That Haunted Feeling!

Well, hello and welcome to Magpieheaven, which is looking more and more like a haunted house with my Halloween makes! I never thought I'd get so caught up in spookiness! There is just so much inspiration out there from great artists and I've been compelled to join in! This week at Paper Artsy, Liz Borer has created a fabulous wooden 'Trick or Treat' bag with some wonderful painty effects and a truly enchanted Autumn/Halloween house full of amazing detail! I've played along by creating two little hand-stitched notebooks. They are meant to look as if they might hold the works of a Mr Edgar Allen Poe, but I plan to give them as Christmas presents: Christmas is also traditionally a time for curling up by a roaring fire and listening to a jolly good ghost story, after all! Maybe my friends can note down their favourite spooky tales in these books!

Here is the first notebook I made. I used Grunge Paste lettering, picked out in White Fire Treasure Gold. Liz explains how to do this HERE. You need to scroll down beyond the description of the gorgeous Halloween House!

Here is what my cover looked like to start with.

 I then used Liz's technique for painting my background. Here are my two front covers before I stitched in the pages and back covers and before I added dimension to the one on the right

 I loved the way she used the Hot Picks Vintage owl, but as my book cover is canvas I stamped him first on a layer of napkin tissue, carefully painted the eyes only on the reverse with Limelight Fresco and stuck him on with Satin Glaze. It is very tricky using such thin tissue and I had to screw up one attempt because it tore, but I do love the effect when it's a success! I also used the same technique with the mini door. I covered the lettering over it by sticking on one of the moths from the Ink and the Dog plate Wings, as it clearly is not a 'blue door'! I was actually very pleased with how Gothic it looked with a totally different colour scheme! The fence is a Tim Holtz 'On the Edge' die, painted with Frescos and then Metallic Glaze and White Lace Stickles. I used his rather 'crazy' looking little houses on the back along with some swirling Artistic Outpost bats!

I also decorated the backs of my notebooks. I used mostly Paper Artsy stamps on the project as a whole, but I supplemented these with some Artistic Outpost Halloween images too. I highlighted with White Fire Treasure Gold, Stickles and some 'just' melted UTEE!

The Frescos I used were Pumpkin Soup, Smoked Paprika and Eggplant. I used white Wow embossing powder on the little cobweb in the corner and clear embossed my moths. The purple one on the book just underneath was painted with Pansy Fresco and then Metallic Glaze, which made it really shimmer! The others are Pumpkin Soup and Smoked Paprika, clear embossed Black Archival.

Here are my notebooks with red, waxed cotton stitching, all ready to pop into Christmas stockings to give to two of my friends. I should like to link this post to the Paper Artsy Challenge this week with a huge Thank You to Liz Borer for all her inspiration. I should also like to join in with the spooky Eclectic Ellapu where this week the incredibly talented May has chosen a spooky theme! Thank you so much for dropping by today! Happy Halloween!