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

Belated Birthday Poe!

Life is full of intentions... good and bad.  So Poe's birthday was celebrated in January, and I started... but missing the blog hop deadline, it morphed into Other Innuendo

in her diaphanous mesh dress, and over-stated headdress.
And some digi beasties got in on the act, all dressed in their shiniest Lindy's warpaint

Whilst a Raven (at last! a Poe reference!), heat-embossed, clatters his shiny beak, and speaks that immortal line...

 And of course, the Cautionary note spelled out to Poe by the raven and actress...

Background includes Stencil Girl Tribal Leaves,  stamps from Carabelle which I can't find on thier web site, but got from here,  Andy Skinner's Birds and Bones, Blank Page Muse, digi stamp  Bizarre Beasties from Leigh SB Designs.  The two trees are Cheery Lynn dies, now known as My Makers Movement.

Hopefully your feathers have been ruffled thoroughly, and set you down another dark art path - do share!  We have Treats LOL

Bridge-Building and the December 2018 Winner!

Welcome back to one and all! Today we have an awesome journal layout from Asylum Anne.
Please read to the bottom and find our December Winner, too!


Three years ago, I broke a tooth so thoroughly it had to be crowned.  A few months ago, it fell out, got cemented back in and told 1-2 years before something more would have to be done.In that no-work season between Christmas and New Year, I left a message on my dentist's phone... guess what?  Yep.  I got seen the first day they re-opened.  He cemented it back as a temporary measure only, and once "The Lab" opens, moulds, extractions and design of a bridge will get under way.   For those of you who shiver and quake at the mere though of going, I bet your mouth resembles the Kaisercraft candelabra below (split to provide upper & lower teeth.)

Isn't that a great dentist's challenge? And of course, You Can Trust Me... I'm a Dentist.  So there's the story within the story.  See you all at The Murder House!

Much as I love my dentist, there are times when "building a bridge" just doesn't fix life:

There are so many ways for the bridge to "fail".

The page started with Stencil Girl subliminal skulls, incorporated stamps from Blank Page Muse, Mad Rat, Andy Skinner and various die cuts.


I can thoroughly empathize with Anne and I do dread a dental appointment, how about you?

Our fantabulous WINNER for December 2018 is...

ready PLAYER 1----- Tina with your wicked straw topper! Please email be your snail mail info so some happy mail can start the journey! Email dreamindarknessblog@gmail.com

Don't forget, we are waiting with bated breath to give the 20th dark sharing above, some goodies.

May is the Word

Well, well, spring has finally arrived at the northern part of globe...

Less snow, much more light, temperature rising ...

and that seems to get elf's cranky

I got this senselessly cool stamp set from happy mail (hugs Anne),

and totally wanted to create with it. So I got some watercolor paper,

my H2O colors and start coloring - enjoyed truly making these.

So beware of Elf's this time of year - Hope they go to sleep or

in these cases: someone will but them to sleep ....

Pick a Word

Asylum Anne's main "social media" contact is facebook.  There, quite a few people are not so much making a New Year Resolution, as picking a word for the year's focus. If you did, how are you getting on with it?   OK, so this piece says "create", and appears to be giving the lie, but my "word" for this year, if I must have one, is "use up"  This is NOT the same as "do not buy anything new this year" (*wink*)

But there are various things I've bought in the past that haven't grabbed me perhaps.  Or people have given me bits & pieces that are still on my desk needing to be released from that bondage, by imagination.  And there are things I've bought for my retirement when I expect to have a lot less "discretionary income".  But why wait until then?  Especially when I've discovered the odd thing that doesn't keep too well... like the TH Distress crackle paint - in one, the brush has hardened to the paint, so much so that when I opened the near-full jar, the brush stayed in the paint!

This is how I feel about stash that behaves like that:

Kaisercraft chipboard/mdf off-the-page thingies will always keep, but I've used a plaque to act as a supporting background to the bulk of the additions and "create" which is probably also Kaisercraft, but I'm not swearing to that (don't like the taste of soap in my mouth).  The TH distress crackle paints were clumped & smoothed onto the word.  The plaque was first covered in black gesso, then several layers of Stencil Girl stencils - the Sea urchin used several times.
This angel, and a tree elsewhere were sent me by Teamie Granne/Sari.  They (and a 3-layer  diecut cog) got heat embossed three times to build up a thicker layer of glossy goodness.  The angel was then stamped into whilst molten with a Seth Apter alphabetic stamp (stamp it into an embossing pad first so it will release cleanly after the embossing powder has cooled)

I've been playing for a while with making my own colour mixes of embossing powder, or using multiple colours on one item.  The cog had layers of oil rubbed bronze, then part-damped for Lindy's Gang Terra cotta rust, and Byzantine bronze.

There are diecuts, bits of wire also cluttering my desk, so here goes:

And everything comes together, to remind me of so many stash themes and techniques to be re-used, as:

Doesn't that skull (a spectacle lens) look different from this angle. I've got another one to use up too...

How's your year starting up?  Done anything dark, gruesome, or off-beat to share?  here, would be a great place...

An InLinkz Link-up

Spring forward

March Challenge winner is...

#4 from Crom's Cubby Hole!

We all loved your mixed media Spook triptych!

This is Asylum Anne's second month as a Stencil Girl Voice.  That meant she got the April Club stencils in January to create something in time to celebrate their release.
So... the draft test piece: some very white kiwiana 12x12 paper, the stencils, Carabelle's very long quelques notes de music and just for fun, LeighSB Design's Bizarre Beasties (digi stamp) in the corner.

It is Spring, and a rather bedraggled bird - stenciled onto a ripped up & dyed Egyptian Cotton sheet (tmi?) - suddenly realises he needs to refurbish his wardrobe in order to attract a mate?

Beautiful gaudy (diecut) glittery wings are order of the day. The top one painted with a Resene house paint test pot of glitter blue, then over it, heat embossed part of the stencil using Emerald Creek's Mardi Gras.  The other 2 were covers generously in pva glue, then glitter(red) and glass glitter (green) poured over.

Before working the new stencils, the first layer was bare tree trunks of September 2017 Club, using Lindy's Gang Steel shimmer Magicals mixed with pouring medium.  The second layer was Black birds in trees stencil using Michael deMeng's Warm Usszh recipe (quinacridone gold and a bit of van dyke brown paint)  After that the hearts and flowers of this month's stencil release were superimposed, one of the birds heat-embossed.  Those are real feathers sprouting from the tailor text.

And the animal/birds?  They're probably thinking back to the tale of Little Black Sambo, "Now who's the smartest tiger bird in the jungle"

Please share your own warped humour in art, your dark, your weird HERE

Those Irish Snakes and Evolution

I offered you snakes, they've taken rather a devious route and still haven't got where I expected, but maybe next year... in fact the more I pulled out to use, the more got left out.
Ireland being an island, how did the snakes get to other lands?  Browsing through my stamp collection, it struck me... they had to be able to swim.  And I got side-tracked, as I wondered what St Francis, Patron Saint of Animals, would have said to St Patrick about his evicting them from their home.  I saw them on a cloud, harps set aside for The Debate.  The Muse insisted I deal with that first:

A super-thick chippie cloud, some stencils, Pebeo black mica mortar, snake-skin-looking papers die-cut, the Lamb of God refereeing.  St Francis was a line drawing image google found for me.

  Stampamania snake coiled at the bottom.  Like the wobbly eyes?

It occurred to me these guys were behind the Pearly Gates, and the right gate stamp had just come up from Artfull Crafts in Timaru (one of the few shops maintaining a street presence in NZ and a well-stocked online store just changing ownership this month).  And for pearliness, some bubble acetate to stamp on:

Typical of this whole project, great idea, didn't fit the cloud!  Ah well, it'll turn up somewhere some day.
But at last, The Muse let me get back to snakes, swimming away.

You'll never look at an octopus the same way again - all those snakes sharing a brain cavity, no wonder they're so smart - there are 8 brains co-operating in there!

Butter Side Down portuguese man o war, moray eel

Viva las vegas stamps: St Patrick

Chocolate Baroque August undersea, steampunk funky fish set

Stencil Girl Jly/2014 Lets Get Cellular, L186 Coral, Jan'17 Club

Teesha Moore for the tiny tentacled beings

Heartfelt Creations Festive Gate

Cheery Lynn Lucy the Lamb

The only theme this month is Anything Goes Except Cute!!  And we really mean it - sweet, cute is, as always, OUT

Keep sharing your weird, your dark, your off-beat, 

your non-PC with us every month, with the linky for thIs month HERE:

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

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.

The Circus calls.

Everyone loves a good old-fashioned circus, full of death-defying acts, wild animals, and... clowns!!!  Whizz through some tags with me that are to be bound into a book now I've found my Zutter AND bought a new camera!!!

 The cover tag is a size larger than the rest.

 The Trapeze artists wires are still free-floating - with microbeads glued to them for grip haha.

 Love the Sticks & bones stencil, and what has it got in its pocketsses, my presshuss???

I have so many stamps that can be used for a circus, more tags need to be done, so I've not bound these yet!  So far, Scrapberry's (thanks to Sari), Lost Coast Designs, Viva las Vegas stamps, Smeared Ink, Carabelle,  Silver Crow Creations, Stencil Girl, Andy Skinner, Wonder Strumpet and Graphics 45 have all contributed.

If Life's been making you jump through hoops, or you've stayed off-beat this month, share it with us here.