Carey Burns

Yesterday, I put the finishing touches on my Vlad Tepes Shrine. I cannot begin to count the hours it took to create this thing or the number of times something didn't quite work out right or look right. After these photos, I ended up lowering the "dinner scene" so that it was more centered on that bloody field of red. I first started this piece with the red background and knew I was aiming at making a vampire shrine because, well, I have a thing for vampires. After staring at an image of Vlad Tepes in his iconic crown, I knew I wanted to try to recreate it. The crown is a piece of wood with glass pearls, a heat-treated bronze star, and a rhinestone "ruby." I used a special clay to mount the pearls and painted a metallic gray layer over the clay, adding black paint with a dry brush to make it "grungy" before mounting the bronze piece. I created the bloody pikes by cutting down wooden dowel rods and running one end through an electric pencil s...

I've been working on a lot of big projects for work and when I get "me" time I feel like a zombie and the words just don't want to flow like they used to. I'm sure it'll all get groovy again for me, but in the meantime, I've been crafting up a storm. My house looks like a tag sale blew up in it and I think at last count I had four projects in various stages of completion. The Changeling is waiting... As I painted an altered frame today during my lunch break, I wasn't sure what it would be for. I knew I had a greenish-brown, mucky background, but that was it. My mind wandered and then I knew what it would be. And then I had an idea for one of the other projects I have started. Each one was its own story, its own pieces to form a whole. The words haven't really left me, right now I'm just showing and not telling. In my nearly-done Vlad Tepes piece, the Changeling piece that is screaming to have a chance, my Dapper Devil statue, and this...

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...

Sometimes if I eat weird combinations of foods for dinner, I have really strange, sometimes terrifying dreams. Dinner last night was an odd combination (my shame prohibits me from admitting what I ate here) and the dreams didn't disappoint. First, I dreamed that I was an event planner and for table decorations for a spring wedding...I made little bride and groom Peeps. I used white chocolate to paint a dress on the Bride Peep and tinted the Groom Peep's chocolate tux a dark gray. There was a lot of edible glitter on the little candy plates I made and small edible flowers for the Bride Peep's bouquet. I never got to her veil. Oh, and the bride initially wanted a squirrel skin be at each table because she wanted to honor spring and nature. And she flopped a squirrel skin onto the table just so . I gave her an option of maybe a pine cone hedgehog bride and groom, the Peeps, or stuffed animal bride and grooms. Really had to talk up the Peeps to get her to give up the squirrel...

I have quite a few stories that don't seem to fit in anywhere. They're kind of like me: dark, but sweet...gorey, but funny...punk, but classic country... Never fitting in with one group of people. Anyway, there has to be somewhere that my misfits can call home so I subbed one this morning. With the subbing comes the waiting and well, we know how well I am with that part. (cue the GERD) Now that the story is out in the world, it is time to finish another piece. I'll need to channel the spirit of NaNoWriMo and just write this sucker without taking time to over-think each word and character. That's the only way I'll be able to get any farther.

Sunday was to have been a day of local junking but the hubby surprised me by suggesting we head over to an antique shop in Michigan City. We hit the road and arrived well before the shop's noon opening time so we ventured farther up into Michigan itself through a time zone and stopped at my favorite winery for a quick sample (for me) of their ice wine. With more time to kill, we went to St. Joseph. I have been in Lake Michigan during the summer with its waves hushing and roaring (on windy days) and felt the electric coolness of the air. It is one of my favorite places to be. Sunday was quiet. The lake was frozen still and huge sand dunes blocked most of the water from our view. The only sounds to be heard were the laughter of the gulls, the crinkling of the ice along the shore, and the babble of a hidden stream of melt water. It made me want to never leave. In a few months time when we return there will be no ice and the dunes will have receded back into the lake or be blown ...