ZALE – Faux Cow Skull…

(Zale is currently listed in my Etsy Shop as he is looking for a home!)

A member of the Ocean Wanderer family Zale is a free spirit. Over the centuries Zale’s colour has been changing to reflect where he loves to spend most of his time – the ocean shallows.

Zale has been hand sculpted from air drying clay and paired with driftwood horns. He features an unusual branch of coral, two sea shells, a piece of sea pottery and a beautiful sea urchin shell under which he hides a precious treasure.

He is designed to be hung on the wall and therefore has a simple hole for hanging (e.g easy to place on to a picture hook or nail). He will arrive within a tear strip postal box, nestled in tissue paper but securely strapped down – all the packaging is recyclable.

Measurements (Length x Width)
Skull = 5.5″ x 2.75″ / 14cm x 7cm
Skull + Horns = 6.75″ x 4.5″ / 17cm x 11.9cm

Materials;
Air-drying Clay
Driftwood
Sea Shells
Sea Urchin Shell
Sea Pottery
Coral
Faux Pearl (it’s hiding, can you spot it?)

As the skulls are handcrafted it naturally makes them all unique. However they all belong to one of the four collective families (Forest Creatures, Desert Dwellers, Galaxy Explorers, Ocean Wanderers) but I give them all a personal name to reflect their uniqueness, individuality and personality.

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BornPrettyStore: Halloween Stamping Plate BP-L057

So just in time for Halloween this rectangle stamping plate has lots of spooky (and not so spooky) images to use. It was sent to me by BornPrettyStore and even though you wouldn’t receive it in time for Halloween this year it is half price at the moment.

Fortunately it isn’t a one trick pony, it’s not all witches and pumpkins. I feel it has a nice balance of themed vs normal images. The obvious example of ‘usable’ images would be the skulls as they’re not soley related to Halloween. (I also include the spider webs, cats and bats within this category.)

Skulls were the first image I chose to stamp. I used my BornPrettyStore stamping polish and clear mallow stamping head and as you can see they came out pretty crisp! The plate didn’t need much prepping, I think this was actually only the second or third scrape before it picked up this strongly. Not bad huh?

I also used a second skull image to demonstrate that it’s easy enough to isolate a single element and use that. This one is a little patchy but that could be due to a few reasons; not enough polish, not prepped enough, clumsy scraping. To be honest though I think it kind of adds to the whole effect! (I love the fact he’s already missing a few teeth.)

And ta-da, the design as a whole! Not so Halloweeny right?

So now let’s actually get on to what the plate was designed for – Halloween! I chose another ‘stamp and go’ image, this time some skeleton cats. Some of them picked up better than others, again maybe the plate needed more prepping or I needed to use more polish.

I thought it was quite a playful image (I can’t have anything too spooky on my nails as I work with children) so felt that a neon ombre would be a twist on tradition too. What do you think?

Over the next week I’ll be using this plate again to bring you some more Halloween nails! If you order anything from BornPrettyStore, use my code ‘AZYW10’ at the checkout to save yourself 10% off all full priced items and remember free shipping. This plate is already half price, so go for it!

Happy Halloe’en