Butterfly Horror Shrine

Happy Saturday everyone! I actually got the chance to work on a little something yesterday just for the fun of it, and I'm so happy to share it with you today. Way back when before my big move, I started playing with plaster and I designed and poured my first shrine. The dried, unfinished shrine was packed away and made the long trip from Washington to Virginia, amazingly in one piece. Yesterday I pulled it out and got to work.

 I was inspired by two things. The first is my oldest daughter, who is almost 20 years old and absolutely HATES butterflies. They rank third on her greatest fears list behind teeth and aliens, go figure. Don't ask why, I have no idea where the phobia came from, but it has something to do with their legs. Anyways, that is where I got the idea for the decoration of this little hanging shrine. It's all about the realization that what one person finds beautiful, another can find morbid and disgusting. It's about recognizing and being accepting and respectful of all views and opinions. We are all hard-wired differently.

 The second thing that inspired me was an incident that happened earlier this month when one of our Smeared and Smudged Forum members, Fiona, was attacked on her blog for linking one of her projects in a challenge. I won't go into details, those who saw it know what I'm talking about. Once again the "attacker" demonstrated how close-minded and unaccepting people can be. The difference of opinion was not the issue, but rather the vile way that this person presented their opinion. It was demeaning to Fi and heavily demonstrated how judgemental and snide the attacker was. It made her and her challenge blog look bad and needless to say, I WON'T EVER be participating there.

 So, the point of all that was that this shrine is about seeing it from someone else's perspective and being accepting of it, whether you agree or not. Hope you enjoy taking a look. Click the pics for a larger view.

Besides the plaster, I used a saying from Smeared Ink's As Death set, as well as some butterflies from a decorative paper that I had. The background of the inset uses foil, which fits with the Smeared and Smudged Junk Funk challenge for this month. I also inset a skull into the top of the shrine to help demonstrate the morbid aspect of the theme, which fits in with the current challenge at HDH.

The whole shrine uses tons of paint color washes, and I added in the nails across the shelf as a final little touch. Amazingly I also incorporated some glitter into the butterflies, which does not show up well in the pics. What I really like about this is the way the butterflies are suspended from the wires, which you can't really see in the pictures either. Oh well. I hope you like my make! I'd love to hear your opinions or suggestions. Have a great weekend!

I am entering this into the following challenges:

Smeared and Smudged- Junk Funk- use foil

Haunted Design House- Skeletal Remains- skully goodness up top

Left of Center- Bling It Up or LOC theme- do my glitter butterflies count? If not, at least it's LOC :)

12 Days of Christmas: Day 6- Very Skelly Advent Shrine

Welcome back to 12 Days of Christmas on Smeared and Smudged! If today is your first visit and you don't know what it's all about, please visit this post for all the info, and be sure to hop back from the beginning to see all the amazing projects that the Jolly Bloggers have posted so far. We are half way through the hop, and I can tell you that we Smeared and Smudgers definitely have a different and fun way of sharing Christmas projects, and I am truly honored to have such a great group of Jolly Bloggers joining me in the celebration and inspiration!

Today I have made for you a Very Skelly Advent Shrine. I started with an old metal bookend that I found at Goodwill. I spray painted it white, and added some punchinella insert behind the opening. The next step was to cover the front with some spackle, and while wet I stamped into it with one of my background stamps from the Smeared Ink Urban Decay set. You can't really see any definite pattern, but it gave it some cool texture! Then I sprinkled it with glitter, which made it look alot like sparkly snow.



The little hanging balls are from some fake holly (like what's up in the corner). After searching for something small enough to make my advent days (and bitching to Kelli on the phone about it lol) I finally found these in my Christmas deco box. I just snipped them off the branch and twisted the wire that was already attached, then added the wonky numbers with paint pen.



The top decoration is just some Christmas picks that I put together and attached. I stamped out my candycane Skelly from A Very Skelly Christmas, also from Smeared Ink, in red stazon and cut him out. Then I added some crystal glaze and clear mini beads from our odds n' ends section of our shop. When he dried, I attached him so it looks like he's sitting on top of the pinecone.



The candle holder is removable, so I can really put anything there in the front that I want to. Since it's an advent, I can take off a ball each day in December and add them to a little holder, or just leave them there. What I really love about it is it's Christmas-ey, but still has some cool style to it with the Skelly and texture.

I hope it's given you some ideas as well. Be sure to hop on through the Jolly Bloggers (list is in the sidebar), and if you're in the running as a Merry Hopper, be sure you're commenting on each blog to qualify for the prize drawing! See you all on Monday.

Smeared and Smudged Member Blog Hop

Today the Smeared and Smudged Forum is hosting it's monthly Member Blog Hop, and you're really going to love what we have in store for you! Since the fall season is upon us and colors are changing all around us, we decided to theme our hop around one of our fave fall colors- ORANGE. All of our projects that we have to share with you today use the color orange in some way.

Orange is not a color that I use very often in my stamping, unless it's paired with rust, OR unless it's Halloween!! So, of course as soon as the theme was set, my mind wandered to my favorite holiday. It took me a while to come up with something to make, and I kept flip-flopping on what I wanted to do. Then I saw the designs from our newest Smeared Ink artist, Irma Diaz, and my project basically slapped me in the face!

If you haven't heard yet, we have added our very first artist (besides ourselves), Irma, to the Smeared Ink family. We are at this very moment taking preorders until Sept 20 for her amazing first set, Candy Is Dandy, which will be available in mid October. If you want to read all the details, be sure to visit our shop before the 20th!

So, like I was saying, when I saw Candy Is Dandy, I knew exactly what I wanted to make first. And since I have access to the images before they are actually on rubber ( I know, lucky me!!!!) I decided to give you guys a sneaky peeky of one way you can use the set.

For my project, I made a shrine. This is the first one I've ever made, and I LOVE it! I found the little shadowbox at Goodwill for $1.50; it was off-white and had a stuffed fairy doll glued to the inside. My youngest daughter wanted the fairy, so we pried it off, and I got to keep the box. Since then, the box had been sitting and waiting for the perfect inspiration to come. SO, after alot of paint, glitter, and ribbon, here is my finished product...

*click pics for larger views

This picture was taken at a slight angle so the flash would not shine on the images. You can see that I used different layers of paint, tons o' ribbon, and of course, the freakin' awesome cool images from Irma!

The inside has alot of black-purple glitter, and I painted some chipboard letters for my saying. My images are on glossy cardstock, and colored using paint pens so they would be very vibrant.


Here are some close-ups of the chipboard saying, "Candy Is Dandy".




And finally here is a closeup of the little black skull that is in the top-center of the shrine. It is placed over layers of ribbon that I pleated.


I forgot to mention that the "foot" of the shrine is a painted candle holder that I attached to the bottom. I may do a few more things to the shrine before I display it, like add a gloss coat to the top portion of it and maybe crackle the back, but for now I think it really rocks! I'd love to hear what you think of it too.

Now, orange you glad you came to visit today? You got to see my very first shrine AND you get to hop to all these fabulous forum member blogs to see what they did with the color orange...

Tori
Alison
Kelli
Kapree
Black Dragon
Meredith
Jane
Sugar
Danielle
Lisa
Steph
Lady Brayton
Shelley
Jean

Hope you enjoy!!