WOYWW -Horace's Horror (H)offering

Hello there. Wednesday AGAIN? goodness, that must mean it's time for yet another peek at crafters' desks worldwide, courtesy of Julia at Stamping ground. so what's on the bears desk? well, after a comment on our blog, we just realised it's the end of the month already, which means the end of the bears' October challenge. Goodness, didn't the month go quickly? I hope you're all ready for Hallowe'en tonight? Pooh and Horace are designated Trick or Treaters and have dressed appropriately in the hope of receiving lots of nice goodies from neighbouring houses.




Anyway, our scaryfying challenge has come to an end, and there was a little tussle to get to the desk to complete this challenge





Horace won!

But, before we show you our messy desk whilst creating the challenge page, we'd like to say a huge thank you to Butterfly , Cath , Lauren and Ali H and Morning AJ for joining in with the bears this month, we really love that other bloggers take time to join in with us, crafting and challenges are so much more fun with friends. Do have a look at each other's pages as all are really fab.

So, what did the bears do for the Dracula challenge? Well this was Horace's interpretation, so over to him.

After dressing in my Hallowe'en costume, a peculiar feeling came over me, and I felt the need for blood, lots of blood.... These letters were printed on our dear friend Florence's Silhouette machine. I placed them on my journal page, and sprayed liberally with Dylusions Post box red mist. Standing the page up allowed for a drip effect, gory!!!!



Next, I chose several distress inks




And inked the rest of my journal page.




Next I chose some suitably scary background effect stamps, and rolled them randomly over my page.




I tried to make a moon by rubbing a circle with the inkssentials tool dabbed in Black Soot distress ink, for a dark and moody feel to the page.




Hmmm



I then printed a house from my Cricut Heritage cartridge in black card, and crumpled it in my furry fist, for a weathered effect, this was to become Dracula's castle.




I adhered some netting to the bottom right of my page, with Mod Podge, to give a more creepy feel to my project.




Next, I stamped up some TH bats




And a scary Skeleton stamp




onto tissue paper, using our usual stamping method!




I ripped round the skeleton image




And, using Mod Podge




applied the image over the netting. Using tissue paper and Mod Podge allows you to apply stamps to textured areas with no visible 'bump', as the Glue dries completely clear, and the tissue paper 'melts' into the page, leaving the stamped image behind.








Unfortunately, in this case, my stamped image seems to have melted into the page too, oh well. Art is all about experimenting, isn't it?




Here is my finished page; Jonathan Harker has just arrived at Dracula's and has a foreboding that all is not as it should be. He feels surrounded by images of death and destruction, and knows that danger is imminent.
Yikes, I may have to sleep with the lights on again tonight!




I'm off to look at a desk, or two, or three before trekking out for Trick or Treating with Pooh. Happy Haunting to you all.


With love from the bears.

Chilly Tuesday Blues

Sigh, this is what happens when bears get depressed




Where'd it go??????




With love from the bears.

A Monster Mash

Hello there, Horace here for your delectation today. What awful weather we're experiencing here in Great Beartain. One good thing though, bad weather means more time in, which in turn means more time to craft.
While perusing challenge blogs for ins'bear'ation, I came across this fabulous challenge from Smudgy Antics, calling for a theme of Monster Mash, what fun. I do love their challenges, and racked my furry little bear brain for something suitable to submit. I was trying to think of rhymes for monsters, but my brain decided to freeze completely, and I didn't want to use the lines from the very famous song.

My brain was getting tired with all the thinking I was forcing it to do, so I decided to just start my project and go with the flow, sometimes I think too much and it produces a mental art block! Not good as by the time I'd defrosted my brain, the challenge had closed!!! Never mind, not to be defeated, I gallantly carried on regardless...

I decided to start by spraying some tags with Dylusions sprays, so out came the old faithful pizza spray booth. Wilbear makes us spray in the kitchen now, as we are rather messy bears, and the tiles are much easier to wipe clean than the newly decorated bedroom walls.
First I sprayed two tags with a little water




Then sprayed three Dylusions colours; lime, turquoise and purple




I pressed the tags together to distribute the mists, then dried them with the heat gun.




Once the tags were dried, Wilbear allowed me back into the bedroom, where the bears' craft desk is. I needed to decide which tag to use, hmmm. Eeenie meeenie....




I chose this monster stamp for my tag, this was stamped for us courtesy of our lovely friend Florence, who has her very own fab blog too.




I just needed to add some colour to the image with my pens. I carefully considered my monster colours.




All I then had to do was cut the image out once coloured.




Back to my tag. I decided it needed a little more decoration, so sprayed some water through a mask, directly onto the tag.




I waited a moment, then carefully pulled the mask off the tag, and dabbed off the excess water with some kitchen roll, to produce this effect.




I thought the tag still needed a little 'je ne sais quois' (ooh la la I've gone all cultured), so I selected some distress ink, in Dusty Concord,




some Andy Skinner stamps,




and rolled randomly over the tag (the stamp, not me, although many regular readers would probably not be surprised by either antic!)




Next, I typed and printed a sentiment, this printed onto white card, so I selected Shabby Shutters Distress ink




and inked over my white sentiment, for added definition.




Before adhering everything to my tag, I played with the placement of my various elements, until I was entirely happy. Then I 'Pritt Stick'ed away. Voila




And a close up. My sentiment reads 'Monster on a bed of mash' with the idea being that he loves mash so much, he even sleeps on it. It's so comfy, and if he's a little peckish during the night, he can have a little munch!




Hmm, for some reason, I suddenly fancy a big plate of sausage 'n' mash now. TTFN (time to find nosh).

With love from the bears.

WOYWW- Podgy's monochromatic page

Good morrow fair humans and bears. Yet another Wednesday has rolled around, and the desk addicts among us know what that means don't we? Yet another peek at crafters' desks worldwide, courtesy of our lovely host,
Julia at Stamping Ground

It's Podgy here with you today, attempting a monochromatic scrapbook page of the day I came to live at The House of Bears. Here I am, just after applying my texture paste, surrounded by lots of black and white for my project. Well, if I'm attempting a page of my good self I need to use my native colours!


I searched November's Scrap365 magazine for inspiration, and found this fabulous page.


To start, I drew a rough rectangle, somewhere in the middle of my white 12x12 card, where I wanted my photo to be.


Next, I wanted to create some texture; I scraped some texture paste onto a spare piece of card, mixed it with some black watercolour paint,


And squidged (technical term) the texture through our harlequin mask, using Horace's credit card!


Hmm, i'm not sure what effect I was hoping to achieve, but this reminds me of tyre tracks!


Ah well, it'll just look like someone has driven over my page.

Next I used some black stickers to make a title





Which I placed on my tyre tracked page.


I thought the page needed a little something else, so used the harlequin mask again, this time to make a negative effect by inking the mask


and pressing it down onto my page, matching the stencil into the texture already on the page.


Before I adhere anything to the page, I always take a while to consider the placement of my elements, and to admire my furry photo of course!!


Oh look, it's me with me!


It's not really this wonky, my photography skills leave a lot to be desired. That's the problem with paws.


Now I've finished my page, it's time for me to desk hop, I love Wednesdays.

Oh, if you like challenges, don't forget the bears' monthly literary themed challenges, this months can be found if you Press your furry paw here

With love from the bears.