Challenge - Music Mayhem

Good Morning! It's time for Macabre Monday with Haunted Design House.  But first, there were some requests for the stamp maker of last week's image and I'm sorry, but I have no idea who it is.  It's an unmounted stamp, made of thin blue rubber.  If anyone knows, I will happily give credit.

No, on to the challenge - this week's theme is Music Mayhem and needs to use a song or song title as your muse. 

I immediately went to "Animal I Have Become" by Three Day's Grace.  The chorus is:

"So what if you can see the dark inside of me
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal I have become"

which totally screams Werewolf to me. 

I found an extremely cool werewolf photo on the web - my view of werewolves came from The Howling so they always look like this in my head - and this guy was so beautiful.  I thought about doing something ripped and tattered and torn, but I like the counterpoints of being human and in control vs. the wildness in being an werewolf and decided to go with something classy to offset the animal.

I don't have any good framing dies, so I made my own - I gathered some punched fleur de lis' and glued them upside down (sideways, bottom out?) to the back of my photo. 

The flowers were white and boring, so I splashed them with some black ink and added the leaves in the same color red as the card.  I printed out the line from the song (because for some reason, I thought it had to be on the card.  Apparently, I like to make up my own special rules for the challenges) and added it to the bottom of my pic. 

I used an embossing folder from Stampin' Up on the left and a die from Papertrey Ink for the cool cut out on the right.  It's one of my favs.  The leaves are from Sizzix.

I'm also entering this into the following challenges:
Joanna Sheen Challenge Blog - Animal Crackers (werewolves count, right?)
...Joyful Stamper - Anything Goes
Bloggers Challenge - Die Cuts
Divas by Design - Anything Goes
LEJ Designs Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp & Show - No Rules!

Thanks for stopping by!

Challenge - Butchered Blueprint

As always, the weekend brings us my Haunted Design House submission.  This week we're working from a Butchered Blueprint. 

I have to admit, this is my first time doing a blueprint and I set to work creating.  Surprisingly, it came together fairly quickly and wow, it was frightening and not in a good way.  Hubby looked at it and went 'huh'.  So, for future reference, when the person who loves you most in the world can't think of a single thing to say about your art, perhaps it's time to sleep on it.

And I did - and below is what I came up with. 

I rubber stamped my broken doll (unmounted blue rubber) with Memento and colored it with pencils - ugh, brown and blue is the atrocious color combo on the jacket.  I mounted him on a bit of doily that I had thrown away because it didn't go through the die machine correctly.  Some felt, embroidery floss and a few more buttons and I was set.  

The final step was the stick pin in the heart.  Sad little thing. 

As a bonus for sticking with me this long - here's a close up of the best part of my first attempt - I made the 'blood drop' on the pin with embossing powder.  So cool!

Thanks for stopping by!

HDH - Vile Vintage (see warning!)

Wow, I'm clocking in an entire day early over at Haunted Design House for the latest Monday Macabre - Vile Vintage - take something vile and make it appear vintage, or maybe use something vintage that would be considered vile! 

So, the only thing I could think of that was vile and vintage were post-mortem portraits which, for those innocent souls who follow me, are photos taken of loved ones once they've passed on.  (Please note this warning - there are photos of dead children below.)

I tried to keep everything Victorian era'ish.  I started with a plain brown slide mailer and gave it a quick black wash, then stamped a Victorian pattern using Brilliance ink to give it some background texture and then wrapped it in some beautiful grey satin ribbon.  The flower was made with hand-dyed loose petals from Michael's - they melt and curl nicely when you use a match.  I backed a pre-made frame with some flocked paper and a cross charm, which I added the stone to. 

Here's the inside:

The pictures don't actually belong together, but it seemed serendipitous when I found two different photos with twins.  I framed the photo on the left with black scrap and used it across the bottom on the right along with a small cross between the babies.  I accidentally broke one of the slides with my tea cup, but decided it added to feel of the piece and broke the other one as well. 

It's not really vile to me, but I'm sure someone is horrified on my behalf, so I hope that counts. 

Thanks for looking!

StRaNgE bReW Challenge

This week's challenge over at Haunted Design House is StRaNgE bReW - making something with a recipe. 

Begin with 2 layers (actual card counts as one layer)
Add 1 main image panel
Mix in some metal bits of your choosing
Add some drops of black pearls
Gently fold in 1 punched element
Tie up nicely with some ribbon or trim

Here's my entry:

For my main image, I used my favorite digi, little baby Medusa, hand colored in reds, browns and yellows with pencils (I did her in green before, I'm trying to decide what I like better...) and gel pens.  I gotta say, there is nothing like the harsh camera shot to show you where your coloring still needs work!  Any suggestions out there for some good tutorials?

I fussy cut her and put her on my two layers of paper - one card stock and other a patterned scrap I found in my closet.  My metal bit is a ribbon buckle with some hand dyed ribbon to match her tail and 10 pairs of eyes - how many pairs before it's eyeses??  :) 

Add a punched border at the bottom, lined with black pearls and something you can't see, a matching bit of patterned paper on the inside of the card to show through the punched border.  Ta-dah! All done. 

I am also entering this into the following challanges (because apparently I am the queen of Anything Goes):
Love to Create Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
Fat Pages and Cards with Attitude - Anything Goes
Tammy's Scrapin Corner - Anything Goes with Any Artist
The Paper Makeup Stamps Blog - Anything Goes
Party Time Tuesday's Challenge Blog - Anything Goes