Happy Hallowe'en!

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I'll give you an update real soon (it's been a bit too busy for my liking!), but just for today, I'll be watching corny horror flicks, drinking orange- flavoured beer and enjoying my spooky- ish house, until I fall asleep on the couch, surrounded by 3 to 5 cats.

Love y'all, guys, have a dreadful time :)

BooYah!

Let me show you what happened to my toothache:

after the pain... erm, rain :)

The picture was taken yesterday outside my shop- to the right of the main rainbow, not captured, are TWO faint echoes- it's rare that I get to see something like that around here. Cool moment, one of those where you drop everything and just enjoy the show. 

I was given two lots of antibiotics which seem to make me drowsy and sluggish, so the big- ish plans I had for todays project went "the way of all flesh". But I couldn't just leave well enough alone and had to do SOMETHING.

The original plan was an almost life (erm.. undead)- sized ghost from a huge sheet and chicken wire, but I didn't feel up to the task. Probably just as well because it's supposed to instill the fear of Cthulhu into the nippers on Hallowe'en, and it would have been a pain in the neck to hide that thing until then.

So I downscaled a little bit.

Chicken wire, a white shirt Abi has outgrown ages ago and an electronic tealight. 

The wee baby ghosts are shirt and Kinder surprise egg containers, attached to Big Mamas' frame with almost invisible jewellery thread. Looks kinda daft when the lamps are lit, but behold:

I actually get childlike enjoyment out of the little ensemble, even though it took me no more than 30 minutes (including cutting up the chicken wire, finding the Kinder eggs and stringing it all together) to whip up. Certainly no project I'd proudly link up to high- end parties, but those guys really make my night for some obscure reason! Maybe because they are so simple and archaic- hands up if you ever drove your parents or grandparents crazy by ripping the sheet off your bed to haunt the joint.

So, if you have 30 minutes spare, go cut up some white fabric and see if you get the same kick out of some good old- fashioned ghosties- you might surprise yourself!

Ruffled feathers...

Ever felt like you stepped into a Hitchcock film?
Looming gloom, lingering doom, nothing seems to be quite right?
Yeah, THAT kind of feeling.
The birds are after me.

I've been battling one HECK of a toothache recently, and England being England, i just couldn't find a flipping dentist.
This morning, I gave in and got myself an emergency appointment for the early afternoon, and if you don't hear from me again, they just went the short route and chopped my marble right off ;)

But I won't leave without at least making sure my bereaved beloved will celebrate Hallowe'en in style, so while I was high on painkillers yesterday, I made a little something out of very cheap acrylic felt and a few pieces of table confetti.

The pictures don't show the real colours- the blue felt is actually a nice shade of purple and goes perfectly with the other purple accents on the mantel.

One of my precious little feline darlings managed to chew through my treasured spider fairy light chain (I invented a few new words I cannot repeat here), so all that's left of it are the plastic spiders- no more sparkle :(

 But that's ok, because my fake spooky candles are now complete with their battery- operated tea lights. When it's dark and they flicker away, the effect actually looks pretty realistic, so I m well pleased with them. Take THAT, kitty! Hrmph.

There are still things to do, and I'm hoping that once my tooth is sorted out, my crafty juices will flow a bit more freely. Whoever says people on drugs are more creative must rely on false info!

Soon it will be time to put up the cobwebs to round off the whole thing, and I can't wait to be all done!

The plan for the actual Fright Night is that the Mister takes the nippers Trick- or- Treating while their Mum and I put on a few scary flicks, help ourselves to a few bevvies and enjoy the absence of all thee of them. I mean... prepare for their return.. I mean... ach, you get the picture, right?

Hopefully we speak again soon.

To say it with Sunny:

If not back, avenge death!!

totally unspooky post

Sorry, guys, but yesterday wasn't dedicated to crafting.
It was dedicated to a wee girl, because she turned 10 years old on Thursday, which did require some quality family time... in the Modern Family sense of things.

The Man's daughter Abi is now officially in her double figures... time flies. Meh.
And because she is, altogether, not your princessy kinda gal, we took her to the Royal Armouries to look at weapons, warriors and other dangerous stuff.

Want to join us on a little trip?

real live arrows with real pointy edges!

wait for it... WAIT for it...

ka- POW!!! She hit the target multiple times

aaah... japanese tranquility...

dude... TRANQUILITY, get me?

He's wearing authentic armour, no replica for this gentleman!

Chinese warriors look a lot friendlier than their Japanese counterparts.

This guy and his horse ARE replica, but still amazing.

How was this poor creature supposed to see where it was treading?

...daddy?

men at arms... tooth pick, anyone?

Mind you, those are life sized!

this, too, is life sized. The wee dude wearing this would have been about 5 or 6...

... whereas this big dude (original painting!) killed a couple of wives and

ROYALLY cheesed off the pope. So he went ahead and made

his own church. As you do.

yeah, too much education makes me aggro, too. Go kill 'em, kid.

I SAID KID!!! Meh...

See, again, I broadened your horizon. You can thank me later, that's okay.

We really had a great day, lots of laughs and so much food and sweets that it'll take weeks to detox. 

Best of all? Apart from paying 3 quid for 8 arrows on that really cool crossbow shooting range, the whole thing was free!

Yup- many museums in Britain are free. (less and less, mind you, but there is still a lot of cool stuff that won't charge a penny, which is pretty amazing.) So we were okay with spending 30 quid on food and drinks in a nice family pub afterwards, sitting in deep leather chairs, comparing the pictures we took. (one of Abi's gifts was my old- ish digital pocket camera with a new memory card, so she can take photos to use in her pretty sophisticated digital collages she has taken up creating recently)

So... no spooky deeds for now, I'm afraid, but I hope you enjoyed the little tour through our Royal Armouries. We sure did, one of the best days I have had in a long, long time!

Abi learns to use PicMonkey

I shall be back at work tomorrow, so my posts will be a bit less regular, but don't think for a minute the Great Glitzy CraftOff is done- there's a lot up my sleeve I shall have to share with you in the days to come whenever I get the time!

Have a great Sunday!

A bone dry post. No, really.

So... what was planned for yesterday was a fail.
I better make up for it!

My morning was spent spraying, spraying, and spraying some more. And I went through 4 glue sticks as well. Not bad for a job done before breakfast, right?

Let me show you what I was up to.

These two dudes and their identical twins were ruthlessly butchered for the sake of Hallowe'en:

Yeah, yeah, I know. I felt a bit guilty, too. But not for long.

They got re- assembled into this:

Chrome spray and a little battery- operated chain of spider fairy lights. Say it with me. Spider fairy lights.

I meant for it to be an outdoor wreath, but then I remembered the purple glitter spray I got for 99p the other day and inspiration viciously assaulted me.

Are you familiar with advent wreathes? Basically, they are wreathes made from evergreens, decorated with 4 candles. In the 4 weeks before Christmas, one candle gets lit every Sunday, and once all candles are used, Santa is on the doorstep!

As a kid, I LOVED those wreathes, and ever since I was old enough I was allowed to light the candles on Sundays. Aaaah... sweet memories.

Now, let me wreck this sweet mental image for you.

I took some hoarded kitchen towel rolls and toilet paper rolls and let hot glue run down from the top. (spooky wax effect!) All rolls got a nice coat of black spray paint and, once dry, a big helping of purple glitter spray afterwards.

The shorter rolls were treated to clear lacquer as a finishing touch, the larger ones left to look a bit dusty and tattered.

The rolls are stuffed with newspaper, and they will receive a flameless tealight each (sprayed black) when it's time to display the whole thing.

What do you think, did Skelli And Mr Mummy die in vain?

He looks happy enough- in fact he doesn't seem to give a rats' @rse (pun intended)!

So, there you go, I bet you have never seen a Hallowe'en Advent Wreath before. Don't say I don't broaden your minds!

For now, my, erm, candle rolls grace the mantelpiece, awaiting their flameless candles. And I must say that they look better than in the photos- the glitter really shines, and in what is now almost dusk around here, they seem almost real. Yeah, happy with that.

So, shopping list top two items: rechargeable batteries for the spideys and flameless candles. Way more important than washing up- liquid and eggs, don't you agree?

RATS!!!

No, seriously.
Rats.
I got nothing today!
I went and FINALLY got me that spray paint I wanted so bad and went merrily ahead, spraying what needed spraying.
Shelled out £6 quid, so the result looks awesome:

Thing is, though, that gawddang paint just Does. Not. Dry. on those critters. Like, not at all. I left it for 6  hours and still no joy. 

Mind you, they are sitting on a sheet of newspaper turned mirror in that photo- it's not the paint, I think it's the material the wee buggers are made of? Anyway, that's my excuse, and it's unfortunately true as well :(

If it's still like that tomorrow, I have a Plan B, but after literally watching paint dry (erm... NOT dry) today I was too discouraged to even start something else. 

Sorry, guys, I am a letdown. BUT: Plan B is pretty amazeballs, so hang in there. This time tomorrow you will have been provided with a very bone- dry post, promise!

What's so funny?

Dude, what's so funny?

Seriously, what are you grinning at?

Anything hilarious about costing 50p, having a bath in glitter and thus saving me a fortune on this

No. I thought so. 

My Hallowe'en mantel is starting to come together!

(don't you guys start laughing now, it's only the first few bits!)

Oh, okay, yeah. Whatever. It's alright, stop holding it in... fill your boots and let it all out >.<

All done? Why, thank you, guys! *sigh*

I know, it looks very thrown- together and half- hearted right now, but good things come to those who wait!

There's a lot more crafting lined up, and for the moment the devil, quite literally, is in the details. The book pages come from a book on murder mysteries in West Yorkshire and describe rather gruesome scenes that took place in and around my fair home town, and those little bottles contain critters that are not really visible in the pictures. 

You can already tell that the theme is black and white (I get to use a lot from the last craft- off AND will hopefully achieve something reminiscent of my hero Tim Burton in the end, what's not to love?), and a few bits of colour will turn up here and there eventually. 

Sorry for mucking about with the photos so much, I had way too much fun on PicMonkey again :D

See you later, guys- I am hopeful to do something shiny tomorrow, but that depends on wether I get to go and do some shopping or wait around for a second day for a plumber who, I swear, does not exist... or rides around on his black horse and can't find my house because his head is a freaking pumpkin...

A quick one (while he's away)

Ten candy corns if you got the reference!

The Mister was away most of the day, so after finishing my bling, I got bored. And since I was still in arachno- bracelet mode, I made a quick and easy little piece for my bff Abigail (who will be 10 years old this weekend- I still remember her starting school!) to get into the creepy- crawly spirit.

This won't need much of an explanation.

Bracelet blank, felt, spiders, invisible thread.

Sew spiders to felt, glue felt to blank.

Glue a little black lace around the edges and take crappy mobile phone pictures glamour shots on mantelpiece.

Look forward to sharing a common bracelet theme with your bff during the weeks leading up to Hallowe'en!

More glitz tomorrow (I hope to all the spirits of Samhain the rain will stop at some point, I desperately need to spray paint an item!!), see you then!

Arachno... philia?

Oh my.. guys, I am starting to think my arachnophobia is kind of easing off a little.

In regards to plastic spiders.

And jewelled spiders.

And felt spiders.

Real spiders? Erm... maybe this one.

But only because it looks like a jewel and is kind of cute when you don't remember that it's and eight- legged freak bound to crawl into your mouth when you sleep, live in your brain and feed off your memories. They totally do that.

Anyway, let's not digress and go down to glitzy business, shall we?

Sunny set the bar very, very high today. In fact, I think she'll be hard- pressed to outdo herself any time soon. you MUST go and see what she did to hack these:

Hand on heart, you will be stunned.

My project today has a lot more legs and less vitamins.

I was inspired by this ring:

(in fact, that's the hack Gail came up with- I prefer it over the original, so go and check out her mad skills!)

But unfortunately, large rings tend to irritate me after, like, 5 seconds. So, this beauty was not an option. But I still wanted spider bling, so I dug deep into my stash and found this stuff:

Plastic spider, glitter, model paint in fortress grey (when orc grey just isn't good enough... we all get those days sometimes, right?) and a bracelet blank I had somewhere in my jewellery box for no obvious reason.

Feeling flat? are your days dull and grey? Worry you not. Enter the glitter:

I would have taken pictures of me wearing it, but my hands are so covered in cat scratches (damn you, ticklish kitten!) that it looks like I wrestled some brambles and the brambles won. Ah, well. And since the flash on my camera is still broken, these pictures are the best I could come up with in terms of ambient lighting :D

It actually looks kinda cool and really sparkly, and unlike quite a few of my other creations, I dig this enough to wear this in public.

Best thing is- when Hallowe'en is over, I can take spidey off the bracelet very easily, because the bugger is tied to it with nigh invisible jewellery- making thread. Now- who's a clever girl??