Messy Musings OR The Colors of October

The first of the month is always a new unveling of Tim Holtz's newest monthly tag where he challenges us to try our hand at a new technique.  I have yet to actually create a tag like his; mine always morph into their own little world and this month is no exception.  This is his lovely tag
as seen here on his website.

And here is my rather different one:

Scratching your head?  Let me walk you through my thought process. 

• I don't have many frame or silhouette stamps so I improvised with a simple stamp that would take to embossing well (the skull). 
• I don't have any embossing folders with blank middles so I investigated a double embossing technique that will provide the same effect.  Hard to tell in the finished tag, but the circle is embossed. 
• Instead of pulling out the acrylics I just rubbed some distress inks over the embossed grid background.
• His rose embellishment totally reminded me of the scroll die I have so I cut them out on black cardstock and blinged them up with some black stickles .  I also made some "ugly" flowers using distress stains, pigment ink and embossing powder.  (My fingers are getting really swampy-colored now with a mixture of brown, orange and green inks.)

• Deciding bling was the way to go I added some to the sentiment, plopped some rhinestone eyeballs on the skull, and punched a strip or glittery black tape with a drippy punch.

• After that I dinged up the outside of the tag by running the edge of my scissors along it.  Then I dragged that across my distress pads and dabbed the edges in water so the color would wick up the side a bit.

• And finally I dyed the ribbon with more distress stain and some olive Glimmer Mist.  (Now my fingers are really grungy..BUT with a hint of green sparkle!)  I ripped up the ribbon ends a bit too for a little added distressedness.

This doesn't resemble Tim's tag at all, but it did get me in my crafty zone and playing around with stuff for my favorite holiday. 

Here's what I used:

Off to give my fingers a good scrubbing ...