Mermaid Virus

Mermaids?  On a Dark Challenge blog?
Covid-19 is still around, and although we are down to Level 3, it's not much freer than level 4 was.  Social Distancing is still very important, as are maintaining our bubbles.  Even mermaids along our coast are supposed to comply!  The lighthouse normally sends out warnings to shipping to avoid shipwrecks on mermaid-infested rocks and caves.
On the one 8x8 fat page, here's the "before"

 Open out the flap of memory of how it was in 1865, and this is 2020:

Stamps all from Rubber Stamp Ave, the seagulls are from Silver Crow Creations.

So that's my spin on mermaids for the Mermaid Blog Hop over at LeighSB Designs - join them at
https://leighsbdesigns.blogspot.com/2020/05/mermay-blog-hop-and-meri-oddleigh.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR17fGJvOLWWThqbf8z9Zz8XXsMTXMt60dHMW-j05xweLcJ83EeoyuhQhI8



And share your dark takes on anything in life or dreams with the linky at the right.

Happy Birthday Edgar Allan Poe

Asylum Anne creeping out of the work overload and not sure she wants to face a world with Poe's imagination rampant.  But there's a blog hop celebrating Poe's birthday going on, so what's a girl to do - say she'll create nevermore???
Creative Jumpstart 2018 is also happening this month, and several of the classes are reminding us of collaging scraps of paper all over the place, that's what probably influenced the style of this tag:

There's a fabulous large stamp of Mermaids on the Rocks (no it's not cocktail hour here) over at Rubber Stamp Ave which a while ago I had inked up, then cut into triangles.  Handy now. random limbs across the tag.  Various other scraps of paper, and a Disney sticker of Aurora (they spelled it wrongly - should be "Lenore").  There's a Carabelle stamp, some coffee-dyed paper from a Takeaways order sheet, a Warning from a die's packaging et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.   AND from Leigh Snaith-Brunton, one of her new digi Poe stamps.

Join the hop here ​

An InLinkz Link-up

Sweet Music, we shall dance you to the death

Even a sweet theme such as "Music" gets twisted in the Asylum of Anne's brain.
Another in the Deconstructed Art Journal page swap going on in Middle Earth this year.  Take an 8"x 8" paper, fold in half and decorate portrait angle.  For 6 people this time.  I cut up a songbook, so everyone has a different song to sing.  I did an extra one for Mr Ed Poe - "Evertrue Evermore" - the third one down!

 The front and back pages: A scrapbooking page full of toitoi "flowers" (a native pampas-type grass) didn't need much more to be done to it.   The Jester from the late Blockhead Stamps was also heat embossed.  I love his squeeze box.  Carabelle Studio have some rather different stamps.  I'm using a Seth Apter stamp to head up the front page - rather tongue in cheek - "everything imaginable is here"  and down the bottom, Rubber Dance instructs you to Go where the music takes you.

 Just before we turn the page, here's your "mood" music  The back page is rather sparse - Stampendous rendering of Danse Macabre, and a cloud giving credit to the stamps and stencils used in this piece. Seth Apter's Explore stencil was the first layer to make it onto the page, then Retro Comet and starburst now discontinued by Artist Cellar then one from the Sacred Heart series at Stencil Girl - since all the songs that were the starting place seemed to deal with love not being as satisfacory as one would wish, the barbed wire across the heart seemed appropriate. (And green is the alternate colour to pink for the heart chakra)

Then it was out with the stamps

Rubber Dance for the wee dancers

Blockhead for the squiggles and notes on the die-cut witch,

Rubber Stamp Ave for the musical bird that is the witch's alter ego.

I added diecut music notes as telephone poles, and birds on a line (presumably all singing their hearts out in 4-part harmonies)

I hope my teamies are proud of me - there's pink in the framing!!!

So if you hear what you think is wind through the trees, hearken closely, it could be Witchy breathing a new song into the skellies, bringing them back to life for one night only.

OR... it could be Evil Froggy demanding more weird stuff from you all!

Though if you carry on therough the 31 Days of Halloween blog hop, you could be rather stunned by what's already being put on offer.

It'a Heeere! The 31 Days of Halloween is Here!

It is round 6 for us at Dream in Darkness!  The theme is...wait for it!  Anything Goes!!  As always we want to see your dark odd or oddities in any art form you want to provide them!  And what better month to enter than October? It is Halloween everyday here at our house but we know some folks only celebrate it on the 31st....strange, we know but we try to understand...sigh.  So even though we are participating in the 31 Days of Halloween, it is business as usual with our challenge!

And speaking of  the 31 Days of Halloween, it is time for the event of the year hosted by Smeared Ink!  That means that each day of October we will be making a new make and posting for you to peruse and it must contain a stamped image, rubber  or digital, somewhere on it.  There are prizes up for grabs by our hosts and all the rules and details can be found at the link above!  You can also win by hopping to the fabulous blogs on the blog roll listed in the side bar, but you have to hop to each blog everyday to be eligible for the prize.  Make sure to check the rules for all the deets you need to  know!

First, we would like to welcome you to our home...we have done sooo much decorating and preparing we are now taking a little spa day to relax before we start hopping to see all your fabulous makes!  And we thought it high time we showed you our faces!  So from us to you Hi! and nice to see ya!  And yes, it is CT Nan upside down...think CT Anne was at play again, seems CT Kim on the right and CT Granne on the left got the worst of the splash!

  

Now on to business.  First up is CT Anne with " My Monkeys" the sequel to "Not My Monkeys"!

UhOh - a skull, embraced by a skeleton, AND a Flying Monkey???
Just whose circus is this?  May be the monkeys are "Hearing no evil, Speaking no evil", but they ARE WATCHING!!!!

The blood - oooh, did the trapeze artist fall to a mangled death?  Tar gel, tinted with Michael deMeng's Serial Killer Red recipe (quinacridone crimson and quinacridone gold) will help you fake it until you can make it.
Turn sideways - this is the top left of my box canvas - snake heads, and a grasping hand that waves to you, but refuses to be photographed clearly:

Let's back out of all this mayhem, and see what's in the 8" x 10" box canvas this time:

The articulated skeleton is held together by threads, and most joints can still move... hopefully not out of this circus.  Some of the stars have wobbly eyes, as do the snakes and the large monkey face.

If this doesn't scare your bank manager into getting you Certified, s/he will have a lot of fun helping you get your own bits & pieces:
http://www.carmensveranda.com/ will get you your own Monkey Face and Large People Skull
http://www.lost-coast-designs.com/ for the marvelous Articulated Skeleton - when "standing" it is a foot high (as well as having 2 feet to stamp haha).  And for the Three Monkeys stamp - who see, hear & speak no evil.  Did you notice the single arm from Chapter 1's Clown Puppet?  That fits in the same shopping cart LOL
http://www.rubberstampave.com have a Flying Monkey
Graphics 45 have the ghost paper in the background,
and it's back to http://www.silvercrowcreations.com/ for some more posturing wee monkeys
Instead of using a font, the Spray Paint Alphabet came from http://www.mischiefcircus.com

So... this close to Halloween, which Circus is yours?

Now up is CT Nan with her book of Day of the Dead altered tin.

 The "Dancing Skeletons"  dancing into "Eternity" are both stamps from Lost Coast Designs.

Some Day of the Dead stickers, a rusty key, and another Lost Coast Designs beauty "Skull and Roses" on the front of the tin.

Inside some bottles from Mischief Circus and an air dry clay sugar skull with some "hairy" additions to his home.

And then is CT Granne taging you with SLS's Zombie lady

Made by using DI ink pads, stencils and ball point pens, here's the lady little closer:

Demanding to be treated....

 And a wee reminder, we will be giving out a prize for faithful commenters but the catch is we won't announce which day UNTIL the day AND you must have commented the day before to be eligible for the drawing!  Ah ha, you didn't think we would make it that easy did you?  Evil laughter and screams fill the house...the spa pots are bubbling with mirth!  See ya tomorrow!  

Evil Froggy is waiting below for your entries....

An InLinkz Link-up

It's Time for Another One from CT Anne

The fabulous Anne is back with another show stopper!  These bats are flying away from something.....and the sentiment suggests why they are fleeing! 

     

Here are Anne's words on this marvelous ATC"

 If a picture says a thousand words... do you really think you could write that many on an ATC? There's something about bats that many people find creepy. David Attenborough merely found they gassed him out when he went into their cave. So here we are, escaping the cave - or whatever opening the gate was across. For background, some random blue sprays from Lindys Stamp Gang were left to dry before inking up the Queen Kat bat background stamp. Rubber Stamp Ave provided the Odd Creature, heat embossed then coloured bright yellow, as well as the silhouette character, also heat-embossed for a tactile experience . And viva las vegas stamps provided the "sentiment" - if that's what the 6 words express

We thought this would be an appropriate thought to leave you with today!  The gates ARE opening SOON here at Dream in Darkness Challenge!

It's "Anything Goes" as long as it goes dark!  We have lots for you to read here on the blog that has been posted so far!  

Save the date, the gate will open May 1st and keep visiting us as we get the bat cave..uh oh I mean house ready!  

More goodies coming your way leading up to the 1st and we are so excited to have visitors!  Tell your dark side friends and then get convert your cute side friends to create something for the very first challenge of Dream in Darkness!