Happy Anti-Valentine's Day from Dream in Darkness!

Happy Non-Valentine's Day!  Sorry to say, some of us here at Dream in Darkness are just not into all the cute Valentine's stuff that is out there even though it quiet lovely!  But as you all beloveds know, there are far places to post sweet Valentine's than anti-Valentines!  So join us in our non-celebration!  Sort of like Opposite Day for the day :)

We are still very much celebrating having Seth Apter as our sponsor again for this month! 

Asylum Anne's offering a Surgeon's Anatomy Lesson
Since it's all about hearts...a Journal page spread.

Alpha Drips, Timeless and Transform stencils from Seth Apter aka The Altered Page
Inkspots and Roundabouts stamp sets also from Seth
Corset dress from Eye Connection
Heart milagro from Carmens Veranda
Calavera Con Flores, Creature Claw, various eyes, from Third Stone Stamps
Vintage Heart Diagram from Mad Rat

Passion's Lure

Always whispering....and waiting...
Crafty Chica's Sugar Skull, thank  you Asylum Anne
Seth Apter's stencils, Robo Ring and Drip Drop Dies
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics & Metallic Luster, Modeling Paste
Drywall tape, Cardboard

I used a small alpha stamp set and stamped onto the shape left by the Drip Drop diecut.

Cardboard makes a wonderful substrate!

Lots of layers, paint and modeling paste.

...waiting...

No good Nan just plain don't like Valentine's Day cause it makes her sad :(  Then all the lovelies in the house tell her to hush up her caterwalling!  So you will understand her make!

I used a new set of round stamps by  Seth Apter that arrived just in time!  They are called Large Journal Coins and I love them!  Lots of paint (Grumbacher Transparentizer, acrylic paints, modeling paste) and gesso by Liqutex and layers of paste and stamps and paper.

Don't wait too long to play!

We hope to see your weird, odd, unique, or plain dark Valentine's in the entry box!  And the only one here who really does like Valentine's day but only the previously stated types is the Evil Froggy!  So blow him a kiss and get those entries in for one last chance to win from Seth Apter !!

Scrabbling for a Song~Day 2 31 DOH

It started with a kiss...  my wallet kissing a load of Junque Shoppes, on what is normally a 4-hour drive to my daughter's family, but which added over 100 km and 4 hours travel time.  Looking forward to a cosy evening with daughter, I had forgotten Friday night is her Colouring At Home evening.  Oooh, the challenge!  I don't colour, I'd brought nothing to craft with, I had NOTHING.... or did I?  My wallet had opened for a scrabble set, which I got for the letters.  So there's my canvas.  Walking past a Rock shop earlier I'd picked up a free copy of NZ Musicians magazine - and that was on the way to a decent art shop, where I'd picked up a couple of water-soluble oil paints and some Atelier tinted black acrylics.  So I borrowed a paintbrush and glue stick, and started picking "ransom" words and letters, collaging onto the scrabble board, and meeting daughter's colouring-in friends.  I also carefully cut out a guy with a microphone, used him as a stencil and mask as well as collaging him.  So I brought it home this far along:

We have farewelled a few great musicians in recent times... David Bowie, Elvis (again???) and it's nearly John Lennon's anniversary, so the scrabble-ouija board invited their shades along to this song fest.
Now about that Ghostopus - did you find it on Day 1?  A Spellbinder die on some of that foam plastic-y packaging, a double-letter score for the G and the S, and a triple word score all over should match all those tentacles.

 Mad Rat have witches flying everywhere, including across this board.  Sponging off some of the water-soluble oil paint freed up the depth of colour so you can see there's a witch in that ghostly-green silhouette.  You'll be hearing more about Grumbacher another month.

Third Stone Stamps have a huge selection of skeletons to dance and flip and laze about, including the cat dancing under the octopus.  The Rubber Dance feather makes a pretty good skeletal spine too.  It's all about recycling here, and re-interpreting, too.

I'm sorry about the bilious pink watermarks - my teamies insisted we use pink through this Halloween month, and I don't "do" pink, so I hope they're satisfied!

So if you hear music on the wind, or from deep inside the planet, watch the wall my darling, while the "gentlemen" sing by.

And if you're tempted to look, go look at the next person in the blog hop - on the sidebar. 

....and our Challenge Link up...HERE

150 years in the Dungeon and Things are Melting Away with Sue!

And Alice must be getting pretty sick of it!  Not to mention the chains getting so rusty all the Steampunkers will be out to snitch them.  Happy 15th Birthday Alice! BUT someone is in the Dungeons, having yet to commit a dastardly crime!  Now THAT'S what I call Preventive Custody!!  I have a 1924 copy of "Through the Looking Glass" and rather than ri a page out, did a colour photocopy to retain the patina of the paper, and enlarged to 122% to work better with the size of stamps in my Collection. Look at all those dead pawn skeletons scattered round the dungeon chessboard floor.

 

There are several different stamp companies offering Alice stamps. I added to the original dungeon with a stairway to heaven or at least out of the dungeon. It and the Diminishing Glass are stamps from Silver Crow Creations, who also have some unusual-shaped playing cards that found their way here. Not exactly a Royal Flush, though!  The Mad Hatter squatting doesn't have that fearfully constipated look either!

All stamps were heat embossed and a wash of using Golden Fluid Acrylic paints with interference green painted over the dungeon.

 

Page adhered to black mat board, chains ...well wouldn't YOU be dragging YOUR chains after a 150 years???

Chess Board Lost Coast Designs

Red Queen, mouse and skeletons MadRat

Stairway., Diminishing Glass, and Oval Playing Cards Silver Crow Creations

Don't move an inch it's time for next installment of Sue's story!

Freddy had just finished decorating his home. He had fairy lights and a jolly snowman, he was wearing his best Creepmas jumper complete with jingle bells and was looking for some new toilet rolls.. the ones with images of reindeer embossed for comfort. He was not amused when he saw what he thought was a drunk Creepmas tree hiding under a bush at the back of his house. Kevin had told Freddy that he was welcome to move into the outhouse at a fair rent... but wasn't prepared to share his home with uninvited guests. There was some strange black sparkly dust trailing after the tree and bits of tag and ribbon floating about. Meanwhile, Wilbur had introduced everyone to Mr Egg (Looks a bit like a spoon) and Mr Nog (The thingy with all the legs sitting in the bowl) Val brightened up and started giving Doris and Nan bottles of rather chewy wine. Doris made herself comfy on the couch, strange that she hadn't noticed it before. It was really quite a lovely couch with a place for her glass and a plate ready for some savory nibbles. The pattern of the fabric was almost hypnotic, it really looked like the vines were moving. The cushions seemed to hug Doris as she wriggled a bit, sleepy with sherry and wine. Was the couch getting larger or was Doris relaxing just a little too much. As Doris stretched and turned to reach her glass her legs sank into such a comfortable weightless softness. Her back followed then her arms. She knew something was wrong when her head was cradled by the extra frou frou Creepmas throw and she was slowly and gently absorbed by the demon couch. Kevin had always hated the couch..a gift from his Auntie and had never sat on it. Now he thought what a great way to do a spot of recycling.

https://www.zibbet.com/rick1949/this-is-as-jolly-as-i-get-digi-stamp

Background kits from Mischief Circus

 Well, lets hope CT Nan can handle her "chewy wine" in time for Christmas! Meanwhile, the Frog is not happy one bit! He has thrown off his hat and trashed the tree and you know why..yes, you do!  Get those entries in we worked hard on that darn tree! 

Jump the portal NOW right HERE!

Day 27 31 Days of Halloween~What's the Time, Mr Wolfie?

Welcome to Day 27 of the 31 Days of Halloween! This is an annual Smeared Ink event and we are so thrilled to be playing along as Wicked Bloggers. The Wicked Blogger challenge is to post a new creation each day during October that contains a stamped image, digi or rubber! Check out all the rules and prize details at Smeared Ink.

There is a fabulous blog roll to follow and Hop to it! Find it on the side bar :)

CT Anne, what time is it???

SKELO'CLOCK!

Sizzix clock die cut mat board and mulberry paper 2 colours, and swapped them over for different-coloured centres, glued to the matboard.  Coloured the white cut sides of the matboard with blobby red pen, and green around the orange piece.  Skeletons were stamped on cardstock, washed with colour.  The brads let them move like the hands of a clock - which they are.  Time's running away with us, bringing us all closer to being only a skeleton.

What's the time, Mr Wolfie?

SCREEEMO'CLOCK!

 Guess I'd be screaming too with a sock monkey poking through my throat...

Bones: chicken bones long-boiled. But never enough for all the projects in mind.  Mix up equal parts of Amazing Mold Putty, press bones into it and wait for it to set around them.  Remove the real bones, and you have your own mold to make more bones with clay, paperclay - and orange, reddish, maybe greenish jelly, made with only half the water, makes for awesome dessert accents - not to mention i scream for boney ice cream Bwahahahahahaaa!

http://alphastamps.com/ for the skeletons

http://www.madratrubber.com/ for the screaming child
http://artistcellar.com/ eye stencil
http://www.moldputty.com/ for 2-part silicone molding material

Day 24 31 Days of Halloween~Let's Dance into the Pumpkin Patch

Welcome to Day 24 of the 31 Days of Halloween! This is an annual Smeared Ink event and we are so thrilled to be playing along as Wicked Bloggers. The Wicked Blogger challenge is to post a new creation each day during October that contains a stamped image, digi or rubber! Check out all the rules and prize details at Smeared Ink.

There is a fabulous blog roll to follow and Hop to it! Find it on the side bar :)

Yummy orange from CT Anne today...

 I've been on a stencilling jag, and on a postcard (6x4) mission, and had this postcard left over.  And some other bits left over from other projects.  As I puzzled them, trying to make a new cohesive piece, I bethought me of my journal book. And the traditional Northern Hemisphere Halloween scene.  So we shall have a pumpkin patch in the garden of a haunted house.

But gardens have all sorts of bugs, spiders, tiny doll-people laid out as sacrifices perhaps.
A Haunted House would need Haunters showing through the windows, so I left a blank area on my journal page, where there was no "traditional" leafless tree, stamped some "webs" on it, and fussycut some stamped images to add them to the back of the die-cut house:

Mat board and halloween paper diecut and glued together, here's the front side 

Ah, did I mention stencilling the journal page?  Yep.  Yellow page, purple paint daubed over.

Something learned:  not all tissue papers blend into the background when you glue them to your page.  Oh well, some crows are flying against a cloudy backdrop, maybe that monkey swinging in the tree has escaped a circus?  UhOh!  And there are some flying monkeys in the corner too.  Noooo!
Put them together, and the full scene is revealed. Happy children, screaming children, sleeping children, tiny human insects on the pumpkins, a clown face disguised as a pumpkin - the stereotypical Halloween scene, except there are no tombstones.  Oh well, another time...

Supplies:

http://www.silvercrowcreations.com/  tiny people, baby scraps, Dresden scrap Clown. Stamps: Marionette Monkey, Spanish Moss, Mean Clown, Spiked Man, Flying Crows, Frolicking Children

http://www.madratrubber.com/  squalling child face

Third Coast RS: (small) flying black birds

Sizzix Haunted house die

TCW maple leaf stencil

http://www.vlvstamps.com/   flying monkeys across moon

http://artistcellar.com/ pumpkin/pod stencil