SPOOKY RUSTIFICATION

Halloween is just three weeks away!

 I was glad to see our Simon Says Stamp and Show theme this week is all about RUST!   Check out the really unique and sometimes spooky sights that my Design Teammates have waiting for you!  Talk about some cool Halloween ideas as well as other great projects!

 I have to say that I think this is one of my favorite pieces that I've made.  Do you ever have that experience where the project just keeps telling YOU what it wants to become?  Well...that happened with this book.

I had recently taken an online class with Andy Skinner called "Timeworn Techniques" (I highly recommend it).  Rust is one of the techniques we learned how to create using acrylic paints.  It was my inspiration for this piece ... The Book of Spells.

There are lots of pictures sharing the transformation of this book.  I hope you enjoy them and that maybe they will inspire you to let loose and have fun creating with "rust".

Here is my rusty creation...made from a plain paper mache book.

Well,  I actually have had this book for sometime now.  I started working with it a couple of years ago.  I got this far with it, got bored and put it away.  I pulled it out again the other day and decided it didn't need to be orange and black.  It needed to be RUSTED and covered in Tim Holtz' die cuts to give it all sorts of dimension and a fun design!

So, I added a bit of Liquitex Resin Sand to black acrylic paint and completely covered my book.  I already liked it better!  That black color and the added texture of the resin sand was already starting to give my book that eerie and mysterious feeling.

Then I started laying out some ideas for a design while the book was in this very early stage.  All of the objects are cut out of Grungeboard.  I used several of Tim Holtz' die cuts to create all of these pieces and more that were to come.  They are all listed at the products list at the end of this blog.  I liked this design but didn't LOVE it.  It still needed more detail. 

 

I added some Melissa Frances pearls for rivets and glued down the cats parading across the bottom.  That was the beginning of my finished design.  This picture was taken very early in the "rustification" process.

Through the "magic" of Andy's rusting technique, here is the book cover again; and the cats and rivets with what could be considered a finished rusted appearance.

 

But, I took it one step further and dry brushed some gold acrylic paint over the rusty look to add more interest, color and pull more gold from the letters and the metal corners.

Here is a closeup section of the spine of the book, also "rusted" but then dry brushed with some gold to really give this paper mache book a metallic appearance.

I decided I wanted the book cover to be more ornate than the original design.  That rust technique always looks really cool with all sorts of texture.  So, I added Tim Holtz' Scrollwork die cut and more rivets to the top; first using the rust technique and then dry brushing the gold over it.  The bottom of the book also received an ornate edging, Tim Holtz' pinking with it's jagged edges and dry brushed gold finish.

The lettering is a conglomeration of letters from Tim Holtz' Mixed Minis and Grunge Blocks.  The raven and spider are also Tim Holtz die cuts; rusted and then dry brushed with the gold to really make them stand out.  I added a bit of bling to the spider's back to catch the eye and invite those who dare to open the book ...

Here is a closeup view of the "pages" of the book.  I created the texture for the book pages using Claudine Hellmuth's gesso, using a craft type brush so that I could get a rough, uneven surface much like old worn pages.  After that dried, I brushed the gesso with a medium white acrylic paint and then gave the pages a wash with burnt umber acrylic paint and water..

Here is the beginnings of the interior of the book.  It was all rusted and then I added the sort of ghoulish flocked black paper as a background.  Loved it!  

Next I placed the portion of a poem that was the inspiration for the interior elements ... 

"Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howler's wing -- 

For a charm of powerful trouble.  Like a hell-broth boil ..."  Perfect ingredients for a Book of Spells...don't you think?

Inside, you will find all sorts of spooky things!  

I made the poem and the labels on my computer.  The test tubes are Martha Stewart and are filled with Wool of Bat (brown marabou) and Eye of Newt (little round wooden balls painted and eyes attached).  The mice are little rubbery glow in the dark mice that I have transformed using acrylic paint and dry brushing them into looking like real mice.  One sits atop of the Wool of Bat test tube ...

the other crawling out of the boney dry brushed hand holding the Eye of Newt test tube and climbing the side of the dry brushed skull.  I added the honey colored stained cheese cloth for a more eerie feeling.  I think it looks pretty creepy without being macabre.  

I found this little laser cut wooden frame in the Christmas section of a craft store and thought it would make a pretty cool looking frame for my book.  It just needed some "rivets", a little dry brushed skull and a sweet but eerie portrait.  Check out the eyes of newt!  Aren't they hysterical?

So there you have it; from start to finish, my rusty Book of Spells.  I hope this has inspired you to create something rusty and enter it into our challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show.  YOU could be the winner of our

$50.00 credit voucher.  You could also receive recognition as one of our TOP THREE entrees for the week!

GOOD LUCK!!!

Here are all of the items from Simon Says Stamp used in creating this piece:

InLinkz.com