#1 Creepy Crawly!

Once again, it's been longer than ever between blog posts.  I feel sorry for anyone who may be checking this blog regularly as they must be bored out of their brains!!!  Hopefully that's about to end.  I'm getting my creative mojo back and I impressed myself yesterday when I created a whole double layout in the one day.

For those of you who are snake-phobic - like me! - you may want to stop reading now, or maybe just pretend the photos aren't there.  I am absolutely petrified of snakes, but this one was such a stunning colour that I had to get his photo.  I felt very proud of myself as I bravely stood fairly close (on the other side of a chainlink fence) from this snake and took photo after photo.

OK, so I raided the store for the materials for this....literally....I think I may have had the ric-rac and the fragment charm already, but that's about it.  I even took a roll of 1/8" roll of wondertape to stick down the ric-rac...now's as good a time as any to say that it is PERFECT for ric-rac. 

The papers used are from Making Memories Toil & Trouble range.  I wanted to make something with Halloween paper to show that you don't have to be into Halloween to have fun with it.  I don't believe in Halloween in Australia as it's not our tradition, but it's becoming more popular so who am I to complain.

I used a total of 4 sheets of paper for the 2 pages - 2 sheets of Pumpkins, 1 of Spider Web and 1 of Playing Cards.  I really like how the cut out playing cards embellish the page!  I've also used Core'dinations Black Magic with a yellow core. 

On the left hand page the Core'dinations was scrunched, sanded and the edges distressed...how fun is that when you can totally destroy a piece of card, including unintentionally ripping it, and then think it's a work of art???  The Core'dination piece on the right behind the large photo has had the edges ripped and then using the Tim Holtz Retractable Craft Scratcher I scratched around the inside edges.  The Craft Scratcher was also used to distress the headshot of the snake that was cut using Nestabilities dies into an octagon.  Another piece of Core'dinations was used as a mat for the photo (aren't Nestabilities great how you can just go up a size to create the same shape mat?).

The word "Creepy" is using the Jillibean Soup Corrugated Alphas.  I also rubbed metalic rubons (available soon in the store) across the ridges of the alphas to enhance them and make them sparkle a little.  the word "Crawly" is using Fancy Pants Road Show Alphas (sorry, I used the last sheet in stock, but other varieties are available!).  The torn strips of paper have had the edges distressed with Tim Holtz Distress Inks and then to finish off I gave sprayed Glimmermist Hulla Hoop over both pages.  I thought it was a suitably evil colour for a snake!

On the left page, I've added 2 Dream Street Superstition die cuts.  I thought the saying "forget the ghosts...beware of me" was very fitting for a snake!  "You're BOO-tiful" has been mounted on a Fragment Charm which has been coloured with alcohol inks and the diecut has been covered in Glossy Accents.   The final touch was to use a remaining piece of Black Magic Core'dinations, wrong-side up, which has been cut out using Nestabilities and a couple of brads.

That's it!  I'm amazed at how much I did use on this layout.  It looks so simple until you write it all down.  I hope you like it and I hope the subject didn't scare you too much....

I see that in my previous blog (in March) that I promised some blog candy.  I'll see what I can scrounge from the shop and put something up soon!  Keep checking back and I hope I can fulfil my promise of more regular blogging.