Revisiting and old favorite, by request.

 Hello all! Lora Mahaffey here in full Halloween mode. My favorite holiday. I know, I have never said that before.
I'm enjoying playing with all the wonderfully rich fall colors. I am looking forward to rustling leaves, sweater weather and all things pumpkin (pumpkin muffins!). And tea on the porch wrapped up against the early morning chill.
The ladies have been doing late night recon.....flying about, checking on the night birds and woodland creatures, making sure the forest is healthy, celebrating the night, the stars and the beautiful moon. All is well, so they've given their brooms a needed rest and it's time for tea!

I began with the Display Tray Dome (which is coming soon!).

I painted the front frame work black and papered the back with a becoming shade of gray.

Using the front frame work as a template I lightly drew around it, defining the spaces and allowing me to work within them without the frame being in the way. You can kind of see the pencil marks. Sorry for the not very clear picture, I think you can see what I mean.

I then began composing and then gluing the main images into the frames I liked them in. Trying to be mindful of balance and visual weight. You can see the pencil marka bit better here.

After all the main players were glued down, I glued the face frame in place. It makes a big difference!

Now it's time to play! I didn't have a plan for this. I just played with various things I cut out that caught my eye until they looked right and the ladies started to take on more personality. I also played with my favorite tool of the moment...a Sharpie Poster Paint Pen (I like the acrylic one NOT the oil based one) and added some dots and swirls.

I think this lady really likes her candy corn. And she has pretty fab hair.

And why not a little masked dancing with your favorite bats after tea?

SUPPLIES:
Display Tray Dome (coming soon)

Acrylic Paint (black and white)
Sharpie Fine Poster Paint Marker (white)
Stickles in Lime Green, Black Diamond, Sunflower and Orange Peel
 Various Collage Images from Sandy Gordon's ART TEA LIFE

Thank you for stopping by!

Hand painted Little Bird Box

When I painted this wee Little Bird Box I imagined it hanging on a gypsy caravan. Thanks to Gina, the Big Boss of Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts for letting me play with your really cool stuff!

 Started with this.....

I glued the sides and bottom on the back and painted the inside white. You don't really have to paint the inside, but making it white reflects a little light and makes the inside a little bit brighter.

I glued on the front and top and painted the whole thing with a coat of gesso.

I made a hanger for gluing on the back out of some 20 gauge black wire I got from the hobby store  (the big loop is for hanging and the small loop is there to give the glue more wire to stick to, making the piece more sturdy) and glued it on the back of the bird box, making sure it was centered.

After the glue dried, I painted the whole box black. I used Liquitex Mars Black.
And painted the edges an emerald green.

I began painting the center flower by painting petals at north, south, east and west and then filling in the other petals. This makes the spacing even and pleasing to the eye.

Once this parameter is established as a guideline, I just kept painting with the green, then added touches of yellow and lastly, little dots of white.
After all the paint dried, I began to glue the craft leaves on the back of the bird box.

I glued the leaves on making sure they were centered, then put something with a little weight to it on top of the bird box to press the leaves down, making them dry flat.

Voila! Ready for hanging!

Thank you for dropping by!

SUPPLIES:
Little Bird Box
20 gauge wire (or any wire you have handy)
Acrylic paint
Leaves for the back......I used clothe ones, but paper would work great.

A Sneak Peek at Neighborhood Facades!

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts is launching some fun new product soon! The fabulous Gina and and Moi collaborated on a little neighborhood street filled with unique houses and architectural features, called Neighborhood Facades. Ya'll know my love/obsession with houses, so this has been such a joy to play with. Here is a sneak peek at what is coming your way soon!

This is an enchanting series of six little houses of different sizes and shapes and a sheet of templates and details that have endless possibilities!
Check in with us in a couple of weeks for a look at the whole neighborhood and some great mini tutorials on how I put some of this stuff together.
Thank you for stopping by!

Pretty Little Storage Hutch

Over the last few years I've been slowly making pieces of 1-12 scale dollhouse furniture to fill a doll house I've been building. I love using the kits, bits and pieces and great miniature furniture that Gypsy Soul laser Cuts has in their vast inventory of cool and interesting things!
Here is the latest piece I made out of the Storage Hutch.
Here it is empty...

 And here it is full of odds and ends and maybe the beginnings of a crystal ball collection.

I started out with the Storage Hutch.

I painted all of the shelving and the top and bottom pieces a nice shade of cream.

Using the back piece as a template, I drew and then cut out the back pieces. (both the front and the reverse side) And the bit that belongs to the fancy front top edge.

I glued the papers on their respective parts and dry fit the hutch, making sure everything slid together smoothly and adjusting or trimming paper went it was too tight a squeeze.

I love it already!
I had initially planned on the sides and top being painted cream but I decided I liked it better with the stripey paper on the top (cut to match the valance)

And some black printed paper for the sides.
Sometimes one can have too many stripes.
Except for socks. One cannot have too many pairs of stripey socks.
A view of the back and side.

I added some stamped metal flowers and lastly little painted details. It's not a complicated project, but it has it's own charm.

Thank you for coming by!
SUPPLIES:
Storage Hutch
Gold Paint
Scrapbook paper (what I used was bits of Graphic 45 Curiosity Shoppe and Communique)
Stamped brass findings
Gold stamp pad

It's Halloween 24/7 at my house

Yep. You know how you get a little itchy when you haven't done something Halloween related in a while?
No? Really?
Well, okay. But just to mix things up a bit, it's Halloween in May at my house.
Here's a fun thing I made using Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts super-sturdy-do-anything-on-'em Chunky ATC Blanks. I love these things. They are just about indestructible and put up with a lot of mixed media, sanding, painting over and general artsy masochism.
This is a straightforward project, so I wasn't so hard on the poor things this time, but I like the visual effect.

  They are fairly simple but I like the stark contrast of the black trees (I used the 3D Chip Board Tree-3inch and just a little black silhouette of a Halloween critter (which I just drew in with a good black marker) with some borders I cut from the Graphic 45 Rare Oddities Ephemera Cards.
Easy, but effective.
Here's where it began...

I then covered the fronts of the ATC's with my chosen papers.

I cut the borders from the G45 papers and cut the trees in half. I painted them black (some are white in the photo, but later I changed them to all black).

Please note that the borders are larger than the ATC's and that is okay.

Setting aside the trees to dry, I flipped the ATC's over, lined them up and glued a ribbon down the center of the ATC's, leaving enough ribbon at the top to loop over as a hanger.
Do a dry run of the frames on the ATC's with the frames and ribbon to make sure you've left enough space for you to glue the frames on to the ATC's and not have them overlap.
I chose to have very little space between each piece, but you might like more of the ribbon to show between each one. Your choice!

After the ribbon dried, I glued the frames and the trees on the front, making sure the frames were centered as best I could make them on the ATC's. 

After the trees dried I drew in some simple Halloween shapes with a pencil and went over them with a very black marker.
I chose a bat, a cat and a spider, but you can let your creepy critter flag wave here and choose whatever you like.

Not to waste, I finished off the backs with the center pieces I cut out of the G45 ephemera cards.

Simple but effective.
Going for the simple design that has visual impact.
Hope you like it!
Thanks for dropping by.

SUPPLIES:
Chunky ATC Blanks
3D Chip Board Tree-3inch 
Graphic 45 Rare Oddities Ephemera Cards
Ribbon
Black paint
Black marker

Arch Top House Silhouette Diptych

A bit spring, a little forest. Simple and pretty and easy on the eye. A wee diptych just for you.....

And the back....

For anyone who would like to see the detailed tutorial on how to put together these cute ArchTop House Silhouettes, click HERE.
 This is a pretty straight forward project that most of that tutorial covers. The little extra thing here was I used the Tiny Shingles Sampler Set including the scrap in between bits to embellish the piece.
I gave them a coat of gesso and then painted them green.

I also used a paint marker to do the dot details on both sides of the piece.

And a fun thing I discovered. The scrap bit between the pointed shingles bends really easily so you can arch it and even use it for tiny little bunting on another project, so don't throw it away!
Another tip...I use wax paper to paint my bits and pieces on. They peel off without sticking.

Supplies:
ArchTop House Silhouettes
Tiny Shingles Sampler Set
Forest papers by Stamperia
Acrylic paint marker (don't use the oil paint one.....it takes forever to dry!)
Stamped Brass Findings

Traveling Day 2

I love making little houses. I especially love indulging my Baba Yaga obsession with houses that have feet. Recently I have been taking an online workshop with Michael deMeng on building Baba Yaga Birdhouses, so once again another great excuse to put feet on houses!
This is a 'Moving Day" house, the second in a little series I am slowly working on.
You can see the first one if you click HERE and some of the tips on how I put the house together  (which is very similar) and built the base.

Here is where it began......

 This comes in a set of two, but I only used one this time around.

 The skeleton legs came from a Halloween skellie garland I got from a craft store.

I glued the legs on using Aleene's Turbo Tacky glue and then did the same for the arms.
Note: This is AFTER I glued down all the papers!
When the glue was al dry, I glued the whole shebang sown on the base, which at this point is also covered top and sides in either paper or paint.
I drilled a hole through the center on the roof ridge for a wire.

I glued an eye on a stamped brass flower and using paint, I painted an eye lid on it.
It just looked too naked.
I glued the eye to the wire. I glued a row of shingles at the top of the roof on both sides, glued in the eyeball stick and aged it up with a little Quinacridone gold paint.

I cut out some mushrooms from some charming Graphic 45 paper called Fairy Dust and put them in wee pots.
Added a bit of moss and a few details and away we go. Moving our mushrooms to a shadier place perhaps?

Thank you for stopping by!

Supplies:
Tiny Little Shadowbox Houses 2
Artist Trading Coins
Tiny Shingles Sampler

Graphic 45 Fairy Dust papers
Scraps of unidentified bits of paper for the roof and the base.
plastic skeleton parts
brass stamped flowers
little wooden flower pots
acrylic paints.
plastic eye ball