Saturday, May 30, 2015

June Sponsor Announcement!


We are pleased to announce our fabulous sponsor for the month of June!  It is Mischief Circus a fabulous group owned by Hollie Haradon and involving a group of wonderful artists!  This is a digital image company that has an awesome assortment of kits which we, the creative team were supplied with to play!  I can talk for hours about Mischief Circus but Hollie's own words are so much more meaningful than mine would be!

Here is some wonderful information from Hollie:

Mischief - “playful misbehavior or troublemaking.”

Circus - “a large group of people traveling together on the circuit of a particular activity.”

Mischief Circus was developed as community of scrappers/artists/creative souls that use digital products to create. Their store hosts some of the most creative and unique designers in their industry. They cover all styles including: vintage, zetti, realistic, artsy and more. All of Mischief Circus’ image kits are of the highest quality to ensure they look as spectacular in print as they do on your screen. The shop also offer images for ATCs and printable digital collage sheets.
At Mischief Circus, they encourage you to create digital mischief. They fully support that there are no right or wrong ways to make something. Nor are there right or wrong things to explore visually and artistically.  Mischief Circus is a safe haven to explore art and life. They explore different ways to use art/scrap to channel our emotions and feelings. But it’s not all seriousness there either. They are a wild bunch and there is always much laughter and fun to be had. There is nothing they love more then to have a tequila shot or two and fling paint at the walls!!!


At Mischief Circus, they  laugh at rules, stomp on boxes and have fun creating! Their greatest wish is for everyone to celebrate their own creative spirit and encourage everyone else to celebrate theirs. Be your own person. Dare to be different!!!

  Here are some examples of Hollie's work and her fellow designers!


Holliewood Studios: Nightmare
by Hollie


Holliewood Studios: More Brains
by Hollie


Spiritus Mortis Kit by
itKuPiLLi



Kit by
Krysty Designs


Kit by
Marta Van Eck


Kit by
Rucola Designs


Kit by
Tumble Fish Studio


Kit by
Equizart


Kit by
Crowabout Studio B

Some of the amazing kits available for purchase!










Now after all this inspiration and the projects made by our CT with some of these fabulous kits, you MUST be wondering what the winner of this month's challenge will receive!?

How about a $15 coupon code to use at Mischief Circus in Hollie's Shop, expiring on July 30, 2015!

Trust me, with the amazing reasonable costs at  MC you will be creating for days, weeks, months!  And remember this is not just for digital artist!  If  you are like CT Nan and slightly computer fearful! you can print these kits out and create with them that way!  You have so many options and when you buy these kits you can use them over and over but please read their policies concerning copyrighting.

Thank you, Hollie for a lot of wonderful information for us to use to introduce her and Holliewood Studios and the artists at Mischief Circus!  

We welcome Hollie to our honorary "Creepster Feature" even though she is a lovely young woman certainly not creepy looking but with a flair for creating creepy!  So you are on of us now, Hollie!  Scary, right?
                                                                    Buwahahahahaha!



Saturday, May 23, 2015

Time to Play With DominoArt's 15 Days of Terror with CT Anne


Vladimir Kryznkwzi was born of mixed parentage.  It was not a happy mix.  He consorted with the necks of Lost Coast Women, had his arms surgically replaced with additional blood-sucking teeth.  These and other excesses were dubiously tolerated by the family, until the day his gambling habit saw him gamble away his Vampyre Cloake – a family heirloom of course, handed down for generations – not withstanding that “Hotel “Transylvania” was printed on the back!


At which point his family said “Enough”, bought him a backpack and sent him as far away as they could – Australia – where he wandered the outback, and gambled away his Remittance Cheques, which his family sent out regularly.




And we hope you take a moral from this story!  Don't loose your head or cape over a lovely neck!!
Please run over to DominoArt  here and leave some love for the Queen of the Sharpies aka Queen of DominoArt as she tides us over until Halloween arrives again!

This marks the halfway point to Halloween so go see the great makes and then make a dark, lovely, creepy, Halloween project and come enter it here at Dream in Darkness!  Combine it with DominoArt's current challenge at the blog whose theme is "Ravens"!  Double the fun with one make!

You will find the details of the current challenge when you go visit Vlad here at DominoArt.  Again, two for one!  Even we dark siders love a bargain...UNLESS it is a cute bargain..shudder!!  Then we run to our haunted houses and hide for days maybe weeks!! So please keep it dark, we really enjoy being out and about among all you lovely creepy crawlies so don't make us go into hiding!  And as you know we have ways of knowing when you add that cute little bow or sweet sentiment!!
Buwahahahaha!!

Friday, May 15, 2015

Return of Nurse Nurse RoZeTta~ Mid Month with Asylum Anne

We have survived the first half of our first challenge! And no doubt it is because we have the fantastic therapeutic care from Nurse RoZeTta!

Asylum Anne's version of Nurse RoZeTta is created from the digital stamp by our fabulous sponsor Rick st Dennis MFA. You can see her HERE at Rick's Zibbet shop.


In order to fully appreciate this intrepid Nurse, Asylum Anne has graciously and meticulously agreed to share the guts of the story.


No really...the guts of it...

"Preamble: I am so thankful to Rick ST Denia for seducing me into digi images. I've come across his rubber in Smeared Ink, and luuuuurve rubber!!! However, this image of Ricks he has provided me, os digital, so I dive in to new territory. Nurse RoZeTta

...she's going to get stuffed!

In NZ there is a colour known as "Karitane Yellow".  Karitane nurses were those who specialised in
caring for infants, and this colour approximates the colour of breast-fed baby poos, which constantly escaped nappies, thus colouring any nurse uniform in...yep, Karitane Yellow"



"what I'm learning about paint bleed when painting over TAP- paint the outline first. Although the transferred ink acts a bit like a resist, It bleeds worse over the TAP compared with straight onto (washed) calico (US tr "muslin") I found a bottle of resist in my stash, so next time I'm working on fabric, I might re-do the outlines with that before adding colour."


"I am using a very small paintbrush. I printed Nurse Rozetta with an inkjet printer onto Transfer Artist Paper, then ironed it onto the calico with the iron on dry, cotton setting. I used the full sheet, so she will stand about 20cm (8 inches) high. At this stage I haven't decided whether to include wire (pipecleaners) so she can be posed, or whether to hang her by the back of her stethoscope."



"3D Lumiere for the stethoscope, and sepia glossy accents for the skulls... and eyeballs! Sleep for 8 hours while they dry... well of course the stethoscope tube is lumpy - it's got all that karitane xxx under it, hopefully not IN it. Now I'm wondering where she puts that thing!!!!"




"Putting pipecleaners into the body allowed more definition of shape-rounded out the calves, enhanced the cleavage, and allowed for a bit more sculpting round the face." 





"From the back, you can see a few stitches to sculpy cleavage, mouth and nose. The wadding between layers of calico was cut out in the gaps between arms before stitching round them, again to improve the definition of the edges."











"Nurse RoZeTta, your rock and stalwart wall to lean on in times of sickness."




Saturday, May 9, 2015

Day 5 of DominoArts 15 Days of Terror with CT Granne

Our fabulous Granne has made an amazing altered 4 piece children's puzzle for DominoArt's 15 Days of Terror Halloween in May event!  You can find all her mind blowing details on her blog!  The pictures speak louder than our words so here we go!

The East Wind Mermaid


Delicious Doodles Paper and Alphabet
Now found here

Four Piece Puzzle


Crackle Accent and Perfect Pearls


Are you as astonished as we are?
Go over to DominoArt and leave the Queen of Sharpies
some love for hosting this wonderful event
and visit Granne's blog and leave her some
big time love for this beauty!!


Remember, every other day in May there will be a new project posted at DominoArt and our own CT Anne is coming up next!  And the regular challenge at DominoArt this month is "Ravens" and at Quoth the Raven the theme is "Raving Ravens" AND it is "Anything Goes" here at
Dream in Darkness so 3 challenges with one project!! What a deal! 

See you back here on the 15th with the continuing saga of "Nurse RoZeTta" and she has been doing some traveling!!  You do not want to miss this!  Also, she carries a shot with her at all times for naughty dark siders who do not play!!
Just saying............!



Thursday, May 7, 2015

Day 4 DominoART 15 Days of Terror Half-o-ween in May Celebration!

Welcome to Day 4 of the 15 Days of Terror  Half-o-ween Celebration at DominoART!

Halloween is much too important to only celebrate it one mere day a year! There are several multiple day events that Dream in Darkness will be playing along with at various times. We hope you join in too!

If you know of any events that are coming up, let us know in the comments or Contact Us form, we love to play!


Today is my turn at DominoART.

I tackled a new-to-me make, an altered Altoids tin. Be nice...I do bite!




The tin is an old Altoids one, so fun and been hoarding them for awhile intending to do something when the mood strikes!  I used some Tim Holtz embossing folders to line and cover the tin. I used black Core'dinations paper which is fun since it has a kraft colored core. Distress/sand it and it looks sorta like cracked leather.

The image is a digital stamp made by Smeared Ink which is on hiatus right now. But there is an active challenge blog and Facebook group where you can also share your fabulous creepy stuff!

The digi stamp was colored with Sharpie markers and fussy cut. 


I destroyed a couple of playing cards to go along with the Alice inspiration. I know this is not blood and guts creepy, but hey, Alice is very twisted...


Please pop over to DominoART and tell Leigh Dream in Darkness sent you, then the hell hounds won't come nipping at your heels come midnight!

I have a couple more photos posted on my blog HERE if you like....

Thank you so much to everyone that has linked up to our challenge so far! We adore you, each and everyone of you! Thanks so much, please share with your friends!

Dream many dark dreams, come back on Saturday for the next CT make from Dream in Darkness!

~CT kim

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

DominoArt 15 Days of Terror is Here


If you haven't found DominoArt's Challenge yet, you are missing out on a ton of fun and you need a nightlight over there a lot of the time because of the dark!! It is so fun that Leigh cannot wait until October to celebrate Halloween!  She starts in May and guess what month it is....no not December!!! come on don't rush Christmas!  It is MAY!  And Leigh has invited us at Dream in Darkness to play at her playground this month. Cool, huh?  Every other day there will be a post at DominoArt's Blog and you won't want to miss it.  DominoArt is a group for altering game pieces, any game piece!  Warning: It is addictive!

So here is CT Nan with a Batty Bracelet!



"I started off with 5 regular sized plastic dominoes, the kind that come in a tin for around $4 dollars at the dollar store.  I stamped each one with a bat image from the Smeared Ink rubber set "A Little Bit Batty" with black ink pad.  I had a completely different idea for this with black beads and gorgeousness but alas it did not work.  And the picture belies the fact that I have bird like arms!! lol!  

So fitting 5 regular sized dominoes was not easy to do, it kept falling off my arm as I worked on the first plan.  So plan two developed!  I had this really outdated watch so I removed the watch without a moments care and repurposed the lovely band.  It was a glossy copper and getting some black and red on to it was not easy but I did my best!  

The dominoes had one flicking of red paint on them already over the bats....you know bats and blood..well in the movies anyway! so I added another flicking and then dabbed each one onto my embossing pad and covered in UTEE powder.  I love this stuff! I could have gone another coat for a smoother finish but rather liked the bumpy one that one coat can give.  Of course, this was followed by a heat gun to melt all the yumminess together!  Then black felt glued on back of dominoes and dominoes glued onto band..missed my spacing a little bit, Yoshi uprooted the tray I had lain it out on and I didn't get them back right. Yes, I am blaming Yoshi for it...bwahahahah!  And that was that!  I have a batty bracelet I shall wear with pride!"

Now make sure you check every other day as CT Kim is up next, followed by CT Granne, and CT Anne will close us out..not the event but have her amazing make for Dream in Darkness last.  She wanted it that way, no, she is not being punished!  Although with Asylum Anne you never know! :)

So visit often and leave the DominoArt page lots of love and we would like to hear from you, too!

Tell, Leigh aka the Sharpie Queen that we love DominoArt at Dream in Darkness!  And a reminder, her regular challenge theme this month is "Ravens" so alter something with ravens as you get inspired by Halloween in May! 
                                                We told you it is always Halloween here!
                                                              Bwahahahaha!

Friday, May 1, 2015

Drum Roll, Please! Today's the Day! Welcome to the Dream in Darkness Challenge!

We promised you it was coming and it is HERE!  The first every Dream in Darkness Challenge! As it always will be, the theme is Anything Goes!  We want you stampers, digi stampers, digital makers, mixed media makers, steampunk folks, goth, painters, you name it if you can create it to come play in our dark playground.

There are not a lot of rules but please read the few we have so you know what we are about.  Think of us as more Alice in Wonderland and maybe the land of Oz than Snow White or Bambi.  We know that there are a lot of playgrounds for all the awesome cute, fantastic card makers and we tip our hat to them in admiration, however there are few places to play where it is Halloween all the time!  And it is Halloween here every day of every month!! 

To kick us off for our first ever challenge, the amazing Rick St. Dennis is sponsoring us and giving away a prize of some of his digital images to our winner!  Rick is featured in our "Creepster Feature" this month where you can find out all the many places he is at with his fabulous work!  Just click on the tab above to read about Rick!  Our winner will also be asked to be a "guest designer" for the next month and take our lovely badge to place on their blog.

The winner will be chosen by random drawing and our Creative Team will pick a favorite to mention and show their entry and they will also get to take an awesome badge for their blog!

Now that most of the housekeeping is done..Whew! let's get to the good stuff!

Our Creative Team has each use a Rick St. Dennis image in their creation.  And we must take a moment to brag about our team!  They are the best of the best and we have a great time doing this and that is the most important thing to us!  We want to have fun and we want you to have fun!  So without further delay here they are the Dream in Darkness Creative Team showcasing Rick St. Dennis's awesome digital images!

To lead us into the darkness, we  have "Growling" Granne with REaPeR (click to go to store and image) on a cover of a mixed media book! I would take care to not interrupt her creative time...






Next it's "Asylum" Anne with Nurse RoZeTta who says "Smoking is injurious to your health! Put your butts behind mine!" And this is sort of a teaser as the Nurse will be popping up in some unusual places with lots more detail during the month! You can stalk Anne on Facebook in the mean time, but do so quietly...just a warning....





Just a hint at how Nurse RoZeTta is "stuffed"...





And batting next is "Kuriousier" Kim with something to heat things up a bit! A digital hybrid canvas.


Using the image
                                                      Rum Poison Bottle Label for Monique  


To bring us home is "Up to No Good" Nan with a touching clock wedding shadow box using the image Let's Have a Little Chat.


 


Now it's your turn to show US what you have made!  You have a month, the challenge runs from the 1st day of the month until the very last day so No Excuses!  The dog didn't eat it, you didn't leave it on the bus, and your children didn't accidently flush it down the toilet!  So as you can see we have all your excuses covered, now run along, don't trip in the dark! 

Do be careful but do create and enter our challenge!  And do take a peek at the Creative Teams blogs to see the details of their fab makes!  Enough chatting, off with you!  

Mr. Evil Froggy will link your entry so no more questions!

Gentle reminder kind Dark Folks, please make sure your linky is to the project itself and the project is New and not posted before May 1st, 2015. Thanks!