Shiver, Scream, Be Frightened! - a Halloween ATC Trio by Claudia

Hi, servus and thanks for stopping by!
Claudia here to share with you another bundle of Halloween inspiration using honestly only a fraction of the fantastic wide range of Halloween Craft Parts.

New in the store is the really cool Laboratory section that definitely made my Halloween crafter's heart sing ;) . I've created a set of ATCs again (like I did HERE two years ago)  to show you some of these. (Also if you haven't already checked out my Zombie Artist Trading Block I did two weeks ago using some of the new Zombie body parts wood shapes and a really cool new Anatomical Brain wood shape, I would like to invite you to take a closer look at it HERE).

Once more I used some of my favourite DecoArt paints and products to create cool crackle and paint realistic looking body parts (for a larger view simply click on the images).

Calico Craft Parts used:

- Plain ATC Wood Blanks
- Anatomical Heart - MDF Wood Shape
- Pile of Eyeballs - MDF Wood Shape
- Apothecary Jar with Heart - MDF Wood Shape 
- Apothecary Jars & Body Parts - MDF Add On Sheet
or (if you like to use larger versions of the Bottle of Eyeballs or other potions bottles as well):
- Laboratory Apparatus - MDF Add On Sheet 03
- Apothecary Bottle of Eyeballs - MDF Wood Shape

You can also find other versions to use, like Eyeballs in a Jar (instead of a bottle), empty jars that you can customise and "fill"yourself (by stamping or adding layered MDF wood shapes on them for example) - actually there are a lot of cool jars and bottles in many different shapes and sizes with body parts (or also plain) to find in the "Laboratory" wood shapes section!

I started with painting a base layer of DecoArt Americana Cranberry Wine, Primary Red and Cadmium Orange onto my ATC blanks and set these aside to dry. Then I dry brushed the eyeballs, heart, bottles and jars with DecoArt premium Titan Buff acrylic paint (so none of the gorgeous laser engraved detail got lost).

In the meantime the Americana paints had dried, so I scraped DecoArt media clear Crackle Glaze loosely onto them using a palette knife. I let that layer dry naturally and then added another, making sure I applied it not exactly in the same spots as the one before (but creating overlapping areas and also still having areas that didn't have any Crackle Glaze on them). If you have a pot of older and already gooey Crackle Glaze left overs that is perfect for the second layer! 

Time to paint the jars and body parts. For a realistic look I used an anatomy book for reference.

I used DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints (pure and as washes) Titan Buff, Titanium White, Carbon Black, Prussian Blue Hue, Cobalt Teal Hue, Green Gold, Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide, Diarylide Yellow, Quinacridone Burnt Orange,  Quinacridone Magenta, Cadmium Red Hue and Primary Magenta...

...and as my palette shows a lot of mixes of these as well.

Once the paints on the anatomical heart had dried, I added Decoart Triple Thick really generously with a small flat brush, doming it in specific areas, making sure they didn't touch so the Triple Thick would not spread and level out. The lower part of the heart was only given a thin layer of the Triple Thick...

...so I could add some DecoArt media Liquid Glass "veins" once everything had dried. 

The two coats of Crackle Glaze had dried and beautifully crackled in the meantime, so I added a layer of slightly diluted DecoArt media Carbon Black Antiquing Cream on top...

...and carefully heat dried that.

Then I used a soft damp cloth to wipe off the excess. This way the Antiquing Cream only remained in the cracks and those areas that hadn't been covered by any Crackle Glaze.

I have used this same effect to create an oriental style cinnabar lacquer box using an ATB Cube and some Art Deco wood shapes HERE).


The finished ATC crackle backgrounds:

I found some cool Halloween decoration cloth in a dollar store and used tiny pieces of that to layer the painted and glossy elements on top of these. The cloth was glued in place using DecoArt matte Decou-Page. 

The body parts, jars and bottles were glued in place using stacked sticky foam pads. Then I finished the ATCs off by adding some word stickers from my stash.

I especially love how the anatomical heart turned out! So cool!

But the Triple Thick on the other pieces really added that wow-factor too, I think.

And the two-layers crackle background turned out beautifully as well! Yay!

I hope you have a lot of fun browsing the Calico Craft Parts store for your favourite Halloween pieces and that this ATC trio has inspired you to create your own body parts ATC sets or cards or...well, you know..the possibilities are almost endless. ;)  Can't wait to see you put your own spook on!

Thanks for stopping by and see you in two weeks!

Hugs and happy Halloween crafting!

Claudia

xxx