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!

Smudger Challenge - Tag

Back in April, I won my first (and only so far) blog candy from Smudger Challenge Blog.  It was a huge bounty of dark goodies and my inner 12 year old girl squealed.

I was also excited to start doing challenges on a blog from the very beginning so I promptly missed the first challenge deadline because I'm an immense dork.  

But this month, I'm slipping in under the wire.  Challenge #2 is You're It!  (Tags)

I took a manila tag and stamped some Gothic Latin writing on one side and heavily spritzed it with Walnut Ink that has been doctored with Platinum All Purpose Ink.

Tip:  As a great alternative to buying expensive glimmer mists, add an entire bottle of metallic All Purpose Ink (API) to a bottle of Walnut Ink (WI) and shake vigorously.  Tsukineko makes both products and they're really easy to find in most craft stores.  Keep in mind that API is a fabric ink, so you may not find it with stamping products.   

Just make sure that when you add the API to your Walnut Ink, you also dump in the mixing ball that's in the API bottle.  Otherwise, your metallic ink will settle on the bottom of the WI and won't mix as well.  You'll need to give the combo a good shake every time you use it but you get gorgeous shimmery results.   I really like the Cherry Blossom Walnut Ink with Vegas Gold API.

I added some rice paper to one side of my tag and covered the transition between sides with a flourish die cut from a post card.  I felt I needed more sparkle, so I fussy cut a transparency butterfly and coated the underside with blue glitter glue.  I made a smaller embellishment tag and added a tiny little bling and a bit of the glitter glue.  Matching ribbons finished it off. 

Thanks for looking!

Friend Good ATC

I decided I wanted to play with a Dilly Beans Stamps image this week, so I picked the adorable little guy below.  I'm totally into bats so he's perfect. 

I originally colored him with pencil, but decided to go back over parts of it with gel pen, which you may or may not be able to see better below. 

Orange and blue paper with a circle punch created the background.  I love how insanity inducing bright it is.

Since the Dilly Beans Challenge this week is Friendship, I used a label maker to create the Frankenstein quote "friend good".

I'm entering this into the below challenges:
Dilly Beans Challenge - Friendship
Ladybug's Crafts Ink TLT Challenge - Something with Wings
ATC's with Attitude - #14 Anything Goes
Crazy Amigo Challenge - Orange

Thanks for looking!

Challenges - My Favorite Vampire

I'm sure everyone knows what time it is - indulging my Macabre Monday needs at Haunted Design House. 

This week, it's Long in the Tooth - something with chompers, teeth, fangs, dentures, etc.

I went with my favorite toothy fiend - Dracula.  It's not that other vampires aren't fabulous, it's just that he stole my heart when I was a young and impressionable child.   I was 11 when Frank Langella began his starring roll in my feverish dreams of marriage and love and whatever it is that happens when you're all grown up and in love with a vampyre.

  
The fact that dying was a necessity didn't seem like such a bad thing.  Oh, and that he would kill my best friend, family, betrothed? Blah, blah, blah.  He was going to love me FOREVER!  Also, he had awesome fashion sense with that cape and puffy shirt.  What can i say - I was 11. 

I used Versamark to clear emboss the coffins on the card base, then stamped the mouths with Pearlescent Poppy (Brilliance) - sorry all the stamps I used are clear and unmounted.  Then I had to outline them with a drippy blood border - I seriously need to step away from this punch.

I wasn't sure what to do with the Son of Dracul, he's so small, so I gave him a little pop with some glitter flecked tulle I found in a drawer and a crepe paper rosette.   Of course, I want all his kisses so that's the sentiment I used.

I'm also entering this into a few new challenge blogs - yikes, I'm expanding my horizons!

Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz Challenges - No Flowers Allowed
Fat Pages and Cards with Attitude - Anything Goes
Stamps & Fun - Anything Goes
Old Back Porch - 52 Card Pickup
Anything Goes Challenge Blog - Black w/One Other Color

As always, thanks for stopping by and indulging my Macabre spirit!

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!

Blog Candy Arrived!

Whoot! I received my dark blog candy from Smudger Challenge Blog - this is the first time I've won anything and boy, is it a doozy!

There are sooo many goodies!  Charms, postcards, a journal, jewels, skulls, brains, flowers, stickers, some fabulous handmade clay items, just EVERYTHING!!

Thank you so much, Andrea!!

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!

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.

Challenges Challenges Everywhere!

I'm going to go crazy today and enter multiple challenges.  What is up with that??

It just so happens that I was tooling around with this adorable Hero Arts bunny stamp (secret time: I'm  strangely incapable of not buying bunny (and lamb) stamps and then I never use them because, come on! Bunnies and lambs??)  Anyway, I do get them out and play and this card happened without my full consent.  

The bunnies are stamped with Versafine ink on pale lavender paper that I found in my scrap bin along with the great green polka-dot print.  "Spring" is from a clear stamp set that is no longer in the package, sorry manufacturer!

Surprisingly, it matches a few different challenges:
CAS-ual Friday - Pastels and Black (cfc45)
Dutch Dare Card Challenges - Cute & Cuddly (#157)
Clear It Out Challenge Blog - Easter Theme with Pastel Paper Stash

This is the first time I've entered challenges on any of these blogs - hopefully it won't be the last!

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!

Fun with ATCs challenge - Book Pages

I decided to change gears today and go with an ATC and use my previously uninked Stampotique image - "Head" (and "Heads", oddly enough).

I actually started with a black ATC, which I stippled and smudged with several different inks and then promptly covered it with my background image because I don't plan well.   I layered the heads, which are stamped with Versafine (my favorite ink in the world) on a page from an old text book of some sort.  I gave my little guy a rough coloring with a marker and some chalk on his cheeks.  The frame was made from pre-stamped scraps that I found in the trash.  (Yes, yes, I dig through the trash for fabulous things that I might have thrown away before I knew how fabulous they were!) 

Ta-dah! Creepy little ATC, just perfect for the Fun with ATCs blog challenge - Buchseiten (or book pages). 

As always, thanks for looking!

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!

Halloween Banner Card

This is by far the fussiest Halloween card from my Pennywise Arts design month.  

I die cut each jewelry tag and added a rub-on letter, then I folded the top of each tag over my twine 'rope' and glued the tab to the back.  To keep them from all sliding together, I ended up putting each on a pop dot.  I found (okay, I raided the humongous stash of bat things that I have) a few little bat buttons for the knots on either end of my rope. 

The background was a little to plain for me, so I ran the patterned paper through a polka dot embossing folder.  I still wasn't happy, so I decided to stamp a swirl with Versamark and use the O'So Sticky Powder to cover it with Ultrafine Microbeads.

The beads looks like they're colored, but they're clear! They just add a little bit of sparkle.  The word "Happy" is from a Papertrey Ink die - I also used O'So Sticky Powder to adhere it to the card. 

On a side note, remember my Panic! at the Disco cards?  Well, I gave one to a friend who is also in their fan club and we met them at one of their concerts.  She  had the band members sign hers!  I freaked out a tiny little bit (A LOT!) and just had them sign their cd.  EEEEEEE!!!!!

Thanks for looking!

Halloween Skulls

It's time for another Pennywise Arts sponsored card.  Today, I'm all about the skulls and not about bats.

I clear embossed the Boo on crumpled patterned paper and dp'd some red ink over it.  I love the effect! 

The skulls are grungeboard that I covered with white acrylic paint.  After they dried (okay, okay - after they were dryish), I covered them in Versamark and did two layers of clear embossing powder - UTEE would be perfect here, I just can't remember where I put mine - and while the ep was still hot and sticky, dipped them in Ultra Fine Clear Beads.  I added an additional three layers of ep and beads, heating between each layer and ending with a final layer of ep.   Ta-dah!

After they cooled, I cracked them a bit - I tried to rub them with a dye ink pad but it wouldn't stick - duh!  Black Stazon would have been a better choice, but it's apparently run off with my UTEE  and they're living in sin.  :)  

I think I'm going to try this little trick with some colored microbeads and maybe some other shapes - I want to see this technique on a heart or flower shape.   I would be tickled pink if anyone decided to try it and left a link for me! 

Only 46 more days til Halloween!!!

Schulentute Challenge

It's Halloween over at Bella Creations'  Celebrer la Fete group.  One of the challenges this month was to create a BOOtuten (a schulentute with a Halloween twist), so of course, I jumped right in.

Here's my first attempt.  Color me surprised with the bat theme!




I decided to branch out and choose non-traditional Halloween colors for my next BOOtuten. I have a hate/hate relationship with pink, so I found some pale pink scrapbook paper that I will never use.  I stamped it with a chandelier from a Martha Stewart set and created my own 'new' background paper.  I added some ribbon and created a exhibition ribbon (also at Celebrer la Fete) inspired embellishment. 

I did, of course, still manage to get a bat in.  :) 

Thanks for looking!

Gingersnap Creations Art Exchange - Magnets

Gingersnap Creations is having another art exchange - Encouraging Words Refrigerator Magnets.  I decided to try for a heart theme and set about making my magnets. 

I did a shaker magnet.

I tried a new technique (the 'puddle' of white embossing power with the sentiment 'embossed' in it).

I used my new Papertrey Ink set for the first time.  I love this house!

And then I stalled.  I had the quote: "A friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart."  The sentiment was too large, I didn't like the color on the vellum, I couldn't think of anything else to do, blah blah.  I dithered and I dallied and I finally came up with a magnet that was... done.  I didn't love it, I didn't hate it.  I hung them all on the fridge to test the magnet adhesive overnight.  

This afternoon, I started taking pictures.  I did the first three and went I went for the fourth...it wasn't there.  The magnet was still on the fridge but the actual piece was missing.  I asked hubby if he'd seen it - nope.  I searched high and low - it's not under the fridge (yes, I made hubby move it), it didn't fall down the side, it's not on the counter. It's gone.  There are two suspects who have a long criminal history when it comes to crafting mishaps but this is impressive, even for them.

They're not talking, of course.  I suspect the mystery may never be solved.  So, I'm off to make another magnet!  I think I'll have to give the heart theme a pass this time and skip the fridge test. 

Wish me luck!!

Halloween Blues

I love bats! If every card I made could have bats on it, I would be a happy girl.  Seriously, this is how much I love bats:

That's me, on vacation in Australia, volunteering at a bat hospital!  That's Mystique, she's reaching for a bit of banana.  So beautiful!

So, in honor of bats, here's another Halloween card, graciously sponsored by Pennywise Arts!

The adorable sentiment is from Stampotique and the bat is an embroidery sticker that I've had in my stash.  The stars are plain chipboard which I covered in Versamark and dipped into O'So Sticky Powder from Pennywise.  You heat it up just like embossing powder and it gets - wait for it - sticky!  :)  I then covered the stars with ultra fine glitter and set the powder with another blast from my heat gun then added them to my card base and voila - a happy little Halloween card!

As always, thanks so much for looking!

Halloween at Pennywise Arts!

September is my design team month over at Pennywise Arts Blog.  Definitely check it out; they're currently giving away 10 sheets of double-sided O'So Sticky Tape and only two people have entered - great odds if you ask me!  I'm not eligible to play, so go, get your friends to sign up!

On to my first Halloween card of the season! (Mad props to my crazy staging skills! LOL!)

I took some double-sided paper and made the base card, then I flipped the paper over and made a paper 'ribbon' from the print on the back side (yay! bats!); I couldn't get the tail right, so I ended up using the corner of a medallion shaped die.

Papertrey Ink stamps and die helped make the tickets out of more patterned paper and I added a some hand-dyed seam binding.  To finish it all off, I took a small square of O'So Sticky tape, removed the rubber liner and adhered it to some black paper, which I then punched with a bat. 

I removed the paper liner and dipped it into Clear Mini Beads.  You could use the Black Opaque beads too, if you wanted a little less sparkle but I like a little bit of bling.  Stick it on with some foam tape and you're done!

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more Halloween goodies!!