Whimsy Stamps ~ "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."

Hey friends, well, (deep breath), this is a hard one to post. I made this card exactly one month ago, on the day that marked 23 years since my beautiful daddy left this world. I find that day a tough one, this year especially so, but I found solace in my crafting. I had a wonderful inky adventure which resulted in this card and when it came time to choose a sentiment, well this Edgar Allan Poe quote seemed ever so fitting! I was in London when my daddy passed and it was a long few days wait and a very long flight home to New Zealand before I could be with the rest of my family. I felt like I was slowly loosing the plot over those days, so this sentiment resonated for me so much on this day. I must say, this card turned out better than I anticipated and is actually a favourite I've made in resent weeks, so I'm not sure I can part with it!

I had a wonderful inky adventure with some Distress Oxide inks and some gorgeous Distress Mica Sprays from Ranger to create the background. I wanted to use this fabulous stamp set from Whimsy called 'Attempted Murder'. The name of this set is a fun play on words by our Halloween loving Whimsy Creative Director Deb Davis, as there are two crows in the set, not quite enough to be a 'Murder of Crows', so therefore, an 'Attempted Murder', hehe. Love how her brain works! 

I had a lot of fun experimenting with a technique I'd seen the amazing Amy Rysavy from Prairie Paper and Ink use, which she had been inspired by Stacey Hutchinson with this original inky adventure on her Tattered Nest Designs Blog. The sparkle and shine from the Mica is SO gorgeous, so I need to share a couple of shots that show this better!

What you see above, is how the Mica shifts and changes as you hold it in the light, there is such a beautiful play of colour on this card, I just had to try to capture and share that with you. I blended the background with Distress Oxide inks before adding the Mica Sprays, so when I added a spritz of water to the centre of the moon, the Oxide Inks wicked into the centre, which creates this super cool eery feel. I love watching Amy's Halloween videos and she shares this process so well! It was fun to try.

This Whimsy Stamps Halloween set is a fabulous one and the moody scene was set with the tree branches and one of the crows. I wondered about trying to colour the branches of the trees, but there was just so much medium I wasn't familiar with, I didn't want to make any of it run when I didn't want it to, so kept the stamping very clean and simple. I did use Ranger Archival Ink for the stamping, because I wasn't convinced any other ink would layer well over all that Mica. I think it was the right choice too, it only needed a tiny bit of touch up on the crow, which I did with a black marker pen.

I was of course reflecting on my daddy when I created this and wanted to hint at this scene being in a graveyard, but didn't want to actually include tombstones, so I pulled out the fabulous iron gate die from the Build-a-Graveyard Die Set from Whimsy. I diecut the gate twice, but when I started inking it and adding Distress Grit Paste Crypt, I turned one of the gates over, so they were mirrored. I love symmetry, so this was a given I would do this! You can see the gate on right is the reverse of the diecuts. But after spraying a bit of Iron Gate Mica Spray (how appropriate right?!) I painted on some Crypt paste with my fingers in random spots all over the gates and then let them dry. This was heavily influenced by our amazing Tami Bastiaans, who is the Queen of Distress Grit Crypt Paste! If you've not seen her amazing adventures with this medium, you need to go check out her blog. By the way, do you like my spiders web effect? Hehe, it's no effect! It's real web, courtesy of our hard working yard spiders. I thought it was a fitting and fun finish. Hope I didn't brass off the spiders too much! I really need them to stay in the yard!

Thank you friends, for popping in to visit. It means so much to me! I'd love to know what you think of this creation. Something quite different for me, but I really do love how it turned out, so I'm eager to know what you think too. Halloween isn't everyones cup of tea, so I don't expect you to say you love it, but my curious heart is open to your feedback!  

I really am so delighted to be designing with the amazing Whimsy Halloweeners team and the team have been bringing the magic and inspiration already to crafty Halloween lovin' friends through Instagram posts and sharing in our Whimsy Stamps Facebook Group, so join us there if you're able. We currently have a fun competition going, where you can share your funniest, spookiest prank story with us! Hope you're able to join in our fun. If you'd like to take a closer look at Whimsy's amazing Halloween range you can click through on the banner above or on the thumbnails below for specific elements. I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure and would love to know what you think of my second Halloweeners creation. I've linked most of the elements I used below, but need to look up some of them, as I can't recall off the top of my head some of the extra Mica colours and inks. Sigh, I must make better notes as I'm creating! Hugs and happy crafting friends, Wends xoxo

(I use affiliate links where possible, which helps the companies I design for to improve their marketing practice. I receive a small commission, which costs you no extra whatsoever, but helps these companies see where their marketing efforts are most effective and is a way they can say 'thank you' to their affiliates and design team members. I only design for companies whose products I absolutely love and buy for myself. My opinions are always my own. If you're new to Whimsy please feel free to use the Whimsy Stamps discount code in my sidebar if you're doing some shopping and remember to check out their retiring section, the deals are phenomenal!)

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