Lynne Perella's Hallowe'en Pumpkin Hat

Over on Paper Artsy this week it's been the turn of Joanne Wardle as Guest Designer, who has a beautifully elegant clean and simple style which is deceptively hard to emulate. I have been going stir-crazy with my crafting, or lack of it, as I was in France until last night so I missed Alison Butterfly's week of inspiration as Guest Designer and I am also an enormous fan of hers. So this week I have had plenty of time to plan what I was going to make whilst I was away, but almost no time to make something.

Before I show you my rather quick and basic card though, I thought you might like to hear my rubber stamping related story of my journey home, which wouldn't have been funny were it not for the fact that it's completely true, and also the sort of stupid thing I do. While I was in France I had been trying in vain to get my crafting fix by stamping up some mixed greetings and sentiments ready to put onto cards, and I grabbed some blank notecards I keep next to the computer for writing reminders and messages on, and stamped off onto them each time I changed my ink colour. A few days later I was looking on-line for the train times for the last leg of my journey home and I grabbed one of these notecards. I turned it over, wrote the departure times down, tucked it inside my passport, then put it into my carry-on bag so I wouldn't forget it. Well of course I then did forget. So I handed my passport over to the customs officer, and inside he had a little card, in alternating green and fuchsia ink, which read:-

'Thank you So, So Much'
'You Are Amazing!'

Honestly, you couldn't make it up!

So, this is my rather rushed card for this week's Paper Artsy challenge:-

I wanted to stick with Joanne's Hallowe'en theme but I didn't have any Paper Artsy Hallowe'en stamps so I thought, I know, Lynne Perella stamps are characterized by women with unusual headresses, so why not a pumpkin for a hat! I chose the lady with the teacup on her head from LP014 and made a pumpkin from shrink plastic and fresco Butternut and Smoked Paprika and Green Olives, as Joanne had been using shrink plastic this week. I embossed it before shrinking with clear embossing powder. I coloured the image with distress inks and used greens, purples, and orange as I think of these as Hallowe'en colours.

Joanne had made some wonderful streaks of Fresco paint on her cards and I knew I would mess up if I tried to do an artful brushstroke. Early one of the guest designer had made washi tape so I thought I would paint some microporous tape:-

It was lucky I had put it back in the medicine cabinet rather than in my craft room otherwise I would never have found it! I coloured some with Eggplant for a gothic purple, and some with Pumpkin mixed with Smoked Paprika and then some streaks of Pumpkin added on afterwards. This meant I could tear off some strips however I wanted it to look. This is something I will definitely try again.

Sorry it has been a bit of a rushed make and it's a shame I haven't had a bit more time as I have had loads of ideas this week!! Hoping to meet some lovely Paper Artsy friends tomorrow!!