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.

1 October

Evil Froggie is in charge!!!
He showed Asylum Anne his concept drawing for her new Studio-Asylum:

Personally we think he just browsed her stamp collection, and found it in her Blank Page Muse collection.  And his "selfie" references Worth1000.com

We haven't seen the builders for 3.5 days, but the frogs are ecstatic - they think they're getting a custom Convention centre!!!

Meanwhile Anne's been "enhancing EF's sketch - ATC size - and bringing the Rocky Horror Show - "Open the door Janet, Dammit" into the 23rd millennium "Beam her up Scottie"!

From a slightly different angle, you may get a better sense of the people being 3-D "dolls" from Silver Crow Creations

And now it's Eyes Right to see what has been shared by others, or to link your own offbeat creation.

Blood at the Opera and the music on...

What happens when you hit that Top D note?

Escaping the Asylum at the start of winter was so imperative, Anne was even willing to suffer a 10-hour then 13-hour flight to attend 2 days of Andy Skinner workshops at Lets Be Creative in Rogate - about an hour's drive south of Heathrow airport.  Except I was driving from the Fens, and the GPS decided to take me back into London instead of taking the M25 - adding 2 hours to that drive.  So my own singing could have been a little sour by the time I got there.  But Lovely Brigitte had organised a "billet" with, would you believe it, another kiwi!!!  Thank you Lois for the comfy bed, good company, I hope you still have some pineapple lumps left :) 

Below is the class we did on day 2, with plenty of Andy's new product, lava paste, in use.  I didn't dare stay to the end of the class in case of holdups somewhere along the motorways, but as it turns out the baggage queue at Heathrow was "short-staffed"  - would you believe once we barged through the queue to get our boarding passes, we then spent almost 4 hours in the queue trying to hand over our baggage, with barely time to get some nibbles before the boarding call came.

Such a sweet image, but of course once I got home to finish it off, there had to be blood and destruction - wine-glass-shattering music can have that effect, even if they are plastic, from Silver Crow Creations

So why on earth didn't I grab another flight across the channel to visit Sari while I was "in the area"???

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Ohh, why indeed!!!??? That would have been totally, absolutely brilliant!

Anne would have been very welcome to my humble hut.

So Anne made a Opera art piece, and the culture off arts

continues with music:

Sentiment from Visible Image stamp set and the skull

from La Scraposphére's range.

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So what has the summer heat made you create?

Let us see!

Looks like froggy there----->

needs just few more links and these

goodies are of to someone among entries 21-40.

Man cries his grief

I saw this poem, made by Lauri Pohjanpää,

poem is called "Metsän puhelu"

 (Forest Talk says the Google translator)

Very touching poem and I used part of it

for my ATCoins with Gecko Galz images.

Translation (using Google) is about this:

Old bird that have seen the world,

slowly sang from it's branch:

Be quiet, silence, when a man cries,

man cries his  grief,

they have been bad to him.

Translation is far from perfect but maybe you'll

get the idea...

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It looks like after 7 more entries is time to mail

some goodies:

So do link your art there ------>>>>

and let us see your creations.

August already? For pity's sake where on Earth did July go???!?!?!?!?

This morning in my garden I saw

No wonder I haven't seen any butterflies, these guys must

have EATEN all the colorful and lovely species...

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Meantime, Asylum Anne has been empathising with those stuck in darkness for days on end and created a "Commemorative Bottle" that, now monsoon is upon them, may well have floated out of the Tham Luang cave system with a sadder outcome..

Tar gel and alcohol inks drizzled inside, stamps from Rubber Dance fishy sets  on the outside.

The fragile mesh of life, and the glow-in-dark thread of the rescuers guide ropes.  People glued at intervals to the mesh right down to the bottom of the bottle, where a skull represents the Thai navy seal that died.
Outside embellished with paper, embossing powder, crackle medium, shells etc

 Text "Thai caving" around the top

 Safety helmets & bling for the rescuers bringing them back into lightness

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These FinnStamper clear stamps might be flying on 

your way if the you link your art down below,

it's anything goes - but not the cuties.

An InLinkz Link-up

July 1 or Where did June go!!

Welcome to the latest New Month.  Congratulations to Granne for holding the fort while Kim tosses scorpions out of her suitcases, and Asylum Anne  ... sought asylum in work, and *shock* *horror!* OTHER crafts!!!

Well, Anne is back, and taking liberties yet again with a stamp company's blog challenge theme, "Let's Go To The Beach" over at Blank Page Muse.  Since it's midwinter for her, the idea of a beach might be a darn sight safer than trying to sail off the beach.  Don't Emerald Creek/Seth Apter's Baked Textures do Cthulhu proud! No wonder Anne is scrambling for a beach, any beach. He has her vessel firmly in his grip, and is dragging it down under the waves.

Already people have fallen and been trapped by seaweed and tentacles

The highly-textured flotsam is tyvek painted, pleated and heated.

All stamps from Blank Page Muse (formerly Sin City Stamps).

Steampunk Octopus frame from Creative Embellishments.

Tiny people from Silver Crow Creations.

Well thank you Anne for your kind words and WOW what a

fabulous beach piece you have created for our inspiration.

I felt like coloring and grabbed a big stamp

for that, and Inktense pens.

Bold sentiment is from Katzelkraft, stamped on vellum.


HelloHello

I am still cleaning up those scorpions...Asylum Anne denies anything to do with that... the dynamic duo above has certainly raised the bar super high! So (again) I am ducking out and hope to be back later with a treat to share...I try I really do!

But for this month how about some stamps for a treat for you??
Well you gotta play along to be in it to win it!

Link up whatever suits you this month you have a short 30-ish days to get your arty groove going, let's go! We do ask, please minimize the cute, however, a teeny bit o' pink may be tolerated in special circumstances!!

The prize this month to one fabulous arty soul...

A set of our newest at Blank Page Muse, stamps for the backside of your art coins!

A crazy hybrid Bird-Man

A gentle-winged-man

The only catch is you have to link up a new arty project below...

An InLinkz Link-up

February's Challenge Winner is in the box.

Welcome back! We have a double treat today! Yepp a bit late on announcing our February Winner but none the less here we are!

The winner is IKE for her wickedly dark playing card! Check it HERE

Drop us an email at dreamindarknessblog@gmail.com I think Asylum Anne has a non-looney treat in store for ya!

And part two of the treat! Better than Valentine candy for sure....welllll unless it's chocolate!

It has been confirmed, Asylum Anne is bonkers - she's hearing Voices!  Stencilgirl Voices to be precise.  The March Club stencils are out, and she has voiced her opinion of them:

Normally, Stencils are part of layering sequences when I use them, but these stencils fell so far out of the box, they ARE the box – with all the rigidity that implies. Once I have a “story”, a piece just takes off, and this 12x12 page was no exception.  The starkness of the stencil lines, the bleakness of the story, the straight lines of film strip down the sides, and all I needed were some illustrative stamps from SilverCrowCreations.com (alas their vulcaniser, Pete, has been unwell, their stamps are temporarily unavailable) Poor Leonardo Da Vinci bottom right, with staircases to the sky… Rigidity is scary!

These “Legal Eagle” crows have been waiting a few years to submit their evidence, as have some tags prepped with shaving cream background. In order to retain as much of that colour, the stencil was used with clear embossing powder on the right-facing xrow. The diagonal lines on the 6” stencil worked well, and the book stamp was stamped twice for each page, fussy cut, then extra-fussy cut and glued over the the bigger one to look like real pages. Because the tags’ theme was words, the other one had a background of stamped text before the stencil was overlayed – giving shades to the meaning of words generally. The crossword/scrabble stamp in full reads Feel Better, but implies other things when split as they are here. Again, all stamps from Silver Crow Creations

Well, I'm off to help St Paddy hunt down snakes... see you later!

You want a Valentine card as well???

OK, ok, rubber arm twisted.  Just because it's the last day of Leigh SB Design's My Dark Valentine hop.  You can have a card... AND an envelope!

A blank card made of kraft, sprinkled Paper Artsy Infusions and spritzed.  The card curled quickly, giving the 2-directional streaming

The inside I stamped the XXL Carabelle stamp, Steampunk Mechanique, and wrote a poem for it:

Valentine

When Cupid’s sharp arrow doth strike,

All thoughts of food are fled:

I am a sandwich short of a picnic,

A few noodles short of a chow mein!

In love and thus  blind.

No longer the brightest bulb in the box.

The lights are on, but I am not home:

Shipped but not delivered  - lost, so  lost for love.

Undelivered, Alack!  I am not the fastest ship in the fleet.

My heart  rends me a few keys short of a keyboard,

A few cogs short of the gear change

That would  bring together Toi et Moi

Cupid thou Nasty Cherub

I would change thine aim

But thou hast reft me of mine sanity,

Missing a few buttons on the remote,

A few keys short of a keyboard.

A few cogs short

In my heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And the front of the card:

The Cheery Lynn die, Hearts #2  has 3 different colours of embossing powder. The cogs were diecut from a juice carton, alcohol ink-treated.
Stencilgirl S271 Angel Circle, L157 city scape, Club 05-2017
Carabelle stamp set :Textes:  Zoom sur 1 souvenir.  Sorry I can't find it on their website, nor the one I bought it from.

As for the envelope... I hope it's got enough postage - that 20cent one better not be prophetic.

That Mocking bird that took out Poe last month is back, aiming at the cat???

Maybe there's more to it than that - an winged easter bunny with an egg-bomb?

Some love-sick boy getting his come-uppance?

 Zoom out, we want to see the whole thing to make our own minds up:

Can you see the postie daring to deliver this to anyone's letterbox???

Stencil Girl's Mixed Media Mail stencil's words pop up in serendipitous places, to comment.  A Silver Crow Creations rubber stamp simulates an Addressee.  Digi stamps include Delicious Doodles for the postage stamps (Cranial Caress and Samhain), Bloobel the Sick Boy and Kitteh, Ike's "Greece" is the building-courtyard scene.  Smeared Ink's Winged Grumpy and our hostess, Leigh SB Designs have the Oddleigh Mocking Bird, the egg, and the quote.

An InLinkz Link-up

Yesterday...

Was Poe's birthday, but the blog hop is taking 5 days to celebrate.  He was a writer, but as computers didn't exist in those days, he almost certainly had a pencil case! Asylum Anne found it:

  Or something similar for quills and quill-trimming equipment.

His wee notebook is full of cartoon sketches of ideas he doesn't want to forget - for me, it arrived with the poseable doll hanging around in these photos - from Silver Crow Creations

The detailing on the outer lid of the tin owes itself to a Joe Rotella recipe in Creative Jumpstart 2018, with random bits of sweat/patina heat-embossed on the edges.  The bird - originally white, and the chippies brownish, were treated with Viva's patina, and paints.

Don't you love his dancing pose?  I guess Poe kept notes anywhere there was a blank space to write on.  On the back of his tin, heat-embossed stamps from Smeared Ink reproduced his inky memos.

On the inside, Smeared Ink, Blank Page Muse, Carmens Veranda all provided aide-memoires

And as you can see, it was a well-used pencil tin!  Emerald Creek embossing powder again - a chunky one, Burnt Copper Leaves - providing the grubby patina man can only get on a tv remote these days.

An InLinkz Link-up

Death

It's inescapable.  And after hopping on my soapbox in mid September, but not published until end of October as Halloween Mojo, I have really been tested.  Heading off to Auckland (3 hour drive) for a 3-day weekend with Andy Skinner (UK) & Tracey Weinzapfel (USA), I detoured via the Emergency Dept to catch up with dad, who had been admitted that morning after many chest pains.  Turned out some of it had been another heart attack, and he died Saturday night.  At 94 he was still driving, greeting nurses by name every shift, and discussing articles I read to him out of NZ National Geographic.  I got to do the Friday and Saturday classes, but skipped the evening ones, and Sunday class.  Then mum took a turn for the worse, and we were expecting a double funeral.  But no, she rallied somewhat.  In the meantime I also had a hectic period at work, so my time and inclination to make art was minimal.  I did NOT lose my mojo, nor did I do much creating, I was immersed in other aspects of Life.  Mum died 5 weeks after dad, and I am creating this journal spread between death and funeral, a week ahead of this publication date.

So I apologize that I didn't visit and comment on all the pieces entered in October's challenge.
And here's a reminder that run fast, fly high, but seek immortality in other ways, because the Grim Reaper will get you.

One of those ravens diecut for the last post has carked it.

Seek immortality in celluloid - aided and abetted by a Lego packet with a batman character in it.  It was on my desk, need I say more!

You can tell I used plenty of die cuts - from Seth Apter, Spellbinder, Sizzix, Elizabeth Craft.
 The soulful face came in a package from Teesha Moore,  stencils from Andy Skinner (seems discontinued) and Kaisercraft.  The flying pig is from Silver Crow Creations, and various other stamps in the background from vivalasvegas stamps, Third Stone stamps.  I guess I've been buying Treasure for too long - some of these are no longer available.

Leave us some love below, and show us your dark makings here