NO LIGHTS THIS TIME

I've had to download photos from my phone as I'm taking it back for repair and don't want to lose them. Darn thing is the 2nd I've had in a 24mth contract. It won't/can't make or receive calls so is no good at all. Anyway,  I thought I would share these as a follow on from yesterday:

Right, off to sort out this phone.

MY BIG CRAFT PROJECT

Oh crumbs! I've  been leading you on for days about this and now it's done I feel really worried. May I just take you back to my header statement where I remind you all that I am just an amateur crafter, something I was reprimanded for saying by friends last weekend!!
Ok, look at my left hand side bar where there is a link to Laura Carson's blog. There is the clue.
Laura has embraced Halloween and made an Apothecary - she is an American and they know how to celebrate Halloween - us, on the other hand, only know how to do the dress up bit. I could not find any Halloween craft in any of my local shops despite many requests, so had to resort to the pound shops instead. I did however, buy Laura's digi downloads of her image sheets and followed her video tutorials. My 3 'creations' I am entering into Laura's 1st part of her Apothecary event are:

A little glass votive coloured with red pepper paint dabber stuffed with black alcohol inked roses, calla lilies and black beads attatched to wire, trimmed with black beaded ribbon and an amazing black peel off. KIV the candles.

A bottle of mushy bones. This looks very simple but glueing the feet to the bottle was really difficult until the tube of E6000 arrived and saved the day

and a 4 drawer book of scary bits and pieces which I made from 4 small matchboxes and following Laura's amazing video tutorial.

Because I've made these 3 items slightly differently to those that Laura had made, I thought they were the most appropriate to enter.
Now for the rest. The second entry is this: drum roll here please -
The full Apothecary

It now sits proudly on a new shelf in my bedroom. Just to give you an idea of it's size, it measures about 23" high and the shelf is 30" long.

The first 'window' contains :
Frog Slime
Rotten Pumpkins Guaranteed to Stink
Dragon's Fire
Eyeball Bottles
Midnight Moonbeams

The second 'window' contains:
Gravediggers Mushy Bones
Spider Webs - Extra Sticky
Witches Brew Aged to Perfection
Black Cat in a Coffin
Rabid, Rancid & Rotten - made by Icky Potion Supply Co. Experts in Yuk
1000 Year Old Gargoyle Drool

The Dark third 'window' contains:
A Couldron Favourites Book
Full Moon Hairy Webs
Instant Embalming Fluid
Bottled Ghost
Black Widow Venom
Old Crone Beauty Cream

The fourth window contains:
'By Pumkins Fat' plaque on a stand
Eye of Newt
Poison
Haunted Dreams and Other Nightmares
Contagious Cat Grin

The top of the Apothecary is covered in spiders webs, rotten mummy bandage, well used dungeon candles, a jar of very large spiders protected by Mr. Bones, a few black rats, black creeping vine and several poisonous flowers and leaves.
This is the Apothecary just being built

Here is the back:

THANK YOU Laura for a month of fun.

WOYWW #171

Hello on another Wednesday. Our leader Julia, you know, the one famous for inventing the Grande Nosey, will have been up early this morning. Not me. I've just dragged myself up after a rather disturbed night of sleep - yet again - due to the lashing rain. What happened to the indian summer??
Anyway, rather than show you my desk in it's usual empty state, I am making no bones (pun there) about the fact that I have staged it to show you some of the stash I have accumulated in readiness for some Halloween fun courtesy of Laura Carson starting today. See my left side bar for details. So here it is - enjoy......

MATCHBOX CHEST

I posted a photo of the finished chest a couple of weeks ago but my connection failed and so here are a few more photos:

This was the getting started bit:

The matchbox drawers were prepped and the tiny bead pulls added:

Front view of the finished box:

The back:

Each of the sides:

And finally, the top.
I had great fun making this all thanks to Laura Carson.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

I've tried to be 'clever' and made an ATC with a different approach. It hasn't worked! but, it's not bad for a first - and possibly last - attempt. I am in complete awe at the incredible pieces of art I see over on Laura Carson's blog - Artfully Musing.  She is one of the most clever crafters I have ever come across. Her gorgeous ATCs are up for grabs every month and I was lucky to win one in January. She puts so much quirkiness into each one that you just cannot help but be 'gob smacked'.

Anyway, I would never pretend to be able to make cards like hers but she does inspire so I tried to have a go at making an ATC that looked different. Not sure you will agree I got this one right, but as usual, I had fun.

I want to put more detail down the side but as I haven't got a clue what to do, I've left it alone.
The golden arch is a peel off stuck to thick acetate and cut around the edges. I used a tape roller to stick it down as the glue is almost invisible. A few black sticky gems finished it off.
The background is cut from a 12"x12" K&Co paper.
The lady image is one that Laura had previously posted as part of her generous free downloads. I simply cut her out and added a bow from my stash. The metal corner is another little treasure from my stash.

The flowers are from a local trade store and were cream until I coloured them with a gold dabber and a red Copic pen. The leaves are punched from gold embossed card with a Martha Stewart frond punch. The beads are simply threaded onto coloured wire and the little metal flower is one from Leonie Pujol's ATC pack, again coloured with a gold dabber.

Nothing like I would have wanted, but it's ok - I suppose.