Thursday 18 October 2018

Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Helen !

Hello and welcome back! Today we are being joined by Helen Liu of Happy Stamping and Happy Life. Helen was the winner of the Grunge/Industrial challenge and was therefore invited to join us for a day.


Hello Artsy Friends,

I’m super excited and honored to be the Guest Designer for Stamps and Stencils’ October Challenge - Spooky Fun with an Autumnal twist.

My name is Helen Liu. I live in Taipei, Taiwan and work full-time as a Banker in a Commercial Bank. I enjoy playing with stamps, stencils, inks, paints, die cuts, etc. in my leisure time. To know more about me, please check out my previous Guest Post in March here (link: http://stampsandstencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/welcome-to-todays-guest-designer-helen.html).



For today’s challenge - Spooky Fun with an Autumnal twist, I must confess that I’m not really into the spooky things, especially that I don’t have little children around me for some years. Yet I’ve decided to challenge myself to create an Autumnal tag with spooky elements. It’s fun to explore something out of my comfort zone. The following is how I made my tag.

1. Stamp text (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) with brown shadow ink on a watercolor paper tag.




2. Apply various Distress Inks on tag.


3. Die cut several leaves die (Sizzix/Tim Holtz) to create a DIY stencil.



4. Apply several Distress Inks over the DIY Leave Stencil to create a tone-on-tone effect.


5. Spread a thin layer of Texture Paste over the Gothic Stencil (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) on tag.


6. When dry, the Texture Paste will absorb some of the Distress Inks. Further apply several Distress Inks over the DIY Leave Stencil to enhance the tone-on-tone effect over the raised texture paste pattern.


7. Stamp Halloween elements (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) in black, die cut and color. Stamp text (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) in VersaMark and Heat Emboss in white on a black card scrap.


 8. Adhere Halloween elements on tag.









Hope this non-traditional Halloween tag is eye-pleasing and inspirational to you. Please join us for this fun challenge and I can't wait to see your artsy project.

Thank you so much for your wonderful project Helen ! There's still plenty of time to join in with the Spooky Fun with an Autumnal Twist challenge.



4 comments:

  1. Wow !! What a gorgeous tagI love your layered background with those wonderful colours. I also love the way you have created a stencil by using that lovely leafy die set. A great tip Helen. Thankyou for being our guest and sharing this fab project ! Toni xx

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  2. It's awesome tag!! Love the background you made.

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  3. As her daughter for over 25 years, I can confirm that it's true my mom is not fond of anything spooky! Which is why I think this is a strong demonstration of thinking outside the box, and stretching one's comfort zone! Superb job, Mom!

    While it is safe to say the piece won't immediately scream "spooky", I'm actually impressed because it sort of did give me a "happy but creepy" feel, in an absolutely positive way, and appearing very suitable for the challenge, Spooky Fun with an Autumnal twist.

    I'm not saying this just because she's my Mom, but I really think she nailed it. Who would have thought the elegant and classy looking Gothic pattern, with the combination of bold and mostly autumn-associated colors, could result in an explosion of mystic and entrancing vision? Love it! So proud of you!

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  4. Just love it. Thanks to Helen to share your ideas.

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