An Uninvited Guest...

Hi friends...

It's time for the brand new Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and this week our theme is all about Monochrome! We want you to create a piece where you use only one colour or shade and the DT are excited to see what you make.

For my project, I chose to use classic black and white as my monochrome colour and because I am in full on Halloween mode at the moment, I created a burlap panel using one of my favourite seasonal stamps from Tim Holtz ~ Mr Bones.

This panel has lots of little spooky details and plenty of dimension and layering that I would love to show you around ~ so, please step this way as it's time for us to begin and time for me to introduce you to the eccentric but oh-so spookalicious Mr Bones.

To begin with I took a 6 x 8 Burlap Panel and sprayed with all over with Black Soot Distress Spray Stain to create my dark coloured base.

Once the panel is dry, I then started to add my base layers ~ a piece of black and white Halloween Worn Wallpaper, perfect for this challenge, stitched around the edges with black thread and matted onto a layer of burlap from the Textured Surfaces pack, a layer of silver metallic kraft stash and finally a layer of kraft card. I then mounted these layers onto the centre of my black burlap panel.

I can now move onto creating Mr Bones and bringing him to life and for this I stamped the image three separate times onto Mixed Media card, using the Stamp Platform to create a nice crisp black image.

I then cut around the outline of two of the images, cutting around his face and hat. Set the first image to one side and using the second image which I coloured with Distress Marker pens, I cut out his right eye. I know, sounds painful right??!?!? I then mounted the second image on foam and laid it right over the top of the first image.

I then cut out the top hat from the third image and layered this onto foam and popped it onto Mr Bones. I wanted to give him a slight debonair flair and decided to add a couple of feathers, a boneyard finding and a Heirloom Rose which are all placed onto his hat.

Now he is all dressed up, he needed somewhere to go and I attached him to a Halloween Baseboard which I was wrapped with some Mummy Cloth, dyed with Pumice Stone and Antique Linen Distress Spray Stain. I also added some Hex Fasteners in each corner for added detail.

I attached the board to my panel, placing it on the left hand side. I then wrapped some more hand-dyed mummy cloth around the bottom section of my panel, tying it in a knot on the right hand side. To add the quote, I altered a Halloween Quote chip by sanding lightly over the surface and then placed it onto a piece of linen covered board.

I then attached the quote chip over the top of the mummy cloth, placing it centrally onto the panel. To complete the quote, I added a couple of boneyard findings, which are just tucked in to either side.

Now all that's left is for the arrangement on the right hand side and for this, I used a Mini Hardware Knob, altered with a little Black Soot and Antiqued Bronze Distress Paint and then adhered into position with some Collage Medium. I left this to dry overnight to ensure it had stuck well and good.

I then added some extra chain to a swivel clasp and hung a Quote Token, again altered with a little paint and a Story Stick to the chain before attaching the clasp to the handle of my Mini Hardware Knob.

Finally, I added some Mini Hardware pieces to complete the panel...

I hope you've enjoyed your visit to Mr Bones today and he hope's to see you again very soon but before I go, don't forget, you can find more inspiration from my talented teamies over on the challenge blog and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in and good luck....

Thank you so much for stopping by today and I'll see you very soon!

Love Emma xxx

Recipe for project:

Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Stamps: Mr Bones

Distress Paint: Black Soot
Distress Spray Stain: Antique Linen, Pumice Stone, Black Soot

Distress Inks: Ground Espresso
Distress Marker Pens

Idea-ology: Halloween Quote Chips, Boneyard Findings, Worn Wallpaper, Mini Hardware Knobs, Mummy Cloth, Halloween Quote Tokens, Swivel Clasps, Halloween Story Sticks, Halloween Heirloom Roses

Mediums: Gesso, Matte Collage Medium, Hex Fasteners

Surfaces: Burlap Panel, Mixed Media Heavy Stock, Textured Surfaces, Metallic Kraft Stash
Prima Marketing Mini Hardware

Tim Holtz Stamp Platform

Tim Holtz Media Glass Mat

Tim Holtz Guillotine

Heat Gun
Feathers from my own stash