Share The Love. . . . . . Challenge 12 At Anything But A Card

Hello everyone. I'm hopefully back full time now and I can't wait to see what you've all been up to. This fortnight sees a new challenge at Anything But A Card and we are asking you to 'Share The Love'. I don't really have much interest in Valentines Day but I love the colours and images associated with it - as long as they aren't too 'fluffy'! (I'm sure you know what I mean!).

For my 'Share The Love' piece, I've chosen to lean rather towards the gothic. You will be forgiven if you think it's Halloween time here again but I just couldn't resist giving a little brown paper skull a makeover for this challenge. The skull has been hanging around since last year because I never got round to doing anything with it. I knew I wanted to make a 'dark' valentine offering and had the skull in mind. My sister came to visit last weekend and we discussed this challenge and she said 'what about your skull?' and that confirmed the idea in my mind. (Thanks Sandie!!).

Rather than just a decorated skull, I wanted it to have some use so it's now a holder for a battery tealight (no danger with those!) and the first step was to chop off the top of his skull. . . . . .

Here's how he turned out:

My skull tea light holder. I've chosen to use traditional Valentine colours red and black because I felt they fitted my chosen theme perfectly.I haven't added any words but there are stamped hearts on the flowers if you look for them.

Side view of the holder. You can see where the skull has been opened to allow access for the tea light. I made a hinge from paper fasteners and wire under the flowers and this helps to keep the skull 'flap' in position.

The skull flap allowing access to the tealight.

Top and rear view of the skull.

Not the clearest of images but this was taken in a blacked out room whilst the tealight was lit to show the effect. (I had to use a flash setting otherwise the photo just showed the facial features as ghostly white orifices!)

After opening up, the whole skull was painted with gesso followed by coats of acrylic paint to make it watertight. Some dry brushing was added around the facial features and crackle was applied - not to the skull cap at this point though.

The skull cap was given two coats of stencil work using black and gold inks just to add interest. The crackle medium was then applied.

Various die cut flowers were used to decorate the skull. Those used on the skull cap were coloured, stamped and the inked again before construction. Small black gems were used for the centres. You may spot the odd heart here and there amongst the stamping.

For the front of the skull, I made a headband out of wire, rose trim (thanks to my lovely blog friend Trace for this!) stained black and die cut roses. The roses were coloured red, constructed and the edges were inked and some black distress EP was used randonmly for interest.

Not the clearest image (again!) but you can just make out one of the rusty wire spirals I made the for the ends of the headband on the lower right of the picture. Each of the rusty spirals have a double sided die cut flower attached to the ends. The black rose trim  is to the right of the rose and extends across the forehead and over to the other ear position.

I had lots of trouble taking these photos for various reasons but I hope you can get the idea of what has been done.

I seem to be constantly apologising for my absence but the last four weeks or so have seen me laid low with sinus infections and, as I now know, bronchitis. I feel so much better and hope to see you more often. Thank you so much for sticking with me and for the well wishes.

Over to you now - what type of Valentine offering are you going to make? Will it be pink, fluffy and beautiful or will you choose the darker side and produce a more gothic feeling piece like me? Any of these are most welcome at Anything But A Card but remember, the choice of what you make is yours as long as it fits the challenge and it isn't a card! Need more inspiration? Why not pop over to the blog and see what the first half of the design time have produced? Be sure to have another look next Sunday when the second half of the team show their makes too.