Carey Burns

Happy October Eve! My Halloween senses are running on overload and I've begun to start really decorating at home and at work. There are sketches. Oh, are there sketches! I even took a little field trip at work to the room our party will be held in and my gruesome ideas should work out perfectly! Rather than doing a Creep-a-Day Craft Challenge this year, I'll be posting decorating ideas. There may be a 'how-to' or two as well. Time to get busy! May your pumpkins stay solid, your spiders be plastic, and your tricks be outnumbered by treats!

Last night I finished another project which will be a raffle item for our annual Halloween party at work. This piece started out as a way to justify buying the Tim Holtz® Regions Beyond Mini Stash of paper. (like I really needed a reason...) Originally, I was just going to make cards but then that weird magic happened when pieces of other things found their way into the mix and something wonderful emerges. An experiment with Tim Holtz® Adirondack Inks by Ranger® and bubble wrap led to an interesting scrap I didn't know what to do with. Stacking it on the lovely orange paper just seemed right. And then I remembered I had black glitter paper... That led to a Tim Holtz® 'Wicked' charm which needed string which needed to be tied to something different and dark...black cheesecloth drapery was the perfect choice. Discovering Tim Holtz® Ephemera Pack led me to the beautiful Tim Holtz® Tree Branch stamper. I attempted two stamping techniques on a tag stained with Ti...

Saturday was filled with a lot of paint and glue...I wished it would never end! I did manage to finish a few projects, but even in their current state, part of me wants to keep adding things. First, I made up a few tags just for the heck of it. It is fun to experiment with different products and see if they work. These were created using stamps, paper punches, marker, and metal charms. The background pattern on the red one is achieved using bubble wrap... I used Tim Holtz® Distressed Stains in Mowed Lawn and Picked Raspberry and Ranger®   Archival Ink. The only spiders I like Spooky tree I added some paint and a rust paint to my Handsome Devil and now I'm convinced he is modeled after Anthony Hopkins. Do you see the likeness??? He may be rusted, but he's still dapper! He still needs a dry brushing of white paint, but he is almost done! Hooray!!! I even had a little time to make a very quick/easy pair of earrings and give them away at my Facebook pa...

Since my last posting, I've been a busy girl and somehow managed to come down with a cold/allergy issue over Labor Day weekend. One of my current projects I'm finishing is a Halloween assemblage for our annual Treat-o-Rama at work. Each year we have a big potluck and raffle off donated Halloween items. Hopefully someone wants to win this... For this project I've stamped, stained, glued, and decoupaged my heart out. I even created that one-off, weird honeycomb design on the paper with alcohol ink and bubble wrap. I should finish it tonight or tomorrow and will post photos. Something wicked this way comes...

A little over two weeks ago, my ankle rolled on me just as I was descending a flight of stairs. Eleven steps later, I was crumpled on the floor, laughing. Just my luck. I'm very lucky that I didn't break any bones or have anything more serious happen, just a bunch of deep bruises. (not to mention bruised dignity) As I've been recovering, I've been thinking if this was a metaphorical "push" from fate to get off my ass and finish the things I've started. That's a long, long list of things but I'm up for a challenge. I'm envisioning a lot of late nights and early mornings over the next few months but it will be worth it. I'll be blogging more, mostly as a way to keep myself accountable, but also to share finished projects. First on my list is a statue I've been working on. Here is a sneak peek of my Handsome Devil.

Shortly after Christopher Lee died, Michael DeMeng issued a challenge to create a vampire-themed assemblage piece and of course, I jumped at the chance! If you don't know who Michael DeMeng is, visit his website and behold his creations. Swoon over the details of each delightfully dark piece. Go. Now. I will wait. You're back! Good! I decided to alter a 7Gypsies tray I snagged on sale. I'd have a fake vial of vampire blood, maybe a wooden stake, and a Shrinky Dink rendering of Christopher Lee in all his Dracula glory. A not-so-scary Dracula What do they say about best laid plans? I bought a paper doll book of vampires (really, check it out ) and traced him out onto the Shrinky Dink paper. I colored him in and then popped him in the oven. He did not turn out so well. That scrapped the Shrinky Dink idea. Back to the drawing board. I had bought some buttons at the craft store that had hearts with a blade piercing them. Rust was on my mind so I painte...

Worth more than $1.50 I found a tiny plastic baby doll with wonky eyes at an antique mall. He was only $1.50 and wanted to come home with me so I took pity and bought him. Rusting babies and bones He sat for a while until I decided to add a layer of iron paint and then rust him and I wasn't sure what exactly he'd be. I knew he was going to be on a small wooden block, but he didn't have a story yet. A Changeling is born After gluing him in place and pulling other assorted odds and ends around him, he looked sad and sickly...like he was wasting away...and there in the depths of my brain a memory was sparked. This sad, rusted thing was no child. No. He was a Changeling. The spawn of a fairy swapped for a lovely little boy. I opened my scrapbook containing Other People's Family and found the most perfect match! After taking a photo of the photo, I decided it needed to be in color so I tried my hand at giving him blonde...