31 Days of Halloween: Beware the Witch! Especially the cute ones!

“My world, my world... How can such a good little girl like you destroy all of my beautiful wickedness.

- Wicked Witch of the North” 

― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

As many of you know, Altered Pages is participating in the Smeared & Smudged 5th Annual 31 Days of Halloween Challenge! The goal is to post a Halloween or Day of the Dead project EVERY DAY with some sort of stamping on it!

31 Days of Halloween 2013 Wicked Blog Roll

Terra | Black Dragon | Kapree | Shell | Kristy | Susan | Helen | Loren | Alison | Kelli |De Stempelwinkel | Monique | Karen | Airless Chambers | Jane | Jennifer | Emily | Lisa | Lyneen | Wendy | Altered Pages Art Sociates | leslierahye | Delicious Doodles | Roni | Shoni | Jenn | DominoART | Jessica | Sandy | Carolyn | Carla | Julia | Steph | Trisha | Brigitte | Lisa | Anna

***

So, as promised from the AP Blog, here are some close-ups & instructions to make your own banner panel! (PS - These panels are so affordable! $3.25 for 3 & there are 2 different shapes if you want to make a large banner & mix them up!)

• Enlarge images as desired & print (the raven & the girl were enlarged to 5x7 & my printer was acting up, so I had to color in her hat with a black marker & then I embossed it here & there.)
• Type or stamp "Wicked Spirits" on white card stock for bottle.
• Type or stamp "Are You a good Witch or Bad Witch?" onto metallic paper - ink will be wet enough to emboss if desired. Cut out with a label die or by hand. Stamp & emboss with Grunge stamp (Tim Holtz).
• Paint banner panel with red paint; let dry
• Stamp & emboss with Grunge stamp in black (Tim Holtz) & Chicken Wire stamp in yellow (Christy Tomlinson)
• Loosely cut raven from collage sheet & glue onto chipboard; when glue is dry, fussy-cut raven out
• Cut girl & skull from collage sheets. (She's holding a cat, so cut the cat away & snip thru her fingers a little to slip the skull through.)
  
• Stamp & emboss with black onto metallic papers the bottles from Red Lead; cut out. Cut lid from larger bottle.
• Arrange images & bottles onto the panel & adhere.
• Add glue-drizzle from largest bottle to simulate pouring of the "Wicked Spirits" & apply glitter.
  
• Attach lace seam binding to holes for hanging.

That's it! Now you have a fun little wall hanging for Halloween!

Thanks for stopping by & be sure to finish the Smeared & Smudged Hop for the day to qualify for the big prize at the end of the month!

I'll be back on the 21st with another project (if not before!), so I hope to see you then!

Cheers & Happy Haunt-Hopping!

Altered Pages Supplies:

Collage Sheets: "Quoth the Raven, Nevermore;" "Spooky Halloween;" "Frightful Images;"

Leaky Shed Banner Panel;

Paris Inks;

Other:
Metallic papers in gold, silver & bronze

German Glass Glitter

Black embossing powder

Lace seam binding

Red paint

Grunge stamps from Tim Holtz

Chicken wire stamp from Christy Tomlinson

Halloween stamps from Red Lead

Framelits Apothecary labels from Stampin' Up

Making a Splash with Graffiti Style!

During the Exploring Art Journaling Enrichment class I am teaching at my daughter's school this week, I introduced the girls (yes, all girls in the class!) to Splash Inks & Acrylic Inks. (If you missed last week's entry, you can find it here.)

Splash Inks (pictured below) are acrylic mixing colors that are very concentrated & vibrant. They can be mixed to make a huge array of colors without getting muddy. You can paint & illustrate with them & the result is similar to watercolors, but the colors are more pigmented than watercolors & are permanent when dry. (You can read more about them here; buy them here.)

Background made by Sarah

Acrylic Inks (pictured below) are simply a watered down acrylic paint with deep pigments. These inks are gaining popularity in the mixed media world for their drippy effects & ease to illustrate with either using the dropper as a pen or applying ink with a pen nib.

Background made by Kylie

We used a "splatter" technique by dripping/dropping ink onto our substrate (in this case, a piece of recycled cardboard); spraying the page with a little water, seeing the reaction & then blowing the paint around with a straw. I truly love this technique & have even sold a couple of my pieces using it! And watching the girls' reactions as the paint spread around to achieve an unplanned result was awesome!

Here are a couple of the samples I made in class for the girls...

Gesso'd cardboard to Splash Ink art!

Drippy Acrylic Inks

After the girls did their splash art, I showed them how to use stencils & masks to add another layer of dimension to their pages...The Trust Your Heart stencil was THE most popular - go figure! I also mentioned how they could make their own masks with photographs from catalogs & magazines by taping both sides of the page with packing tape & cutting out the image. That's how I got the following images for them to use...

Masks made from catalog photos

The result using the potato sack girls from the catalog images

So, I have rambled on enough...here are the girls' pieces - we didn't have enough time to stencil on all of the pages, but luckily we still have 4 more weeks of class!(Click on an image to enlarge.)

Some of the girls got a little over zealous with the acrylic inks where the colors got a little muddy, BUT I think the results are actually quite beautiful!

Alexis' work

Brenna's work

Brooke's work

Ella's work

Daphne's work

Kylie's work

Paige's work

Sarah's work

Sidney's work

(I also had them do another mark-making page like last week in the hopes of getting stencil images & drips onto those before the hour ended, but maybe next time!)

Next week I will help them to finish up a couple of these pages & then we will start on some collage art! 

Cheers!

Enriching with Mark Making

This past Tuesday I had the pleasure of beginning an after school Enrichment class with my daughter's schoolmates..."Exploring Art Journaling" with a handful of 2nd-6th graders. It was a complete blast & I can't wait to meet up with these wonderful students over the next 6 weeks!

{For the parents & students from school that might be checking out the post today, I intentionally tried to blur some of the artists names on the photos...see if your child can pick out which image was their creation & tell you about it if they like!}

We began the session by using everyday items & things that most of you would consider trash to make marks on canvas paper...

Old loyalty credit cards, corks, lids, a tomato container, a kids broken flip flop, bubble wrap, broken wheels from a toy...basically anything that will make an interesting mark on the page!

This image is the example I prepared ahead of time:

And here is what these aspiring artists created in the beginning:

 Cool texture added to some finger swipes!

Kids really are wonderful artists - not afraid to think outside the box & just create whatever comes to mind!

 The kids had some mini pretzels for a snack & a few dropped them into their paint & used them on their pages - making marks or gluing them on! Above, a student is using some drywall tape to make marks by getting paint on her fingers & then dabbing it on the tape to make dots!

 More pretzel stamping!

Love this hand SK!! It is so much like what my hands can look like at the end of a canvas!

Some kiddos went crazy & embraced the messiness, while others were more methodical...

When the paint was dry, I gave the journal prompt of "Friendship" & asked them write a little about what it means to them, words, names, whatever came to mind.

They may look a little kooky now, but they are actually wonderful starting blocks for the rest of our class!

I showed them that art journaling is a great way to get your feelings down on paper & then cover up what you want with paint by expressing those feelings in marks & colors. Some covered up a little of their writing & others just left it.

Eventually, we will cut these pages in half, use one half as a page in their finished journals & the other half might be cut up for collage work!

I can't wait to show them more fun techniques & get some of more of those feelings down on paper & paint!

See you next week girls!

2 for Tuesday! A Joint Blog Hop with Bombshell Stamps

Welcome to the Rodeo!

Today we are joining the talented Design Team of Bombshell Stamps in a joint blog hop! Hopefully you are coming here from Kim Gaughan, if not, you're going to want to start at the beginning so you don't miss a thing! (Plus, you don't want to miss out on winning some blog candy, but more on how to do that later!)

I was recently on a retreat with some fabulous women & I had brought a bunch of wood pieces for us to play with & luckily for me, there were a few left over! So, I created this little rodeo scene...

I started by hot-gluing the wood pieces together; painted them to look like wood. Then I took a bunch of little popscicle sticks to make the little picket fence, glued that onto the wood. Using the Old West Photographs collage sheet, I attached the image of cowboys to the back of my wood blocks.

I cut out the lovely cowgirl from the "Cowgirls" collage sheet & promptly sat her on the fence (with a little glue of course!) Then it was time to play with some of the digi-stamps from Bombshell! 

We were given our choice of Cowgirl digital stamps over at Bombshell & I chose to work with the "Horsing Around" sheet:

Their digital stamps work similarly to the Altered Pages collage sheets in that you can print them out as many times as you want! But with these, you get to color them in however you see fit! (And they have other wonderful stamps besides the cowgirl theme! I had to buy a few to play with later!)

I cut out the horse & rider, colored it all in with markers & then drilled a small hole into the wood, attached the horse's leg to a lollipop stick & inserted it into the wood. Next, I combined one of AP's Wanted posters' words from the "Vintage Cowboys" collage sheet onto the digital stamp from Bombshell of a "Wanted" poster (I altered the sizes a bit in photoshop to work here.) & poked holes in it to represent bullet holes! Next I cut it out & "nailed" it to the post with some upholstery tacks!

Lastly I added 2 more lollipop sticks to the top of the posts, colored in a couple of stars from the Bombshell digi sheet with my gold Wink of Stella pen; glued those on & wrapped a length of jute around the stick on one side & added the dolls cowboy hat on the other stick! For my final touch, I cut out & aged the "Just Horsing Around" saying from the digi sheet & attached it to the front!

That's it! It now has a prestigious place on the shelves in my daughters room along with her horse trophies & ribbons!

Now, about that BLOG Candy! Don't forget to leave a comment & become a follower along the way to be eligible for some Rootin'-Tootin' good prizes!!!

As sad as it may be to leave me, it's time for you to Giddy-up on over to the next blog, Sharon Rogers!

Y'all Come Back Now, Ya Hear?!

Cheers!

In case you get lost along the way...here's the official blog roll:

Start at

Bombshell Stamps Blog

and then hop onto our Design Teams Blogs

Kelli Green

Leslie Rahye

Katie Shanahan-Jones

Trisha Too

Alison Heikkila

Roni Johnson

Jodi Elam

Lyneen Jesse

Alaine Medio

Daniella Hayes

Kim Gaughan

Becky Voth

Sharon Rogers

Tristan Robin Blakeman

Jenn Cochran

Danie May

Marnie Bushmole

Stephanie Siatta

Kathi Rerek

Gia Lau

and finish at

Altered Pages Blog

It's a Two-fer!

Howdy Partner!!

Next Tuesday, the Altered Pages Design Team will be joining the Bombshell Babes in a joint blog hop using the creative (& somewhat sexy digi-stamps!) from Bombshell Stamps along side all the great products from Altered Pages! 

If you haven't gathered from the button above, the theme is a Western one!

There will be tons of inspiration for you & some fabulous prizes at the end of the hop!

See y'all soon!