Challenge - CASE A Minion

Well, everything in my little corner of the world is getting back to normal - I attended an art retreat last weekend, had a blast, made some new friends, laughed with some old friends, and now it's time get back to crafting, particularly since the last few weeks have been spent designing and prepping two new projects to do at the retreat. Now I get to play for me!

As always, HauntedDesign House is having another challenge - this time we need to CASE a Minion (Copy And Steal Everything or pull inspiration from) one of the supremely talented design team members.

I chose Andrea and her key chain - her version is for those crazy people that hate Vampires; mine belongs to a certain Vamp - hey, everyone has keys, right?  So what if it's to the coffin in the basement...

It's personalized with his name and has a self-portrait, along with some charms of his favorite things - the coffin that he was buried in, a skull, a bat and wolf.  There's even a few labels, because every Vamp has a little diva in him.  A tiny little cemetery scene finishes it off.  

 

Everything was done with StazOn on shrink plastic, helped along with a little Sharpie, the bat was a die and I found the skull in my drawer of evil.

Enjoy!

Macabre Monday - Pirate's Booty

It's time for another Macabre Monday over at Haunted Design House - this week's theme is Pirate's Booty.  I decided to go with a map, said to show the location of a chest of coins owned by infamous pirate, Calico Jackman.  Unfortunately, Captain Jackman was caught and hanged for piracy before he was able to retrieve his treasure.

This is the 2nd map that I made - the first one's ashes lie partially melted into the carpet of my craft room.  Did you know that you should not apply open flame to paper that has hairspray on it?  My left brain knows that, my right brain not so much.

Using Versafine, I stamped the map on a thin piece of stationary and added some script, as well as various nautical designs that I thought a sailor might have on a ledger page.  I marked the treasure with a Stazon X and distressed the entire thing with Walnut Ink and water.  While the page was still wet, I took an embossing stylus and wrote some numbers and words along the edge; the ink darkened them up nicely, and folded the map up to get the nice dark creases and let it sit for about 10 minutes and then opened it up flat.  Once the paper dried, it turned brittle.

I refolded it and got out the matches - let's gloss over the fate of the first map, shall we?  After going outside, I strategically burned the edges and some creases of the map.  I made the seal with wax and an unmounted stamp coated with Stazon.  The blood is Memento ink right out of the refill bottle.  Ta-dah, Calico Jack's treasure map.

  

I had a little time on my hands and decided to play with some clay and came up with some Krakken tentacles.   The base is covered in cloisonne embossing powder and the tentacles were darkened with a black ink wash.  It's a perfect paperweight for the map.   

 Thanks for looking!

Gingersnap Creations Challenge - Things That Leap

It's time for me to jump back into the Gingersnap Creations challenges; I've been away too long!

This time, I'm going for the Once in a Blue Moon challenge - Things that Leap.

I can't tell you how much I adore this set from Komodo.  It comes with the water rings, the lilypad and the tiny little frog.  I wanted a little more depth than normal, so while the lilypads are colored with Memento and stamped on white paper, I stamped the frog on acetate with StazOn (inked it green and then rolled the feet/head in black) and mounted it with foam tape - it's basically a shaker card without anything inside the shaker pocket.  

I love the color scheme as well - blue and green is becoming one of my favorite combos.  I used a great  die from Papertrey to make the border accent.

Thanks for stopping by!

Random Redhead Challenge - Planes and Trains

Slipping in under the wire again at Gingersnap Creations for their Planes and Trains Challenge with a hint of steampunkishness. 

The vellum is printed with clocks and I stamped the plane on the front with StazOn but the other images are on cardstock underneath the vellum. 

This is one of my favorite sentiments, I use it for 'missing you' and 'thank for your help' cards.  I love how hazy it is under the vellum. 

I didn't like how boxy the finished card was, so I ran the top panel through a edging die to add the cool border on the left. 

As always, thank you for looking!

Challenge: Varying Visages of Vincent

So, you may know that I'm a huge horror buff - I love scary movies and scary stories and bats and blood and all the fabulous things that make other people shudder and run.  And I love Vincent Price.  First, his movies are incredible - he had such a incredible presence - and he always managed to make most of his characters, no matter how murderous, somewhat tragic and you (I) ached for them.

This week, Haunted Design House is doing a tribute to the Master of Horror - they have a fantastic blog candy offer:

For a chance to win, pop on over to their blog and check it out.

The rules for entering blog candy drawing:1. Readers shall hop to each of the Macabre Minions blogs to see their take on the challenge...
readers must comment on each of the (6) posts.
2. Spread the word about the candy corn via your blog, Twitter, whatevah. Then just comment on this HDH post with a link to the announcement about it.
3. If you play along with the HDH Macabre Monday 100th challenge, you get TWO extra chances to win... just linky up and then add two more comments.

 

I did a little mini shrine which I hand cut from some paper (I believe it's a retelling of Sleepy Hollow) with some halloween scraps such as a few StazOn colored bat pins, a poison brad and a shrink plastic raven (which is an idea that I absolutely stole from Blackdragon and her fantastic piece - check out her jewelry art as well - so, so beautiful!) and a wicked stamp.

Here's a little better angle of the Wicked sentiment.  

So run, don't walk, to Varying Visages of Vincent and win a bit of macbre candy.  

Thanks, as always, for looking!  

Here Goes Nothing!

Yikes! After months of dithering, here is my first blog post.  I've been following so many wonderfully talented artists; I just had to jump in. 

While I haven't joined any challenges (yet!), below is a card that I made for a friend - I didn't have any robot images that I liked, so I decided to make my own.  And then he needed a friend, who is on the inside of the card.  The background is crumpled tin foil.  Of course, I didn't realize until I was done that I have no stamping on this card. 

Enjoy!!

My photography isn't that great, so any tips would be welcome.   Thanks for looking!