12 Days of Creepmas..Christmas yet to come

Day 12 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog, and Santa (or the Hogfather, if you prefer) is limbering up.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

I have to be honest with you.  Once I'd finished playing about with the image on today's project, it did give me a case of the heebie-jeebies.  I've combined the skull from Smeared Ink's Anatomy 101 with an image of Santa and the result is very spooky!

You may know my love for printing on tissue paper by now, and of course, that's what I've done here.  Before I applied the tissue to the bauble with Mod Podge, I gave it a light coat of Judikins Micro Glaze, to help stop the ink from bleeding, but otherwise it's as it came out of the printer.

Quite a big bonus bit today.  It's an animated version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.  I have vivid memories of our teacher reading this to us in class when I was nine years old.  I'm not a big fan of Dickens , but this story I can read again and again.  Today's project made me think of the last of the ghosts that Scrooge meets - see what you think.

Thank you for visiting;  I hope you've enjoyed the hop, and that you have a wonderful festive season. I'm going to have a rest for a bit, and I hope to see you in 2015.
One last visit, now, to Sarah's blog.
Lots of crafty hugs,

Keren

12 days of Creepmas - Solstice

Day 11 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

Today is Yule- the Winter Solstice.   I am pagan, and Yule is our midwinter celebration- (we keep Christmas as a secular festival in our house!).  After the solstice, the days begin getting longer and the Holly King, who rules the year from Midsummer to Midwinter, gives way to the Oak King, who is in charge until the summer solstice.  Today's Springer card honours the Oak King.  At this time of year, the oak leaves have fallen - but mistletoe grows on oak trees so we'll use that instead.

I've used a Green Man  digi from Delicious Doodles (the first one of Teri's digits that I bought!) coloured with alcohol markers and surrounded with mistletoe cut with my Cameo.  I've used self adhesive pearls to stand in for the berries.

If you need to know how to make a springer card, I've put some instructions here.

Today's bonus bit is my favourite seasonal song.  I hope you enjoy Solstice Bells.

I hope that you're enjoying the blog hop so far.  Off you go, now, to Sarah's blog. Thank you for visiting, and I'll see you on Dec 23 for the last day!

12 days of Creepmas- Oh the weather outside is - Frightful!

Day 10 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog, and Santa (or the Hogfather, if you prefer) is limbering up.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

Here's my snow globe.  I love these projects, they are quick and easy to do, and when you get tired of an image it's so easy to change!  I stamped the skull (it's from De Stempelwinkel) in Navy archival.  It was supposed to be black, but I picked up the wrong ink pad.  I masked it off, and then stamped the snowflakes in Versamark and embossed with Frosted Crystal embossing powder.  I blended Salty Ocean, Stormy Sky and Tattered Rose over the top.

If you want to see how I made the stand, it's back here.

Today's bonus bit is THE Christmas album song.  I saw Slade play live twice - once in 1971, when they were just getting well-known, and again a couple of years ago.  They were brilliant both times, and I'm making no apologies for sharing this.   Someone once asked Noddy Holder (lead singer of Slade) if he got tired of hearing "Merry Christmas Everybody" being played every year.  He replied, "Are you kidding?  That song's my pension!"

Off you go, now, to Sarah's blog. Thank you for visiting, and I'll see you on Dec 21, for Yule!

12 Days of Creepmas - Holly Jolly Christmas

Day 9 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

A nice shiny bauble today, adorned with a skull digi from Smeared  Ink's Anatomy 101.  I've added a jolly hat (I used Photoshop) printed it onto tissue (sorry, it just wasn't possible to get through a blog hop without getting tissue paper in there somewhere) and applied it to the bauble with Mod Podge.  I gave it a coat of Judikins Micro Glaze before I podged it to stop the ink from bleeding.

Today's bonus bit is from a 1960's animated feature,  "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".  It used to be shown on TV at Christmas quite regularly when I was growing up.  When one of my nieces was quite small she burst into floods of tears while watching it because the other reindeer wouldn't play with Rudolph.  It took us some time to console her.

Anyway, this is "Holly Jolly Christmas", as sung by Burl Ives.  Hope you enjoy it.

Off you go, now, to Sarah's blog. Thank you for visiting, and I'll see you on Dec 19.

12 days of Creepmas - Boxing clever

We're up to day 8 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

Today's project begins with a little wallet, decorated with a Tonic die-cut

Inside we have this pop-up cube-

You can get a better idea of the way it works in this Vine -


It features my favourite little season skull digi from Delicious Darkness (so happy Teri's digis will still be available from Smeared Ink after the end of the year!)    I made four identical toppers, one for each face of the cube (the top and bottom faces are split)

The pattern can be found on my Templates and Cutting files page. I made this example quite small, but if you wanted a bigger cube you could resize the pattern.  To make the box pop, you need to attach an elastic band between the small dots - sewing in place is recommended, but I've also been known to pull the elastic through to the outside and push a little bit of cocktail stick through the loop, then glue it down.  If you do that , you will need to raise the toppers up on some foam tape.

Today's bonus bit is a few years old now, so some of the topical references ..well, aren't... but it still makes me smile.

I hope that you're enjoying the blog hop so far.  Off you go, now, to Sarah's blog. Thank you for visiting, and I'll see you on Dec 17!

12 days of Creepmas - Ho Ho Poe

Day 7 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, and  the Smeared and Smudged blog hop.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

'Tis the time of year when we light candles, whether they are real or battery-powered, so for today's contribution I've chosen a pillar candle which I have adorned with the face of Edgar Allen Poe, master of the Tale of Mystery and Imagination.  It's a digi from Rick St Denis (and if you just came for Airless Chambers you're familiar with RSD!)  printed onto tissue paper and applied with a heat gun.

To add to the -er- festive mood, I've die-cut some poinsettias out of black card and dabbed on some gold paint.

This year is the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas.  Swansea, where I live, was his birthplace The park in the poem "The Hunchback in the Park" is just up the hill from us.  His short story " A child's Christmas in Wales" is a classic.  So here it is, as today's bonus bit.  (It's quite a long one so you might want to come back to it!)

So, on you go to Sarah's blog, and I'll see you for Day 8 on the 15th!

Keren

12 Days of Creepmas - Book him, Danno!

Well, here we are on day 6 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog - halfway there.  If you're following the Smeared and Smudged Blog Hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

Today's project is a little box.  It features this GREAT stamp  - Gaudete - from Visible Image

It's a sizeable stamp - one of their background stamps - and much too big for the little fake book (which is made out of chipboard, a kitchen towel roll, string and faux leather -see the Snapguide for how it was constructed) - so I stamped it onto shrink plastic.  The frame is a Tonic die (one of the Keepsakes range).  I covered the sides of the book-box with modelling paste and ran an old bank card through it to make the "pages"

Inside it's lined with "William Morris" style paper.  You could put a Creepmas gift inside...something suitable..

Today's bonus bit is "Gaudete" from Steeleye Span - partly because the words are on the stamp, and partly because  the song was in the charts my first year in college - happy memories!  (The rather scratchy quality is deliberate!)

Onward, now, to Sarah's blog.  See you on Dec 13 for the next offering!

12 Days of Creepmas - Ho Ho Ho

Day 5 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

If you've been playing along with the blog hop from the beginning, you may remember that on Day 2 I was inspired by Hogfather, a book by Terry Pratchett (which has also been made into a TV movie).  Today, we have the Hogfather himself (well, actually, it's the Death of the Discworld who is filling in for the Hogfather.

The plastic skull was antiqued for Halloween and never made the cut - but we don't throw good elements away, do we?  The beard and fur on his hat are Martha Stewart paper clay - there's an Amaco mould of faces (dolls, cherubs etc) and one of them is a Santa face.  While the clay was still soft I cut away the hat and beard (sorry Santa - hope I'm not on the naughty list as a result!)  and shaped them over the skull while they set, then glued them in place and added some red crepe paper to finish the hat.  The Death of the Discworld books has blue glowing eye sockets, so I stuck a couple of blue rhinestones in place.

Last month's Craft Stamper magazine cover mount stamp (by Visible Image) went to make the HO.  HO.  HO along the top of the bauble.  I stamped it onto cellophane (packaging material!)  and stuck it to the bauble with double-sided adhesive film scraps, left over from another project.  (I am not so much frugal as downright tight sometimes!)

I stuck the skull into the bauble with epoxy putty (the stuff they sell for mending pipes - I wanted a fast set, and Milliput takes a while to go off) which wasn't the most attractive look.  Once it was set I painted it white and stuck on some fake snow, as sold for decoration at Christmas.

It's now joined the Raven bauble and the Scary Fairy on my Christmas tree.

Today's bonus bit is from Hogfather.  Well, it had to be, didn't it?

I hope that you're enjoying the blog hop so far.  Off you go, now, to Sarah's blog. Thank you for visiting, and I'll see you on Dec 9!

Keren

12 Days of Creepmas - The Scary on the Christmas Tree

It's day 4 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

Today I present - the Scary on the Christmas tree!

Well, it's more of a dark angel really...

I gave this Halloween decoration a coat of acrylic paint to use in a 31 days of Halloween project that never got made -  and then my husband said " You should make a Scary for the Christmas Tree..."

The wings are a stamp from Sheena Douglass - they're a good size and worked perfectly with the skelly.  The robe is just a bit of Angel hair (appropriately!) and the gold star is a bit left over from another project.

Today's bonus bit is a song from The Springfields - Bambino.  I loved this as a child - in fact, I was a big fan of the Springfields and was quite upset when they split up.  I hope you enjoy it too!

Thank you for visiting.  If you're working your way around the blog hop, please move on to Sarah's blog.  See you on Dec 9 for the next offering!

Bye for now!

Keren

12 days of Creepmas - Bearing gifts

Day 3 of the 12 Days of Creepmas, according to the Smeared and Smudged blog.  If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

 If you followed this blog during the 31 Days of Halloween, you might remember me mentioning a visit to the Harry Potter studios.  There's an awesome shop where you can buy almost everything Hogwarts (husband came away with a set of Slytherin robes and a wand...don't ask...) and I bought a chocolate frog, mainly because it came in a smashing five-sided box.  (The frog was a substantial piece of very nice chocolate.  I had to eat it...husband isn't keen on chocolate.)

Anyway, I deconstructed the box and made my own template - if you look on my Templates page you can find a PDF or SVG version.

The skull digi came from Delicious Darkness - I'm so happy that we'll still be able to get Teri's art next year.  For a while there it looked as if changes to the tax laws were going to force her to quit.  Luckily for us, she's joined the team of artists at Smeared Ink (whew!)  The colour in the photo has come out a bit wonky - in real life the yellow highlight on the skull are much more subtle.   The star on top of the box is die-cut from soft gold card, and the border around the base of the box is a bit of ribbon from the stash, which I'd totally forgotten about and found when I was looking for something else (which I still haven't found.  You win some and you lose some.)

As promised, every day I'm sharing something that I associate with Christmas or the festive season.  Today's bonus bit always makes me laugh.  Hope you enjoy as much as I do!

Onward, now, to Sarah's blog.  See you on Dec 7 for the next offering!

Bye for now!

Keren

12 Days of Creepmas - What's so special about Robins anyway?

It's the second day of Creepmas according to the  Smeared and Smudged blog hop. If you're following the hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go back to the start, or work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

Today's offering features a Smeared Ink digi.  The set is no longer available as a digi, which is sad, because it's just SOOO easy to flip an image so that the raven is double-sided.  He's stuck onto some acetate (cut from packaging - regular visitors to this blog may be aware of my penchant for making use of packaging material) and then glued inside a clear bauble with a bit of fake snow.  Yes, he will be going on the tree when it goes up!

The inspiration for this deccie came from a book by Terry Pratchett, Hogfather.  It was also made for TV a few years ago.  In the book, a raven is employed by the Death of Rats to act as interpreter - the Death of Rats communicates by saying SQUEAK, which the raven, being a naturally occult bird, can understand.  It is a bit resentful that robins get to appear on greetings cards and ravens - don't.  The raven was cut from the programme, but Rat Death made an appearance, so here he is in today's bonus bit.

Hope you enjoyed - now, if you're working your way around the hop, it's on to Sarah's blog.  See you on December 5th!

Bye for now!

12 days of Creepmas - Marley was dead

Hello everyone, and can you believe it?  It's December already, and here we go with the 12 days of Creepmas.

If you're following the Smeared and Smudged Blog Hop in order, (see here for more about how to play!) you've arrived here from Airless Chambers.  If you're lost, or have come in halfway, you can go work your way through in any order - the blog roll is over there on the right.

Today's project was inspired by the part in A Christmas Carol where Scrooge arrives at his front door to find the doorknocker has taken on the shape of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley.  I die- cut the door out of black woodgrain paper and rubbed a bit of pan pastel over the top to make the grain visible (black on black is not necessarily a good idea).  The wreath is made up from the Wondrous Wreath stamp set from Stampin' Up!   (I am  so pleased that it's now possible to shop online!) - and cut with the matching dies.  ( The magnetic platform for my Big Shot was worth every penny!) .  The skull is moulded out of Martha Stewart paper clay and the door knocker is a plastic curtain ring.  (I might as well say here and now I made a few copies of the skull while I was at it so you may be seeing it again as the month wears on!)

Because it's Christmas, as well as the usual crafty bloggingness, I'm including a "bonus bit" - something that I've enjoyed and want to share.  Today's bonus bit is from A Muppet Christmas Carol - it's Marley and Marley!

I hope you've been entertained!  If you're following the blog hop, please proceed in an orderly fashion to  Sarah's blog, and I'll see you here on December 3.

Bye for now,

Keren