Whimsy Stamps

I just discovered a new stamp company today called Whimsy Stamps. It is brand new and doesn't have a web site yet so it only has a few stamps available for pre-order. The stamps are of cute style animals but are not sickly sweet in style. The are animals with attitude. So far there is a duck, a frog and a turtle. Can't wait to see what else they have in store. To learn more take a look at http://denisesstampingpage.blogspot.com/

This is another ATC challenge. The theme this month is Time. I made a shaker ATC with mechanical cogs cut from card on the inside. Then I added some micro beads as the Sands of Time. I hope whoever wins it will enjoy it.

Inching towards Christmas

I signed up for a swap of inchie Christmas ornaments. I thought it was such a great idea that I couldn't resist. So here are my attempts - decorated with jewels and silver plated wire. Hopefully the other participants will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Crafty at Halloween

Just some pictures of the results of my Halloween crafting. I saw some 3D pumpkin stickers for sale somewhere and thought them very expensive for what they were. So I whipped out my Sizzix die cut pumpkins and made some of my own. I took a yellow pumpkin and an orange one, cut a pumpkin face on the orange one and stuck them together with 3D foam. I thought they were kinda cute. I did the same thing with the ghosts but instead of using a black die cut I drew around the white ghost onto black card, cut it out then stuck the two together. That way the black card shows through the while die cut's eyes.

I also made some inchies, decorated some paperclips with rubber stamped and cutout images and made some mini embossed envelopes. Forgot to photograph the envelopes though. Doh!

Happy Halloween

So, the witching hour has arrived and the spooky photos have been taken away buy the goblins. I hope everyone had fun using them. Thank you to everyone who left a comment and I hope you will come back and leave another if you use any of the photos.

This year's Halloween will be quieter for me than most. My sister and I usually spend the evening together watching spooky movies, eating Halloween nibbles and having a laugh. However, she moved house today so, understandably, she is sorting out her new flat. Instead I will watch creepy movies on my own while doing some Halloween crafting. Later I will read some of my favourite Halloween author - H.P. Lovecraft. I have a huge tome of his work, 900 pages bound in black leather with gold lettering on the cover. A beautiful book and suitably Halloweeny.

I hope everyone else has a great time.

Peek-a-boo

It is definitely autumn now. The trees turned yellow quite quickly. Unfortunately the gales we get at this time of year started just after the leaves turned so they all get blasted off the trees and the colours are very short lived. Fungi is lacking too. I love the shapes of toadstools and mushrooms. They are sculptural, swooping curves and glorious colours. But with so few around right now I do not get much chance to draw them. Perhaps there will be a few more later in the autumn.

I have added a few pics here of inchies I made for a recent swap. Lots of doggies this time. I also made a tiny papercut woodland scene. Unfortunately I did not stick it down straight so one of the trees look slightly wonky. There are a few extra beads, some of which I put on Etsy. I also drew a colour pencil badger - Peek-a-boo Badger. I am slowly getting the hang of coloured pencils. Still got a way to go though.

Etsy

I have an Etsy shop! I have been working on stocking it this week and currently have 12 items listed including text pages from British books. What's more, I have already had two sales. It was such a wonderful surprise to have a sale just two days after uploading my first items.

I am hoping that this store will take off a little better than my last attempt at online sales. My last shop got no traffic from the people who said thousands of people went through the store every week. It frequently crashed and then disappeared without any notice. I was not amused. I will be adding more things as I create them and hope to even add some of my art. If you would like to take a look the link is http://gillianmcmurray.etsy.com/

Free spooky images

It's my birthday this week. To mark the occasion I am giving anyone who wants the opportunity to use some of my Halloween themed photos in their art. But beware! On the 31st of October - Halloween - they will disappear into the mists of time, be eaten by zombies or just be removed from the web site. Catch 'em while you can. The photos were taken in the area around my home then manipulated in a photo editing suite to look all spooky.

I would just like to add that these photos are copyright to Gillian McMurray 2008. Please do not use them to produce your own collage sheets for sale. They are for your personal use only. I would love to see any art you produce with them so feel free to come back and leave a comment with a link to your photos.

Edited 31st October 2008 - I had so many wonderful comments that I did not want to loose them. So I managed to just remove the pictures and keep the body of the post.

Success of the pumpkins

My pumpkin ATC was chosen for the front page of the Art Techniques ATC group today. What a great surprise. It was made with Color Wash sprayed watercolour paper, 2 hand carved pumpkin stamps, distress ink and Perfect Pearls.

Bun fun

Marilyn at The Creative Wabbit suggested trying the alcohol ink and UTEE technique on drawing pins/push pins. So I did. It worked beautifully. I used an extra coating of UTEE this time (making it three) as I also added some tiny beads to the tops. They make a very pretty addition to any pin board.

I also did some more needle felting and this little guy emerged.