Spooky Night

I can finally share the scrapbook pages I submitted to Stampin' Up! for their monthly contest back in August. I think they turned out awesome, (if I do say so myself!) but I guess it wasn't what they were looking for in a winning entry. Bummer! When I saw the category was pages created with a Halloween theme I thought for sure I had a chance (anyone who knows me knows I am a Halloween freak!)...so much so I had even picked out my free stamp sets! (now I know why my Grandma used to say, "don't count your chickens before they're hatched!" hehehe)

Oh well...better luck next time I guess. Now it just bums me out that all I have left are the these scanned images...wahhhhhhhhh! Guess I need to get busy and re-create them again for me to keep this time. Please note: to view these at full size, please click on images.

I absolutely love these photos of my boys in front of our graveyard entrance. (don't worry, I did not go into those details in my journaling to SU! hehehe They probably would have eliminated me just based on being weird enough to have my own graveyard!) Anyways...back to my layout. The title was stamped with Big Deal alphabet in matching color ink to card stock, but before I stamped it I used the kissing technique* with the Canvas background inked in Basic Black. I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to add the spider, bat & cat from Batty For You to the letters. (used my black marker to ink just the image and not the words from those stamps) Each letter was cut out and matted on Gable Green card stock that was stamped in Wild Wasabi with the Canvas background...and cut out yet again...yes, I'm a glutton for punishment!.

The strip of Gable Green card stock in the middle also served as a pocket for my journaling tags. I hand lettered each of those in a spooky, dripping font. To do that all I did was pencil in my letters - penciling first allows me to figure out spacing and my mistakes can easily be fixed. After I had my spacing down, I went over the letters using my black journaling pen- I lettered all in caps. Then I went back and added the drips coming down off the letters...ooooh spooky! You might have noticed the black gingham ribbon with the pumpkin and black colored accents? I did that by taking the black gingham and running it over my Pumpkin Pie ink pad.

For the background I used the Spooky Skyline jumbo wheel, but I also have a hint to go along with that: When I wheel 2 pages straight across like I did here, I like to wheel them both together so that when they are next to each other in the scrapbook they are one continuous pattern. I used a bit of low tack artist's tape on the back of the card stock so I didn't have to worry about them moving while I was rolling them. Same goes with the Pumpkin Pie strip. I even kept the tape in place while using the Tearing Edge..

Stamps: Batty For You, Big Deal alphabet, Canvas background and Spooky Skyline jumbo wheel

Ink: Basic Black, White Craft, Perfect Plum, Pumpkin Pie & Wild Wasabi

Card stock: Basic Gray, Perfect Plum, Pumpkin Pie & Gable Green

Accessories: Black brads, Black Gingham ribbon, Round Tab, 1-3/8, 1-1/4 & Ticket Corner punches, Tearing Edge & Stamp-a-ma-jig .

*For those who don't know what the kissing technique is: Take a solid image stamp and "ink it up" by pressing it onto an inked up stamp with lots of pattern, and stamp as usual. This will transfer the pattern to solid image and make it textured looking. Hopefully I explained this OK. If you have any questions...just ask away..

Now I'm just wondering what the winning layout looked like? Oh well, my layout is still a winner in my book...oh wait...it isn't in my book now is it??? Gosh, I better stop before I make myself even more disappointed, hehehe. If anyone reads this and wants to make me feel a bit better - by all means post your comments! It's always nice to get a few comments - lets me know someone is actually looking at my blog.