All Hallows Eve Layout

So I've been absent for a bit now - a combination of holidays and some strange bug I picked up a few weeks ago - but I am feeling a little better at last and managed to finish off this layout using some Twiddleybitz chippy and the new All Hallows Eve range from Carta Bella. Although it is a themed range, you can use it to produce non-halloween layouts - such as this one of DS2 and his love of a strange, online comic called 'Cyanide & Happiness'. It's a very snarky, dark-humoured style of comic and not always funny (to me) and often very rude (uhm - ok - it's almost always rude) - but it is sooooo DS2 that I am not surprised he likes it.

The base for the layout is a piece of the Burnt Orange/Chocolate cardstock, that forms one of the three cardstocks in the All Hallows Eve range. Knowing I had some large embellishment elements I wanted to display against this dark cardstock - I kept the patterned paper to the middle section - relying on the layering to produce interest. The bottom layer is the dotted reverse side of Spooky Damask and over this is one of the web pattern reverse side of Scary Stripe. For the top layer, providing a lighter contrast to these darker colours, is a section of the newsprint pattern from Skeleton. Just above the layered papers I added a left-over strip from a scalloped punched edge of the striped side of Scary Stripe. All those straight edges put my teeth on edge (oops - pardon the pun), so I needed something curvy to shake them all up a little. :)  I've inked all the paper edges with Black Soot Distress Ink too, just to emphasise the grungey feel to it all.

So that's the bare bones of the layout (sorry - pun intended) - the rest is all embellishment.

I fell in love with the skeleton as soon as I saw the Skeleton patterned paper - I knew I had to cut it out (ONLY 1 PIECE LEFT IN STOCK). Love the flourish that goes with it. So that got popped down at the bottom of the layout in the right-hand corner, using some pop-dots to give it dimension.

Down in the left-hand bottom corner I filled in some 'white' space with a skull and crossbones sticker strip from the Element Stickers pack, a pennant strip of Scary Stripe and a cute little Black Spider Charm from Tracy. The spider charm has a length of leftover string from the tag tied through it - I was going to tie it through an eyelet, but ended up not putting one in.

Moving up the left side of the layout, there is a combination of several stickers from the Element Stickers pack - 3 potion bottles and a die cut tag. Both sections of sticker are adhered to the layout on pop dots - so this also has some dimension.

Love the Twiddleybitz spider web (HAL001) - it fits into the corner perfectly. I've given it a thick coat of Gesso, which I've deliberately made lumpy and bumpy. Although it might not look it from the image, it does have a fair bit of texture to it - it's not like a thin coat of paint, it's more blobby and thick. To make it less 'bright and white,' I lightly inked over it with an old black catseye inkpad - and that gorgeous spider? That's all due to Stampendous Black Aged Embossing Enamel (ETA 30th Oct). It's blotchy because I must not have properly covered it with embossing ink first - but I liked the patchy look to it and left it that way deliberately, rather than fix it up.

Just a close-up of my gorgeous spider.

The title was rather a pain to do. I've cut out single letters from the Words sheet and organised them together to spell out what I wanted. I did have to modify several of them to get the letter I wanted - but you have to look closely to see which ones they are (I hope). The smaller chipboard letters in the 'and' are from the Itty Bitty Alphabet (ALPHA005B) from Twiddleybitz. They were black originally, but I painted them with some Kaiser Mocha paint. Again I 'blobbed' it on - so the alphas have a heap of texture to them in real life that doesn't show up well in the images. 

REMEMBER IF YOU WANT my2angels TO STOCK TWIDDLEYBITZ YOU NEED TO TELL THEM

The final part of the layout is a tag. I've made it from a cut-down standard luggage/shipping tag and popped it into a kraft bag . Both of these to start with were too pale and too yellow for the colours on the layout - so I inked them both with a mix of Tea Dye (ETa 30th Oct) and Vintage Photo Distress Ink, before edging them with Black Soot Distress Ink. 

The blotchy pattern on the tag is from spraying it with some water droplets after inking and then drying it with a heat gun. When the tag was fully dry, I stamped the skull image onto it with some Jet Black Archival Ink (ETA 30th Oct), added the quote and finished it all off with a Black Skeleton Charm. (and yes - that is one of the new Tim Holtz Halloween Blue-print stamps which Tracy can order in, you know she can get just about anything you want.)

The quote was printed on with my computer/printer.  The phrase is part of the 'official' description of the Cyanide & Happiness comic style  - but it describes the nature of my second son just as aptly. On the back of the tag will be my computer printed journalling.

I was also going to print out some of his favourite strips of the comic - but DS2 has just informed me he is disappointed that they are to be hidden away in the tag pocket - he wants me to make the layout a double, so that his favourites can be emblazoned across the page for all to see. Hmmmm - I think I need some convincing for that to occur. Teenagers - it's a good thing we start with them as babies first, otherwise no-one would have more than one child.

So pop into my2angels and check out Carta Bella's All Hallows Eve. The toffee/caramel, black and dirty white colour combination is very appealing and it totally rocks for teenage boy layouts.

NGAIRE