Something Wicked This Way Comes

This Stampers Anonymous Haunted House CMS308 stamp set by Tim Holtz intrigued me when I first saw it...I immediately thought of Ray Bradbury and his Halloween Tree story. And knowing the title of one of his novels was on the Tim Holtz  Monstrous CMS307 set, I was determined to pair them for a card.

I tried a couple of techniques with these stamps, and a few color schemes but wasn't happy with any of them. Then during a biographical presentation I was watching, the speaker posted a sepia lithograph of the subject's home. That immediately inspired me and I decided this set should look like an old lithograph. 

I stamped all the images onto a piece of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock that had been aged with Antique Linen Distress Ink and then sprinkled with water drops and dried thoroughly,
The images were stamped on the Tim Holtz Stamp Platform using Ground Espresso Archival Ink.  It's my new favorite Archival ink color. I used it a lot with the Halloween stamps this year. In order to use it on some large stamps like these, I purchased a DIY Custom Blend Distress Ink pad and loaded it with the Ground Espresso Archival Ink Reinker. Then I could use an individual ink pad to make sure these images were completely covered in ink before stamping.