Saturday, June 27, 2015

June's Days are ticking away, have you played yet??

hmmmm....June is almost over.....Closing Night with Mischief Circus is almost upon us, sadly....our evil froggy says there is still plenty of room to join up and share your dark side.....will you?


CT kim
Holliewood Studios kits Void 2 & Art Dollies Halloween


Join us before the tent is closed, we have a Mischief Circus Gift Certificate up for grabs from the lovely Hollie...come on you know you want to go shopping!


Link your darker makes HERE

Friday, June 26, 2015

Our Fabulous Sponsor for July is Ike's Art!

Ike's Art is a name a lot of you may know.  She has some awesome creep inspired images and is a wonderful artist!  My love of her work began almost a year ago when I bought my first dark image called "The Tell Tale Heart"!  I got it and inspiration struck and it became a box of wood covered paper that opened to reveal the beating heart of the story by Edgar Allan Poe!  I was in love with Ike's Art and Mr. Poe!   Quoth

Ike's Art sponsors so many of the challenges we know and love and her generosity knows no bounds!  She also hosts two challenge blogs of her own!  Ike's World Challenge runs every fortnight and (get this!) every new challenge she gives away a fantastic freebie!  Not talking about a small thingy but an exquisite image free for you to download!   And then she has the the fabulous challenge blog Quoth the Raven, dedicated to the man himself, Edgar Allan Poe!  Please check out these challenges you will be very glad you did!

But you hear me talk all the time so here are some words from the fabulous Ike!
"Hi there – I am Ike……a nickname that I got hooked with many years ago due to my surname, and in my profession at that time, …… they just loved to give nicknames .

OK – potted history ….. I was born in the UK, went to art college, worked as a Cop for 30 years, had me 1 fabulous daughter, lived on an island, retired and moved to another island, became a grandmother, do my own thing :-D

I live in Greece now and have a passion for kitties I have 6 house cats and several interlopers that I feed at the windows. This number grows all the time as the kitty telegraph goes around…. I think it’s up to 16 now !! I also have 8 English Light Sussex chickens that I reared myself in an incubator

I am a complete nutter or should I say I’m ‘zany’ hahaha. I have a very strange/sick sense of humour and I must admit I spend a lot of time talking to myself. !! Well, I get more sense out of me.! I reckon in a few years I shall be known as the “crazy cat lady”

I am an artist and have a strange mind when it comes to creating my art. I either go completely true to life… right down to the last hair… or I go totally surreal. I have a passion for all things horror/Gothic etc. I’ve always loved horror films and books and I guess that’s why it creeps into my stuff !
Had I been a bit younger I swear I would have been a Goth……luuuuuv it.
Next time around I am gonna be a witch or a cat "


Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Scary Fairy Blog Hop with Smeared Ink!

Today we are playing along with Smeared and Smudged with the First Annual Scary Fairy Blog Hop!!

Here is the blog roll for you to follow, you can start anywhere you like or follow from the top!

Black Dragon
Dream In Darkness
Teresa
Harp
Leigh
Lost Coast Portal To Creativity
Katie
Susan
Kat



Mirror Mirror on the wall, Who's the Fairyest of All?



CT Granne:

Using digital stamps by Smeared Ink and Delicious Darkness and skeleton leaves for wings:


CT Anne:
A fairy tale...

It was a dark & stormy night. The Dead Fairy wondered...




Mirror Mirror on the wall, Who's the Fairyest of All?
Startled by sudden light, the Dead Fairy turned... to see…





The Dread Paparazzi preying like wolves and vultures, with their
 steampunk and drone cameras 
(stamps from viva las vegas and silver crow creations again)



.... the Dread Paparazzi!!!  
"It triggered a flashback to the last time they had 
caught her out without her makeup!" 


The door slammed shut....





Clear plastic box about the size of an ATC, altered. Skeleton was set into a bit of green clay to stay upright. A sunglasses lens had a thick layer of glitter glued round the edge and an oval mirror set into it. The white eyelash yarn made good net curtains.
Materials:
Dead Fairy kit, lamp, spectacle sunglass lens etc from www.silvercrowcreations.com
Graphic 45 paper
Toadstool house stamp from Third Coast RS stamped on acetate and coloured with alcohol inks.

CT Nan
My dead scary fairy!


 She now resides in her new home after being caught in my garden killing my beautiful gardenias!  She lives with her pet tarantula, yes he had to come too!, named Tary!  There is black magic dust looks a lot like glitter but it is the dust she sprinkles on flowers to kill them.  Here she is relaxing on the computer!  And do not worry, please, I give her a fresh new flower each day to feed and drink on and then kill for her amusement!

Also, she does not stay locked away all the time! I let her out and because she insists on having Tary with her, they have free reign over a room in my house I switch it up.  Why one room? I am terrified of Tary!! He is very protective of my dead fairy!


Here she is out of her home!  Her wings are made from sugar skulls stamped and fussy cut and you can find these skulls in a set of 6 different skulls at Lost Coast Designs.  She is courtesy of a friend also using the Dead Fairy Kit for SilverCrow Creations with some minor adjustments to clothing color and wings.
For more details to the story check out my personal blog Deep into the Darkness Peering.



CT kim

Digital Hybrid makes my make this day. I used the "Honey" image by Smeared Ink as well as the sentiment and a digi paper. Honey is colored with Sharpies, Bics and my new two Copics :)

The background elements have more elements by Marta van Eck at Mischief Circus Midnight Reverie and Magic Light. There are also some digital papers blended that I made, too.

"I'm watching you"


Thanks for hopping by, all of us at Dream in Darkness thank you all!

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Relaxing Day with CT Granne~Mischief Circus Mayhem

After working so hard each day,  hoping everyone can sit and.....well CT Granne has comfort for you today...





Using beautiful digital elements from our sponsor Hollie of Holliewood Studios at Mischief Circus! The kits she used are More Brains and Art Dollies Halloween

The days of June are counting down too fast, but still some days remain to get your creep on and share with us in darkness....

Link your fabulous dark creations HERE, anything goes (except cute)

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

CT Nan with Another Mischief Circus Make

I totally adore using Mischief Circus's kits in Photoshop!  

Tonight I have been playing with the kit " Ode to Muse" by Holliewood Studios and having so much fun!  I was going to my darker kits that I used to make my CT project for the beginning of the June Challenge but I opened up Ode first and just stayed in there!  Still so much to play with left but I wanted to leave this one not as busy and focus on the EYES!  Yes, from a creepy guys photo, to a really creepy figure, to a pair of eyes, to an eyeball floating in the dark hallway!  The eyes definitely have it!  Also added some nails pointy ends up! and of course a skull!



 Now you still have time lots of time to play with us this month!  We are looking forward to seeing some more of you fabulous makes!  Entered already? Go ahead you know you want to enter again!  And with this fabulous prize up for grabs...that's a $15 coupon good at Mischief Circus Holliewood Studios!  Then you will be playing instead of sleeping, too!

As always, we have left the light off for you!

Friday, June 12, 2015

The Big Reveal of CT Anne's June Make for Mischief Circus

 
I was rather fascinated by the variety of kits Holliewood had available in Mischief Circus, and couldn't resist doing a mashup involving the Techno Toybox set, and Hotel Hell and Nightmare.  The Torture chamber grabbed me, along with the bugs – and since computers also get bugs, I was on the way.
Hotel Hell is here: https://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/product.php?productid=21327&cat=0&page=1 
 Welcome to my Nightmare
Techno Toybox: https://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/product.php?productid=22693&cat=0&page=1 
Spray Alphabet:   https://www.mischiefcircus.com/shop/product.php?productid=22275&cat=0&page=1

In Greek Mythology, Pandora opened a container she shouldn't have, and all sorts of nastinesses escaped into the pure world.  Perhaps if it had happened today, she would have had an X-box, opened that up and released smoke, voided the warranty, and released other nasties.
The techno pcb background stood out as being not too busy for other items to be superimposed.     Printed on standard paper, glued to an offcut of mat board which my local picture framer gives away.  With a Prima stencil, I went over  with three different Lindys Stamp Gangcolours and a sponge, shifting the stencil with each layer.  

At this stage, I knew I was incorporating a pcb as part of the base, and had auditioned the positioning of various other elements.  This is becoming a decidedly hybrid project – both with kit themes and digi vs non-digi elements.  Well in to the piece, it told me it was going to be a triptych!  The left side will be Pandora.  The right side has yet to reveal itself to me.

Digital elements were printed out on white, or green paper and fussy-cut.  Bugs & blood were printed on OHP transparencies, and bug antennae enhanced with a line of Viva's black pearl pen.  The torture chamber was printed twice, once as mirror image, the doors cut off and attached to the back of the doors of the copy I was using in full, with double-sided tape.  But before sticking together, I inserted dressmaking pins where the visual spikes came through.  The sticky tape helps the heads of the pins stay between the 2 layers of doors.  The hand coming out of the dirt pile was overpainted with Jacquard interference red.  Slits cut in the straps at the bottom of the torture chamber allowed the hand element to slip through, with a foam dot behind it to bring it forward from the chamber.  The chamber was also backed onto thick foam before attaching to the pcb background, so the doors can swing to & fro.

For a torture chamber with spikes, there had to be blood stains, and this was reflected in the lettering: Mischief Circus' Spray Alphabet to the rescue, printed on an OHP with a cream tint to the overall background (a bit subtle for my camera skills) then cut out with a jagged-tooth pair of scissors.  Time to “dress” the scene with insect and fossil stamps from   http://buttersidedownstamps.com  , and worms from  http://www.vlvstamps.com/   – some stamped
onto slivers of a CD  again reflecting the techno slant of the piece.  Wikipedia helped me find Error messages – including a couple unique to real X-boxes!  These were written onto cuttlebugged bats.  The cobweb was made by freehand drawing it on a teflon sheet in pearl 3D Lumiere, peeled off when dry and dropped over the “nails”.

This was intended to be a free-standing piece, so a base was necessary – incorporating a pcb, skulls, and a famous building from Silver Crow Creations  , with steps leading up to the torture chamber.  A “flame” of Jacquard 3D Lumiere topped the skull heads.  



Digital elements were printed out on white, or green paper and fussy-cut.  Bugs & blood were printed on OHP transparencies, and bug antennae enhanced with a line of Viva's black pearl pen.  The torture chamber was printed twice, once as mirror image, the doors cut off and attached to the back of the doors of the copy I was using in full, with double-sided tape.  But before sticking together, I inserted dressmaking pins where the visual spikes came through.  The sticky tape helps the heads of the pins stay between the 2 layers of doors.  The hand coming out of the dirt pile was overpainted with Jacquard interference red.  Slits cut in the straps at the bottom of the torture chamber allowed the hand element to slip through, with a foam dot behind it to bring it forward from the chamber.  The chamber was also backed onto thick foam before attaching to the pcb background, so the doors can swing to & fro.


The Big Reveal!!


Sunday, June 7, 2015

Are You Ready?? First Winners at Dream in Darkness First Challenge!!

Thank you each for entering this month!  We were and are so pleased with the turnout to our little playground!  

As you know, the winner's this month were chosen by random.org so blame him/her/it!  Now next month you can blame something other than us as we are quite sure we can come up with something to blame!!  We could keep chattering away and keep you in suspense...this is a dark challenge..buwhahaha! but we are not cruel, well, not most of the time! 


So here are the winners but remember you are all winners in our eyes!!

1st Place
winning digis from Rick St. Dennis
and a guest Creative Team spot
in July if they choose!
#38
Paperwhims
please email us for your badge and info to send to Rick. Please let us know if you would like to
be our guest Creative Team Member for July!
Congratulations!!
2nd Place
#22
Sandie

3rd Place
#33
An English Lady

Please email us at dreamindarknessblog@gmail.com
for your badges!!

Congratulations to all who won and to all who entered!  Make sure you enter this month's challenge it is Anything Goes as always!!

Keep it dark and keep it coming!!
 And beware of the shadows and dark rooms....


Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Skull Appreciation Day Blog Hop with Smeared Ink!

Welcome to Skull Appreciation Day !!

An awesome blog hop day organized by the ladies at Smeared Ink!

Hop along and prepare to be pleasantly creeped out....eeek!


Follow this route we don't want you to get lost....you may never come back!


SKULL APPRECIATION DAY
Blog Hop
Black Dragon 
Katie
 Lisa
Tit Belsoeur
 Anna 
Sue
 Nan
 Dream In Darkness
Harp
 Maureen 
Ike
Monique
Fiona
 Teresa
Leigh S-B
DominoART
Lost Coast Portal to Creativity
Julia
 Susan R.

For your consideration....

CT Granne using Mischief Circus Holliewood Studios digital kits More Brains and Art Dollies Halloween



CT kim using Mischief Circus Holliewood Studios digital kits Art Dollies Halloween and Welcome to my Nightmare



CT Nan: Using handmade canvas and VivaLasVega Stamps here.



CT Anne: Using Smeared Ink stamp.


We had a blast participating! Please leave some love for all the lovelies on the blog roll!  And thanks T &T for letting us play in your playground!!

Monday, June 1, 2015

New Challenge for June, Anything Goes with Mischief Circus

First thing we want to do is say a heartfelt thank you to each of you that made our history by entering this month!  We are so thankful and excited to have reached the number of entries that we did!  You have pleased the dark playground folks here at Dream in Darkness!






Now, we are entering our 2nd month's challenge, sponsored by Hollie Haradon and Mischief Circus!  Please, please click on "Creepster Feature" and read and look in amazement at the wonders there concerning Mischief Circus!  She is providing June's winner with a $15 coupon code to use at Mischief Circus good on any of her products in the line of Holliewood Studios!  How fabulous is that?  You won't know how much you want this until you visit our newest "Creepster's" spotlight!






Of course, we have some fantastic makes by our own Creative Team with kits Hollie allowed us to choose and work with and fun was had by all of us!  

But alas before showing you these fab makes, we have to do some more pesky housework!  After much thought we will no longer choose our winners by random.org.  Winners will be chosen by the Creative Team and each member will also pick an entry that caught their eye to show you and comment on. 

And with much reluctance we have to repeat that this challenge is for your dark makes.  This is a very much debated issue not just here but on other groups as to what is dark?  Our tips to you and this does not mean we are the judges of the meaning of dark as it is subjective but we want everyone to have a chance to win our votes (of course we can't vote for everyone every month!!) but we prefer makes without embellishments or sentiments that can turn an awesome dark make into creepy cute. By "Dark" we mean Alternate, Gothic, Halloween, Steampunk, Haunting, Macabre and much more. Just No Cute.

Nothing wrong with creepy cute it is....well, creepy cute indeed! But our intention here is for dark art to be experienced.  So step back and look at your make and see if there is anything that might detract from your "dark side".  Sorry to be school marms on here but we want to have good communication with you each and all!

Now, do you remember the mention of those CT makes waaay back there???  Good for you!  Better memories than CT Nan's!  She is hopeless!  Well, without any further distractions here they are!


CT Nan  : Using More Brains and  All Hallow's Eve  by Holliewood Studios.                                                             
                                                                        






CT kim: Using Holliewood Studios VOID 2 and Welcome to my Nightmare




CT Anne a sneak peek of what is to come.....a wicked mash up using Spray Paint Alpha, Techno Toy Box, Welcome to my Nightmare and Hotel Hell, the Conservatory


Come back next week for more from Asylum Anne!


Now you know whose turn it is now! No pun intended!  So off you go dream on some dark dreams and then put them on paper or canvas or puzzle pieces, or dominoes, or wood, ....you get our point!  Let us see your dark side and let's see who will win the awesome prize from Mischief Circus and a Guest Creative Team spot in July oh! and don't forget a badge for your collection!  

Our theme is always Anything Goes!

We will leave the lights off for you until the last day of June!  And don't mind the creaks when you come in to link up with Evil Froggy.....there's nothing under the floor boards..nothing at all! Buwahahahahahaha!!!

And dark lovelies, come back on June 7th to see who the winners are for May and see who slithers out with a coupon code at the fabulous Rick St. Dennis's store for awesome images!

Another kindly reminder... UGH! We will be voting on winners in the challenges from June forward. The Creative Team will vote and we will no longer use random.org.  You know what we like so woo our votes and take home the prize!

Evil Froggy is now on alert to watch for those NOT entering....and between you and us, he is one bad, bad, froggy!  This ain't no Prince in hiding unless...hmmmm I know of one Prince that we won't mention so let's not make him mad, shall we??