Farewell Forever- Retiring Sets

Visit Smeared Ink today and get your hands on these digis before they are gone!

Join us for Skull Appreciation Day 2013!

Do you love creating amazing projects that showcase skully goodness? Wanna get some traffic to your blog and share your obsession? Join Smeared Ink and the Smeared and Smudged Forum on June 4th for one wild blog hop event! We will be celebrating Skull Appreciation Day 2013 by featuring handmade projects that spotlight the much-loved cranium. We will also be giving away lots of freebies during the hop! 

 How can you participate, you ask? Well, there are a couple of ways to get in on the action. To spread the word, grab our button here and post it to your blog, Facebook page, or website and share the info. Then come hop through the amazing projects on the 4th starting HERE. 

 To join in, simply make a homemade project or craft that features a skull and sign up to be included in our hop list. This is open to any crafter or artist who would like to feature a handmade skull-themed project, it does not necessarily have to use a stamp. 

You can sign up by visiting the forum HERE.  All participants will receive this awesome free Smeared Ink Skull Appreciation digi image to add to their collection, drawn by Alexandria S. 

After you sign up, the hop list will be posted in the event thread on the forum. The deadline for signing up as a participant is Friday May 31, 2012. We will post the hop list of participants on Sunday June 2, 2012. Then just share your project on the 4th along with the list of participating blogs! 

During the hop we will also be giving away freebies, so that is even more incentive to participate or hop along. 

 If you or someone you know would like to sponsor the hop with your own freebie giveaway featuring a skull (and get advertising on our forum, blogs, and other hop information posts like facebook shares), please contact us 
at smearedinkstamps@gmail.com. When you sponsor, we will add your website/button to all of our hop advertising. 
 Thanks for joining us in this event and spreading the word, and we look forward to a fun skull-filled blog hop on the 4th! 
 


*for more information on Skull Appreciation Day, please visit Skull-A-Day.


Glitter and Gore

Hello again friends! I am back to share a quick little altered tin with you, made for our current Smudgy Antics challenge Glitter and Gore. For this challenge you do not have an option, you must use BOTH glitter and gore on your project for it to count, which is perfectly fine with me because I love both!

I decided to use a few Smeared Ink digis and combine them, they are the Profile Head from Gross Anatomy, the Mask 4 from our Venice set, and the Wave single from Circus Procession. Click any pics to view them larger.

I'm not really sure how the color scheme came about, but I used a seafoam green paint all over and then distressed with white. I decided to leave my profile head black and white with a pop of red for the gore, which I then stretched into the rest of the project. Then I added in my glittery mask and waves to make this tin both sparkly and grotesque... I think that goal was accomplished.

I'd love to hear your opinions, and be sure to try your hand at combining glitter and gore on Smudgy Antics; you have a little more than 5 days left to enter! Happy Monday :)

Butterfly Horror Shrine

Happy Saturday everyone! I actually got the chance to work on a little something yesterday just for the fun of it, and I'm so happy to share it with you today. Way back when before my big move, I started playing with plaster and I designed and poured my first shrine. The dried, unfinished shrine was packed away and made the long trip from Washington to Virginia, amazingly in one piece. Yesterday I pulled it out and got to work.

 I was inspired by two things. The first is my oldest daughter, who is almost 20 years old and absolutely HATES butterflies. They rank third on her greatest fears list behind teeth and aliens, go figure. Don't ask why, I have no idea where the phobia came from, but it has something to do with their legs. Anyways, that is where I got the idea for the decoration of this little hanging shrine. It's all about the realization that what one person finds beautiful, another can find morbid and disgusting. It's about recognizing and being accepting and respectful of all views and opinions. We are all hard-wired differently.

 The second thing that inspired me was an incident that happened earlier this month when one of our Smeared and Smudged Forum members, Fiona, was attacked on her blog for linking one of her projects in a challenge. I won't go into details, those who saw it know what I'm talking about. Once again the "attacker" demonstrated how close-minded and unaccepting people can be. The difference of opinion was not the issue, but rather the vile way that this person presented their opinion. It was demeaning to Fi and heavily demonstrated how judgemental and snide the attacker was. It made her and her challenge blog look bad and needless to say, I WON'T EVER be participating there.

 So, the point of all that was that this shrine is about seeing it from someone else's perspective and being accepting of it, whether you agree or not. Hope you enjoy taking a look. Click the pics for a larger view.

Besides the plaster, I used a saying from Smeared Ink's As Death set, as well as some butterflies from a decorative paper that I had. The background of the inset uses foil, which fits with the Smeared and Smudged Junk Funk challenge for this month. I also inset a skull into the top of the shrine to help demonstrate the morbid aspect of the theme, which fits in with the current challenge at HDH.

The whole shrine uses tons of paint color washes, and I added in the nails across the shelf as a final little touch. Amazingly I also incorporated some glitter into the butterflies, which does not show up well in the pics. What I really like about this is the way the butterflies are suspended from the wires, which you can't really see in the pictures either. Oh well. I hope you like my make! I'd love to hear your opinions or suggestions. Have a great weekend!

I am entering this into the following challenges:

Smeared and Smudged- Junk Funk- use foil

Haunted Design House- Skeletal Remains- skully goodness up top

Left of Center- Bling It Up or LOC theme- do my glitter butterflies count? If not, at least it's LOC :)

DT Throwdown #4

Dt Throwdown #4- Smeared Ink Entry

Hello everyone! Thanks for visiting today to check out the Smeared Ink team entry for the fourth DT Throwdown Challenge on Smeared and Smudged! If you don't know what the throwdown is, please come by and visit the S&S Forum. We have the best of the best Design Teams playing against each other in a friendly and fierce bi-weekly competition. We'd love to have your DT join in as well, and if you are not on a DT, we'd love to have you come and voice your opinion by voting for the winner!

Voting for this challenge begins tomorrow, so please be sure to swing by and cast your vote for your fave team projects after you check out all the eye candy presented by the participants. Of course, we'd LOVE it if you choose us to win, but we encourage you to vote for the projects (team) that you think are the best :)

So, without further adeu, here are the Smeared Ink entries for this round!

The theme for this challenge was chosen by the week three champs, HDH. The theme is leather and/or lace. Check out our team's entries! Don't forget, you can click on any picture to see it closer.

#1 Our first entry comes to you from Susan S.

Visit Susan's blog  to get all of the details on her journal.

#2 Our second entry, for your viewing pleasure, is from Kapree, who is the newest member of our Smeared Ink DT! We're so happy to welcome Kapree back to our Design Team!

To view all the details on Kapree's project, please visit her Blog here.

#3 The third and final project for Smeared Ink's entry is from Anna. 

To  get all the details on Anna's project, please visit her Blog here.

I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at our projects. Please visit our entrants blogs to see all the deets and let them know what you think!

Good luck to all of the teams playing in the Throwdown this week, and PLEASE COME VOTE for your favorite THURSDAY or FRIDAY! 

Vote Here

DT Throwdown #3 - Smeared Ink Entry

Dt Throwdown #3- Smeared Ink Entry

Hello everyone! Thanks for visiting today to check out the Smeared Ink team entry for the second DT Throwdown Challenge on Smeared and Smudged! If you don't know what the throwdown is, please come by and visit the S&S Forum. We have the best of the best Design Teams playing against each other in a friendly and fierce bi-weekly competition. We'd love to have your DT join in as well, and if you are not on a DT, we'd love to have you come and voice your opinion by voting for the winner!

Voting for this challenge begins tomorrow, so please be sure to swing by and cast your vote for your fave team projects after you check out all the eye candy presented by the participants. Of course, we'd LOVE it if you choose us to win, but we encourage you to vote for the projects (team) that you think are the best :)

So, without further adeu, here are the Smeared Ink entries for this round!

The theme for this challenge was Mini Book. We chose the theme this week because we won last weeks challenge. The book specifics are that it must have at least 5 pages and be smaller than 4". Don't forget, you can click on any picture to see it closer.

#1 Our first entry comes to you from Lady Brayton.

Lady Brayton used Smeared Ink's Zombie Headshots. 

Visit Lady's Blog to see all of her book and to get more details.

#2 Our second entry, for your viewing pleasure, is from Kristy.

Kristy used images from Smeared Ink's new Zodiac sets.

To view the rest of Kristy's book and get all the details, please visit her Blog here.

#3 The third and final project for Smeared Ink's entry is from Tori. 

Tori used images from Smeared Ink's Hidden set and Broken and Bleeding set.

To view the rest of Tori's book and get the details, please visit her Blog here.

I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at our projects. Please visit our entrants blogs to see the rest of their books and let them know what you think!

Good luck to all of the teams playing in the Throwdown this week, and PLEASE COME VOTE for your favorite TOMORROW or FRIDAY! 

Vote Here

New Release Today at Smeared Ink!

Smeared Ink is happy to announce that we've added in 9 new digi stamp sets to our shop today! Swing by to check them out when you have a chance. We'll be featuring projects made by our DT on the Smeared Ink Facebook Page throughout the day, and I have a little something in the works that I will be posting later.

If you'd like the direct link to the images in our shop, just click on the pictures below. Have a great day!

Zodiac 1

Zodiac 2

Hidden

Queen

Circus Procession

Fallen

Septem Liberalis

Venice

Specimen Jar

Dt Throwdown #2- Smeared Ink Entry

Hello everyone! Thanks for visiting today to check out the Smeared Ink team entry for the second DT Throwdown Challenge on Smeared and Smudged! If you don't know what the throwdown is, please come by and visit the S&S Forum. We have the best of the best Design Teams playing against each other in a friendly and fierce bi-weekly competition. We'd love to have your DT join in as well, and if you are not on a DT, we'd love to have you come and voice your opinion by voting for the winner!

Voting for this challenge begins tomorrow, so please be sure to swing by and cast your vote for your fave team projects after you check out all the eye candy presented by the participants. Of course, we'd LOVE it if you choose us to win, but we encourage you to vote for the projects (team) that you think are the best :)

So, without further adeu, here are the Smeared Ink entries for this round!

The theme for this challenge was Faux Finishes. We were tasked by the HDH Team, who won last weeks challenge, to create a project with some sort of faux technique used on it. Don't forget, you can click on any picture to see it closer.

#1 Our first entry comes to you from Anna.

Anna decided to use a Faux Metal technique, and used stamps from Smeared Ink's Quoth The Raven and Bloody Valentine sets. Visit Anna's Blog for more details about her project.

#2 Our second entry, for your viewing pleasure, is from Leigh.

Leigh used a Faux Ancient Stone technique for dominoes and she made both a pendant and a magnet that feature stamps from Smeared Ink's Quoth The Raven set. To view the details of Leigh's project, please visit her Blog here.

#3 The third and final project for Smeared Ink's entry is mine. 

I must warn you, this entry is picture intensive, but you'll see why. I decided to make a plaster gauze book with a Faux Leather cover. Here are the pics and details.

Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE bees. I have such respect for them and really feel an attraction and calling to be around them. Of course, if they get too close without me knowing I will freak out, but more from surprise rather than fear. Anyways, this book is a sort of "shrine" book for my beloved bees.

Here is my faux finish piece of this project- the faux leather cover.

On the bound side of the book, I have my jar along with some other goodies. I am a little peeved about this jar and I'll tell you why. I have a bee (yes, a real one) that I have saved to use in the "perfect" project. My youngest daughter was stung about a year ago because she stepped on it in the grass. Poor baby, but it was not too bad. For the bee, well, it turned out not so good. Not only did the poor bee get stepped on, but he also died because, well, bumblebees die when they sting. Well, I kept the bee, which some may think is demented but oh well. When we packed up a few months ago to move, I put him in a safe place so he wouldn't get squished by the movers. Well, when I put stuff in a "safe" place, I tend to forget exactly where that place is, and having everything packed and unpacked just added to the problem. I can't find him. So, here my jar sits with a few screws in the bottom of it, waiting for it's bee. When I find him, this is where he'll go...

 So now begins the inside of the book. I've used stamp images throughout from a Smeared Ink set that will be released THIS FRIDAY. If you'd like to see sneak-peeks of the set, visit our Facebook page. Then visit the Smeared Ink shop on Friday to see this as well as a few more new release sets.

In addition to regular plaster gauze pages, I also have what I like to call faux-mica pages. They give the feeling of mica and also have the look of honey or bee resin.

Here you can see the separate "clear" page.

On this page I used beeswax to collage my pieces.

Some pages have journaling on them, and the blank pages are meant to hold pictures or mementos which will be added as time goes by. You can see the texture of the gauze.

Here's another image from our new set, along with some other goodies.

Another of our new images on a faux-mica page.

The final page in the book has metal covered in beeswax in which I've carved a thank you to the bees.

And there you have it!

I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at our projects. I'd love to hear what you think about the bee book, and if you haven't yet please visit Anna's and Leigh's blogs and let them know what you think of their projects as well.

Good luck to all of the teams playing in the Throwdown this week, and PLEASE COME VOTE for your favorite TOMORROW or FRIDAY! 

Vote Here