Something Spooky (and Purple!) - Guest Designing for Simon Says Stamp

What a wonderful time I had with this week's challenge theme for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  It's such a thrill to be featured in the Designer Spotlight for the month of October, but to have this much fun into the bargain is a real treat.  Later this week, you can watch a whole YouTube episode on how these eerie moonlit tags came to life, but for now, I hope you'll enjoy these photos and a few details about the ingredients.

As always, the brilliant Monday Challenge team have created some amazing projects to kickstart your creative imagination, so do make sure you hop over to the challenge website to drink it all in.  The theme this week is Spooky/Add Some Purple... I ended up doing both!

I love adding a touch of purple to autumnal projects... for me it has that wonderful echo of both dawn and twilight in it.  Autumn has some of the best sunrises and sunsets, I think - certainly where I live in rural South Bohemia, right in the heart of Europe. 

And those crepuscular times of day have their own inbuilt eerieness, I think - so as soon as the Tim Holtz Moon Masks came out to play, the creepy element became inevitable in the gathering dusk.

My darkening sky is a combination of Shaded Violet and Villainous Potion Distress Inks, with Hickory Smoke, Lost Shadow, Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain and Scorched Timber to provide the neutrals in the landscape, as well as extra shadows.

I added subtle layers of meadow stamping with the grasses from Tim Holtz's Nature Discovery stamps, as well as some of my own PaperArtsy Umbellifer Edition stamps. 

The background layers are stamped in Pebble Beach Ranger Archival Ink, so as to stay put if I'm adding any moisture later.  The Umbellifers are stamped in a secondary imprint of Scorched Timber Distress Ink (oh, how I would love to have Scorched Timber in an Archival formulation!)

(You can see the full process from Saturday onwards, when the A Few (More) Minutes of Fun episode goes live on YouTube - I'll add links here when that happens.)

But hidden away amongst the grasses and wildflower stems are some slightly unnerving objects... the gleaming white bones from the Tim Holtz Anatomy Chart stamp set, embossed in Wow Bright White embossing powder.

As if that weren't creepy enough, there are colonies of bats silhouetted against the moon(s)... courtesy of Tim's The Scarecrow stamp set...

... and more spooky winged things to brush against your face as you cross the meadow... the Idea-ology Halloween Moth Transparencies.  Beautiful, but definitely not pleasant when they're caught in your hair!

My word stickers are from an older edition of the Halloween Clippings Stickers...

... but you'll find similar ones in this year's Idea-ology Halloween Sticker Book.

I love how you always seem to find the exact right phrases (if you look hard enough and don't give up on a compromise option too soon!).

I mounted the tags on some white card, just to give them a bit of framing - and it helps the moon to pop... with slightly raggedy edges done with the blade of my scissors for extra texture.  And some fine twine finishes things off as usual.

Hopefully, that gives you some inspiration to start you off with this week's Something Spooky/Add Some Purple theme... If you still feel the need for a bit more, do hop over to see what the regular team at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge have been creating.  I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

As always, there will be a randomly drawn prize voucher so that one lucky winner can go shopping at Simon Says Stamp... and the Design Team will be featuring projects that catch their eye(s) (how's that for spooky?!) in the spotlight at the end of the week, so do come and play along.

I hope you'll have a grand time getting spooky and/or purple - I certainly did.  Have a great week, and happy crafting, all!

Moonlight is sculpture.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

Oscar Wilde

Between our birth and our death we may touch understanding, 

As a moth brushes a window with its wing.

Christopher Fry