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!

HDH137 - Perplexing Pigment Play

I'm slipping in under the wire (seriously, less than 30 minutes left!) at my favorite spooky blog - Haunted Design House for this week's challenge - Perplexing Pigment Play.  Your piece has to use black, teal, purple and lime green.  It's being sponsored by Bugaboo Digi Stamps and so I purchased an adorable little image to use - Deacon Skull Flower.

Oddly, teal is not a naturally occurring color in my craft room and I have no idea why.  After scouring for almost an hour, I finally found a fabulous little piece of embossed paper in the right color.  I added a green velvet ribbon that I ran through a skull embossing folder and some purple paper.

I used colored pencils to give Deacon a nice lime green zombie color and gave his eyes a little blood ring.  I think zombies give the best skull flowers. Some teal hair and tadah!

A handmade flower that I dyed black and embellished with a green skull from Creepy Glowbugg completed the look.

I'm also going to submit this over at:
Smudger Challenge Blog - Skulls
Forever Night Challenges - Anything Goes
Poisoned Peas - Goth or Emo (I'm pretty sure zombie boys will skull flowers count!)
Fat Pages and Cards with Attitude - Anything Goes
Stamping with the Dragon - Anything Goes


Thanks for looking!

Challenges - Dressy Edward

I've spent a huge amount of time in the craft room this week - I've started drawing again and ugh, it's been so long I feel lost!  But, it can only get better, right??

This week's challenge over at Haunted Design House is a Gothic Make Over - include a cute or non-scary image that has been made over in a Gothic manner.

First off, I am too old to be Goth - I am just the right age, however, to be totally Wave - which is the more colorful bastard daughter of Punk, I think, while Goth is the darker little brother.

Duran Duran was the hottest group around when I was growing up and I spent way too many of my teenaged years with John Taylor's bleached bangs, as well as Adam Ant's eyeliner issues and dating boys who wore more make-up than I did.  I have to admit that even after all these years, a guy in eyeliner and mascara turns my head.  Oh, along with ripped plaid held together by safety pins or the ever popular black fingernail polish.  LOL!

Here's my card:

I used an adorable digi Dressy Edward from the Greeting farm for my main 'cute image'. Yes, he has a bit of eye make-up on - I can't help it!

He looks like he's making a wish to me, so I gave him a thought bubble full of Heads from Stampotique, fussy cut and mounted in a frame to go with his sentiment.  I added a lonely little head behind Edward's leg so his dream of serial killing can come true.   Hey, who are we to stand in the way of ambition?

It's a tad bottom heavy, but whenever I added something extra to the top, it was too busy.  Thoughts? 

I'm entering this little guy in a couple different challenges this week - several of them for the first time:

Haunted Design House (of course) - Gothic Make-Over
Crafty Creation Challenges - Frame It
Forever Night - Anything Goes
Totally Papercrafts - No Pesky Girls Allowed
Southern Girls - All About Boys

Thanks for stopping by! 

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 - Off With Their Heads!!

It's time for another Macabre Monday over at Haunted Design House - this week, it's Off with their heads!! - replace the head on an image.

I had a few challenges with this particular assignment - first, I have amazingly few full body stamps and my digi images are mostly profile heads.  What is up with that??

Secondly, Haunted House Design is also having a minion call and I've been caught up in doing new items for my submission post and almost forgot this one.  On a side note, apparently you cannot have a conversation with your spouse that starts with 'does this pus have too much glitter in it?' and expect it go well.  Men!

Anyway, here's my submission:

Everything was stamped with Versafine.  The body is from Stampotique and the eye "head" is unmarked blue rubber.  The eyes in the background are an unknown clear stamp.  I covered the head's pupil with some diamond glaze after I did my pencil coloring. Added a goo border punch and a rather apropos greeting that I found in a pile of unmounted rubber.

Ta-dah, a great card for the stalker (or stalkee) in your life.

This card is also being submitted over at Art With No Boundaries - The Eyes Have It.  (Thank you, Beverly!)
Enjoy!!

Challenge - Grimm's Grimmest

It's time for another Haunted Design House challenge - this week is Grimm's Grimmest, in which we get our inspiration from one of the 200+ tales from the Brothers Grimm.

The one that immediately popped into my mind, was The Goose Girl - where the Princess, who has a talking horse 'Falada', is forced to trade places with the maid and becomes a goose girl.  To keep Falada from telling anyone, the maid has her killed.  The Princess pays the butcher to mount her head on the bridge so that she may see her when she tends to the geese. 

So, here is Falada's head, hanging on the bridge, with the phrase she speaks to the Princess every morning. 

I spent some time fussy cutting an internet image and layered different parts of it three times.  I colored the eyes, nose and neck red for blood and mounted her on a shield die-cut.  I added the three rhinestones at the bottom of the sentiment to signify the three drops of blood that the Queen gave to the Princess when she left.  (That seemed to be a huge thing for the Grimm's - they were a tad strange...)

Here's a close up of Falada's head. 

On a side note, I have to give thanks to hubby for his willingness to decapitate a toy horse (which he did, but I couldn't get it to work) for my art.  SWAK!

Enjoy! Or, you know, whatever it is you do with a severed horse head.

Challenge - Can I Quote You On That?

It's time for another challenge over at Haunted Design House - this time it's Can I quote you on that?  

Of course, I ran through my favorite movies and kept getting stuck on "The Shining".  

I've incorporated two different quotes - although, does it count if a character never says it?  If not, then it's a good thing that Danny screams "redrum" so many times!

I created the "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" phrase with a magnetic letter stamp set that I don't think has ever seen the light of day in my craft room.  "Redrum" was done in crayon and it was all mounted on red cardstock with a little bling and a layered border punch. 

I showed it to a friend and she wanted to know if it was a birthday card... um.  For someone I really don't like, maybe? 

Anyway, enjoy and thanks 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!  

Out! Out, Damn Spot! Challenge

Well, it's been a while! My husband unexpectedly needed hospital care (he's out and recovering) and my crafting had to be put aside.  But now I'm back and ready to stamp!

I decided to jump back in with the fabulous gals over at Haunted Design House because I love their latest challenge: "Out! Out, damn spot!" - something that is covered in splatter, drips or drops.   Of course, it doesn't have to be blood, but what would be the fun in that?

I actually made this for a friend, who is enchanted with the BBC series Sherlock, which is modern day reworking of Sherlock Holmes.  Instead of being a (mostly) proper Victorian gentlemen, he's a high-functioning sociopath.  Aaahh, there's nothing like a little murder to get the blood flowing. Or, in this case, splattering.

My blood is acrylic paint; red ink didn't keep it's beautiful bright color.  I was rather disappointed to find out that I don't have an axe stamp, because I thought the piece would have been perfect with one; I'm not sure what that says about me. LOL!

Enjoy and thank you, as always, for looking!

Missed Deadline - Beloved Monster

Ugh, I missed another Challenge Deadline - this one is for the My Beloved Monster challenge at Haunted Design House.  I blame it on my West Coast location - I'm late for everything that happens in a different time zone.

Anyway, I'm new to digis (this beauty is from Strange Skin) and it's come to my attention that I kinda suck at coloring.  LOL!  I was considering buying some Copics but I think I need to practice a little more before I drop that kind of money. 

She's done in a variety of different colored pencils and some pens. 

Enjoy!

Challenge Macabre Monday - Forever Mine

I recently found the Haunted Design House blog and fell totally in love.  For those of you who are new to me, I love horror and macabre and blood and wheeeeeeee!!!!!!  I'll have to post my Christmas cards with the rabid dog sometime.....

Anyway! Haunted Design House had a challenge - Love Bites - that I just had to do. 

I'm disappointed with how poorly the blood shows up on the heart, I think it's because I took the picture in natural daylight but the ones inside were too dark.  But I do love this.  Sadly, the heart is an unmounted stamp and I have no idea where I got it; it's extremely detailed but stamps so perfectly when I use Versafine.   

Enjoy!!!