A hunting we will go!

Happy Halloween ya'll! I just love this time of year and it reflects in my art! The world of fantasy comes alive this time of the month. From gouls, goblins, ghosts, vampires, and vampire hunters! Yes, I have finally made a Vampire Hunting Kit! Read on if you dare to see what is in this vintage handmade suitcase!

I am excited to be a guest designer for Frilly and Funkie's challenge "Tis Near Halloween" with Sara Emily as the hostess. I know we both love Halloween so this was a perfect fit! I have finally finished this design. Picture heavy post so grab a cuppa and enjoy the wonderful fantasy world of the supernatural!

My vampire hunting kit started out life as a regular ole wood suitcase. I saw so much potential in this a splurged an entire 0.50cents on it! I removed all of the hardware and the added some padding to the outside of the suitcase. I then wrapped it in a faux leather fabric to give it a vintage feel.

Once the outside of the box was done, I started laying out everything I wanted to feature on the inside. This is an absolute must for this design! I have been saving and collecting items for this design for years. I did decide to leave some items out and add some others. (Hence the leg bones missing)

I glued a lovely red plush velvet in to line the top and bottom of the suitcase. The padding was recycled from some happy mail I received. I the traced around my objects and cut out the padding where the objects were going to lay. This was only done for the bottom of the suitcase.

I then adhered the velvet fabric to the padding to create my indentions. It was a process but it worked! Use foam if you decide to try this! All of these items you see in the pictures were altered in some way. Paint, embossing powder, alcohol ink, mod podge, stains, melted crayon, antiquing cream, you name it and I probably used the mixed media product!

The dissection kit is the real deal but I have painted, distressed and made it look more vintage. I did end up adding a cover over the scalpel blade though! I did cut my finger, oops.

The most important part of a vampire (or supernatural) hunting kit is to have a stake. I used a dowel and a sharp knife to whittle away at the tip to create my stake. I added some leather and wax thread to the handle and the skull is a lucky charm to help while using the stake. It keeps the aim of the wielder true.

The old image of a wiccan symbol was aged with distress inks and alcohol inks. The nails that are holding it in place are so vintage looking, I just had to use em.

Each bottle has a special purpose. Everything from snake skins, to rats, owl feathers, garlic, holy water with silver and more are featured here! The bottle labels were inked and aged with archival and distress inks.Each lid is sealed with glossy accents, just in case!

The skeleton rib cage and vertebrae are used to help new hunters learn where to hit their mark of the heart and also to help dismember any bodies that need it. There is a helpful labeled skeleton next to the rib cage so new recruits make sure to cut in the correct spots!

The bottles in the above picture are used to help with healing, should a hunter become injured whilst out fighting. And everyone needs a glass skull to hold some holy water infused with silver.

The cauldron above features an evil eye to help with black magic incantations. The vial of blood is from a vampire and ready to be used in the next spell.

These bottles are among my favorite. One features snake skin (dried mod podge I tinted with some paints) an the other features a bloody finger. Hope ya'll have a spooktacular Halloween and enjoy! Me and my little pumpkin helper say "Danger doesn't lurk at every corner, it's just hanging out waiting for fear and horror to show up"! HAPPY HOWL-OWEEN !!!!!!!!!!

I would like to share this vampire hunting kit with these challenges:

Mixed Media and Art-October challenge-Fantasy

I was inspired by the dark trees and lanterns in the bottom right picture. This would be the perfect world for my vampire hunter!

Emerald Creek Dares-Freaky Fun

I think I used about 6 different EC embossing powders in this design.