Haunted House Swap

Here is my latest contribution to the fabulous Alpha Stamps Swaps. The swap this time was to create 7 "Halloween themed houses" we had to use the house shapes and various images/stamps from Alpha Stamps.

I really took some time to come up with a plan for this swap. After perusing all the sale items (for yahoo group members only so you should join!) I decided I wanted to take a slightly different approach.

I had fallen in love with the tombstone and tree chip board cut outs and wanted something to "hide" behind them. Heading over to the fabulous array of collage images I found these great Paris Show girls...and well what else would make a perfect witch than a show girl (LOL).

Found a few accent stamps and voila I was off.

To start with I wanted to use a velvet fabric that I would iron on a slight swirl image but I had never done that before and had heard that the fumes were bad, plus I was worried about melting my stamp. I was also under a bit of a time crunch so I checked out what fabrics I had and low and behold I had a perfect black cotton with a dark dark grey intricate swirl pattern (that alas did not show up well in the photo's).

Next I stamped the witch on a broomstick on to yellow fabric that I highlighted with an iridescent red paint (to tone down the yellow) and I sewed that onto the black fabric before covering the house.

On a few of the houses I painted in a bit of the swirl pattern using a pewter shimmery paint. I couldn't decide if I liked it or not do I only did half that way.

Next I hand painted the chip board parts using various shades of either grey (for the tombstones) or brown (for the tree). To get an aged look on the tombstones I stamped them with a cracked background stamp. I wanted the tree's to have a bit more personality so I added some "knots" that I hope look like a scary face but I think just look cheesy...oh well, after all I'm not a painter.

The Crow on the branch is stamped/embossed onto chip board. I just bairly tacked it down so that it sticks out over the moon which I gave a raised effect to by placing batting behind the center of the moon.

Finally everything was ready to go on and it was just a matter of placement. When I got everything on I realized I wanted some more color so I added the pumpkins that I originally got in last months Paula's Kit Club but was ecstatic when I found that Alpha Stamps was carrying them also.

Long story short...these were quite a bit of work but I think it was well worth it. I hope the swappers that receive them like them. I had a great time making them and learned quite a bit.