Haunted Design House

Are you ready for Round #3 of the Design Team Throwdown Challenge going on at  Smeared and Smudged's ning forum ?! Teri , Creepy Glowbugg , and myself ( The Masterful Mistress ) are competing as a team for the badge and bragging rights of the DT Throwdown champions . Top designers from some of the BEST alternative DTs are competing against each other to see which DT reigns supreme. We won the first challenge... I KNOW we can do it again! This DT Throwdown Challenge is all about Mini Books ! Let us reveal what the Minions have been up to: Temptress of Terror Teri The Little Book of Gothic Horror Please visit Teri's blog to learn about all of the fabulous details in this beautiful faux leather & copper mini book! Masterful Mistress of the Macabre Barb Mixed Media Dark Art Book  Please visit Barb's blog to view each page up close and personal, and see what happens when she raids the Architectural samples closet in ...

It's finally here!  JUST in case you hadn't heard about this through the grave-vine, the awesome Skull-A-Day blog has declared June 4th to be forever-more Skull Appreciation Day :)  For the full deets on this, check out THIS POST at S.A.D. To help spread the word and share a little skulliness (that would be skull happiness) with the masses, Smeared Ink has organized a fabulous blog hop for us creative & crafty types ;)  AND there are a ton of prizes to be won along the way!  For the full details, list of sponsors & prizes, or if you get lost along the way, just pop over to Terra's blog !  Be prepared to see some fan-freakin'-tastic skull action throughout this hop... a myriad of artists and craftsman have created some terrific works! If you've arrived here from Dianne's blog , you are right on track. I'll warn you up front... this card is super simple and not nearly as cool as a lot of the other creations you'll see, but it uses my a...

Haven't you LOVED all of the Minions' work this week?!!  And are you loving the Delicious Doodles digi's?!  Fantastic!  And now... a little sumpin' sumpin' from me: please click to enlarge photos... they look a little better I used Free Spirit for this one.  LOVE her!  And of course I can't photograph anything red and have it turn out right, so you'll have to trust me when I say this looks waaaaaaaaaaaay better in person. I used a Tim Holtz embossing folder, MS graveyard & grass punches, and the EK Success bracket punch.  The sentiment is one from Stamp Insanity. You've only got a little over a day to enter this week's challenge ... and it's SUCH an easy one!  Don't you want some deliciously dark digi's from Delicious Doodles ?

Woo Hoo, baby... I was able to play along again this week!  And though my card doesn't exude a lot of dastardliness, the image is still smokin' hot :) Yowsa!  If I batted for the same team, I think I'd be turned on right about now... I had a lot of fun coloring up this awesome image from Barbara Jensen :  Poison Ivy .  The look in her eyes is enough to call this one a dastardly diva!  Since she was earthy feeling, I used some paper from DCWV's green stack & got all flowery with fabric & stick pin flowers.  The ribbon is some random awesomeness I came across at Michaels last year.  Sentiment is from TAC's Joy, Found . I could not capture the coloring of Ivy as good as it is in person, so you'll have to trust me ':)  These are the Copic colors I used for her skin:  E11, E01, E00, E000, R02 (cheeks) Hair:  E07, YR18, YR15, YR12 Ivy:  can't remember... oopsie! Well kids... you still have a few days left to enter your Dast...

HDH Macabre Monday Rules: 1 . Create a dark and macabre SOMETHING (card, scrap page, altered item, whatever) that follows the specific Macabre Monday challenge given. Cutesy is fine, but creepy is better :) 2. You have until the following Sunday night @ 5pm central time to post your creation and please leave a direct-link back here. 3. If you upload to any online galleries (TACPCC, S&S, PCP, SCS, etc.) , please tag the title using HDH058 . 4. Weekly giveaways! Some weeks will be loaded with loot, others not-so-much ... but the thrill is in the win, right?! Some prizes shall be by random drawing, others hand picked... and I'm not telling you ahead of time :) 5. I'll be selecting a weekly Gruesome Twoso me (my top two favorite creations) from all the players. At the end of every month these will be compiled and a Master of Macabre will be selected and will receive a little giftie from me... this could be stamp sets, handmade items, papers, halloweenie embelli...

Yeay... the new calendar is out for The Scrapbook Page , and sign-ups can begin for my classes! First up, Eerie & Elegant Cards on October 11th, 6:30pm-8:30pm.  Click on the link and it will take you to the store's website where you can see all four cards. This is my favorite of the four, but the others are pretty cool, too :) And this one I am REALLY excited about... a Halloween Waterfall Mini-Album on October 19th, 6:30pm-8:30pm.  It is a wine bag album :)  Plenty of pockets & pull-outs...  all in Halloweenie glory! There is no way to do this album justice in a photograph.  Tons of heat embossing, Tim Holtz stamps, May Arts ribbons, flocked paper, and so much more.  LOVE it. If you are in the Kansas City area, stop by The Scrapbook Page and sign up!  For you out-of-towners that would like to purchase kits, please email the store for details.

Well, kids... this didn't turn out NEARLY elegant or evil enough, but I'm posting it anyway :)  I've been busy planning & designing samples for some upcoming classes I'll be teaching at The Scrapbook Page in Shawnee, Kansas !  Yep, if you are in the Kansas City area, be sure to sign up for my October 11th Eerie Elegant card class & October 19th Halloween Waterfall Mini-Album class .  The Scrapbook Page's newsletter should be coming out soon so you can get more details... and I'll be posting a couple of pics here in the next week or so :) Anyway, back to today's bit o' Halloweenieness :)  Super simple and no frills. Stamps:   Spiders are Seen Paper:   Penelope, white UltraSmooth & black cardstocks Ink:   VersaMark , Moonlight white Brilliance Other:   black embossing powder , Silver Stickles , black ribbon , sequin , Scor-Bug , foam tape After heat embossing the image & sentiment, I sponged white ink around them.  A little ...

I was so happy to get this done in time for Tiddly Inks Halloween Hop!  The hop is running 6pm CST on July 22 to 6pm CST on July 24... and I have a feeling there will be a TON of participants for this one :)  For additional deets or to start hoppin', just pop over to the TI Challenge blog ! Now, on to the show :)  I chose Gossmere for my very first EVER TI image... I know!  Can you believe I've waited this long?  Isn't she freakin' cute?!  I just can't decide if she is a vamp or a witch... either way, she's got a princess complex, right?! Digi:   Gossmere (TI) Rubber Stamp:   Delightfully Spooky (TAC) Paper:   Bazzill, PTI white & Neenah cardstocks Ink:   VersaFine Onyx Other:   Tim Holtz embossing folder, EK Success & MS border punches, spider confetti, MM felt flower , black felt flower (handmade), misc. gems, Scor-bug , silver glitter pen Copics:  0, BV0000, BV20, BV23, YG01, YG03, YG91, G24, V01, V06, V...

HDH Macabre Monday Rules: 1 . Create a dark and macabre SOMETHING (card, scrap page, altered item, whatever) that follows the specific Macabre Monday challenge given. Cutesy is fine, but creepy is better :) 2. You have until the following Sunday night @ 5pm central time to post your creation and please leave a direct-link back here. 3. If you upload to any online galleries (TACPCC, S&S, PCP, SCS, etc.) , please tag the title using HDH048 . 4. Weekly giveaways!  Some weeks will be loaded with loot, others not-so-much ... but the thrill is in the win, right?!  Some prizes shall be by random drawing, others hand picked... and I'm not telling you ahead of time :) 5. I'll be selecting a weekly Gruesome Twoso me (my top two favorite creations) from all ...

Hey all you challenge fans!  Here's one for you:  the Simply Betty Stamps blog is hosting a sketch challenge that will run through July 29th (11:59pm Eastern time).  That's right... about three weeks, so there is PLENTY of time for you to try this baby out: And guess what the prize is for winning this challenge?  One lucky winner will get to be a Guest Designer for Simply Betty Stamps in August !   Guest Designer means FREE images to play with... helloooo...  TOTALLY worth trying out the sketch, no?! As soon as I saw the sketch, I knew I wanted to use Max & Li-Li !  Doesn't Max look like he wants to pet Li-Li?  Surely he wouldn't bite... well... maybe.  Since I printed these digi's prior to sizing them properly, I needed to figure out a way to make it work.  Hellooooooo forced perspective :)  You are my friend.  Doesn't it look like Max is standing in the background with Li-Li up front?  Simply by using a tr...

... but I used an image from one of my FAVORITE creepy stamp sources, so that counts, right?  I do have plans to creep this one out eventually, but I thought I'd go a little sassy traditional for the first time ;) Is her dress not freakin' awesome?  These photos kind of wash out the color... she looks really freakin' pale!  She looks better IRL... I need to get my camera manual out:  I don't even know what all the buttons on my camera do ;) I thought the sentiment was fitting for the "come hither" look on her face and in her body language, right? Stamps:   Tina (Stamp It Crazy), Spunky Sprite Boys (TAC), Swirlies (TAC) Paper:  white ultrasmooth, black, & DCWV green cardstocks (TAC) Ink:  Memento Tuxedo , VersaMark Other:  Transcendence EP , ribbon (HL), misc. rhinestones, Scor-bug, silver glitter pen Copics:  0, E000, E11, E57, YR23, V01, V04, V06, V09 I guess I need to figure out what next week's challenge is going to be ...

HDH Macabre Monday Rules: 1 . Create a dark and macabre SOMETHING (card, scrap page, altered item, whatever) that follows the specific Macabre Monday challenge given. Cutesy is fine, but creepy is better :) 2. You have until the following Sunday night @ 5pm central time to post your creation and please leave a direct-link back here. 3. If you upload to any online galleries (TACPCC, S&S, PCP, SCS, etc.) , please tag the title using HDH035 . 4. Weekly giveaways!  Some weeks will be loaded with loot, others not-so-much ... but the thrill is in the win, right?!  Some prizes shall be by random drawing, others hand picked... and I'm not telling you ahead of time :) 5. I'll be selecting a weekly Gruesome Twoso me (my top two favorite creations) from all the players. At the end of every month these will be compiled and a Master of Macabre will be selected. He/she will be asked to be a guest blogger for the f...