Halloween Bat House

Hello everyone, and Happy October!  Can you believe it?  Halloween is almost here, and then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas.  I cannot believe how time is flying.  Needless to say, I am so enjoying playing with my wonderful Halloween stamps from Sin City Stamps.  And to top it all off, our sponsor this month is The Robin's Nest.  So we get to share some fun ideas using these wonderful papers and great stamps all in one project. 

I got this wonderful Sizzix 3D Birdhouse die designed by Eileen Hull.  I knew I wanted to make something with it for Halloween, so I decided that the bats of the world needed a place to live.  Hence, by Halloween Bat House came to be.  

Supplies Used:

Sin City Stamps:  Halloween Bingo. 

The Robin's Nest Papers:  Black and White Clock, Black Glitter Swirl on White, Black Classic Glitter, Pink Crackle Glitter, Black Bats Glitter, Purple Bats Glitter

3D Birdhouse die (Sizzix-Eileen Hull)

Sizzix Scoreboard (white)

Cobwebs die, Vintage Lace die (Sizzix-Tim Holtz)

Dylusions Ink Sprays:  Fresh Lime, Squeezed Orange, After Midnight, White Linen

Distress Markers:  Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Rusty Hinge, Spiced Marmalade, Black Soot

Circle punches:  1-3/4", 5/8"

3D Crystal Lacquer (Sakura)

Terri Spoul's Mixers:  Copper Penny, Citrine Pearl, Violet Pearl (Sakura)

Dusty Concord distress ink (Ranger-Tim Holtz)

Distrress Crackle Paint-Rock Candy (Ranger-Tim Holtz)

Halloween washi tape (Recollections)

Black and White paper roses (Paper Studio)

Pink Gemstones (Paper Studio)

Autumn bead garland (JoAnn's)

Helmar 450 Glue

Directions:

Adhere Black Glitter Swirl on White cardstock to scoreboard.  Die cut birdhouse pieces.

Spray After Midnight and White Linen over roof, Squeezed Orange and Fresh Lime over house sides, and Fresh Lime over bottom piece.

Punch one of the smallest clock faces from Black and White Clock card stock with the 1-3/4" punch, and use the 5/8" punch to remove the center piece.  Spray with Fresh Lime.  Save the center piece for an embellishment.

Adhere to front of birdhouse.  Make sure your twelve o'clock is straight up.  

Adhere house sides and bottom together and add green washi tape to edges.  Color the bottom of the roof overhang with Dusty Concord distress ink.  Attach roof to house.

Die cut cobwebs from Black Classic Glitter card stock and adhere to one half of the roof top.  Add a small portion of the cob webs across the front of the roof.

Add a thick coat of Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint over the clock face and allow to dry.

Now for some bats for my bat house.  Do you see any bats?  There are no bats on this plate.  What to do, what to do.  Oh yes, I see exactly what I need to make a really cool bat!  I am going to use the wings from the winged skeleton and make a bat.  Here's how I did it.

Stamp just the upper portion of the winged skeleton, circle spider, and the skeleton key with Versamark ink onto Black Classic Glitter card stock.  

Lightly brush Citrine Pearl and Copper Penny over the wings.  

Add 3D Crystal Lacquer to seal the powder and give a bit of dimension, then cut them out when the lacquer dries.  

The same technique was used by for the key and spider.  After stamping with Versamark, brush on 

Violet Pearl and Copper Penny over the key, and Copper Penny over the spider.  Brush away excess with a soft brush.   Seal with a layer of 3D Crystal Lacquer and cut out.

Cut the wings in half and layer one over the other, then layer the key over the wings to form your bat.

 Okay, I have my large bat, but I need some tiny bats to fly around the house.  Cut out three tiny glitter bats from the Black Bats Glitter and Purple Bats Glitter.  Adhere to tiny pieces of the Autumn garland, then to the house sides, as shown.

Spritzed white paper roses with Fresh Lime Dylusions.  Adhere pink gemstones and roses to the sides of the house, as shown above.

Cut Pink Crackle Glitter with Vintage Lace die.  Adhere one of the lace strips to the top of the roof.  Add the stamped spider in circle.

I decided I needed a protector for the bat house, so I stamped the winged skeleton image with the distress markers, heat set the image, sponged Antique Linen around the image to knock down the white paper,  added Firefly stickles to his wings, and fussy cut him out.  

I then adhered my "sentry" to the back of the house. 

Here are a couple of close-up side views for you.

 I hope you enjoyed my little altered bird, er, uh, I mean bat house today.  And I want to take this opportunity to remind you that our Halloween blog hop is coming up right here in less than two weeks.  I hope you will join us for all of the fun Halloween inspiration, as well as some really good prizes, too.  So, save the date, October 12,  for this spectacular Halloween event.

As always, I am so glad you stopped by today.  I hope I have inspired you to visit the Sin City Stamps online store and blog to see what is on offer, and what the rest of the design team are "brewing" up for us this month.  

Happy October to all!

Barbara

Viva Las Vegas Stamps Button Fairy Swap

Earlier this month, I participated in Viva Las Vegas Stamps' button fairy swap.  If you would like to see all of the button fairies created by the fabulous designers who participated in the swap , click here.  Here is my finished button fairy.

Directions:
Die cut Silhouette butterfly solid wings (2) from black card stock.  Re-size to fit your stamp image, if necessary.
Die cut Silhouette images leaf tribal (2), and damask leaf(2) from kraft glassine.

Resize both leaf images to fit inside the butterfly wing, as shown.

Paint one butterfly die cut with charcoal acrylic paint.  Let dry.

Dab mixture of fine crackle medium and Copper Penny mixer with a textured (boat/auto) sponge.  Be generous with the crackle medium.

Heat with heat gun until the mixture is dry and bubbly.

Apply Memento black ink pad over the wing to bring out the bubbly texture.  Photo below shows ink applied to one side only so you can see the difference.

Add Terri Sproul's Mixers in Copper Penny and Green Pearl to glaze medium and sponge over kraft glassine wings.  Let dry.

Glue each piece to large solid wing, as shown in the next four photos.

Stamp Vintage Fan Lady on Balloon onto white cardstock with black archival ink.

Stamp portions of the Vintage Fan Lady on Balloon image onto Teresa Collins printed card stock, as shown.

Partially color the whole image (left) with Copic markers and cut out entire image.  Then fussy cut each patterned paper piece, as shown on the right.

Lay pieces onto a piece of fun foam and emboss each of the pieces with a large ball stylus tool to "cup" them, giving them some dimension.

Adhere each printed, embossed piece over the whole image, using foam dots or a dimensional glue.  Glue your "dimensionalized" balloon lady to the center of the wings.  See close up photo below.

Now it's time to make the button tail for the fairy.  I used 22 gauge bronze colored wire, cut to approximately 12" long.  I made a wrapped loop at the bottom, and threaded my buttons onto the wire from the bottom up.

I measured the height of my balloon lady, in this case it was approximately 4", and made a larger loop in the wire for hanging.  I used Helmar 450 glue to adhere the wire to the back of the solid wing.

This is how it should look on the back.

To finish off the back, I adhered the second solid black wing over the wire to give it a nice, clean look.

I added meal gears to some of the buttons, and hung some charms from the bottom loop.

Here is a closeup of the hanging loop at the top, which can be bent out of sight.  I also added a tiny bit of pearl paint to the hat.

Supplies used:

Viva Las Vegas Stamp Vintage Fan Lady on Balloon (Large)
Terri Sproul Mixers (Copper Penny, Green Pearl) (Sakura)
Paper Studio Black cardstock (Hobby Lobby)
Tim Holtz Kraft Glassine paper
Teresa Collins 6x6 paper pad - Sweet Afternoon
Gala Glitz Teal (Art Institute Glitter)
Designer Dries Clear Adhesive (Art Institute Glitter)
Silhouette die cutting machine
Silhouette digital images (Echo Park butterfly wing, leaf tribal, damask leaf)
Ceramcoat Charcoal acrylic paint
Pool Smooch Ink (Clearsnap)
Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad
Distress Ink pad (Antique Linen)
Viva Decor Pearl Pen (Ice White, Lavender)
Copic Markers (E21, E02, R81, B00, YG23, V12, Y06)
Martha Stewart Fine Crackle Effect medium (Michaels)
Martha Stewart Tintable Antique Effect medium (Michaels)
Martha Stewart Tintable Glaze Effect medium (Michaels)
American Crafts glitter buttons  (Earth Tones)
Wings charms (Bead Landing Found Objects)
22 gauge bronze wire

I hope you have enjoyed my button fairy project today.   Thanks for stopping by, and as always, have a wonderful week.

Barbara

Leslie-Rahye's International Fairy Day Blog Hop

Hello everyone, and welcome to the International Fairy Day Blog Hop, hosted by the one and only Leslie-Rahye!  The hop starts at Leslie-Rahye's blog.  I am so glad you are here today.  I think you are going to enjoy all of the fun fairy creations by all of the bloggers.

I recently participated in an altered book swap.  There were eight participants, and each month, we each swapped and worked in each other's books.  If a participant had a particular theme, we created something we thought was in keeping with the theme.  The theme for this particular book was "all things with wings".  Of course, I knew I had to use fairies.  I also like to sometimes work outside of the book, and so, what you are seeing is my "tip in" page.

A "tip in" page is simply an extra page that you work on, decorate, and when finished, glue into the spine of the book.  The white strips in the photos of pages 1 and 4 are adhesive strips with the paper covering still on it.  I used this (and some Helmar 450 glue) to adhere the page into my friend's book.

So, how did I do this?  I first measured my friend's book pages.  Then I cut my 12x12 double-sided Prima print paper to measure the same.  It is made just like a card, cut to size and folded in half.  So, each individual page in this book measured 9" tall by 6" wide, so I cut my paper 9" tall by 12" wide.  Before decorating, I made an additional score line 1/4" on either side of the center fold, and that is where I placed my adhesive strip.  I also felt that the score line would help the page open and close after insertion into the spine.  You could, of course, do this as a single page, and I would still make that extra score line to help the page open and close.

Imagine this page inside of a book.  This is the first page you would come to.  This is the reverse side of the print paper, so pages 1 and 4 are simply polka dots.  Everything else was fussy cut from some of the other sheets and added as individual elements to make my own fairy land.  I believe this technique is called paper tole.  With the help of Helmar 450 glue, I was able to glue and keep the dimension I wanted with each piece.  I used a large ball tip embossing tool to round my fairy and her dress.  With the help of pop dots and more Helmar 450 glue, I layered her on top of the mushroom, which was also fussy cut and placed behind flowers.

I added punched branches, a butterfly with pearls, and gold rub ons.  I also added the flower trim to the bottom of her dress, which was the edging on a much wider piece of ribbon.  That was a bit tricky, but do-able.  I absolutely love the result.  More tiny pearls were added to her dress, neckline and hands.

Front page 1

These are the inside pages, just like the inside of a card.  It is hard to see in this picture, but the butterfly is placed onto a piece of clear acetate to pop it off of the page, right in the crease.  I call it my floating butterfly.  Again, everything was fussy cut, shaped, embossed, and glued dimensionally to the page.  I also added some gorgeous Prima flowers and plastic bead flowers from my local craft store.

Inside pages 2 and 3

The lovely verse on the label shape reads as follows:

Follow me 

little birdie 

and I will 

show you 

how to fly 

and be free.

Again, the same process to make page 1 was used to make this page.  

Back page 4

I took this side view to try to show the dimensional aspect of the pages, and if you look closely, you will see my acetate pop up to make my butterfly "float".  You remember  when Mohammed Ali coined the phrase, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee".  I love making floating butterflies.  Whether in a card or, in this case, a book, it is so fun for me to see the look on my recipient's face when the butterfly pops out at them.

side view close-up

Supplies used:

Prima 12 x12 paper - Fairy Belle Collection

En Pointe

Firefly

Summer Dream

Martha Stewart punch:  Branch, Butterfly, Bird

Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam:  Chandelier

Helmar 450 glue

Clearsnap Design Adhesives-Butterflies

Embellishments:  pearl stickers, Prima flowers, plastic flowers, handmade leaves, tiny roses, Frantage mica chips 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you are enjoying the hop and will be sure to visit each blog to get your fairy inspiration.  I have added all of the links to each blog below.  Please be sure to leave each of us some love in the way of a comment.  I would love for you to follow me, too.  There will be some blog candy along the way.  So good luck, and have a wonderful, creative week.  

Barbara

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