18. Penny Dreadful Cameo

Oh we're half way there - feel free to keep singing, well technically we've just crept past the half way mark, if you're staying with us until 2nd Nov.

Hows about we go old school,  very old school, with some Victorian-esq cameos?  I've always loved the classic horrors, where would Halloween be without Dracula, Frankenstein et al, most recently given a reboot by the penny dreadful series on sky. They have well and truly been accepted into popular culture and just their silhouettes are recognisable to almost everybody as proved by the highly successful Olly Moss (graphic artist whos book coincidentally is named Silhouettes from popular culture :)). 

Handy as you don't get much more Victorian than a cameo canvas or two.

Just a little bit girly- Elpheba and Malificent black embossed cameos, printed and clear embossed fussy frame, velvet ribbon, paper lace and lots of glue spot pearls.

Well I say canvas but they are 6"x6" (or folded 6"x12" so they stand on their own) corrugated card bases cut from amazon packaging, covered in papers or book pages.  I didn't have any subtle Halloween papers so downloaded a couple of internet wallpapers, the damask one below has little skulls on, they've been resized, printed and glued to the base.

Decide how or what you will use as a cameo frame, because everything you do after will fit around this, you can get pretty cameo dies or cut outs, download cameo vectors or create your own shapes and patterns depending on your software. 

 I didn't have a die or time to buy precut ones but I still did the next bit 3 different ways. 

1) using a very delicate vector frame I pasted the image onto my background, printed the background and frame together and then roughly cut around the image, this saves on the fussy cutting by helping the spare bits camouflage into the background.

2) printed the frame onto acetate. again this halves the fussy cutting and stops you from getting an obvious border.

3) cut out an easy shape from card or fussy cut as much as you like.

Next I picked some of my favourite film characters and found a picture of them side on, using the mirror function if I needed to change their direction, printed it the size needed to fit, again I've found the top 3 ways to do this.

1) I printed the image onto heavy weight paper in a very light draft, cut around the image turned it over and embossed it with black power.

2) Printed the image on very thin printer paper on a very light draft, gently stuck it to some black card and cut around it,

3) print or draw on acetate in a heavy black - although I'm not keen on this effect as its just not as opaque enough and you either have to cut around it, or you have a shiny frame, but it is the quickest route so it really just depends on what you're going for.

Nosferatu and Frankenstein cut from black card, transparency frame, on a book plate background is getting a heavy dose of TH's film strip when it comes out of hiding.

Arrange it all together on your background, vignette around the edges and corners using distress ink, adding little bits to tie it all together - some velvet ribbon and lace, some flowers or film tape, however you want to go just enjoy. 

Book plate background of Werewolf and Invisible Man, transparency frames with black card cameos 

Cult film hand cut frames, with glue spot faux pearls/nailheads, transparency printed cameo (thanks to Olly Moss) and string.  Maybe it needs a 'who you gonna call? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice titles added, who knows.

I am entering this into the Oddball Stamps Chalenge blog for spooky.

Hope you've liked this project, if you've given it a go please post your pictures on our fb page, I really would like to see them.

Join us again soon. 

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.