Some Good News & a Tag

As the saying goes.." when one door closes, another one opens" and that certainly happened to me....

Sadly I had to close my beloved Tag Challenge blog, the entries got less and less so it was pretty pointless carrying on....but as soon as I closed it there was an invitation in my email box inviting me to join the fabulous design team over at Tag Tuesday....and of course I accepted immediately.

I love making Tags, its such a good way to use up so many scraps we all have lying around on our work desk..for me it's also a way that I can use my many, many stamps..being more altered art in style nowadays, I don't get to use my stamps that often now.

So the theme this fortnight at Tag Tuesday has been chosen by Valerie and is Autumn / Halloween...or you can combine both.

I shaded my tag using distress inks with some ink dusters. The images are stamped from a set of stamps by Artistic Outpost....then using a damp brush and distress inks I shaded the house and foreground. To add the leaves to the tree, I used some cotton buds and distress inks.

I hope to see you join in with the challenge..you can find it here at
                                       Tag Tuesday 

A little Bit of Halloween....

I created a pair of Arches for my design team project for More Mixed Media this month.
The challenges are always mixed media and there is the option to follow the colour choice..and the colour is Orange...so I decided to go with the Halloween theme.

It took me a while to get the template made from some cardboard as I had to draw it free hand and honestly I am totally rubbish at drawing a straight line, let alone a curved one!
I then used my template and using a craft knife I cut 2 arches from some really thick gray board that was on the back of a large water colour paper pad.
Using orange card I covered the arches then added the stamps images to create the background...the ghost, cobweb and cat are die cuts but the image of the little witch is stamped and coloured and then cut out, the same for the 2 cute pumpkins. I added some sparkle to the witches hat.
The clock is also from some scrap paper I had in my stash.

You can find this challenge over at.......
More Mixed Media

October Challenge....

For my design team project at Rhedd's Creative Spirit this month, I couldn't resist making something with a Halloween theme.

What was once a white mini cabinet with a clock that I picked up in a charity shop about a year ago, is now a cabinet storing bottles of poison,some eyeballs, ghost & ghoulie books..along with a rather large black spider that's spread his web everywhere inside the cabinet.

Lots of sanding as the top section had a flower transfer on it....

Gessoed twice then painted twice in orange acrylic paint.

I decided to paint the top and bottom of the cabinet in black paint,but it just didn't work, so I sanded it back..I rather liked the effect and left it as it was.

I added the witch and cats looking in the window..and a few embellishments to the top section....finally adding a bat and skeleton on a chain on the door....

You can find this challenge over at

  Rhedd's Creative Spirit.

...no theme, but your entry must be altered art..no papercrafts/cards.

I am linking my project to the challenge over at We Love to Create
After a short break they are back with a new challenge..do pop over and take a look...

Pretty Altered Perfume Bottle

I have made an extra project this month for Rhedds Creative Spirit....2 girlies from the team are on leave at the moment, but will be back as soon as they are able to.

My extra project is one of my old perfume bottles..it was by Celine Dion and I always loved the bottle so kept it for absolutely ages...

I decorated the bottle with hessian, lace and a torn strip of fabric....all glued in place then I tied around some string.

I also added a glass stopper and a cuff around the neck of the bottle and then made a tag from some brown kraft card and some sticky backed hessian..adding sisal fibres and a flower.

Do pop over and take a look at our challenges....they are altered art, recycled, up cycled..no papercrafts or cards...you can find the challenge here at
                                Rhedd's Creative Spirit

A little Altered Tin

My design team project for Altered Eclectics this month is a little altered tin.
I ask my family and friends to save them for me and they have and now I have a stash of them in all different shapes and sizes...time I started using them,lol...

I started by sanding down the tin and then giving it 2 coats of gesso and then a coat of cream acrylic paint.

I added washi tape around the edges and to the inside rim of the tin.

I have a box with lots of small scraps of backing papers and these are what I used to cover the outside of the tin.

I then added the pretty farme and the word Daydream that I stamped on some spare card.

Again, using scraps of backing paper, I lined the inside of the time, then add a card on one side and the image of  the little girl on the other side.
Then I added some muslin and embellishments and the butterfly to the girls hair.
Do pop over and join in the with challenge, you can find it here at......
                                             Altered Eclectics

Tag # 64 Earthtones

I'm feeling a bit sad....I have decided to close down my Tag Challenge Blog at Go Tag Thursday.
There just isn't enough interest to keep it going any longer.
So Tag # 64 is the last challenge and the theme is Earthtones.
Here is my tag..I love the colours of Autumn and I really enjoyed creating this tag..I even added a little bit of sparkle on the leaves...

Thank you for dropping by my blog...if you fancy entering the last challenge you can find it here at
                                    Go Tag Thursday

Why,this clock is exactly 2 days slow....

I am very honoured to have been invited to be a Guest Designer over at Try It on Tuesday.
The remit was Clock / Watch...and I had just the stamp to fit the bill.

I had a look in my stash to find something suitable that would show the stamp up and something I could hang..so I chose this plaque, it was the perfect size too.

I sanded it down a little then painted it to seal the wood in gesso...once dry I added 2 coats of white acrylic paint, then left it to dry over night.

I stamped the image of the Mad Hatter  and the sentiment (from the Alice stamp set by Indigoblu) on to the plaque and heat dried the ink..although the ink is waterproof  I wasn't going to risk smudges when I coloured the image in.
Once everything was completely dry I sprayed the plaque with Seal and Shine from Crafter's companion, then I added the clock and 2 red bows.
I hope you will pop over to the blog and join in with the challenge, you can find it here at
                                       Try It On Tuesday

Tag..Steampunk-ish

I'm trying to get myself up to date and a little ahead of myself for my own blog challenges... (Rhedd's Creative Spirit & Go Tag Thursday ) and some challenges I usually enter, because I will be away on a break from 2nd Oct for a week..
So yesterday I managed to get a few things done and one of them was my Steampunk themed Tag for the challenge at Tag Tuesday

I used a cream tag and stamped some ink blots all over it in Fosslised Amber distress ink
Using my gorgeous collage stamp by Le Blanche I stamped the main image, shading in the face and hair. Then using random stamps from my stash I added more images in brown ink and again used the distress ink I used for the ink blots.
From some scrap card that I had inked up I stamped the word and mounted that on some card, also stamped a hand which I coloured lightly.
I distressed the edges of the card in Spiced Marmalade distress ink and then added the embellishments and word......
If you fancy entering the challenge why not pop over and take a look...you can find it here at
                                     Tag Tuesday