New Stamps tomorrow, get Haunted

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This post continues my samples for my upcoming stamp release – The new stamp set – Haunted goes live on my store tomorrow, with new stencils. Full details in this post.

I was in a design group on FB during the week, looking for feedback on some artwork I had produced and somebody said that my stuff was ‘nostalgic’ and they couldn’t have been more correct. Time and again I find myself looking back to the good things from my childhood, one of which was the brown paper bag.

Brown paper bags held sweeties when I was wee, you bought them in 2 ounces or a quarter depending on how much pocket money you had left. Typically for me, it was cola cubes or fizzy pear drops, tiny little boiled sweets with serious zing. Back then my fangs knew no fear and I was reasonably assured that my evening would be uninterrupted, books and cola cubes were my recipe for happiness. I was a very happy child.

So my treat bag of choice, this Halloween will be the simplest of them all, a very basic brown paper baggie. Mine come from the wholesaler in bunches of 100 for a couple of pounds. Onto my baggie I will brush some orange ink, or green, and then I will stencil a graveyard silhouette. The scene is set, I can now add whatever I want into my baggie, twist the top and it’s dressed up for Halloween.

The stencil is the Spooky tree stencil, this is a seriously versatile stencil. Tree guy is in the centre, but the bottom of the stencil is cut in this graveyard silhouette giving you the ability to do a little scene setting for the tree. The top of the stencil is also shaped, as a little hilly silhouette, perfect for grounding spooky tree, if you wish, I love the idea of him kind of slithering about all over the place on his tentacle style roots.

The stamp set, Haunted, coming tomorrow provides lots of opportunities for tags, I’ve used the most obvious one here, the big circle. I’ve just stamped it simply, onto kraft card and cut it out with a circle die – I used a Spellbinders circle, but the stamp itself is 2 and 5/8 in diameter – so any die, or indeed punch of 2.75 inches diameter will suit this.

On my green baggie, I made little wax-seal-style discs of lightweight air dry clay. I rolled the air dry clay into small balls and flattened it out with an acrylic block. I made a circular indentation in the flattened ball, with an upturned bottle cap and then I lightly impressed the sentiment into the centre.Once dry you can brusk ink onto these things to colour them up.

I used the stamp sentiment ‘Treats, or trick?’ because you can’t see inside, and I might have stuffed that bag with old socks or something other than sweeties..