a David Attenborough special - Beautifully Beastly Butterflies

Beautifully Beastly Butterflies. That is what Barb over at Haunted Design House is asking for. These Macabre Mondays really keeps your brains working overtime. How on earth do you turn a beautiful butterfly beastly? Simple... you turn to sir David Attenborough for inspiration.

So when David Attenborough made his LIFE series they decided to not air the last one in the series as not to have a massive panic on hands. If people knew what the average garden variety can turn into.....

So in a nutshell I will present for you the:

LIFE of BEASTLY BUTTERFLIES.

click on any of the pictures for a larger view

Not alot of people know that the day before a full moon the air is buzzing. The ions in the air does something to the innocence of butterflies. Some species grow fangs, others will have their skulls enhanced (yes they do have skulls, funny that), again others will get very aggressive and will pick a fight with birds. But they all do have a thirst for blood. There are those who will hunt alone, and there are those who will hunt in packs. The day after the full moon they have all regained their normal bodies as we all know them. Let us go over a few of them who hunt alone shall we?

The very common Papilio Camelopardus (aka the Giraffe Butterfly) will turn red and its distinctive markings will turn black and change shape. This is done in a matter of minutes the moments the ions appear. They will go after anything that flies wether it is a bumblebee or something larger like a bird. In this photo the Camelopardus picked a fight with a parrot. The parrot with its large beak is no match for the butterfly.

The Camelopardus is quicker and with its fangs it goes straight for the jugular. Once the jugular is slid the parrot will fall and the feasting begins. Lately it has been known to attack small animals like rabbits, squirrels and cats aswell.

The Papilio Albus Crocuta (aka as the Albino Hyena Butterly) will also grow fangs but does not fight. It solely feeds on leftovers that are no longer desired. In fact when you see a Albus Crocuta you better hide your pets because a Camelopardus will be near.

The Papilio Calva Caecum (aka the Unseeing Bald Butterfly) is blind and grows a skull. Not being able to see it must rely on other methods to lure a prey. The Calva Caecum buzzes and sprays a odor around himself. The buzz attracts cats and the odor will have them mesmerized long enough for the Butterfly to injects the animal with a poison to temporarily paralyze its victim. He then sucks blood till it is full. The feed will last him a few days.

Have you ever noticed how large quantities of cats are missing just before and afer a full moon....?

Now you know why.

This ofcourse is just a very brief synopses on the Life of Beastly Butterflies. If you want to see the full documentary go and catch a re-run on the BBC. This documentary will also get into the Butterfly families that hunt in packs like the Croseus Chiroptera shown below.

-------------------------------------------------------

I made a shadowbox out of a cardboard box from the supermarket. I covered the shadowbox with heavy one color scrapbook paper. I used spraymount for this. After a while I got really dizzy. Wow, I mean really dizzy. Oh wait, thats why it says on the can to spray in well ventilated areas only! (note to self: NEVER use in living room again) I then layered it (5 layers) with photo's cut out from a variety of magazines. The pictures I glued on cardstock so they are sturdy. I then mutilated some Jolees to personalize the butterflies. And voila.

This was a fun challenge to do.

The Jinx Sister - Voodoo Witchery

This weeks challenge on Haunted Design House is Voodoo Witchery. We are to make something with a medicine man or a witch doctor or a conjure man out of the regions of Louisiana. Well.... this was not the first time I was stumped. I don't have any stamps that would qualify for this. And I mean nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not even something that could be altered into anything usefull.

But I didn't want to miss this challenge so what"s a girl I to do. You make your own image. On thursday I had the day off work, I sat down and started drawing and at the end of the day I had about 15 ghoulish gals I can use for all kinds of challenges. I scanned them all and now I have my own set of digi stamps that I can resize. And the first one is here. Because of the voodoo I will call this Creole conjure woman: Dominique LeClairx. Madame LeClairx has some powerful jinxes in her head. Folks come and see her from miles around. They know she will get results in whatever it is they want her to do for them. They nicknamed her Jinx.

Madame LeClairx has this cabinet with little drawers. Each of the drawers is filled with ingredients that help her with her jinxes, hexes and other spellbound conjurers. She has hundreds of jars filled with insects, fingers, shrunken heads and what more.

I dressed madame LeClairx in a purple irridescent dress. It's made specially for her by a grateful village woman. In a certain light the dress is purple. When viewed from another angle the dress is blue and sometimes it is green.

When seeing folks she chalks her face white and her eyes black. This she does so the spirits regonize her when she commands them to do something.

But when she is on her own the chalk comes right off.

Jars full with shrunken heads and eyes are on top of the cabinet.

And jars filled with bones, fingers, insects and other ingredients are in front of the cabinet.

The background paper is form Basic Grey's Eerie collection. Madame Leclairx was drawn, scanned, resized, printed , colored with watercolor pencils and dressed by me. The letters on the sign are from Making Memories. Everything else I got from browsing the internet. I'm pretty sure I could have drawn a shrunken head myself but I wanted to finish this card so I took a shortcut.

I am really pleased with how my ghoulish gal turned out. And I love the paper I made her dress from. Really magic paper indeed.

This gal will definitaly come out and play on more challenges.

A Tough Date - Ode to the Bruise

This weeks challenge on Macabre Mondays is : Ode to the Bruise. We're to use colors like purple, teal, yellow and black. And again I misunderstood a challenge ...... I thought we had to make something showing off atleast one or more bruises and scarrs. Nope.... just the colors that those bruises produce. (wow, try saying that really quick 10 times).
I also enter this piece in the first challenge of the Burtonesque Dolls which theme is stripes.

What can I say ... even though I didn't read it right I went through with it anyway and here is Gladys. Gladys had a tough date last night. Can you tell?

Gladys is like the rest of us girls and don't we all like to have a dinner companion looking like eye candy?

So Gladys invited this yummie looking guy over for dinner and unfolded her plans for that evening.... and he didn't agree. And he gave her a shiner (yes I know, he looked like a feast but he was no gentleman). But Glady's is one tough broad and she beat him fair and square.


I got a piece of really think watercolor paper and gave it a wash with light blue. Then I took my beloved acrylic paints and took my metallic (!) teal blue and scraped that over the light blue - not with brush but with an old bank card. I used metallic because of the shiner on her eye.

Above you can (hopefully) see the scrapes made by the bank card. (get it? scrapes and bruises? yeah, sorry. My bad)

Gladys is an image I have in my computer. I love Gladys. She lets me do anything to her. She is so easy.... except when it's dinner time. Gladys is colored in with watercolor pencils and her eye I gave a wash of purple, blue and yellowish green. The white of her eye is now red as you get when your hit in the eye. As she overpowered her dinner she got a scar over her eye and also one on her arm.

Her dress is a light purple also done with watercolor pencils. Here you can see the scrapes more clearly.

I got another piece of thick watercolor paper and cut it into shape and painted it a metallic yellow (it's actually gold but I won't tell if you don't). The edge I gave a stripey black and white lining to match her hair.

I then put some star shaped strass shapes around her face and a blue strass stone on the text on top.

And a yellow strass stone on the text on the bottom.

And this is the story of Gladys's date. I don't think she'll see him again.....

She's on the prowl....

This weeks challenge at Haunted Design House was to create a walking dead diva .... a zombie girl... a girlie girl without the table manners. My first thought was '' where the bleep am I gonna get a zombie girl from''. I don't have any zombie stamps and I didn't want to download a dead flesh munching girl from the internet. So I went through my stamps and there I found my forgotten Vampira rubber stamp from Side Show Stamps. Her eyes are hollow so I thought she could double as a zombie. I gave her a dress of some pink paisley scrap of paper I had as a leftover (don't you just love all those tiny teeny bits-they always come in so handy).


The moon is a rubber stamp from Cherry Pie Art Stamps. I inked it with purple ink and stamped it on silver cardstock. Then added embossing powder and gave it a treatment with the heatgun.
The tree and tombstones I cut out of a scrapppaper I had in a kit bought some years ago. I really have this thing for tombstones. Can't put my finger on it but I am smitten with them. In all varieties. Last year I went back to Edinburgh (where a long time ago I have lived for 2 years) and they have these marvelous graveyards scattered through town. Many many of them. Often overlooked by the people living around them. I think that is so cool. I visited quite a few of them and took like a gazillion photo's. Anyway... rambling on... the houses are from my never ending stash of architecture I have in my computer.

Her hair is electric blue from a gelpen. With a silver gelpen I gave her highlights. Added a silver belt and at the bottom of her dress I added red sparkles from yet another gelpen. And finally with a black fine liner I added tiny branches to the tree.

She is ready to hunt for food now.... so if you don't want to be dinner you'd better hide.

Grim Gift Box .... At Death's Door

Aaaaaghh..... I am so late with this but I think I'm still on time with my box. The challenge this week ( actually last week as it is almost over, I really am cutting it close) at Haunted Design House was to make a Grim Gift Box. And it must have a flower also. Al week I had the greatest ideas but just lacked the time to make it. So yesterday, on saturday afternoon and this morning to early this afternoon I did my box. Well it at least gave me time to finish what was in the box I wanted to use. So here it is.

At Death's Door...

I thought this would make a nice gift for someone who has the flu or maybe just the sniffles.

And the skully on top becomes a stirring stick. With a little flower.

You’re sick and feel like knocking at death’s door
I’ve brewed you some soup to heal your core

If that doesn’t work I’ll bring you a medicine man
If he cannot help you, nobody can

When that is no aid
Not much else will help I’m afraid

But I know of some nice stones
To lay to rest your tired bones

Then you can dance for eternity long

To the tunes of your favorite song

The blue paper I used was a sheet of very course mulberry paper. I so love the texture on it.

I measured the sides and cut the paper into pieces. The edges where the box was shining through I inked and then poured embossing powder over it and put a heat gun to it. The embossing powder is a mixture of silver and a lot of black to give it a aged look. The image of the door I have had for ages and can't remember where I got it from. The witch stirring the soup I found on internet. The witch doctor is a rubber stamp from Side Show Stamps. I colored it with watercolor pencils.

The headstone with the grim reaper was another find on internet, I gave it a wash in watercolor pencils. The second headstone I found some time ago on the internet and with Paint Shop added a epitaph. The dancing skeleton is a rubber stamp from Cherry Pie Art Stamps. I printed the words on off white paper and aged it with distress ink and then rolled the top and bottom to gave it a scroll effect. The skeleton on the stirrer is from Pepin Press.

Now all I have to do is wait for a friend to sneeze or cough.

Freaker's- Free-For-All

Tears cannot restore her ...
This weeks Macabre Monday's challenge is Freaker's Free-for-All. Meaning it is left to our desire to create whatever we want. Yay!

I have had this image of this wonderful house in my evergrowing collection of victorian architecture for ages, just waiting for this exact opportunity. I added a fence from a rub-on sheet (can't remember who from). The bats flying around is a PSX stamp. I found this very nice looking tombstone surfing the internet and with the help of Paint Shop added a funny grave epitaph.

Put it all on to black cardstock and voila. I would love to live here.

Dark Lady Sonnets and Yorick's Skull

So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.

I decided to finally play and take part in a card challenge. I have been a fan of Macabre Mondays for ages and played along for fun but never posted any of the cards. Being lazy I guess.

But this weeks challenge I could not pass up. Somber Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare and love the Dark Lady Sonnets. For a twist I added Yorick's skull to it, even though Yorick the Jester never appeared in the sonnets. Just thought the two of them would make a lovely macabre couple. Now there's a oxymoron for ya.

I took some paper from my scrap draw (thousands of leftover pieces of all kinds of papers) and cut and pasted this on a whitestock card. Then I added some Basic Grey rub-ons from the Eerie collection - the orange spiderwebs and 3 spiders. I had the perfect dark lady image in my stash of prints and colored her with watercolor pencils. I don't have any Copic's. Guess I have to save up for them. I added the Jolee's cauldron because the words had the word ''feed'' in it. I thought this would give the impression of maybe soup.... from a stock of bones (of Yorick ... or is this getting to sickly). Yorick's skull was a brad I had laying around and the looking glass skeleton text, bottom right is from the Spooky Alley series from Making Memories. (the skeleton ofcourse is in the soup!) Finally the sentiment are the last two lines of the 146 sonnet.

Well, this is my take on Somber Shakespeare. Not really somber. Not really macabre. It turned out more cutesy then I would have liked but it is what it is. It was fun playing along.