Day 26 of the 31 Days of Halloween

The third room on the bottom floor of the dollhouse is the witch's kitchen. A lovely witch from Third Coast holds sway here.

Her foam mounted cauldron is from DJ Inkers, one of my first stamp purchases and I doubt if they even make stamps anymore.  This is the first furniture I've shown. Most, if not all, of the furniture I used is from online companies showing their wares. Thanks, all you furniture companies! Don't you just love that pot-bellied stove? We had just recently taken the old leaky one out of my studio in exchange for a smaller, more efficient one or I would have used a photo of it! They still bob for apples here - monsters have no germ phobias.  Most of the rest of the bits and pieces are either polymer clay or left over embellishments from my polymer clay business. I made the apples, pumpkins, cat and pickles in the canning jar from clay. If I forgot anything you would like to know about, just ask!

The hop continues from here to Lisa's blog or you can start at the beginning by clicking on Terra in the blogroll -------> You will see the most Halloweeny creations ever if you do!! Thanks for stopping by and for all of your kind comments!

Day 24 of the 31 Days of Halloween

Sometime during the summer I bought and started reading a book called Mixed-Media Dollhouses. It shows seven houses, each with seven rooms, created collaboratively by seven artists. They are done in cigar boxes. Having a cigar store with lots of cool boxes nearby,  I snagged a few -at least ten and started stripping the papers off but couldn't think of a theme. And then along came the 31 Days of Halloween. Although my house is only mildly haunted, it does contain lots of monsters! The first room I'm showing is the dungeon:

                   
                                          Click on photos to enlarge for detail.

The primary image is a zombie from last year's Rick St. Dennis prize sheet. He's the dungeon master and very good at his job!  There is also a set of steps from Third Coast. I printed the stone walls and floor and the torture chair. Everything is cut out and stacked at least three images deep.The skeleton in chains is one of those squishy ones from Michaels and I had to sculpt the skeleton in the chair - the squishy ones wouldn't fit. The mouse is another polymer clay creation as are the many stones glued to the edges. The bones and skulls are from a bracelet from Michaels. As the rooms started coming together, it became obvious that they wouldn't look as "mixed-media" as the ones in the book because I settled on a few techniques that I liked and because only one person was doing it. Lots more to come - you know I love complicated projects!!

The Hop continues on Lisa's  beautiful blog if you're going in order or you can get all of the info you need to start at the beginning and see all of the wondrous Halloween artwork by clicking on Terra's name in the blogroll ----->. I continue to be amazed and educated by all of the creations I see every day. And thanks for leaving your comments - they are great motivators for all of us!

Day 19 of the 31 Days of Halloween

This project was done because like most every one else, I've been wowed by the fabulous things that the various artists have been doing over at Leigh's Domino Sharpie Queen blog. I had actually played with dominos the first time I saw them used for stamping, collected several of the tins of tiles and I guess not been quite as inspired by my own work with them. So I wanted to think of something unusual and, love it or hate it, I think you'll agree it's different.

My main image is Rick St. Dennis' fortune teller, Esmeralda. I ended up transferring her to the dominos using the old  method of rubbing the back of an image with pencil. While it was pretty successful, her chin got caught in a crack - OUCH - and she did end up looking like she'd been sipping out of Alice's bottle. Sorry, Rick! I made the tray out of polymer clay -  to my great dismay it shrinks a little!!! I painted her with alcohol inks straight from the bottles and drew the lines with India ink. It turns out that the ink needs fxative and in my limited trials I have not found a product that will dry on the dominos and not lift the alcohol ink. I think Leigh may have said dimensional sealer but I don't have that in my arsenal. It will be added to my shopping list of all of the products that the Wicked Bloggers are teaching me about! And I thought the studio was already crammed.

The hop continues over at Lisa's blog and if you're lost, click on Terra's link at the top of the blogroll and she will set you out on an amazing journey of viewing magical Halloween art! Thank you for all of the lovely comments you've left me!!

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10

We are almost a third of the way done! Just a third of a project to go to hit that milestone. I am amazed, every day I go hopping, how wonderful the projects are, that each and every one of us (yep, including myself in that US) are coming up with!!!

Yesterday I needed something new and instead of stretching myself, I decided to crawl back into an old box. Little guys like this witch are what I took to craft shows for 26 years. I retired in February 2010 after a really stressful show season and have had a lot of fun playing with all my other toys, including rubber stamping, since then. So while I feel like this is almost cheating, at least I've touched my polymer clay again when I made the dead crow and now this little girl dressed as a witch to go Trick or Treating.

Spider (my favorite this year) and Trick or Treat are from Inkadinkado, web from DJ Inkers and bat from a Hero Arts set. They were stamped in StazOn ink on a 30 cent tile from Home Depot.

Darn, darn ,darn. I thought Blogger would let me add another image after my post but no, there it is hogging up the top line. Sorry! This is the spider and title I promised yesterday. And most of the s*** I was referring to yesterday was external, like camera batteries being on their last legs with half an hour to go. Pages scanning whopper-jawed, PS refusing to save my PSD file as a JPG. Stuff like that which is only mind numbing when it happens at the last minute.