Day 16: Once Upon a Midnight Dreary - Domino Bookmark by Barb B

Greetings Wicked Bloggers!

We're now entering the second half of DominoART's 31 Days of Halloween and also Smeared and Smudge's spooktacular event too!  I hope you've been inspired and not too traumatized by all the horrifyingly good eye candy ;0)  The Smeared and Smudged blog hop roll is on DominoART's right hand sidebar and visit Terra's blog for all the gorey details!

Barb B joins us again today for Day 16 of 31 Days of Halloween with a hauntingly sinister Poe inspired bookmark featuring an altered domino tassel!  You might just be too scared to read but at least you've got a candle to keep the shadows at bay ;0)

Check out Barb's Raven Earrings on Day 9 if you missed them!

 This time around, I decided to celebrate Poe along with my love of reading and create a bookmark to denote where I've left off in my spooky reading.

The stamps I used for this are as follows:
Raven is by Meer Image
Branch is by Stampscapes
Lettering is Stampin' Up's Mini Alphabet
Candle is from Blockheads - An Illustrated Christmas

I began this project, using a light grey cardstock. I used a punch to create a mask where I wanted the moon. Then, using a sponge and various colors of Distress Inks, in a circular motion, I inked in the night sky. Using the sponge again, I edged the whole piece in black ink. Once done with that, I removed the mask and used Brushed Pewter Distress Stain to create the ring around the moon and a few dabs to make the moon look crater-y.

I stamped the branch in a dark brown ink. I then stamped the quote in black ink. I then used black craft ink to stamp the raven, sprinkled it with clear embossing powder and heat set it. This really makes the raven stand out! I used a gold metallic pen to draw the ring around the raven's eye. With that, the main portion of the book mark was done and I mounted it on purple cardstock, at the top of which I punched a hole for the twine to go through.

On to the domino!

For this, same as last week, I used a pre-drilled, plain, bamboo domino. (I apologize for being remiss in telling you where I found these last week. I got them from an Etsy shop that I found InkStainedRoni - she's got all kinds of cool stuff at great prices!) To begin, I stamped the candle using StazOn Jet Black Ink. I colored in the flame using a yellow/orange sharpie, then went over it again with a sparkly metallic yellow gel pen. I colored in the candle using a white gel pen. Then I colored in the candle stick using a metallic gold gel pen. Gel pens work great for this kind of thing with one caveat: they need a little extra drying time, so be careful not to smudge the ink!

Once I had my image colored in, I used a purple sharpie to shade in the background. I wanted to give it a kind of antique look and this is achieved so easily with a sharpie. If you do straight lines rather than dabbing the ink, it doesn't fully cover and gives it that aged, worn appearance.

With that, my domino was done and the only thing left to do was assemble everything. I chose a purple twine that closely matched the cardstock. I poked one end through the domino and secured the bottom of it by tying it around a bead. I pulled the knot and extra twine from the other side of the knot into the domino, snugging it with a good tug as I did. Then I thread and looped the twine through the bookmark. I brought it back down through the other hole in the domino, attached the other bead, and again pulled that side snug.

There I had a cool, spooky bookmark to use. All that was left was to dig out my E.A. Poe collection, make myself a hot toddy, and lose myself in some sublimely disquieting story.

See you tomorrow for Day 17 of 31 Days of Halloween and don't forget to visit all the blogs in the Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween blog hop for the chance to win lots of SAS prizes!!  See Terra's blog if you're late to the freak show!

Happy Haunting and Domino Hugs!

THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

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Velvet Paw Creations