15. Junk key...surprise!

Thanks for joining me on this Wicked Wednesday! Now every good, bad or ugly witch, warlock or wizard, needs to keep their things locked away, and if they're anything like I am it needs to be a bulky keyring so they aren't lost down the back of the sofa.

It's a pretty simple concept lovingly 'borrowed' from an art blog pal of ours called DonnaLouiseRogers, as can be seen in more detail here: grab an old looking key - make sure its not one you're going to need at some point, and start adding to it.

Alternatively if you don't have a big enough key, or want more use out of the finished piece try a kilt pin brooch instead.

*NON HALLOWEEN STORY SKIP IF PREFERRED:

Recently for a friends wedding I had a padlock engraved with their details, and gave them a shadow box frame, the idea was to either put their padlock in a collection, or somewhere special that has meaning to them both and use the frame as normal.

OR

Frame their lock, adding things to to it as they went, their baggage clips, festival bands, keyrings from day trips, ticket stubs, babies hospital bands etc as life moves on.  I was thrilled when I went around to find it hung on their wall as living art of their life together 
without having to get out an album or three

The padlock idea sprung from the original Junk key and either or both can be used for a variety of projects like weddings or moving home, but Halloween themed is definitely much more fun and is finished quicker - in theory :)

Anyway once you've found a starting point, just keep adding to it, whether it be charms, beads, chain, ribbon, little potion bottles, papertags, stamped bits, shrink plastic, scraps of leather, etc until its nearly lost, then either frame it or put in a little matchbox as lost and found. 

If you've made a brooch attach to your coat or bag and wear for the rest of the season

These are my starters for 10: 

*To be truthful I'm not as happy with these as I want to be at the moment, (wrong key, not enough papery things, etc) however I am going to carry on adding to them and by the weekend they should be how I want them, at which point I'll add a new pic.

and...

Surprise! I'm going to give these away including a brand new pair of earrings just about the same as in the photo (but never worn).. Me being busy carrying on with these gives you some time to comment on our pages, and fb group. Any new comment (preferably a nice one and 'likes' don't count it has to be a comment) that has been made between last weeks draw and the same time this weekend qualifies. So go on have a poke around and see what you've missed.

I'll pick out 3 random winners to send to, no specifying which you'd prefer as that would take organisation. It's not a pretty picture. I don't like doing it!

I am entering this in the Left of Centre Altered Art Challenge.

Jas x

This weeks wicked Wednesday Winners for the Junk key, kilt pin or earings are in no particular order:

Susibee

Carmen

Pauline

If your name matches the above and you posted on our blog or FBpage between Saturday 1201 and Friday Midnight, email your address to Minerva27.jg@googlemail.com and I'll post one of the items to you

Thanks for joining us, and keep an eye out for our next give away.

14. Danse Macabre

Fabulous project from Lou yesterday - all I need to do now is find some matching socks. I swear I sacrifice socks to the god of washing machines every time I run the thing!

Today, I wanted to do something based on the Danse Macabre, because, well, who doesn't love a dancing skeleton or two?!

This is a simple cheap wooden shadow box frame that I bought from the craft store. There are various ways you could produce this. I actually had a stamp with the moon, tree and graveyard, but if you don't have anything suitable there are plenty of graveyard images out there on the web.

You need to make your background the same height as the interior of your shadow box but, and this is crucial, wider. Rather than trying to cover each side, it is much easier to bend it round. Hopefully you can see what I mean in the photo above. This also gives a better 3D look, plus much less need to fix it in place, although you can add a little glue if you like. You should paint/decorate the top and bottom of the inside of the shadow box before you fit your background in - I used the same paint I used on my stamped image, painted directly onto the wood, and then plain black at the bottom.

Once you've fitted your background, you're going to need some skeletons. If you have suitable sized skeleton stamps then all well and good but I don't. A search online produced a very popular dancing skeleton on the left, although I am unable to find who made it. The one on the right is from Hans Holbein's woodcuts. There are a huge variety of skeletons in there, and since they were produced in the 16th century then they are well out of copyright now!  Print/stamp your skeletons onto as thick a card as you can manage, and back it with another piece of card if possible as they have to be sturdy enough to stand up. Carefully cut around them, leaving a small tab at the bottom of their feet. Colour the tab the same as the bottom of your background and bend it back so that you can glue it to the bottom. As it's a shadow box, you can glue them a little bit apart from the background so add dimension.

Finally, decorate the outside of the fame however you like. I used some paint, web stamp and crackle glaze because, having found my crackle glaze I am determined to get some use it before I lose it again!

I love the way that as the light changes during the day, the shadows from the skeletons change position and add to the general spookiness.

This is also in the Deliciously Dark Challenge.

Well, that's it for today. I will leave you in Jas' capable hands for tomorrow. Enjoy, and hope to see you again soon.

Bex