Challenge: Spooky

As I sit and sip coffee from my Nightmare Before Christmas mug, I ponder all the spooky crafty possibilities. From stitching up a monstrous creation to making a sweet little trick or treat sign, embracing my dark side for some steampunk with edge to simply making something with a lot of black and grey – this week let’s embrace the spooky.

As soon as spooky was mentioned Tracy knew she had to indulge in a little Halloween fun.

I have a collection building up at the side of my desk of new products yet to be used, old products not used for a while and a few gifts from generous blogging friends, so for this challenge I decided to use a mix of all these elements. I wanted to use the Tim Holtz Laboratorie Paper Stash, I have not used the Umbrella Man Die for such a long time and also wanted to incorporate that in some way in my spooky piece. I also had a board leftover from Wendy Vecchi’s Art Parts Film Strip Frame and this made the perfect base for my design.

Halloween is one of Candy’s favorite holidays for creating vintage home decor pieces. Check out her new “Spooky” frame!

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Being a little “vintage” myself, I prefer the decorations of my childhood; the predominantly orange and black cardboard witch faces, jointed skeletons, humped back black cats and creepy spiders. Tim Holtz Halloween die cuts Headstone, Candlelight Fright, The Bewitching Hour, Raven and Scaredy Cat provide the perfect Grungeboard cut images to use on my spooky frame. Color washed in Sunset Orange and Dylusions Black Marble Ink Spray and accented with Ranger’s new Mercury Glass Stickles, this frame really has a vintage feel. Check out the whimsical addition of my freaky umbrella (that can be removed) created from Tim Holtz’ Picture Wheel and Tapered Fringe die cuts!

Ashli took her inspiration in the way of color and contrast this week!

I have recently indulged in many of the trendy chalkboard products. But, you know what? I am finding them a bit challenging to use. I think it is the heavy nature of the black colors. I’m not exactly sure. But what I do know is that this is a challenge blog after all, so I am challenging myself to use all things chalky and black for this week’s theme. To begin with, I selected a fun striped paper from Polka Dot Party. I then gathered some of my My Mind’s Eye Chalk Studio goodies and set about layering them all together. The layered chalk labels provided the perfect journaling spot for my White Signo Pen. I certainly needed lots of journaling space for my notes on the first tri-mester! While using these darker products was initially a challenge for me, I am pleased to say that I love the end result!

This week Michelle constructed paper puzzle blocks.

For centuries, puzzle blocks have delighted children of all ages. When arranged properly, a Whatnot Owl eerily appears from these paper toys. Apothecary text and a Bronzer spray keep everything equally spooky.

Anna-Karin made a very spooky shadow box where scary items and creatures are hiding in the dark corners.

I had a Tim Holtz Configurations shadow box waiting to be decorated and thought it was the perfect base for a spooky project. There are lots of little details hiding here and there, ready to be discovered. I used shrink plastic to shrink some stamps and die cuts so that they would fit into the compartments. The Retro Halloween stamps and dies are so much fun and I was also very happy with the finish of the different glass, shrink plastic and grungeboard bottles. Do you dare to peek into those dark corners?

Mona was inspired by the black and grey color combination.

The beautiful scene in the Serenity stamp set was calling to me to create a page in my art journal. To create the page, I combined a variety of mediums such as jet black ink, Black Velvet Color Shine, Tinsel Color Shine and Grunge Paste as well as lots of layers made using Tissue Tape and patterned paper.

Suzz decided to create a vintage cute tag for her spooky project.

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I have been seeing so many beautiful holiday decorations (yes already on display) with a beautiful tarnished brass with a metallic blue colors. Although they aren’t traditional Halloween colors I thought they worked for my sweet vintage witch from the Artistic Outpost Vintage Halloween plate. I also played around with beeswax in the Melt Pot for a different texture along with a touch of gold using Wendy Vecchi’s Gold Embossing Paste.

Meihsia was inspired to make a haunted birdhouse for this Halloween.

I love to alter birdhouses so this week I decided to make a spooky birdhouse to display in my craft room for Halloween. After painting the background with black and orange acrylic paints, I attached all the Halloween elements such as a spider, bat, skull, spider web, branch and pumpkin on this birdhouse. It is so fun to see this finished haunted birdhouse in the night time and my kids think it is really spooky.

Dan took the opportunity to practice a little hat-making on his spooky tag.

Halloween isn’t as big of a “thing” here in the UK as it is in the USA but I have many happy trick-or-treating memories from my Chicago childhood that I channeled into this tag. I was determined to make a tag this week (not that I ever need a lot of persuading) because now that I have a Tim Holtz worn cover and some page pockets I can feel a tagstravaganza coming on! Tim’s Laboratorie paper stash was an obvious starting point, the distressed black and white designs lend themselves so well to a Halloween theme. Among the stamps I used were Tim’s skull and the Spills and Splatters, Mini Halloween and Odds and Ends sets.

Andrea wanted to use her powers of spook to make some ghoulishly delicious Halloween party treats.

Bless my genius chef of a mother, but my skills just don’t reach the kitchen realm. You know that show about being the worst cook in America? Yep. My family encouraged me to apply. Even so, I still have the desire to be involved in seasonal treat-giving. My solution is simple: instead of cooking or baking treats, I rely on the decorations of the treats to earn me brownie points (no pun intended). With eye-catching Halloween collections like Graphic 45’s “Steampunk Spells” and Authentique’s “Thrilling,” and Tim Holtz’s Odds and Ends stamp set, it’s easy to feel like Martha even if you don’t know how to turn the oven on.

I (May) am seriously spooked by how close Christmas is!

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I really can’t believe November is around the corner, and Christmas just behind that. It’s spooky, I tell you! So I called on my stash of Tim Holtz paints, cardstock, and other goodies to get cracking! In fact – Simon Says Stamp even has a Tim Holtz kit and I think that could be just the thing to take my holiday 2013 prep from spooky to jolly.

Sandra Mouwen has a fascination for spooky things, so with Halloween around the corner she can go all out.

Check back here this Wednesday, then I’ll share a tutorial to make some spooky backgrounds with the Gelli Plate, using only 2 colors.

For more inspiration click on our design team’s blog links so you can see more photos (and full supply lists) for their projects. Leave them a little comment love while you’re there so they know how they’ve inspired you too, if you’re so inclined.

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As always, Simon Says Stamp is giving away a $50 gift voucher that will go to a random entry chosen by random generator. To qualify all you need to do is create a new project that ties in (in any way!) with our theme and post it, along with a link back to this challenge, and add a link here. This challenge will end at 11:59pm on Sunday October 27th Eastern time.

We will also be choosing some of our entries to put in the spotlight – a special honor where we talk about why we loved that entry in particular and award a special badge too!

For the full rules, read the “challenge rules” posted in the side-bar here on our blog.

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  1. Fantabulous projects!!! I love them all but got quite a giggle out of May’s- I feel the same way :)

  2. Your DT projects are awesome, just amazing! Thanks for the inspiration – and for another fun challenge! Have a great day!

  3. Yikes! I almost didn’t make it. Thank you for sharing such inspirational pieces and challenges to work on. The DT teams’s variety of projects is great this week. Blessings!

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