Soap Carving

I know this might seem a bit crazy but I wanted some cool soap for halloween and had spied some I wanted on etsy.  One was a brain and the other vampire teeth.  Well the person that sells the soap I wanted doesn't deliver to the uk, so I thought I could make them but I don't really want to have Lye about when my kids are still so young (just in case).  So I thought next best thing, carve it.  I got an old bar of soap that had been kicking about the kids bathroom and started to practice carving on it.  I figure by halloween I might just carve something half decent haha.  I am now looking out for circular red or pink soap for a brain and a block of soap to make into teeth haha.  This picture is pants it does look a little better in real life and there are actual details in the eyes. 

Andrea x

HDH049 - Appalling Arachnids at Haunted House Design

This week at the Haunted House Design the challenge is appalling arachnids.  I chose to use the black widow spider as my entry as I love red.  Anyway I drew a pic (surprise surprise) of a face with black widows for hair and in her eyes with spider webs coming out (my hubby said he didn't get that), coloured her with promarkers and copics.  put some feathery ribbon behind her head just for a splash of red.  I wrote fly pie and dinner time on a piece of rymans card and used some distress ink to colour it, then drew some webs.  The card at the back is from a cardstack (not sure which one as I have quite a few with sheets pulled out from various).   I put a little cutlery set (she's not a savage you know hehe)  the flys are some brown and red fibres (yum).  Anyway this is my entry and I did another one below this which I originally did and thought na (I tried to use lots of fibres to make it look like a messy web feel but just looked down right ridiculous.  Oh yeah forgot the spiderweb on the black card (coordinations)  was embossed with the cuttlebug and then sanded and I added some of the white stickles and one of the white souffle pens. 

There is some great work from the design team, defo check it out.

Andrea x

Haunted Design House Gruesome Twosome again

Hehe I got awarded the gruesome twosome award for my creepy pumpkin and for my doctor's plague mask painting over at the Haunted House Design Blog.  If you haven't already been over there you should defo check it out, they have a fabulous new design team to boot.  xx

Thanks Barb x.

The Burtonesque Dolls Challenge #12 Nightmare before Christmas

Over at the burtonesque dolls blog the challenge is nightmare before christmas so...

TRICK OR MERRY-MENT (it's all the rage!)

Well didn't have any time to do this at all so it's not that hot but then again neither was the last thing I did.  I actually cringe when I see that zombie and after I have posted this I will cringe too haha.  My one year old was on one knee trying to bite, headbutt and nip her way to stop me drawing santa dressed as Jack (I had drawn legs as well but they were so bad...)  haha so eventually I made a botch job and played with the three of my little uns in the garden. 

I thought for this it would be good to put santa in Jack's suit but still keep santa's hat on as after I managed to half draw him and realised I wasn't getting a chance to fix him I thought he looks like a psychotic biker or something, so drew the hat on him ha.  This is a smirk christmas embellishment box I used and coloured it red like santa's hat.  The middle part were Santa's big fat tummy is where you can see what's inside.   I then wrote trick or merry-ment in the style of nightmare before christmas and crimbo.  Stuck a crimbo and halloween embellishment in it and decided to make it a noise shaker for the kids (evil plan is to tell them every time they are naughty at crimbo I will shake it and santa will take note hehehe maybe not)  anyway inside the shaker I put a polymer clay santa head and penguin with santa hat I made ages ago and thought not very good but still kept it hanging for no good reason, then I put lots of jingle bells of all different colours so that it will be nice and noisy and I will hate myself for it when the kids start rattling it every two minutes haha.

Anyway enough of my rants, can't believe I waffled so much, can you tell I am super duper tired, my 3 year old had me up about 10 times last night.

Andrea x

Haunted House Design Challenge - Wayward Words HDH048

This week at haunted design house the challenge is to create something using text/words as the main focus.  So I was wondering what dark poetry could I use then my eye fell on the book my brother got me which was Pride and Prejudice with Zombies.  Yes you heard it right, somebody has re-written or added to pride and prejudice and added zombies.  My brother knows I love zombie and I love pride and prejudice (the book and the bbc version with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth).  Anyways I have never read it although I thought it was quite funny for the challenge I skim read it and it was going on about zombies eating cauliflowers and Elizabeth Bennet fighting ninjas and I thought na not for me.  I did though read the first paragraph which I thought was quite funny which is "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains".  So this is the text I am using for my entry this week.

I don't know if you can make out my writing as it is a bit crazy but I tested it on my hubby (who didn't think the book was in the least bit funny, something about good literature hehe) and he could read it.  The text is supposed to be in a brain (pathetically drawn I know)  and the zombie is biting it (hmm hilarious, not really haha).  I drew the zombie and brain on rymans card and coloured it with promarkers and copics and used a copic pen to do the writing.  (I used to do this writing when I was younger and had a few people ask me to do them their names for their doors). 

Anyways here is a close up of the text:

Andrea x

Haunted Design House HDH047 Freakers Free-for-all

Over at Haunted House Design the challenge is a free for all as long as it is dark and creepy.  I asked my hubby for some ideas and he came up with the plague doctor's mask, so I looked it up and it was seriously freaky.  So it did say freakers free for all.  I painted a plague doctor's mask, a little bit grim I know but I thought it looked kinda cool if you didn't really think about all of the pain and suffering of the poor plague victims and the absurdity that this mask would actually protect them.

The paint I used was acrylics and it was painted on an old bit of hardboard the reason for the frayed bit at the bottom is I couldn't wait for hubby to saw it properly so attempted it myself and it was a mess haha.  You can't really see the eye but there is a reflection there, will have to get better at photography.

Andrea x

Burtonesque Dolls Challenge #11 Ed Wood, B&W

Over at the Burtonesque Dolls this week the challenge is to create an Ed Wood themed card using Black and White.  Well I apologise now for my attempt as I didn't have long to do it and my pictures are attrocious. 

I used coordinations black card distressed the edges, ms doily lace punch, don't know what brad type as I buy them and put them all in a box.  The lace I got from ebay (I used this as ed wood was a transvestite so I added some feathers, lace and a high heel charm).  I made a film strip from paper and used some polkadot paper and distressed it with some antique linen distress ink.  The image I drew, it is supposed to be ed wood, I did it in the five minutes it took my little one to colour some of my stamped images, not brilliant I know,  then she was right back at me again harrassing me haha (poor little thing got her innoculations and her arm was really sore.  I used copics and promarkers to colour the drawing.

Anyway was quite sad I didn't get to enter last weeks as I had no time whatsover, now I need to get on to my Haunted House Design challenge I never got to enter that last week either and I so love these challenges haha.

Andrea x

Reduce Reuse and Recycle - Ballerina

The unfinished ballerina!  She is made from all recycled materials.

Again another unfinshed product to show.  I keep telling myself that I will finish things but when do you get the time!  The base of this is a wooden toy that had a straight bit sticking out, which I used for the leg, for the other leg I used a bit of old plastic and some newspaper.  The skirt is made from the front page of a magazine and folded to look this way.  I made the base of the body with scrumpled newspaper and maskiing tape, the arms from old straws (as you can see they are unfinished and the head is unfinished).  The reason I haven't finished it yet is I have to make more papier mache pulp and it is quite time consuming.  The head is what the rest of the body looked like before I sanded it.  I am unsure if I should paint it or not, but my three year old will probably say pink pink pink!

Just a few different angles.  Obviously when it is finished I will have to sand the base and polish it up a bit.

So have to shape bottom of arms and hands and finish head.

Anways munchkins are hungry, feed me.....

Andrea x

Haunted House Design Wacko Jacko's HDH046

Over at the Haunted House Design, the challenge is Wacko Jacko's, crazy pumpkins and what not.  I love pumpkins in fact the Smashing Pumpkins is my fave band (just thought I would throw that one in there).  Anyway I made this pumpkin for halloween last year using papier mache then painted with acrylics, I then filled it with toy rats and body bits and sweets so the kids had to put their hands in his mouth and see what they pulled out.  They all absolutely loved it, so much after they won their prizes I had to refill it to play again.  Anyway I thought this could be my Wacko Jacko entry the picture isn't great but it was all I could find.

I painted dark brown as a base then mixed some gold and orange and dabbed it with a sponge to give a stippled effect.  Again sorry for the shockingly bad pic. 

Andrea xx

I won I won I won.

I nearly fell off my seat when I read this partly because of shock and partly because my one year old was pulling at my trousers but hey hehe.  These badges are from Haunted House Design, which I love.  I love all the cool stuff that gets posted there.  So I get to post these badges on my site.  I got two Gruesome Twosome badges and one Master of Macabre (even though I say it wrong every time I tell my hubby haha I know how to say it but when I read it I always mispronounce it hahaha, what a complete clown).

Anyway now that my week has been improved hehe I have to get all of my crazy kids ready for a trip to see their crazy cousins.

Thank you again Barb xxxx

Andrea xxxx