Halloween Witchy (& Crafty) Tilda Decoration

Hello blog visitors! I'm excited because I'm running short on time for an outing with my gal pal, Bonnie, so will try to hurry this up so I can meet her on time!

I am entering my crafty Tilda in three challenges, Totally Tilda's Special Halloween Challenge, Copic Creations Clear Blender Techniques, & Magnalicious' Brown Paper Bag Challenge. I had great fun making the base for Tilda from a vintage wood thread spool on a rosette base made from 2 @ 16"x1 1/2" lengths of accordian pleated strips from my recycled brown paper bag. I glued the sections together and scored/folded at 1/2" intervals then antiqued, folded and formed into the rosette. This was glued with a mighty glob of E6000 to a 2" cardstock circle covered in some vintage 7 Gypsies paper. To the assembled rosette I glued(E6000) one vintage wood spool & went to town decorating. Again...no shopping trips were made in the construction of this piece...LOL!!

This is the first time using a vintage Tilda I purchased used on eBay a couple years back so the shades of black are fairly new to me. The new Copics worked well and I was able to get a decent outcome for a first try using C3, C5, C1, and N7...with an itsy bit of black and some mixing things around with the Copic Colorless Blender (CCB). Since I am using shades of the same color my CCB was invaluable. The apron highlights were added with the CCB...I ususally soften the folds with CCB here too but this design worked better without that this time. I had a bit of panic when the hat and hair melded into one image and I could not distinguish one from the other. A little work with lightning pigtails with my CCB and shading the interior of the hat worked! To further distinguish the hair from the hat I covered Tilda's hair in clear gloss gel. I wanted the Tilda to be as dark as possible to go along with the base so I also antiqued it all over with a sponge and walnut ink. I created a new string leash and legs for the spider from floral wire I colored with black Copic. Usually, I don't like things as cute as Tilda on items with an altered-art feel but I think this worked fine!

For my Copic Creations friends...I also use the CCB solution straight out of the bottle to clean the blades of my scissors after cutting gooey things like the EZ Mount backing for unmounted stamps!

The links in the Copic Creations challenge are worth a visit even if you don't want to enter!