Embrace the Voices In your Head

People always ask me how I come up with all these ideas.  All I can say is I've made friends with the voices in my head.  Yeah, it sounds a bit like I've been cuttin' the Prozac in half against Dr's orders, but I don't know how else to say it.  That thing that twangs inside our brains when we come upon something that makes us happy is what I listen for.  When I hear it, I pay attention. 

I wander the world of paper crafting waiting to hear something speak to me.  I don't know what I'll do with a certain thing when I come across it, it just speaks to me so I add it to my collection knowing that some day, it will become part of a larger thing, that has a voice all it's own.  There are ideas in my head all the time.  When they get too loud, I HAVE to get them out. 

I'm continuing to plow though those piles of organized Halloween chaos I showed you in an earlier post. Here are four more samples that have made it from pile to produced. There is one more in play at the moment and I think 6 or 7 more piles left up there. 

These are two that illustrate a similar theme.  I really wanted to get the haunted house in there among the spooky trees, but the proportions were all wrong.  Separating them worked out pretty cool too. 

That's a Spellbinders nesting die circle that I ran through the Cuttlebug spider web embossing folder and then inked with some lime green pastel chalk ink.  The trees are a Quickutz die (now known as LifeStyle Crafts).  The haunted house is part of a stamp set from Close to My Heart that I colored with Prisma Color markers.  I was able to do one of my favorite things, re-purpose a stamp meant for, in this case Christmas, as a Halloween stamp. "not a creature was stirring" works well for Halloween, don't you think?  I accented the eyes in the trees and the windows on the house with some Ranger Glossy Accents.  If you have not tried that stuff yet, get some.  It's a great way to add shine without curling the paper, and it dries relatively fast. 

These two are my obligatory attempts at Halloween romance.  One is quite dark, and one is perky.  Guess which one I like better?...Gah!  Although the darker one does not really say much, if there's ribbon on it, then it's romantic as far as I'm concerned.  The perky one has bats and a big purple heart cut from Sizzix Original and Bigz dies.  The sentiment on the perky one was done on my computer last year.  Yes, this is one that stayed as a pile in a box for a full year because I didn't get to it last year. 

If you have any questions about any of the products used or techniques, shout them out.  I have all the details, but sometimes spelling it all out can get a little boring for you to read.  If you want any of these as a full blown class, or even a mini class - I can do that too.  Shout out, is all you need do. 

I know the comments section on the blog has a mind of its own.  But Anonymous works well.  If you use Name/URL, that works well to.  You can use your FB page for your URL if you aren't nutty enough to have your own blog.  

Enjoy! - AMK