DIY Mother's Day Gift- Photo Collage

Crap, tomorrow is Mother's Day! What do I do? What do I get that woman? Candles? Lotion? A ferret? Well, my mom always wants something personalized and nice, so I made her this:

I kept my budget to less than $20, and this looks really nice too. I'm sure my mom will love it. 

Here's what you need: a frame, 2 paper of contrasting colors/patterns, photos, glue, decorations.

This was my frame, it cost $4.50 and was gold. 

What you do is choose all the photos you'd like to use and lay them out as you want them on your main paper. The striped paper will be my background with the red tissue paper accenting the photos.

So when you lay out the photos and the tissue paper, you snip the tissue paper into a box around the photo. That way, the photos are brought out by the red.

Here's another layout with the music paper being the main paper and the stripey paper being the accent.

For those of you who are more computer savy, you can do what I did and print out a photo collage like this:

 I chose a light, pastel theme for my photos, with some red for that pop of color.

Nothing fancy, but I wanted some photos I knew she liked that weren't too "Gothy". I bought some gold trim accents like this to embellish my photos:

 The pack was $5 and came with all these neat designs.

 Obviously, I chose my favorite one. :3

I laid out the trimming on the side of my photo and cut it to size. 

 I did the same for the other side too, so now my photos would be brought out by guilded butterflies. Now to keep those suckers from flying away- Krazy Glue.

 I put just a wee-bit on the very ends...

 Then pressed them down on my photo collage. Those butterflies ain't going nowhere.

Wait for your glue to dry, then open up your frame.

 Slide that sucker in...

 And voila!

It's very beautiful, but plain. I always like to decorate my stuff. Here is where your own crafty mind comes into play.

 You can use feather, old earrings, paint, glitter, ribbons, seashells, keys, crystals, whatever your heart desires. I wanted to use faux flowers.

 I dissected my rose and decided to use the head.

 By applying a lot of glue...

 I made sure that sucker would stay on forever.

 After dissecting some more flowers and adding crystals and glitter, my frame was done. I wanted this flower to bloom open and upward, thank God for krazy glue.

 I added some rose petals and put crystals on top.

 And I glued some glitter around the edges of the frame too.

And this is my finished product, personally personalized by yours truly.

I know my mom will love it, and I'm sure your loved ones will too. Happy hauntings! <3!

Alice Outfit

I was feeling very Alice In Wonderland this weekend, so this outfit transpired.

 I bought these stockings a looong time ago, but I never got a chance to wear them. I don't have anything they'd go with, so I waited until I realized "Duh, blue!"

 I also added these spikes to my boots, they look so menacing. :3

 The face shot. Buh.

 These were the necklaces I wore- a classy cameo, and a bottle with skeleton key.

 This cameo was given to me by my aunt many years ago. It's long and dangly, but by wrapping it around my neck and clasping it at the base of my throat, it's juuust right. :D

 This was the necklace I bought at the Emilie Autumn concert a few months back. It was made by Veronica Varlow.

 My little musical hair bow. I love hair bows, I just can't find the right sort to go with my long wavy hair.

I think this shot sums up what a modern day Gothic Alice would look like, bullets and all! <3!

World Goth Day!

World Goth Day is coming up! 

It's two weeks away, and I wanted to make sure to get the word out to as many Spookily-inclined personage as possible.

It's on a Tuesday, but if we start planning now, it can be a really big and fun event for all!

What will you do? Dress Goth to work? Hand out Gothic candy canes? Have a horror movie night?

Don't worry about dressing all out Goth. If you wear a uniform to work/school, wear your favorite Spooky underwear! Don't have Spooky underwear? Wear striped socks!

Whatever you, remember "What would Sioux do?" <3!

For more information:
http://worldgothday.com/faq.html

DIY Gothic Journal

I hate that I could never find a cool Gothic journal that I like to tote around with me. That's why I decided to post this DIY journal tutorial! I've been doing this for a long time, and I thought it was about time I shared. You will need: one black composition book (see below), scissors, Crazy Glue, and random assorted Gothic things. 

I used to buy Gothic Beauty Magazines, so I now cut those up and use a lot of those Gothy articles for this. Any magazine will do. Just flip through with your scissors at hand and cut away at whatever you like. Pictures, words, phrases, etc. I also collect and reuse old Gothic clothes tags, business cards, and stickers too. Like these:

Also, if you don't want to have that black composition book marbled background as your backdrop, you can salvage a piece of tissue paper, wrapping paper, or cut out a whole page from a magazine you like and superglue it to your composition book.

Now with your backdrop chosen, start putting things onto your journal! You can start like this and just place the objects as you choose. You could go like this:

Or choose one sticker as the main focal point of your journal, like this:

Or turn your book to the side and layer stuff like this:

I also saved some old Gothic business cards, and a Vampire Freaks sticker too. You could layer these on the journal too.

I love to do this. I've done this sort of stuff to my bedroom walls. I'll include a few photos of my walls for inspiration sake.

This little corner is dedicated to Victorian, romantic, black-and-white things.

This corner is purple and orange themed.

This is one huge poster I made composed of several themes:

Black and red:

Red and blue:

 Red and Purple:

 Here are some photos of old journals I made, this one was Alice In Wonderland themed:

 This one was storybook forest themed:

 This one was Phantom of the Opera themed:

 This one was faerie tale creature themed:

These journals make a great personalized gift for anyone. Just choose a theme and start gluing. :D <3!