A Halloween Tag

I've neglected this blog lately, and October is one of my favorite months.  I usually am busy creating spooky and fun Halloween stuff but I haven't done much this year.  Here is my tag for my monthly tag swap, that I was scrambling to finish.  Someone was a little ambitious in choosing a theme, we won't mention any names (Nicole!!!) and we had to having moving parts and noise or something touchy,feely.
This one was pretty challenging, but this is what I came up with:

My tag base was some black chipboard (I wanted it to be sturdy enough to hold the little book on the front) which I covered the front and back(the back was put on last) with paper from Tim Holtz's Halloween resist paper. I inked and stained the paper with distress ink and stain.

I then drilled holes in a metal plate from Graphic45, on the left side (I used the Tim Holtz drill press, which went through this metal so easy!) I cut out some resist paper in the same shape and size as the plates for my book pages and another piece of chipboard for the back, attached everything with Tim Holtz charm rings.  Before I put the book together, I alcohol inked purple and green on the plate and then sanded off some of the color.  Then I stamped a web image(this one is from Basic Grey) on the front center with staz-on black ink.

For the Skeleton Door Knocker, I bought a skeleton head bracelet from the dollar store and took it apart.  I cut a thin (about 1/4" wide and 2" long) strip of plastic from packaging, cut the top sides thinner (about 1/2 " in length) so it fit through the hole of head.  I took some thin wire, twisted it in a coil, so it wouldn't fall through, and put it through the skeleton head.  I then taped the plastic and wire together with Tim Holtz tape, covering the wire.  If you find your tape isn't sticking well, I usually glue it on with Claudine Helmuth matt medium,  and then it won't come undone.  I then stuck the bottom of the plastic tab to my front cover with a glue dot, and then covered the bottom, front and back with an embossed and alcohol inked scrap piece of metal paper.  This, I stuck on with Sookwang tape.  I wanted to make sure this didn't fall off, as it will be moving when it is used as a knocker.  I then used skeleton arms from a package of skeletons from the dollar store, attaching one to the ring and one(cut in half) to the side of the tag with a brad.  This one can slide over to keep the book closed, because there was a hole between the bones on the arm part where I placed the brad.  I then attached the book with longer brads through the chipboard back and then the chipboard tag.  This is why I covered the back too, so you don't see the backs of the brads.  I cut out a metal flower, using a flower die from Spellbinders and their metal paper, touching the edges with some alcohol ink.  I then cut apart a Halloween spray from Prima and used one of their mini fall flowers.  Cover the back and you are done!
I was inspired to make the metal plate into a book from Graphic45's blog, they have some really great ideas using their metal plates, flowers and door knobs!
Have a great weekend!