Asylum Anne - Lunchers and Lunchees

When your teamie sends you a snail from a French company, you just KNOW there's going to be a Happy Meal in that Happy Mail... at least Mona Lisa is having a decent meal.  She's a bit messy though - slurping snails in tail-first, letting the shells drop to her bosom.

Here's the whole page, where Mona is thinking "I look in the mirror to see a lean mean harvesting machine"

Guess that means snails aren't fattening.  Two of Seth Apter's Spellbinder dies are layered over a mirror (shimmer sheet), and Mona's reflection started at Things to Alter.  Sooo, several stamp companies have an Eiffel Tower, and a Mona Lisa besides Rubber Dance, but snail mail?  That's tucked away on a plate of postal-themed phrases - complete with snail.  Go check it out, and you'll be looking for opportunities to send people mail, with the best-decorated envelopes ever Envelope Stamps  My 93-year-old dad took the trouble to email me a thank you for the envelope I sent mum the other day.  OK, so that's not weird or dark or creepy, but just a reminder that there's more to inking up stamps than labouring over a pristine card.  And being unmounted, no problem to just have the front end of a snail hanging from Mona's lips.  A serendipitous note to Rubber Dance's Mona - can you see the snail feelers at the very left of the stamp?

I'm also in an alternate-month Deconstructed Journal page swap, so between Carabelle Studio's escargrot (well that's how the packet calls it) and this month's sponsor Rubber Dance we're in for a weirdly festive occasion. - or at least, Rascally Rooster is feasting, the snails probably aren't feeling so festive alas.

Let's turn the page of this Deconstructed Journal page.  You saw our happy sun-loving escargrot at the beginning of the month, BUT... Rascally Rooster clearly loves eating snails, and taunting them - with words from that Envelope plate again.  You'll find the "expired" barcode here and all the weeds, here .

Did you know that if you stamp with black ink, then pour embossing powder over, you don't really see the black at all - it barely changes the tint of a pale lilac-pink ep.  Rascally Rooster & Escargrot were fussycut after heat-embossing.  The stamps are so great as they are, I didn't colour them in on this spread.  Knitting yarn was glued down to extend the feather line.  The snail is raised off the page, so its wings will sit at the same level.  The wings have detailing etched into them.  So as not to lose that, I dry-brushed them with an interference paint over the mdf, as I did for the hand, and also the Reaper's blade.

The back page Features Rascally Rooster's flamboyant rival Rod Rooster telling us he's Too Sexy for his shell. (Well don't all males of every species, once they've broken out of their shirt-shell?)  He's certainly flamboyantly coloured (with Tombows mostly) instead of embossed.

The cage-like shell swings away - like Rod Stewart's shirt perhaps?  Or is it the snail that's too sexy for his shell, as he looks about to lose it too.

All the stamps used came from Rubber Dance except for Carabelle's Escargot.
The mdf pieces - Grim reaper, pointing hand, & wings all come from http://thingstoalter.co.uk/ and in a range of sizes.
Being a swap page, just like an ATC, I like to integrate the "credits" and let them be a part of the whole piece.

Living Down Under, I have to import most of what I like, and Rubber Dance in Norway, and Things To Alter in England have no problem supplying overseas shoppers.

So it's back to my inky roost to see what Rubber Dance inspires me to do, along with the rest of the packet from my team-mate Sari for next month.

Meantime I'm keen to catch up with your weird, creepy, dark makes posted *HERE*