Carey Burns

Today’s blog post is about crafting and history. A few months ago, I slapped some Mod Podge® down on a cardboard binder and added crumpled tissue paper. After sealing it with another coat of the Podge and adding some Tim Holtz® Distress Stain by Ranger, I fell head over heels in love with the way it turned out. It has the appearance of poorly preserved leather made out of human skin. Perfect for the stash of Halloween catalogs the binder holds After that experiment, I had an idea to create a sort of dark shadowbox with a giant human eye. After fussing about with the tissue paper and finding the right doodads, I think it turned out incredibly awesome. Dark shadowbox...it sees what you've done and the secrets you lock away... I wanted to make another, but with a lovely bluish-brown background. I thought of some diabolical mermaid as the focal piece or some deep sea creature, but both seemed forced. They weren't right. I studied the blue and it looked familiar and...

So, the other day I was working on an art shrine piece and needed to use a razor blade to remove some Mod Podged tissue paper. All went well until a burr on the safe end of the blade decided it wanted to become one with my skin. My finger bled and stung and bled and throbbed. I may have made that weird sucking/hissing noise an injured person makes as they wince and I'm pretty sure I muttered a few spicy words too. I washed and bandaged my poor index finger (on my dominant hand) and kept on crafting because nobody likes a quitter. Who knew I could craft left-handed? At the end of the day, I had this lovely backdrop completed--perfect for a grisly Vlad Tepes shrine. Oh, the ideas I have! I'm very pleased with the color and "slickness" it has. This isn't my blood...honest. I can't wait to get started working on the rest of this piece and hope it is as cool as it is in my mind's eye. In the meantime, it has sparked me to pick up where I left off in m...