Spooky Moon

The Spousal Unit is a research scientist, and sometimes he brings home interesting things that would otherwise be discarded. Like this tiny bottle. Naturally, I had to do something creepy with it.

I didn’t use any liquid inside the bottle, so the necklace would be worry-free. I’ve never been great at distressing the inside of bottles. I should probably look up some directions one of these days. Here’s my first run, with alcohol inks, I think. Maybe glue. And stuff. Didn’t stand up well. I finally went for Vintage Photo Distress Ink, from the re-inker bottle. I moved it around and hit it with the heat gun for texture.

Once it was completely dry, the inside got coated with Glossy Accents, so my “specimen” wouldn’t scratch the color off the inside. Heat gun again, because it made pretty bubbles and things. I suspended the bottle upside-down over paper so the Glossy Accents could drain out. I let this dry overnight.

A result I like, and it’s plenty sturdy.

Next, the specimen. I chose Cernit because it’s extremely flexible without breaking. That means I can shove something tiny into a bottle.

I rolled a very thin snake, wrapped it around a toothpick, and gave it a little texture with some play foam. The “guts” were baked before moving on. Sadly, some of the center bit had to be removed to fit in the bottle.

All specimens need creepy eyes, right? This is a tiny, tiny ball of Cernit. I used the end of a retracted pen to get the basic shape of the iris, then used the awl to further narrow the pupil and shape things.

I was at a loss as to how to color the liquid Fimo for the iris blue, as I didn’t have alcohol inks in the correct shade. StazOn refill to the rescue.

I carefully used a toothpick to fill the iris with a layer of Fimo. I made a tiny, flat dot of black Cernit and placed it over the pupil, and added another layer of liquid Fimo to fill in.

Ready to bake! They didn’t stay glossy, but they still looked pretty nice in the end.

Using tiny dots of Cernit and liquid Fimo, I attached and baked on the eyes one at a time.

In you go!

Next, I grunged up some medical gauze. I used acrylic paints rather than ink, so the color wouldn’t run.

I folded the gauze over several times, put it other the top of the bottle, and wound the excess around. Then I used some black yarn to further seal the bottle, and add a loop for attaching to the necklace.  All of this got tacked down with Helmar, then coated in hot glue for strength. I wasn’t keen on using wax to seal, as I didn’t want it to chip off during wear.

Instead, I melted some ultra-thick embossing powder, and colored it with very small amounts of crayon.

Drip drip. Holy crap, that is super gross. Win!

I love this project. It’s very light and durable, and here’s something special…the Cernit I used is phosphorescent. That’s right, if you go into a dark room, the specimen gently glows.

Yep, I’ll be sending this one off to some lucky raffle winner. For certain values of “lucky.”