Dapper Arthur

Hello everyone. I’m still buzzing with creative inspiration from Saturday’s Tim Holtz halloween idea-ology facebook LIVE. It was so nice having Tim and Mario back on our screens after being spoiled with 16 weeks of demos.

Even though it’s too hot for hats here, I’m sharing a sample I made for the Tim Holtz Sizzix Chapter 3 Halloween release. If you missed this LIVE, you can catch up and see all the samples on Tim’s blog.

Meet Arthur, the grumpiest owl you never hope to meet and he’s definitely reached the edge of his branch, so to speak! He’s not really an owls owl and if you do see him, it’s probably better if you don’t make eye contact!

If you know me, you know that hats are my jam and as soon as my dies arrived I grabbed Arthur and the Winter Wardrobe die and cut the hat. The winter wardrobe dies are part of the Tim Holtz Sizzix Chapter 3 holiday release, and perfectly sized for the colorize dies, including Arthur. Mixy matchy for the win. This hat will be used all year for me. It’s a hat thing! <3

I like to make a prototype of the dies using scrap paper first. It helps me to have a visual and decide if there are some bits I don’t want to include, you can do that you know, it’s totally allowed. 😉

I covered a mini etcetera thickboard tag with distress texture crackle paste and set aside to dry. I rubbed walnut stain distress crayon into the crackle and wiped some of the surface crayon away with a baby wipe. The ‘Arthur & Co’ is cut using the alphanumeric labels thinlits dies. These are probably one of my favourite alpha sets.

I added an idea-ology vignette frame sprayed with walnut stain distress spray, over the top of the tangled twigs die cut also dyed with walnut stain distress. Mixy matchy again, it’s so fun to use old dies with new ones as you add to your collection.

Arthur’s tree branch was die cut and run through my machine in the lumbar 3D folder to give a nice wood effect. When I mounted Arthur, I tucked his tail behind the branch as I thought he looked properly perched and he is a dapper owl after all, being proper is of the upmost importance.

I added a stamped sentiment from the stamper anonymous field notes stamp set CMS396, which I attached using mini fasteners.

I love the idea-ology mini fasteners because they have tiny screw heads on top and they’re just so tiny! And the distress texture crackle paste is the boss! Look at that crackley goodness!! If you love the crackle look but don’t want to play with the paste, check out my previous post, I used paper from the new idea-ology Halloween departed paper stash. If you love it, grab a pad before it departs forever *inserts SOBBING

Once I had fully assembled Arthur, I carefully curled him and then glued the edges to the vignette frame which gave him some extra depth… and he needed it, he’s pretty shallow to be honest! 😉

Thanks for stopping by.
Zoe