Only 58 days until Halloween!

We are getting really close to Halloween so it seemed like the perfect time to roll out a Halloween themed monthly kit at Alpha Stamps. I had the honor of designing the collage sheets for the kit and it was so much fun... I made an extra one (not in the kit). It is called Little Demons and has lots of sweet demons to add to your Halloween crafting. (Just imagine making a cute banner or wreath with these cuties!)

I made a couple of ATCs with the kit components and some of the new things hitting the website today...

The card above uses the awesome Bat Border ATC Card that comes in the kit along with collage sheets, paper, ribbon and tiny buttons, oh my!

 I used the new Dragon Arch ATC Card for this one, and I really love how it looks :)

Both ATC cards were designed by Leslie, Alpha Stamps owner extraordinaire!

If you'd like to see a list of all the goodies I used on my ATCs, click here. 

But, WAIT!!!

There's a rumor going around that Alpha Stamps is having a Halloween SWAP!!!

I'm not sure of the details, myself, but, I bet you could find out by going here.

a Wizard's potion making table...

As Summer nears I always start thinking about Halloween because I love making creepy, spooky, magical and/or fantastical art. So, a couple of months ago, I started designing a Dragon Table that sort of morphed into the Gryphon Table you see here. The table is really easy to glue together and would be fabulous in a Medieval dungeon as well as in a modern library.

I painted my table black and dry brushed white over the top to add a bit of depth and interest. I also used four mushroom plugs as feet to give the table more height. The table comes with a thin chipboard "veneer" that glues onto the top that I chose to cover with a great distressed paper from the Tim Holtz Materialize 8x8 Paper Stash pad.

I made up a bunch of potion bottles using a couple of collage sheets and lots of bottles from the many choices available at Alpha Stamps. Some of the bottles are just beads with bead stoppers, but they do look like real bottles :) The boxes and books were made using collage sheets as well. It always amazes me that so many things can be created with just paper and glue and a little imagination.

My fancy wizard's wand is made out of a painted toothpick with a bit of washi tape on the end. I used Finnabair Art Extravagance Patina Effect Paste Set to color the Mini Scale with Weights so it wasn't so brightly gold. The candles were sculpted out of polymer clay. And, the skull is the Cast Metal Skull - White that is available at Alpha Stamps. I just painted it with dark brown acrylic paint and dry brushed white acrylic paint over it when it was dry.

I really like the way my wizard potion making table turned out. It looks like it was complicated and time consuming to make but it really wasn't. The labels are easily glued onto the bottles with white glue. There's a tutorial for making the books and anyone can paint a miniature table :) I hope you will make one of your own, come on you know you want to!
To see my supply list go here.

packing for a trip to Transylvania...

I've been really intrigued by miniature luggage lately, as Alpha Stamps has several new laser cut luggage options. After making up several of the pieces (okay... one of each), I realized I had a lovely matching set of luggage and had to make a room box to showcase it...

I'm a Goth at heart so my luggage and room box is certainly creepy enough to house a miniature girly vampire packing up her gear for a trip to Transylvania (hence, the title of this post). Boy do I love black, white and red together! It's so striking and works well with skulls and taxidermy too.

I had to paint all of my hardware black to match the paper I used but it was well worth the effort. Speaking of painting... I painted all of my furniture, too, and it was really easy to do.

 First I carefully stripped off all of the upholstery so I could reuse it.

Next I removed the glue residue with Goof Off.

Then I used the same technique I used on the furniture in Rose Ella's reading room to complete the task. I love how it turned out and I wish I had time to make over some of my life size furniture, lol.

 The base of my room box is two Corner Room Boxes that I glued together...

 I filled the gap in with a bit of Apoxie Sculpt Clay.

Once you cover the whole thing with paper, you can't even tell it's been cobbled together. Note: The paper I used is several years old and no longer available :(

 When I build a miniature scene in a room box, I like to add the pieces I plan to use slowly and move them around until I find just the right balance...

 I usually glue everything down, but, this time I decided to use Museum Wax to fix the pieces in place so I could redecorate later if I want to :)

 The Steamer Trunk looked really naked on top so I added a playful kitty...

 and some books and letters...

 Pretty soon the whole thing was nicely full and cozy.

By the way, I created a collage sheet with drawers for the new Steamer Trunk but I ended up using them inside out because they clashed with my black and white damask exterior paper, lol.

I hope you enjoyed my post today and are inspired to make your own room box or a set of little luggage or both! Here's a link to my supply list. Now go create something awesome!