden Soft Gel, Matte
  • Docrafts Lace Paper, Midnight Blush
  • Golden Gesso
  • Golden Acrylic, Red Oxide
  • Golden Acrylic Glazing Medium, Satin
  • Dylusions Ink Spray, Black Marble
  • Lumiere Paint, Pearl White, Halo Violet-Gold
  • Golden Acrylic, Carbon Black
  • Dyan Reavely Skulls Stencil

I lovelovelove the way the lace paper turned out. I may have to go looking for more of that.

 

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I spent yesterday taping three videos at once. I would put the first card aside to dry, then film a bit on the next one. I thought editing would be a nightmare, but it ended up being pretty easy to separate them, and it was a lot of fun.

This is the first card I worked on, and also the last, because it gave me problems. So at the very end, you get to see what my work table looked like after I’d finished all three.

These are made with the extra board from the Raven card. Other than the lace, which is from my stash, here are the supplies:

  • Golden Gesso
  • Golden Fluid Matte Medium
  • Fab Lab Autumn Craft Decoupage Papers
  • Golden Light Molding Paste
  • Dritz Longarm Allover Crackle
  • Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid (Satin)
  • Golden Acrylic Payne’s Gray
  • Dylusions Ink Spray, Black Marble
  • Silks Acrylic Glazes, Golden Monarch, Persimmon
  • Golden Soft Gel, Matte
  • Golden Acrylic, Carbon Black
  • Inkadinkado, Nevermore stamp set
  • Versafine, Onyx Black

Once it finally got unmuddied, I really liked this card. Hope y’all enjoy my little series.

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It’s done! And I was really bad about taking pics of the process on the last two. Boo.

Here’s the “haunted” flag. Stamp by Rubber Stamps of America.

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Now that I think of it, the doodles should have been windy and snakey. But oh well, I like it as is.

Here’s the “eerie” flag, stamp by Hampton Art, from Rare Oddities 2:

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I started out wanting to match the charms to the flag, but the only owl charm I have is cartoony, so no dice. I really wanted to use the wolf, anyway.

And there they are together:

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I think it looks pretty impressive. I puzzled over what to use to connect them. I didn’t have any ribbon that worked well enough. Finally, I used some of the fabric from the “Scary” flag. I think it’s just right. This may be one of my favorite projects ever.

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Next I started on the adorable batty, using an old Studio G stamp.

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Oh, these doodles are so much better. The bat gets a little Lumiere. I’ll be spreading that love around.

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A gold moon, and little purple dots on the doodling.

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Blue-violet beads go on many of the little buds.

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Scary goes on, then some bugle beads. Yeah, they’re crooked. I’m okay with that.

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And naturally, a little bat charm from my stash. This one went pretty quickly, and I felt like I had a clearer direction than usual. Two more to go!

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Mistakes were made.

So I figured I could do the rest of the flags in a production line.

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Don’t worry. That’s not the part that went wrong.

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I started on the candle flag (Inkadinkado, Nevermore). It was the doodle. It had boxes and colored dots of different sizes and it was obnoxious and clown-like. I hated it, and I’m only a little sorry I didn’t take pictures.  I knew it had gone horribly wrong, and I forgot about the camera as I got involved in fixing things.

Lots of paint followed. At first, I put in blocks of black, covering some of the dots. Nope, that was worse. Then I covered almost everything in black, then added a layer of pearl (this is all Lumiere). That was better. Then three more coats of pearl covered everything. Then more paint. More! More!

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I even re-painted the lace because the contrast was off. Some of the blocks and dots are still visible, but now they add texture rather than making me think of tiny, overcrowded cars.

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This one is a bit different from the others. Lots more shimmer with the paint. I skipped adding beads, because it had enough shine, and parts of the lace are bead-like. It went from something I hated to something I loved. I think I need more Lumiere paints, because they are a blast.

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Maybe I’ll do the whole garland, maybe I won’t, but I at least have two flags done.

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Started by laying out some paisley fabric and some pretty orange lace. They got attached with fusible interfacing, and sewed on the top edge.

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The pumpkin is from the My Mind’s Eye Lost & Found Halloween set.  After I’d filled that in some, I started doodling.

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At about this point I realized there was nothing spooky about the flag. Fixed that.

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To bring out the pumpkin more, I used Lumiere’s Halo Pink-Gold and Metallic Russet.

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This time I distressed the edge with a mix of Neopaque Brown and Lumiere Russet, heavily watered. I like it much better. The edge was sewn, and the spiders given a bit of dimension with beads. After the beads were done, the back got covered in fabric.

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Finally, a spider charm with a couple of beads attached to the bottom.

This went a lot faster than yesterday’s flag. I think I’m getting the hang of it. So to speak.

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I think it was some kit subscription I dumped long ago that sent me this garland kit from Maya Road. It includes six canvas flags. They are nice and heavy, and pre-grommeted. I thought I’d make a garland! We’ll see how that turned out.

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I wanted to use these Tulip Fabric Markers that I got when I was on a fabric painting kick. I grabbed a piece of muslin close in color to the flags, and did a swatch test. These are gorgeous and bright, and as long as there aren’t a lot of solid areas, they stamp well. Also, they don’t usually bleed.

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You can only see a bit of my table, but lemme tell ya, half of my studio is on it. I grabbed stamps and ribbons and lace and charms…anything I thought might be nice on the garland.  I chose some fabric, lace, a charm, and a stamp from Craftsmart. I stamped on paper first, so I could decide on placement.

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Fabric is down with fusible interfacing, stamp is stamped. I grundged things up a bit, and started doodling paisleys.

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I had planned to get away with no sewing, but the flag cried out for it. I’ve added some color to the paisleys and the skull, and run around the red fabric and the entire flag a few times on the machine. Next, I used a Hampton Art letter set to add some text, and sewed around that, too.

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A few more details on the paisleys. I decided the skull wasn’t standing out enough, so I added some Lumiere Pearl White. Of course, I took the picture before I added the paint, because I am a genius.

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A few beads were required. I took out the red delicas from the last project and highlighted the red paisleys.

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To cover my many sins on the back of the flag, I attached some cool fabric with fusible interfacing.

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Last, a grommet on the bottom, a jump ring, and red beads to highlight the skeleton charm.  The cord is just for taking pictures. I may or may not make this into a garland later.

See, this took me all morning. Like allll morning, so I decided one flag was good enough for today’s project. I love this, and I’m thinking six like it would be pretty cool, but that’s for later.

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I subscribe to quite a few magazines. They are great motivation. My method: I have a Post-It flag dispenser on the ledge of the tub. I go through the magazines, marking things I’d like to try. Then I copy the first page of the article and put it in a notebook, making sure the issue is somewhere on the page. The magazine is stored neatly in date order, so I can choose something from the notebook, and grab the appropriate magazine.

I mention all this, because I picked something from the notebook tonight. This mini trinket quilt is inspired by Vesna Taneva-Miller, and was featured in the Summer 2015 issue of Sew Somerset.

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For this project, I’m going to use upcycled shrink plastic–#6 plastic from a takeout container. Rock N Roll is one of my favorite sushi rolls. It’s deep fried. Don’t judge.

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I cut out the best piece of plastic, gave it a good sanding on one side, and stamped on the sanded side. The spell book is from Inkadinkado’s Nevermore set. I often leave the pressed symbols from the container in, as I like to show where the material came from.

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Next, the image is lightly colored with pencils. You don’t want to add too much color, as it will become very concentrated when the plastic shrinks.

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A 1/8″ is used to make stitching holes around the image. A couple of these got very small, and had to be opened with one of my tiny diamond files. Not much to be done about that.

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All shrunk. See what I mean about color concentration?

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Time to choose fabric! Muslin, tulle, a very soft fleesish (it’s a word because I say so) thing, and some lace scraps.

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I used a machine to go around the layers several times with black thread. Red embroidery thread attached the spell book.

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I’ve been wanting to use those silver beads forever. Along with the red delicas, they are nice accents.

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Muslin backing is added once all the embellishment is done. Because of those nifty corner beads, I had to hand-sew. And since I was hand-sewing, hey, why not add some jute?

Mind you, I had to do this twice, because I cannot sew a straight line. The second time, fusible interfacing kept everything in place.

Eyelets were set in the upper corners (because I found a Crop-A-Dile for half price at Tuesday Morning!), and binding tape used to make an over-the-head necklace.

The only thing I would do differently is use a shaped stamp, like a pumpkin or skull, so it was more immediately recognizable. This thing is tiny, and if someone wanted to see what it was, they’d so be up in my face. Overall, though, I loved the process, and I think the result is fabulous.

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