Something Dreadfully Wicked...

Hello everyone...

Welcome back to another week here on my blog and another Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge! This week our theme is called CITYSCAPE and we want you to create something inspired by a city and can't wait to see what you create.

So, as Halloween fast approaches and the decorations are all ready to display, I decided to create a party invitation and created something dreadfully wicked using products from Tim Holtz, Stampers Anonymous and Sizzix to bring my scene to life! This invitation was actually inspired by the tv show, Gotham and I just love how they portray the city against the dark, mysterious night sky and decided it would be fun to create my own version for this challenge...

So, if you dare, come and join us because it's time for the brand new SSS Monday Challenge...

To begin with I created my background and for this, I cut a panel of watercolour card, 14 x 17cm. I then applied Black Soot, Hickory Smoke and Iced Spruce Distress Oxide Inks to my glass mat, spritzed the ink and also my card, with a light misting of water and then dipped my card in and out of the inks. When working with the inks and building up the colour, I usually heat dry between layers as this will stop the inks becoming muddy and sludgy in appearance. Once I was happy with the dark colours, I then applied some Antique Linen Distress Oxide Ink to my clean glass mat, once again spritzed with water and then dipped the card into the ink. I then heat dried the card to ensure it was thoroughly dry before inking the edges with some Black Soot.

For the next stage of the background, I used the branches stamp from the Mr Bones stamp set to create the effect of lightning and stamped the image directly onto my background using a clear embossing pad and then sprinkled Liquid Platinum Embossing Powder over the top. Tap away the excess and then heat emboss until molten. Repeat the stamping to create the 'forked lightning' on your background, twisting and turning the stamp to create the effect.

Moving onto my little owl sitting on the moon, I took the image from the same stamp set as the branches and inked it up with Jet Black Archival Ink. I then stamped the owl onto watercolour card and coloured him with Distress Marker Pens. Cut the circle out by trimming around the outline and then I used foam pads on the back to attach the stamped image onto my background.

I matted my background onto silver metallic kraft card, followed by a layer of pewter card and a final layer of black card, before mounting the layered panel onto a bronze card blank that I had in my stash.

Now that I have my basic background, I'm ready to create the city and for this I used the Cityscape die from Tim Holtz and using both dies in the set, I cut both images, once from Black Soot Kraft Card and once from silver metallic kraft card.

I then sanded around the edges of each of the die cuts before adding some Vintage Gold and Old Silver Alchemy Wax over the top of the black card.

When I had the finish I wanted, I then layered the gilded black card over the top of the silver metallic card, slightly offsetting it to create a shadow down the side of the buildings.

I mounted my buildings onto the background, attaching the first layer directly onto the card, and layering the second set of buildings over the top using foam pads to add dimension.

Underneath the cityscape, I wanted to create the look of fog rising and for this, I dyed some cheesecloth with Black Soot and Hickory Smoke Distress Spray and once the cloth was dry, arranged it across the bottom of the city.

Moving on to the next stage, it's time to bring this city to life and create some atmosphere and for this I used some die cut stars that I actually had left over from a previous card I made and these were the waste die cuts that had popped out. I attached these, together with some bats cut from Black Soot kraft card using the Ghoulish die set.

Now all good cities need a local zombie and for this I used the one from the Ghoulish die set and cut him from green kraft card. Because I wanted to attach my zombie in the foreground and create quite a lot of dimension, I then cut a second layer from thick card and layered the green image over the top. This created a really substantial die cut that once attached didn't bend. You can see the dimension of this card, in the photo below.

I placed the zombie on foam pads and attached him on the foreground of my cityscape scene.

To complete the zombie, I added a little boneyard finding through his hand...

To complete the card, I used one of the Halloween Quote Chips, 'Something Dreadfully Wicked' and placed this at the bottom of the cityscape...

...and attached a little spider from the Halloween Adornments set, just crawling from underneath the quote chip.

All that was left for me to do, is add the inside and I just used my computer to type out the wording onto ordinary printer paper, which I then matted onto white card that I edged with some spider web design tape. To finish, I added a couple of die cut bats...

So, that completes this week's project and I hope it's given you some inspiration and ideas for your halloween and cityscape projects.

 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/Sizzix Dies: Ghoulish, Cityscape
Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous: Mr Bones
Distress Oxide Ink Pads: Hickory Smoke, Black Soot, Iced Spruce, Antique Linen

Distress Spray Stain: Hickory Smoke, Black Soot

Idea-ology: Halloween Quote Chips, Halloween Adorments, Halloween Design Tape, Boneyard Finding
Distress Marker Set
Alchemy Wax: Vintage Gold, Old Silver

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Versamark Ink Pad, Liquid Platinum Embossing Powder

Surfaces: Classic Kraft Card, Metallic Kraft Card, Watercolour Card
Cheesecloth
Tim Holtz Media Glass Mat

Tim Holtz Guillotine

Heat Gun