Halloween mini albums frenzy

When one of my friends asked if I was going to post Halloween mini albums for sale on Etsy, I hadn't thought about it since I'm caught up in the baby girl mode waiting for my second granddaughter to arrive.  But Halloween is my favorite time of year so thanks to Elizabeth I went into my usual obsessive mode of creating and made four books in less than a week.  I love to see a variety of styles and colors, was always that way with weaving scarves and shawls, making beeswax collage etc.
But this had to beat them all in productivity.  And I only spent $3.59 cents.  I already had enough supplies form collecting Halloween items for years in my stash. 
I was very fortunate and kind of went into the zone watching British TV shows, favorite movies (Firefly, "9", The Englishmen Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain) and cluttered up my living room with scrappy goodies until one could not sit or walk, except for my narrow place on the couch. 

Since I've been making these for a few years now, I have a system of  steps.  First I apply all the background pages to chipboard or cereal box cardboard, often cut with Tim Holtz edge dies. Then I add photo mats, next come the embellishments, then the words and scripts. Ribbons and bling with jewel spots are next followed by rubber stamping, flowers, metal pieces, Tim Holtz additions.  I love using  embossing cards (Bingo and Spirals), die cuts, Perfect Pearls  and other accent techniques. The last thing I do is make the tags.  It's like dessert after a large dinner of baked potato, veggies and yummy steak!

Of course I love using all my favorite designers, including 7 Gypsies, K and Company, Graphic 45, Reflections.  But even more fun was looking through my vintage pieces.  I've been collecting these for years and I love adding them to my distressed look.  I'm not a cutesy kind of gal.  As a goth from way back, a VOG (very old goth) I  like an edge to my work and even though these are meant as children's albums, I hope they have enough dark touches to appeal to all those moms out there who really get into Halloween.  I also like to add the New England flavor.  We're known for our dark sides what with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and authors like Nathanial Hawthorne and the nearby town of Salem, Mass., the witch capital of the U.S.  We were brought up on the macabre even in school and ghost stories and witches tales were common folklore.