27 - HALLOWEEN MAIL ART OR JUST ABANDONED ART?

Morning all, tis Virginia here again for another sneaky guest post on the Weird Scissors blog.  Today I'm going to share with you a little bit of mail art/abandoned art I've been creating over the last couple of weeks.

I've played with mail art for some time, it's great fun just to send off some art in the post, even better if it's recipient isn't expecting it!  I start out with A4 cardstock which I cut in half to make it A5 - this can still be sent using a normal 1st or 2nd class stamp.

I then proceeded to gelliprint the back ground, so much fun!  Once dry I painted the pumpkin in black and then I added masked shapes, distress ink stamping in red brick and spiced marmalade and some script stamp.

I then added some H20 paints onto the pumpkin to make him shine and some oil pastels - basically I kept building up the layers until they felt 'done'!


I also did 'spooky houses'  using the same principles, gelli plate background, stamps - the only 'addition' on here is some liquid pearls adding accents here and there.

They really are fun to make, so if you are off with your children this week and fancy making some just have a go.  If you don't have a gelli plate, don't stress just make up some base cards with normal acrylic paints or even water colours, or just use coloured card!  I'm sure they would be a welcome bit of post for family or friends. 

Alternatively what about some art abandonment.  I recently joined in with Sarah's free art Friday in Swindon and sent her a selection of previously made mail art for her to leave for people to find.  It was a lot of fun to do and these would be ideal for art abandonment at this time of year.  In fact I've added this to my bucket list, I intend on popping some of them in the card cellophanes that you can get, printing out some free art tags and then leaving them for people to find.  Should make for an interesting jaunt out! 

If you are lost for inspiration as to creating the pumpkin faces of the spooky houses just check out Pinterest, loads of inspiration there!

I wasn't sure on this one because of the masked cat - but hubby thought it was great!

I used a distress stamp around the page to 'frame' the art work as a finishing touch!  This was one of my favourites, the difference of adding that bit of white oil pastel to the pumpkin and the house really brought this one to life!

And to just to show that I don't do things by halves here they all are set out ready for distribution!

I am entering this into the Open Minded Challenge for Halloween and the Left of Center Challenge for Halloween.

Thanks to the girls on the Weird Scissors for letting me do two guest posts I feel very honoured, don't forget to check back tomorrow for more amazing creativity!

21 - Halloween Mini Book

Good morning one and all, I was asked by the lovely ladies here on The Weird Scissors if I fancied doing a blog post for them during the month of October with a Halloween theme.  I was absolutely over the moon to be asked, so it was thinking caps on and what could I do.  Now in the past I've been known to make altered art, art journalling and mixed media, but the year of 2014 has been pretty much wall to wall scrapbooking with the odd mini book thrown in for good measure.   So I thought a Halloween inspired mini book - ready for Halloween festivities.

Now, earlier on in the year I was asked by the lovely Jen over on Wear Crafts to 'design' a mini book for National Scrapbook day.  So this particular mini book is based on that.  It is my own design and  if you fancy having a go yourself there is a downloadable PDF from a post I did on my own blog earlier in the year with lots of photos of step by steps so you can create your own.  If you fancy having a go - then click here for the post with the PDF instructions - I promise you it's really easy and doesn't use mammoth amounts of items.

This is the mini book from the top, I changed the original instructions slightly as I was being extra frugal with these gorgeous pages.  If you want to know more about these papers then I'll mention them later on!  I inked the edge of the book using a black soot distress ink and cut the paper to size rather than wrapping it around the front and back of the book as it were.

Inside I had lots of fun decorating the pages.  The book is a blend of pages and pockets!

Up close you can see how I've used some of the fabulous 'elements' of these gorgeous gorgeous papers!

Even down to tiny details

The next few photos are samples of the pages and pocket contents, I used versamark and a couple of Halloween stamps on black cardstock for the pocket inserts which are just offcuts of the card from the mini book with rounded corners. 

On some of the pages I used other elements to make the book more cohesive, on this page the letters 'een' (from the word 'Halloween') appeared on the left hand side and I covered this with the words Full Moon which I matted on black cardstock.

I added some little cut out 'monsters' and words

I have to say the full sheet of these ghostly characters were cute, but they got cuter (if that was possible), when I started cutting them out.

Adding the odd word

Leaving some as just the papers

So if you like what you see, have a go, if you have already got some unused Halloween papers 'lurking' that you've been meaning to 'use up' then grab them now, download the PDF and get making, the book is 4 sheets of 12 x 12 cardstock, 6 sheets of double sided papers, an offcut of card for the spine and a little bit of grey board.

If you want to get your hands on these specific papers, I'm reliably informed by Jen that she actually has some left (which amazes me as they are so cute, they are also double sided, so don't forget to double click to see the other side as it were and at 50p per sheet a bargain to boot!) - check out the link here

Now just to show you the final bit of 'versatility' of these papers - I had some scraps left and managed to create myself this 12 x 12 page using a sheet of white card stock, some existing masks and stamps I'd got, strips of the paper and that little cute ghostly figure!

Thank you ever so much for popping by today and thank you to the lovely Weird Scissor girls for inviting me along, catch you later

Virginia