Day 20- 31 Days of Halloween: Vintage Halloweenie Notebook

Hi everybody! Welcome to day 20, and I'm happy to report I actually have a project to show you! I am doing a bit better, although still sore, but I had my kids be my go-fers for supplies last night, so I was able to make a simple something for you to look at. It is an altered composition notebook.








You may be asking yourself where the stamped images are...well, each doll body piece is in fact a separate stamp, as well as the face. I distressed each piece a little and I added the black cat temporary tattoo. All the "stitches" were drawn on, and I made the hat out of a temporary tattoo also- it was a spiderweb that I cut up. The hat trim was leftover from my altered doll, and the cute bat buttons, as well as the other buttons, came to me in a prize RAK from Barb at HDH and Oz.

All of the background papers are from Graphic 45. The little side raffia looking ribbon is scrap that I took off of a covered floral wire. And, I think that's about it. I really like the vintage-y look to this, very simple and childlike. I'll definitely be using it to jot down some notes!

So, I also need to apologize to you all since yesterday was supposed to be a hidden prize day. But, to make it up, Vampire Rye from Wild Flower Kids is joining us today! Be sure to check out all the wicked blogs, and if you happen to spot him, email me. I will draw for the winner tomorrow.

Have fun today!

New Year, New Challenges! Faerie Song Art Stamps Sponsor and Art Journaling

Happy 2010 everyone! The project I have to share with you today is actually very personal and kind of a realization of myself and my resolution for the upcoming year. On the Smeared and Smudged forum we have had several art journalers join in and so have opened an art journaling group. I've never done any art journaling, although I LOVE to alter the outside of journals, and thought there could never be a better time to try it than now.

After a pretty deep discussion on the forum about exposing your inner self through your art and creativity, I was moved to journal last night and came up with this page. Like I said, it probably means more to me that it will to you, you may even say "What the hell is that?" , but I still feel compelled to share it as a way to solidify my resolution to truly find myself this year and express myself in honesty through my art. Here it is:







So there you have it, my first attempt at art journaling. If nothing else, it was fun and very revealing, and I look forward to continuing.

On another note, I would like to let you all know about this month's challenges over on the Smeared and Smudged forum. We have four challenges going on this month, including 2 Sketch Challenges and a Faerie Song Challenge where you have the chance to win a FREE PLATE OF YOUR CHOICE from Faerie Song Art Stamps! That's three chances to win! Plus, we have the monthly Oh!The Horror Challenge where you can win a movie night mini prize! Come on over and play with us, and enjoy the fun, growing forum.

For now, I wish all of you a peaceful and prosperous new year!!

Home Crafted Holidays Dream Journal

Hello everyone, and thanks for visiting Smeared and Smudged today! I'd like to welcome those of you who are joining me from the Domestic Witch's Home Crafted Holidays, and also welcome back all of my followers and old and new friends. I'm looking forward to sharing my project with you!

This time of year is all about giving, renewal, and enjoyment of life. In the dead of winter, it's hard to believe that Winter Solstice is the strongest time for nature during the year. Everything slumbers and prepares for the chance to grow stronger and more vibrant in the spring; it's a wonderful time!

I thought for my home-crafted gift idea I'd share with you a dream journal that the recipient can use to strengthen and prepare themselves. It can be stored bedside and used as a literal dream book to record dream details each morning, or it can be adapted and used to record dreams and aspirations for the coming year.

To start off, you will need an old hardcover book and a blank text block. If you know how to make text blocks, wonderful! If not, you can find them online from book making stores. I purchased mine from Hollander's.

Cut the old text block out of your cover as shown below. Then place your new text block inside the cover and trim the cover down to fit nicely over your new blank journal. Set your text block aside.

Pick a nice 12 x 12 decorative paper that you want to use to cover your journal. Place your open cover over the paper, and trim leaving 1/2 inch around each edge. Cover the whole back of your paper with glue, and set your cover on top of it face down. Fold the edges of the paper over onto the inside of the cover. Make sure you use strong glue, like bookbinders glue.

The inside of your cover will look like this.

The outside will look like this (with your decorative designed paper on the outside).

Now comes the fun part where you get to add in your own artistic embellishment. If you're not artistic, you can add pre-made stickers, a nice jewel, a flat flower, or anything you'd like on the cover using a strong glue like e600 and be done with the decorating. I LOVE to add my own artistic flair to my projects, so I'll take you step by step through what I did. The most important thing to remember is this is a dream book, so just go with the flow of your creativity! Don't plan too much.

First, I dry brushed some white paint onto the cover.

Then I used paint and gel pens to add some swirls and dots to one side of the front cover. Remember, don't think too much, just let it happen!

I chose the rubber stamp images that I wanted to use, and stamped them with versamark ink directly onto the cover, then poured black embossing powder over them. You could stamp them with just black ink, but you'll see why I embossed them in a minute.

After stamping all my images and covering with powder, I used my heat gun to melt and set the powder.

Then I stamped my word "dream" all over just using black stazon ink.

Now you'll see why I embossed my images. Using my white gel pen, I colored in my wings and the whites of the eyes. Since I embossed, the white did not cover the outline.

On the top of my journal, I used heat and stick embossing powder to add antique silver pearl ex, and clear mini micro beads. Then I punched holes directly into the cover and added jeweled brads.

I also took a flesh colored prismacolor and added a little bit of color to my faces.

I decided I wanted a little more depth, so I used a black prismacolor and blender to add shadows to my images. Here you can see the top two are shadowed and the bottom image is not.

After all my shading, this is the cover I ended up with.

I punched another small hole directly into the bottom corner of the cover and added a star charm with a brad. The brads are visible on the inside of the cover, but they won't be seen when we're done.

To finish off the outside, I wrapped blue and black ribbon and fiber around the spine part, tied it, and frayed the ends.

So now is when you flip your cover back to the inside. Cut two pieces of contrasting paper decorative paper to fit just inside the edged of the cover.

Using your strong bookbinders glue, cover them completely and then place inside.

Your inside cover will now look like this with your own paper. This is what will hide all those brads that we stuck through the cover.

Finally, add glue to your text block and glue it to the cover. If you get text blocks from Hollander's, they have an excellent instruction book that you can get telling you how to glue in a text block, and I highly recommend it! If not you can also find instructions online. You just want to make sure your cover and spine are flush with the block, which is why I lift my side up and then glue.

After gluing in both sides of the text block, you are done! Just place your book under a very heavy object overnight so the glue can set, and then you're ready for wrapping!

Like I said before, you can decorate your journal any way you like, and it makes an excellent gift that almost anyone can enjoy. It's also a great way to keep unwanted hardcover books out of landfills, and the covers can be trimmed to any size. If you're a mixed media artist, you can use the old pages for other projects, and if you're not you can recycle the old book's pages.

So, I hope you enjoyed my journal project and that you give it a try. It's a wonderful gift to give, a great way to express yourself, and just plain fun to make! I'd love to hear what you think about it, so feel free to leave a comment, and visit Smeared and Smudged again soon.
Happy Home Crafted Holidays!

Going Mental

Day 16 and I've gone insane! At least my project has. This is a card that has one of my all time favorite Halloween pictures on it. The picture was taken several years back at a friend's Haunted House. We were all participants, and the theme was a Haunted Mental Institution.

My husband played the insane doctor who was carrying out cruel and unusual experiments on the patients. My second oldest daughter, who was about 6 at the time, played one of the residents, and let me tell you, they both were SCARY! My husband ran around talking crazy, being angry at the intruders, and sawing patients in half with a really loud jigsaw (bladeless, of course).

My daughter walked around creepily among the trees and asked the tourists if they wanted to play, then told them in a rhaspy voice with eyes wide "The ghosts like me, but they don't like you..." Scariest thing eva!!!!

I was the tour guide slash maid, and my oldest and her friends were some of the "tourists" that I led through the institute. Needless to say, we all had a blast! This picture was taken after the scaring was done, after we all came inside to have some food and talk about the best parts. When the camera came out, my husband posed and my daughter played right into it! Perfect picture!


*click to see bigger views*


I used some swirly type images from both Invoke Arts and The Enchanted Gallery, and a retired collage alphabet from Stampin' Up. The skulls were cut out of a paper coaster that I received from fellow Bombshell Kas (thanks Kas!), and the striped background paper also came from Kas. I really scored with that gift! I hope you enjoy the card, for me it's a definite keeper!

So join me tomorrow for a very special sketch challenge sponsored by Prickley Pear! You'll have to tune in to get all the details, but you're gonna love it! See you tomorrow.

Twisted Tuesday Materials Challenge: Faces of Me Bracelet

For this week's Twisted Tuesday, I wanted to make something other than a card, and since I missed Altered Monday this week I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. This will be my last Twisted Tuesday Challenge for September, and hopefully there will be some more players. I'd love to see some other ideas for using the chosen material, so please feel free to participate! I am also debating on whether to keep this challenge going, so if it interests you please let me know by sharing your own project.

So, on to the rules; here's how Twisted Tuesday works:

* I will post a new challenge each week. The challenge will be to use a specific material on your project. The material may be a store bought supply, an item you can find around the house, or a repurposed or recycled object. I will post a sample to go along with the challenge.

*You can make a card, scrapbook page, altered item...pretty much anything you want as long as it is stamped somewhere on it and uses the specific material.

*You will have until Sunday night to comment on my post with a link to your entry.

*I will choose the winner and announce on the following Tuesday. The winner will receive a material that they can use in a future challenge!


Here's the challenge for this week...

My Sample:

*click pics for larger views*

The Challenge:
Use bottle caps on your project.






My "Faces Of Me" Bracelet features stamp images from Invoke Arts

The Prize:
A 1 oz. baggie of Clear Mini Micro Beads
(sorry, no pic, but you can see them used on my Faces of Me bracelet!)


Can't wait to see what you all can come up with using your bottlecaps!

Altered Monday: Garden District Mini Notebook

For some reason, this image from Invoke Arts that I used on the mini notebook always reminds me of the old South. Swamps, decaying plantations, moss, ladies sitting in rockers on screened in porches wearing their priceless family heirlooms and sipping sweet tea. I don't know, maybe it's the hat, but I always think of downtown Charleston or the Garden District in New Orleans.

So, I decided this notebook needed to be both grotesque and beautiful at the same time, just like a swamp. I think I achieved the effect I was looking for. I found the mini notebook with pen attached and used alcohol inks, embossing powder, and ink pads to add the coloring. The flowers and leaves came from a broken bracelet that I had, which I think worked very nicely. It's a pretty different looking notebook, I'm sure not everyone would like to carry it around, but I really enjoyed making it and can't wait to use it!