Caught in a Cobweb at Simon Says Stamp

Hello all!  I'm absolutely thrilled to be guest designing for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for the month of October.  It's always an honour and a pleasure to create alongside the extraordinary team of creative geniuses (genii?) there, and I'm so happy to be back (even if I am squeezing it in amidst moving house to a new country!).

We've got a great theme to kick of the month... Dry Embossing, with a focus on Tim Holtz products.  I have a lot of Tim's Texture Fades (his name for embossing folders), but I often forget to use them.  I need to make sure they are stored more accessibly when I set up my new craft space since I had so much creating fun with them for this XL tag.

Yes, I'm in the throes of packing up my life and my craft supplies ready to move across Europe, so these projects for Simon Says Stamp will probably amongst the last things I make in the old space.  (I do plan to keep some inks/tags/stamps accessible throughout the process... I can't be without the option to craft in between sorting, clearing and packing!)  And here's today's tag...

There's quite a lot of dry embossing going on here, but also plenty of crackle, plenty of ink, crayon, paint and shimmering wax, along with some autumnal gatherings and of course that tiny spider... nothing to be afraid of, right?

There was no doubt about my first choice given the time of year... it had to be the glorious Layered Leaf.  It comes as a set with a coordinating die and folder.  I created a background with Distress Inks and Oxides and cut and embossed the large leaf.

From the same background, I cut some of the smaller leaves from the Fall Foliage Thinlits, and then ran them through the Layered Leaf's embossing folder.  Of course the folder isn't sized for them, but I think it adds a nice bit of extra texture.

You can see I was already trying them out on the jumbo MDF tag (8.5 x 4.25 inches).

And with another subtler background I cut the Impresslits Leaf in both sizes several times.  This does the cutting and embossing all in one go as well as creating a 3D curve to the leaves.  Layered up together, I think they all look pretty good.

The other embossing folder getting in on the action is an oldie but a goodie... Tim Holtz's Cobwebs Texture Fade.  (A similar one is here.) I ran it through with some plain card and then scraped DecoArt Crackle Paint into the depressions and let it do its thing.

 

I realised too late that if I wanted it to blend into the background as though the cobweb were just hanging there in a crackled sky, then I should have glued it down to the MDF tag before putting on the crackle paint!

So I had to draw round it and then try and apply crackle paint to my background so that it would just slot in.

I thought you'd like to know that it's not always all plain sailing around here!  There's more trouble to come...

I'm not going to take you through the entire chapter of difficulties (with a functional Blogger I would, but with New Blogger I just haven't got the time to mess around #newbloggersucks).  Suffice to say that I ended up having to peel away my glued down cobweb, to find it left a slightly less dimensional version of itself, which I then re-added crackle to and started applying colour with Distress Sprays.

Trouble is because it wasn't as deep there's less of a crackle compared with on the MDF.  I'm also a bit disappointed at how no matter what colour medium I put on it seemed to fade to almost nothing... even the paint - what's that about?  It doesn't usually happen...

In any case, with all the layers of paint and ink and Treasure Gold which eventually got added, you can hardly see the crackle in the cobweb at all now!

Ah well, it looks pretty darn cool around the outside of the cobweb at least... highlighted with Walnut Stain Distress Crayon, amongst others.

Yes, that crackle definitely makes me happy!  You can also see here the fine wire I silvered up to create a web for my Idea-ology spider to dangle from (again there's a similar one here) ...

... and here he is, right at the centre of the cobweb, waiting for his prey (or for you to walk through the trees and get the whole web caught in your hair - ugh!).

I used the pad of my fingertip to swipe on some Treasure Gold wax in Silver and in pewter to give the cobweb that lovely shimmer you sometimes see the fragile fibres get when the sunlight catches them.

At this time of year, I can rarely resist adding some pinecones and acorns when I get the chance, and since this is an MDF tag it can handle both the weight and the dimension.

I also tucked some moss in and around the leaves as I felt the tag needed a bit of green going on.

I'm sure you spotted the Idea-ology Word Band with some shredded Mummy Cloth adding some extra cobwebby texture behind it.  There's more of the cloth and more of the rusty wire at the top of the tag to finish it off.

So, overall, despite all the frustrations along the way, I ended up very happy with my autumnal tag - with the dry-embossed leaves and the spider at the heart of it, glistening on his silvery web. 

I hope you'll be inspired to come and play along at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  If this isn't enough, there is of course phenomenal inspiration from the full-time Design Team there.

As ever, the team will be spotlighting some of their favourite entries at the end of the week, and of course there's that $25 voucher to spend at Simon Says Stamp for one lucky randomly drawn winner.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I'll see you again soon.  Happy crafting all!

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.  Hah!
Jonathan Swift 

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.  Double hah!
Mahatma Gandhi

I'd like to share this tag at Try It On Tuesday where the theme is Autumn Colours
And at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog they are looking for Fall Foliage

#newbloggersucks

Glowing Acorns

Hello all!  I'm delighted to be here today with a Guest Designer project for the fabulous Try It On Tuesday challenge.

The theme this month is Colours of Autumn, so it couldn't have been more suited to my current crafting zone.

In fact, what I've created here is a partner tag to my October Acorns.  (You can see them both together at the end of the post.)

If the challenge had gone live only a couple of days later, I could have called these "November Acorns"... just that little bit more wintry than the previous tag!


















At long last, those die-cut leaves are putting in their appearance.

I promised you them all the way back at the beginning of the month when I first shared the photo below.  













The tiny punched leaves got used for my Tree Poetry tag and the Colours of Autumn ATCs.   The main tag was the base for the October Acorns, and now finally here are the large leaves which were actually the first thing I started doing with these inky/oxidey tags.












My original plan had included a blue background, trying to capture one of those vivid autumn skies.  It's a combination that's been a favourite on autumn projects in previous years, but somehow it just wasn't happening.  So instead this white-washed woodgrain took its place.















It's glued onto some packaging cardboard which gives it a nice solidity, and it's had a touch of Vintage Photo ink around the edges.















Then it was really just a question of arranging my autumnal gatherings in a pleasing composition.

This, as you know, is the only time of year you'll find me playing with orange, but I do love these acorns (real acorn cups, foam tops).














I must get some of the greenish ones into action soon before the season is over.












The leaves die-cut from the tag have those lovely golden gleaming spots courtesy of some of the Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals powders over the Distress Inks and Oxides.













You have to catch the light at a certain angle to really see the shimmer.















But that's something I've always enjoyed creating - those now-you-see-it, now-you-don't moments.















There are some tangles of white moss...















... the strands add movement, dimension and texture all in one - that's pretty good going!















The Magicals powders are also in action on my tiny Scrapiniec confetti stars.
















Again, at the right angle they can be magical (hence the name, I suppose!)...















... and they also work for spattering if you mix them with some water on the craft mat.













There have to be some words, of course.  These are from my PaperArtsy EAB04 Autumn Edition set.









Some simple rustic twine finishes things off, and that's about that.  But before I go, here as promised is a shot of today's Glowing Acorns alongside the October Acorns.

I often work in pairs and trios, but for once this wasn't a planned pairing.  I guess I must have had some unfinished acorn business... I just had to follow that instinct to play with them again, and I'm happy I did.

Thank you so much to Avril and the rest of the fantastic Try It On Tuesday team for inviting me to be a Guest Designer alongside them this month.  I hope you'll hop over to see what autumnal wonders they've been cooking up, and be inspired to play along with your own Colours of Autumn too.




Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I'm hoping to have a bit of time this week to catch up with you all around Craftyblogland, and I'll be back later in the week with some more new challenge inspiration.  I hope to see you again soon.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

You cannot plant an acorn in the morning, and expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of an oak.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

At Tag Tuesday you'll be happy to hear that Anything Goes (as long as it's a tag, obviously!)
They want to see Die-Cuts and Punches over at MOO Mania & More
These leaves have already tricked a couple of you, so I'd like to play along at the Funke Junkie Boutique Challenge Blog where they want to see that It Looks Real
At Let's Craft and Create the theme is Anything Goes + an option of Colours of Fall
And there's a theme of Anything Goes with an optional twist of Orange over at More Mixed Media
At the Bleeding Art Challenge they want to see mixed media, but other than that Anything Goes

October Acorns

Okay, so I promised you another autumn tag, and when I was sharing my coasters of happiness yesterday, I said that this one makes me very happy.

I hope it will do the same for you!

Sometimes I just want to play with lovely objects, so this is a fairly straightforward piece of autumnal assemblage...

... some dimensional collaging with acorns, skeleton leaves, scraggly moss and a touch of starlit shimmer.

No need to tell you very much about it, apart from maybe the inky background, so just sit back and enjoy the pictures!

(Talking of things which make you happy, there's a fantastic new interior to see over at Cestina's Dollshouses if you're a fan of miniatures.)

You may recognise the background from this photo I also shared alongside my Tree Poetry tag.















What you can't really see properly without an angled close-up are some of the golden shimmers provided by some Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals powders.














As soon as I saw that autumnal glow, I wanted to provide some contrast. 














So that's where the strands of stringy moss come in.
















I love how they pop against the inky background.














They also allow the acorns to come into focus.  They wouldn't show up nearly as well if they were directly against the background tones.













These are faux acorn tops but they appear to be in real acorn cups.  I've got them in a sort of yellowy green colour too, but I thought I'd keep it simple here.

Brown and orange... that awful 1970s combo - I would usually run a mile from it, wouldn't you?














But in autumn they work beautifully together... Mother Nature really knows what she's doing.













Some metal skeleton leaves are also tucked into the foliage.

I thought of altering them in some way, but in the end decided they really didn't need it in this case.















In any case, at least they have caught the final drops of paint spatter in a way I rather like.












The quote is from my PaperArtsy stamp set EAB04 The Autumn Edition, and it's by L.M. Montgomery.

I expect it's Anne (of Green Gables) being cheerful about things.  I can't blame her on this occasion.













It's stamped in Coffee Archival and mounted on a some waste MDF pieces so that it nestles cosily amongst the nature gatherings without being overwhelmed by them.














A few Scrapiniec confetti stars are dotted around.













They've had a light wash of PaperArtsy Cloud 9 (warm white) paint so that, like the mossy stems, they stand out a little more from the background.

Also in this photo you can see the lovely misty spritz of Pumice Stone Distress Oxide Spray... that'll be the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" then.














And if you catch the tag at the right angle, you still get to see that gorgeous golden glimmer...















There's nothing quite like autumn gold, is there?!














Some simple twine finishes things off, and I mounted the whole tag on some pale card to frame it.











It's also mounted on some sturdy cardboard cut from a box which gives it a lovely solidity.  I adore the dimensionality of this as well as how easily it came together.  

Once I had the background, everything else just fell into place.  Definitely a happy tag for me.  I hope it is for you too.  Have a lovely weekend, whatever you're up to, and I'll see you again soon.

Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into an oak!
George Bernard Shaw

I'd like to play along at Tag Tuesday where the theme is Autumn
At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge it's also a Fall/Autumn theme this week
At MOO Mania & More they are inviting us to Count Your Blessings - as the words say, I'm grateful for Octobers
At the More Mixed Media Challenge they are playing Anything Goes with an Optional Twist of Orange
At Let's Craft and Create it's another seasonal one with Anything Goes + Optional Colours of Fall
At the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog it's the usual Anything Mixed Media Goes
And at the Bleeding Art Challenge it's also Anything Mixed Media Goes
They are playing Halloween/Fall + a sentiment at Aud Sentiments