The Evil Has Returned!!

Like a bad penny or a demonic doll, the Minions have returned

 to unnerve and amaze you with our dark spin on arts and crafts.

With nothing but tricks and bugs up my sleeve, I have managed

to create a project that has been haunting my brain space for years.

Yes, YEARS! I have been collecting, hoarding, and pilfering

bits and bobs for this particular project forever.

Ready?

I have finally created a Haunted Design House of my very own!!

Pretty fuckin' cool, right?!!

The little house started out pretty unassuming. 

I picked it up at my local thrift store, and painted it with gesso to give me a nice,

clean base to begin my wicked handy work.  

After a bit of deliberation, I opted to go with an overall crackle effect 

using DecoArt Weathered Wood crackle medium. I have hit and miss success 

with this product. You have to be very quick when applying the top paint coat,

and be sure to NOT go over the same place twice, or the crackle will not happen. 

In the end, I am pretty happy with the crackle, but was hoping for all of it to be 

perfection. Must be the Virgo in me...

The roof was created by using Golden resin sand to give an awesome texture like all

haunted houses should have. In retrospect I should have mixed black acrylic paint 

into the medium to save myself the step of painting the roof black afterward. 

Now I know for next time.  

After the roof was dry, I applied Inka Gold metallic rub in green/yellow.

I thought this would give the appearance of a rotten moss covered roof.

I added some fun plastic skeleton hands on the roof for a creepy carnival feel.

I used a heat gun to soften the plastic and shape them to look as though

they were grabbing the rooftop. I adhered them with trusty E6000. 

And now for the fun part. The embellishments! 

I had a shit ton of Halloween papers and google prints to choose from in my stash. 

Each room was carefully planned and decorated accordingly.

I used matte medium to apply all of the paper pieces.

Everyone knows that bats always inhabit the attic of every haunted house, right?

My is attic is actually a bat museum though, as the sign clearly states. 

I added a woodcut bat, some paper punched bats with clip art heads, 

and some plastic Halloween tree clippings.

I sprinkled mica flakes and glitter from Finnabair on the floor, and then decided that they

kind of looked like fall leaves, so I added some flakes to the branches as well.

The anatomy room is on the next floor. Complete with a hand painted skull,

a mummified pig fetus specimen, a vampire jaw charm, and a random bottle of gold elixir. 

Various diagrams and a brain on the floor are a necessity in all anatomy rooms.    

This room is the "Spook Show" room with spook show posters, a shiny jack-o-lantern, 

and of course some ghosties. I sprinkled some MS glitter on the floor for some sparkle.

No haunted house visit is complete without a proper palm reading.

I cut off a Barbie hand and glued it under a TH dome. I love that detail.

I used some Tarot cards and a palm reading chart to decorate the floor

and walls. And there are a smattering of spider die cuts scuttling around as well.   

The next floor houses the apothecary rooms.

This one has some fun two-headed taxidermy cut outs and more jars of schtuff. 

This one has some MS punched tombstones, a teeny skull, and some 

jars of monster makin's. I love how the spilled jar of microbeads looks.

I used matte gel medium to suspend the spilled beads.  

The bottom floor houses the headstones and coffins.

More gel medium and seed beads for interest.

The coffin and headstone are from Michaels miniatures that they sell 

at Halloween to go with their Halloween Town collection.  

A jar with a human eye, and a fun eyeball and crossbones adorn the 

back wall. The teeny coffin and skellie wouldn't fit in the coffin room, so it

found it's way in here. More MS glitter and spiders on the floor.  

And finally, the twins' room! 

I used a cool Siamese Twins cabochon and some left over paper cuts here.

Well, I have to say that it feels so good to finally get this creation out of my head. 

It's been taking up so much space in there!

Thanks for letting me take you on a tour. It was fun for me. How about you?

I hope you'll pop by the Haunted Design House 

to see more of what's been haunting the Minion's thoughts lately as well. 

We missed having visitors despite what the trespassing signs may indicate... 

I'd love to share this with the Dark Attic Challenges - Anything Goes