Weirdness and an ATC Download

As you know I’ve been working on some new stuff for the Halloween season and I’ve been having so much fun I decide to share one of the images as a free download.

  

Click on the link and you will be able to download and then print the four images (two mirrored pairs), I would love to see what you do with them, share your links in the comments.

Now for the weird, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but suddenly it seems like I have a lot more going on.  I redesigned the blog, there are a lot of new things being listed in my online shops, I have been working on some new designs, and my blog posting has been more random.  Things are weird here normally and you never know what we’re going to be doing, but it has been amplified by my husband losing his job a few weeks ago.  I feel like I am scrambling to pull things together and come up with a plan (don’t worry, I have come up with a plan).  I am also enjoying having him home, we have been doing a lot more family activities and having a lot of spontaneous fun, it’s like he’s on vacation!  Unfortunately that hasn’t left a lot of time for the random crafting and blogging that I normally do.  I am hoping to be back on a regular routine in a few weeks, please try to ignore the random chaos for the time being, there is a lot of creating going on, but I don’t want to annoy you with every little new design I finish, you’ll see them soon enough!
Another random question, Do any of you collect smashed pennies?  My kids love collecting them, but we’ve gotten all the ones we can find locally (seven different designs).  I was wondering if anyone in a different area would like to swap pennies?  Comment here or email me if you’re interested.

Halloween in July

I know more traditionally it’s Christmas in July, but not at my house, now is prime Halloween planning time.  I have been scouting around for some new Halloween Decor and accessories, it’s hard to sort through all the cutesy crap, but here are a few of my favorites.
As I mentions on the Facebook Page I have also been working on designs for a new cemetery set.  Here is a sneak peek of the one I’m working on now.I still need to add some text, but it’s almost finished.  This inspiration for this drawing was the fence picture.  I have a collection of tombstone pictures that I use as a starting point for all of my drawings.  Once the drawing is finished I scan it into the computer and do some editing and resizing and then it will be ready to go.  I am 1/3 done with the new set, if everything goes well I should have them all done by next weekend. 
Have a super crafty weekend!

Yay, Another Etsy Sale!!!

My instant cemetery, which was just listed a week ago, has sold, yay!!! It has been the most popular item in my shop and I knew it would go fast. I also have orders for two more. I am working on making a couple extras so I can list them in my shop.
Tomorrow I am going to my first LnkHandmade Team meeting, I'm very excited because they have chosen to critique my shop. I know that I need to fill in the "store policy" section, I am thinking about removing my store announcement, and I need to work on my profile page. I am really looking forward to meeting everybody in the group and brainstorming on ways to promote.

Instant Cemetery - Finished

I finished my first instant cemetery set, complete with four new tombstones. It seemed like it took forever to get everything cut out, but everything else went pretty fast.

This is one of the new drawings and my favorite, I am really excited how this one turned out, super creepy.

Photographing the cemetery was a little difficult because I wanted to show it lit by candles. I think they turned out good.

I always make a matching tin to store everything in. I just shrink everything down and decoupage it on to the tin and then finish it with a satin finish sealer. I tried something new this time, decoupaging is supposed to be done with laser copies because ink jet copies run when you put the modge podge on. Here in the sticks where I live there really isn't anywhere to get a laser copy, so I used the satin sealer to seal the copies, it worked great there wasn't any smudging!!!

I think I'm going to keep working on new drawings for these, maybe I can make enough to have several different sets.

Instant Cemeteries

Halloween is my favorite holiday and so there is a lot of Halloween crafting at my house. I have quite a large collection of Halloween books and magazines, a few years ago I purchased this book, Halloween: A Grown-Up's Guide to Creative Costumes, Devilish Decor & Fabulous Festivities by Joanne O'Sullivan.There are a lot of really great projects in this book, but my favorite was the instant cemeteries. I loved it the moment I saw it, but the instructions said to find clip art on the internet or in books and I just could not find anything I liked, so I decided to draw my own.

Here's the cemetery I sent irasema for the Halloween '07 swap (BTW thank you for taking such an awesome picture irasema!!!) These drawings were inspired by cemeteries that I've been to and pictures that I've seen. This is a set of eleven. I've decide to add a few more tombstones to the collection this year and so I have been looking at pictures online and from my collection.

Here are two that I completed last night, I still need to modify the sizes, but I think they will go well with the rest of the tombstones. Once I get all the drawing finished I mount them and put fold able stands on the backs and then I customize a recycle tin to store them in.