But the flu season is coming Down Under

Enjoy your summer Sari-Granne, but we've only just stopped Covid-19 before the flu season hits us.
Borders closed early, stringent lockdown and a small population of 5 million have kept numbers down, but there have been deaths, the great God Tourism has lost all his acolytes, and it's likely to stay that way until an effective knife-stabber (vaccine injection) is found.  We may think we have got through one set of dark days, but there will be more.

The stamps are both from Lost Coast Designs.  I rather like the AUD creature that looks rather like a kiwi!  The stencil is Carabelle and Paper Artsy infusions helped with the background.

Lest We Forget

The Bubonic plagues, then Spanish Flu killed millions, and we still haven't figured out how to stop pandemics in their tracks.  Maybe the Gargoyles were right all along:

"After losing their sister to Spanish flu, the 2 Fates wondered if people would ever heed the Gargoyle's advice: social distancing."
So there you have it.  Surely The Fates could have kept one of their own alive.  But no, not evebn the Fates can dodge Fate.  So keep your social distancing up for the long haul rearing up ahead of us.

The picture of the girls turned up randomly and unattributed somewhere in facebook I think.  The period of their garb, and the room they were in instantly put me in mind of the Spanish Flu, elegant multi-storeyed buildings.  Somehow I managed to dodge Steampunking it.
This is another 8x8 fat page with a binding strip at left.
Stamps from Paper Artsy include the Zinski house, Hot Pick "Lest we forget".
Seth Apter stamps include a Spellbinder one no longer available, it is similar to the top one in this link.  Plus an Impression Obsession one heat embossed.  Dylusions Halloween set bats, vivalasvegas Gargoyle trio frieze, and Altered Art's Gargoyle.

We still have a prize to award to the most interesting dark-themed piece of yours between #21-40 so keep sharing your creations.

No Half Measures.

  Is the glass half full, or half empty, and depending on the contents, will it really matter?
Maybe what really matters is that at time of posting, we only need 3 more dark offerings, to award a prize.  Only THREE!!!

Journal page used a Seth Apter/Stencil Girl stencil, stamps from Chocolate Baroque, Paper Artsy, Andy Skinner

Play your cards...February New Challenge

The words for this month is Playing Cards,

when you think of that theme the possibilities are endless!

Hearts <3 , Joker, Alice, cards themselves ...

But to tell you the truth, I've been running like a "headless chicken"

with this theme; TOO much possibilities and so little time...

then I just picked The One idea and went with it.

I painted one of the giant Playing card I got from a Tiger-store,

then added a skull image for a napkin I got from a dear friend of mine,

some stamping with The Blank Page Muse Stamp and finally 

black paint with stencils and few chippoards 

... and the first piece was ready

*****************

Playing Cards, says Granne, any way you like...

There's not exactly a corporate ladder for Asylum Anne 

to climb at her current workplace, but in other places, 

it's a matter of playing your cards right in your climb to the top, 

overcoming setbacks, and once at the top, 

as Death looks on, was it all really worth it?

 Left of spread above.  Centre spread:

At the top, or is it at The End?

Put on your best suit:

Stamps:  Paper Artsy  Words Plate 6 (for the shorthand writing!)

Stencil Girl stencils: Faces in the Crowd, On the Edge, Subliminal skull, 

Ribbons & Circles, October 2016 Club stencil.


*____*

Hello from Kim!

I have a sneaky peek...I'm having fun burying cards as we speak. The direction twists and turns and rounds about upon itself! Honestly no clue where I will wind up, but that's the fun right???

Come back soooon I promise I will have more to share!

After the Poe blog hop (did you have a jaunt through our offerings?), 

a not-so-little Raven tells me there will be a Dark Valentine hop 12-16 Feb, so there could be something here with the emphasis on DARK!

Meantime, our challenge to you is to share your dark, creepy, weird makes with us. 

Theme is optional - you create what your heart tells you to do and we'll love to come and see.

Link Up b e l o w....

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Birthday Dad

As you may recall, I had some skulls readied for projects a while back.  I also had umpteen diecuts hanging round the desk, so it was time to put them together.  I painted the entire boxed canvas yellow, then stencilled the Sunburst over it with gel medium, which will dry clear.  Several washes including black, quinacridone gold, dioxazine purple... then wiped them off the stencilled areas to reveal the yellow rays.

Multiple cereal boxes were cut with Seth Apter's Take Flight die, glued together, then heat embossed with Stampendous' chunky metallic seasonings.  Some was dabbed on to the skull and heated on as well.
Down the bottom, more layers of paint and washes, understamping and overstamping, including use of Strumpet stencil's  Fetus.

4 sets of Sizzix Feathered Wings  were handy, so I layered two of each to make 2 sets of wings.  This set had Paper Artsy Infusions (which I first came across in July's trip to Australia) sprinkled over, spritzed with water.  The edges were tipped with gold Lumiere paint. The largest cross of the die set was cut out of a sheet of craft foam (it also shows the embossing component easily) painted, and strips of bling added.  The top of it had to be snipped to fit under the skull, and a jewel popped under the bottom to keep it raised off the surface.

On my (now late) father's birthday, and as we head into Christmas, a time of celebrating a special new birth, I also remember the children that did not live long enough to have their birth recognised.

Your darkness can be shared here.  And come back on New Year's Day and we will see what Santa brought us to creArte with.

Drip Drop Drip Drop

• Summer Rains or sweat in the South?
• Melting Snow in the North?
• Hero-ing Seth Apter's Drip Drop die?

• Life is full of rules
• Long lists of them
• Bullet-pointed
• Going on forever
• and ever.

🌟 1   From my Not-PC journal/altered book:

Heroing the "surrounds" of card after cutting the die out. The yellow is the page underneath.   They look like bullet points as each makes a different point.

Also used Billboards stamp set, Spinners  stamp set (Word Spin), Unfinished stencil
And from Rubber Dance stamps, the zebra rhinoceros, who is telling us we must use Butterflies in our work, not zebras!  Yeah, right... who's he fooling???
The lowest "bulletpoint" was covered in Goosebumps, and the texture seems to have gravitated to the ink of the stamp underneath:

🌟 2  Jar Labels:

Must be time to go fishing to pickle some more!

Used the DeMengted Derma technique over the DripDrop die cut (tinted the crackle medium red first), and used Kroma Crackle the trad way (tinted yellow) for the inner label which was glued to the back of the diecut.  A light layer of pouring medium over the yellow crackle so it stays on, and a dab of gel medium behind the cabochon, and it has survived whereas the newt eyes have all been eaten.

🌟 3   Name Badge:
I actually started doing several to take to a class to share, but it didn't eventuate.  One side of the card had metal foil glued to it then over-stamped using Thunderstorm.  The other side had stamps, stencilling and random painting.

 After cutting dies, the inner one was turned round, so each "tag" shows both sides of the card at once.  Since I'm not handwriting names after all, I've used Spellbinder Art Nouveau font dies, cut then glued together 5 layers of  each letter, then added several layers of embossing powder over them:  They stand very high above the surface, and stand out well.

🌟  4  Spider's nest:
Converted to a spider's nest by wrapping a fluffy yarn round the ring part to cover it completely, with a few criss-crosses to later glue the cabochon with spider to the front, and a label to the back.  The drips have lilac flowersoft glued to them.  This could be turned into a brooch if you glued a fixing across the back.

🌟  5  David Bowie's Comet

Is there Life On Mars?  

It rather flew off on me into a Fat Book page (6" x 6"):  The front & back pages started with a layer of black tissue crumpled down, then a layer of blue tissue lightly crumpled, with some stamping using all 3 stamps of the Faded Fragments set, and Spinoff in the Roundabouts set.  Some Robo stars diecut out of the "paper" florists use these days.  Some stardust (kindy glitz).  David Bowie is framed in a comet of Golden's Pearl mica flake medium, and the skully one done in kroma crackle.

🌟   6:   The Inside pages:  NASA sent a robot in a spaceship, and apparently found enough "evidence" for Martian Life, that as Comet Bowie whizzed  past us headed that-a-way, David must have hopped aboard to check it out.  Of course, he doesn't need to wear a space suit any more, just a gauzy shroud.

Blue tissue paper was stamped as for the other side, before crumpling onto the page spread - without any black paper underneath.  Looks rather different than with the black under.
Once I saw Seth's pieces in facebook using the CHA releases (drool), I completed the page without text, until the new Alpha Drips stencil could get to me from Stencil Girl (along with some others haha) - and then I used the wrong colouring agent (pen) for the text so it's not as crisp as I would like... maybe star nebula dust got in the way 😄

🌟   7  The quick-witted will remember this picture from 1 February's post - and realise it changed once the pieces got onto the page:

Layers of dies can give quite a different effect to using pop dots in random places on a cutout.  The left-hand one has two layers glued on top of each other, then heat embossed with 3 layers of embossing powder, then another layer of reds and blues along the drip line. Under it is a skeleton leaf.  Why?  A veil over a mystery.  Under that are 2 more layers of the die glued together with the edges painted yellow, and glued offset, ie not aligned with the edges of the upper layers.  That gives more dimension to the frame.   A bit flamey all round, and the leaf/veil floats above the surface, giving more depth to the face underneath.

The right-hand one is a layering of 3 different dies:  in red the Robostar die, then a white dripdrop, then a robo ring with blue embossing powder.  On top of them is Kaisercraft's Nutcracker die, looking suitable robotic.  After putting this piece on the page, the robot was too busy and indistinct, so I cut another one, painted it gold with Jacqurd's Lumiere paint and glued it on top of this one..

🌟   8   Robo star dies frame the starburst stamp from the Faded Fragments set - made to measure!  For other subtle texture, stars were diecut from florists "papers"  I suggest you try a heat gun on each first before glueing down and heating to hurry the drying!  One melted, one evaporated.  And the mesh-like sheets need to be sandwiched between two sheets of paper if they're to cut through.

🌟   9  You can get all of Seth's goodies direct from him.  If you're mad about stencils, they are made at Stencil Girl.  Dies, embossing folders and some stamps are at Spellbinders.  Others of his stamps are at Paper Artsy (did we mention he has a line of Fresco chalk paints with them too?) and still more stamps with Impression Obsessions

🌟   10  FINALLY...... (last bullet in the brain)  As I sweat in nearly 30-degree (C) summer heat, I see quite a few of you "northerners" have thawed out enough to put up your dark, weird, off-beat, definitely not-cute projects on our challenge.  There's space for more of course, add yours here and one of the darkest, creepiest, most off-beat pieces will win something from Seth's generous gifts to us.