What a month!!!! But I guess late is better than never

October is usually my most active month. This year I came down with a flu/cold/whatever thing. It knocked me off my feet for more than a month. I'm still not awfully recovered.. Here is is what I did create.

I had a one for one apothecary bottle swap. I had this glass bell ornament from Melissa Frances, 1962 Embellishments line and thought how cool this would look. The cat/poison apple statue is a big box item that I had in my stash.






The bats are a La-La Land Crafts die that I absolutely love. I cut the bats from Lucky Squirrel black shrink plastic, prepunched a hole and attached the wire before shrinking.

My vampire blood vile is a old watch parts glass tube I had picked up at an estate sale colored with some alcohol ink.














Fairy fingers are bits and pieces from a plastic skeleton I have cut apart and used here and there. The base is covered with some scrap halloween paper and has some moss scattered around. I hope my swap partner enjoys this as much as I have making it.

Here are some tags I created for a swap in my yahoo group AlteredWithOutLimits. These were fun. Took a #8 tag and layers paint and inks to give the spooky effect. This haunted house is a die also from La-La Land Crafts. More shrink plastic bats. The pumpkins are also shrink plastic.

My last project was a haunted house page for another swap in my yahoo group.

I created my page with a spooky word background. Spritzed it with some orange and yellow and stamped a couple of images on. Several Tim Holtz items to be found here..the house, crow and cat and the gingerbread on the bottom. More shrink plastic was used. My little monster in the windows are fake fingernails. Not sure where I found them but thought they would be a fun addition.

Getting my creep on with Barbie

I recently hosted a swap over at ArtCharms called Getting Your Creep on. The specifications of the swap was to use doll/body parts. I started out with 10 Barbie dolls and created 33 "creepy" charms.

I started out pulling off Barbies head. I used the face portion of the head and maneuvered them to fit in a bottle cap. I then pounded over the edge to help hold them in place.

I had to use those cute little ears hidden under all that hair. I had these cute little bottles that I thought would make a great vessel to hold the ears.

For my last charm I used Barbies hands. I used a brass cap to cover the end of the hand/arm where I had cut it off and with a little bit of wire wrapping it had a completed look.

Here is my completed project with all the Get Your Creep On charms swapped over at ArtCharms.

Mojo's getting there

I committed to this project in hopes to regain some of my Mojo. I'm feeling creative again. The project is a 2 for 2 swap through Retro Cafe. I love their mini houses.

I spent a day papering and painting the houses and then just couldn't figure out where to go from there. So I put them up for a few days. I decided to start with creating in my box. Here is my blinking king cake baby playing in the pumpkin patch.

I have these vintage pipe cleaner snowman heads and bottle brush trees. With a little bit of mica flake glitter and diamonds dust a nice winter scene appeared.

This one is a little more out of my box. I'm really not into birds but as I was looking  through my stash I realized I have several different owls. His nest is made from these copper flat wire strands and some faux moss with a few feathers tucked in for some nest fluff. Adding the stick to the frame just pulled it all together.

This one is a little more out of my box.. little cutsie for what I usually do. I have this stash of worry dolls and thought they would be fun to use. With a blue dew drop roof inked with black stazon and then covered with some vintaj antique cooper patina. I hand stamped a no worries banner and the little brass legs made it all fall together.. I am excited at how these turned out. Even had a quick second where I thought about keeping them.. but ahhh thats part of the challenge. I'm sure they will find good homes and be enjoyed as much as I did creating them.

Vintiquities Workshop Halloween Charm Swap Linky Party

Awhile back I told you about a charm swap that was happening over at Vintiquities Workshop hosted by none other than Thespoena McMcLaughlin. Our charms started arriving a few days ago. What a awesome package. The goal was to create 15 charms, you could either make 3 sets of 5 or 15 different charms. Today we are having a linky hop to share what each of us created.

Here is a closer view. I made a double wrap bracelet out of a strip of halloween fabric and attached the charms.

Just as exciting as the charms was seeing the packaging they came in. Everyone created a fun little display for their charm. Here are my contributions to the swap. I chose to make 3 sets of etched copper discs.

Here is the set fresh off my work bench.

To see what the other participants created go here to find the link hop list.

Apothecary Challenge

When Laura Carson of Artfully Musing and team designer for Alphastamps posted her Apothecary Challenge I thought why not. Boy what a challenge it was. It just kept growing and growing. Here is what I started with, a grape crate.

And this what I ended up with. My darling husband got right into the challenge also. He added shelves and this trim I found laying around. He figured out how to add some doors. I just had to have doors. I covered the inside of the crate with some flocked scrapbook paper.

Here it is with the doors shut.

I'm going to start out with this is a long post with many photos. There was just no way I could share and not really share... so here it is. I would love to hear what you think.. please leave me a comment when your through. There are two separate challenges. Both using items made from images Laura designed for Alphastamps. The first challenge was to create at least 3 potion bottle from her images. The other a much grander challenge was a apothecary cabinet. I started right in creating my potions bottles. It took awhile longer to come up with a cabinet. In her video Laura uses paper mache boxes. This was not the direction I wanted plus I wanted something compact and that I could close up when done and store.

This is where I will make this a little like Where's Waldo and let you search for potion bottles. My apothecary bottles from Laura's apothecary sheet are, Frog Slime, Sleeping Death Powder, Bottled Ghost, Rotten Pumpkin and Poison. In there I also have some glow in the dark dragon eyeballs, zombie fingers, werewolf fur, bottle blondes and much, much more.

I do like the creep factor.. so along with your search you will find cockroaches, spiders and webbing, a rat or two and a plate of brain.

Here are a few up close and personal pics of bottles.

And some more.

More.

And one last one.. Here it is with the lights on. I can't finish this posting without stating after many failed attempts at photographing. I ended up taking most of these in night mode.

Please let me know what you think.

Cackling Witches and moon flowers

It's been a busy week. So busy that I forgot to share this project with you. Feels good to jump back in and play. My first project since my rotator cuff surgery in June. Still not at 100% but sure felt good to get my hands dirty again. I'm participating in a couple of swaps over at ArtCharms. One is a halloween and the second is the monthly color dangle which is, what else but black and orange with copper findings.

Our challenge for the Halloween swap was of course Halloween and copper findings. I chose this profile witch image stamp. I have been wanting to get the etching pot out for some time.

I created a moon flower dangle. Of course copper wrapped. I'm excited to get these back. I think I will have some wonderful additions to my halloween charm tree.

eeepy, creepy skellies and a eyeball to boot..

Saturday I had to make a run down south past Detroit to pick up an order. My friend Rhea was able to ride along with me. We hadn't seen each other in awhile so it was nice to catch up. We headed out early in the morning. It didn't take long of construction on the highway, that we decided to back road it. It was a beautiful, sunny fall day. Along our journey we hit a flea market and made a couple good scores. On to pick up my order and do a little shopping. On our list of stops was the Rust Belt Market in Ferndale, Michigan. A venue I had been wanting to see for quite some time. What a wonderful place, so full of some amazing artistic one of a kind items. Really got me thinking about Christmas.

To my surprise, Rhea brought me a gift and I want to share with all of you. I absolutely love it. I'm all into skellies and eyeballs.. the more the merrier. Her assemblage work is awesome. She has such a great eye for putting them together. Take a second and check out stargazer creates.

Haunted House Tour...

You don't know what your going to find waiting you at the 2011 AlteredWithOutLimits haunted house tour. This year I had some exceptional houses from the gals in my little yahoo group, AlteredWithOutLimits.

I found this cute little box that fit my pages perfectly. I covered it with Some Like it Haunt paper from the Midnight Dreary collection from gotmoxxie.

Enjoy the tour. Who knows what creatures are awaiting you.

The moon is full and all sorts of bewitching creatures are out to meet us at Cathy's garden gate.

Down a dark winding tree whispering trail you find Deb's english cottage and her ghosties of the night out playing.

As we head down towards the lake we run into Ellen's little cottages. Wonder what is being cooked up down there.

Continuing the haunted tour takes us to Jean's. Where we find a house full of toil and trouble.

Up on the hill is Judy's spirit filled mansion. Take care as you enter. Who knows what ghostly sights await you inside.

Down the lane to Lori's. We find a skellie dancing into the night. Who might that be watching out the windows.

Heading down to the Big Star state we find Mary Lynn's covenant waiting to cast a spell.

Ending our tour, takes us to Sandy's. A house filled with all kinds of winged delights.

Hope you enjoyed our little haunted tour.