Bird Crazy Picture Book 2 (HALLOWEEN)–Part 2: Assembling the Birds

Welcome back to part 2 of the Bird Crazy Picture Book Series (Halloween). In this part we are going to stamp the Tim Holtz stamps and use the Crazy Things to dress them up. Everything is coloured with distress inks and a bit of liquid pearls.  Scroll down for a video Talk and Walk through and a full list of ingredients and full close up photos.

If you need to catch up on Part 1 (creating the backgrounds) you can find it here.

Ingredients:

• Stamps by Stampers Anonymous / Tim Holtz: Bird Crazy and Crazy Things
• Sizzix Dies: Bird Crazy (I don’t have the dies for Crazy Things but you can use them here too)
• Distress Inks in lots and lots of colours (in the video I am named the colours as I go)
• White Stamping Card (Sheena Douglass)
• Ink Daubers and Mini Round Ink Tool
• Googly Eyes in various shapes and sizes (I found mine in a garden centre)
• Black sharpie pen or Spectrum Noir pen
• Black fine line pen
• Liquid Pearls – Onyx, Pumpkin and Mint
• Stickles glitter – Stardust
• Copper chain off cut or Scrap
• Orange vegetable sack
• Crafting or beading sting
• Black foam pads by Stix2
• Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue
• Crackle Accents by Ranger

Art Journal: You Say Witch Like it’s a Bad Thing

Halloween/Samhain is my favourite time of year and this was a fun page to make using Halloween stamps from Tim Holtz, distress inks, stencils and a bit of old veg sack!  Scroll down for video, ingredients and pics…

Ingredients

• Spider web decoupage paper
• Stamps – Tim Holtz (Halloween Sillouettes)
• Alpha stamps – Craftwork Cards
• Distress Inks – Wilted Violet, Spiced Marmalade, Black soot, Smoked hickory, Ground Espressp 
• Distress Paint – Fossilized Amber and Picket Fence
• Stencil – Tim Holtz Lace
• Recycled packaging from Holtz stencil and sweet potatoes!
• Ranger black archival ink 
• Stickles glitter – black diamond
• Twinkling H2Os – Mango Mamba and Mango Freeze
• Halloween Ribbon (from Hobbycraft)
• White gel pens
• Sand paper
• Sparkly brads from stash
• White Gesso

Bird Crazy Picture Book 2 (HALLOWEEN): Part 1–Backgrounds

I've started my second Tim Holtz Bird Crazy picture book because I finally had my Crazy Things stamps delivered!  Scroll down list of ingredients.  My first bird crazy picture book starts at this post.  In the next part I will stamp the birds and build them up with their crazy things!  The final and third part will be assembling the mini book.

Ingredients

• White Stamping Card cut to 10 x 14cm (I am using Sheena Douglass stamping card)
• Matt Black cardstock (crafter’s Companion)
• Extra paper for layering and inking such as manilla cardstock or chamois cropping block
• Doflex (optional – stencil) and Large circle punch (Martha Stewart)
• Distress Inks – Various
• Fine liner black pen
• Cut and dry foam / inking and blending tools
• Scissors and guillotine
• Stencil – tree scape (Sheena Douglass)
• Textures embossing folder (Crafter’s Companion)
• Stamps – Crazy Things
• Large metal jump rings
• Alcohol pen (optional)

Art Journal: Be Bold

Aiming for a “bold” theme I was inspired by the Inverse Silhouette art journaling over at super talented Neil Burley’s blog.  Originally I wasn’t going to stamp on this page but there was a gaping space in the corner that needed filling and that’s how the space theme developed.  I found it easy to cut the letters out like windows as this guaranteed a neat edge and no wobbly painting whoopsies.  Materials used are below the video…

Ingredients

• Spectrum Noir AquaTints – Brights set and Silver (essentials)
• Pebeo Black Gesso
• Scalpel
• Gloss Gel Medium
• Craftwork Cards Plasma Alphabet Templates
• Pebeo Empire Gold Gilding Wax
• Stamps – Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Magical
• Perfect Medium ink pad and Ivory Embossing Powder
• White gel pen
• Liquid Pearls – Platinum
• Stickles Glitter – stardust

Altered Mixed Media Printer’s Tray: “The Witch’s Cupboard”

I have a bizarrely large collection of glass bottles stacking up and mostly I’ve collected them ‘just in case’.  I’ve been inspired by the different spooky/gothic assemblages popping up but it was Neil Burley’s “The Apothecary” that really pushed me into making this.  Unfortunately – I haven’t picked up any printer’s trays along my travels.  Fortunately I recently discovered foam core board and have a new sharp scalpel! 

The pictures below show my progress which surprisingly only took a few days in all

N.B. I find my hot glue gun to be the best for foam board and PVA was used for the papers

1. I knew the space that I wanted the tray to fit (a shelf inside a glass wall unit of mine) so I measured for the back panel and cut this from foam board.  Let’s call these measurements Width x Height
2. Using my largest bottle I measured the bottom to work out how deep I wanted to cut the sides.  Let’s call this Depth.  The top and bottom pieces were cut exactly to W x D.
3. The width of the foam board = 5mm which is important to know.  The left and right sides were cut to exactly (H-5mm) x D.
4. Using the rest of the bottles to gauge their height I measured as I went and cut out the inside walls.  I didn’t waste time making plans or making it perfect as I wanted it to look hand made in mass like the old printer’s trays.
5. painted in three stages as follows: – Acrylic paint mixed from 1:1:1 Pebeo Brown Ochre, Docraft Metallic Bronze Crafter’s Acrylic and Pebeo Bindex Brilliant (this is a bulking agent for acrylic paint to make your colour go further) and let dry.  Then, I painted on Americana Weathered Wood which is a crackling medium.  Finally once that layer was dried I covered in a single coat of Docraft metallic black which crackled away just like weathered wood as it dried.

   

6. The rest of the decoration included Tim Holtz Ephermera, some black cobweb decoupage papers that I picked up in Hobbycraft, Time Holtz idea-ology from my stash and Pebeo Empire Gold gilding wax.  The ephemera pieces were inked with Vintage Photo and Black Soot distress inks.