Ensh'eass Woéd

Plastic insects painted with gold paint and glued onto a frame I've found from some flea-market.

 Finished and unfinished diy-projects. And my camera is still broken but now more so. I have to keep it together to take pictures. Such a headache and I cannot afford a new one.

My little "laboratory", which consists of different laboratory-type of bottles that I've found, gotten for free or paid couple euro's for.

 Unfinished tray. Saw one like it in the internet and thought making one for myself. It was black tray with ouija-board painted on it. Looked cool. Mine -- not so much "cool" but as soon as I've finished it will be enough for me.

Glass bell-jar on a glass plate glued to a glass candlestick.

"Last night a moth came to my bed, And filled my tired weary head, With horrid tales of you, I can't believe it's true"

(My Hannibal-inspired decoration)

Finished and unfinished diy-projects:

(Oblivion and Skyrim inspired books and "statue" of Nocturnal - unfinished, a fossil-hand and an unfinished vampire-slayer kit)

Some are inside shelves behind.. things, so I just took some pictures the best I could and mostly with a flash. Sorry about that. Also my camera is broken, so it's hard to use it for more than few seconds at time.

My unfinished vampire-slayer kit. Contains different kinds of bottles, one wooden stick, sharpened into a stake, toy-gun, some kind of saw, religious stuff like a bible, crosses and so forth. The box needs a layer of paint and I still haven't figured out how to assemble the things inside it. Cheap to make especially if you get lucky and find a wooden chest from a dumpster. Insanely lucky, especially if you're poor like me. I just look for other slayer kits and figure out how to assemble mine.

(Diy-fireplace and "antique" globe)

A diy-fireplace; a bit unfinished. Not the best looking one, I know. It looks so much better without the flash, since it's usually dim lighting in here. Also the "stonewall" need some shine in them, so I need to buy some kind of paint that makes it shine and look more like stone. To make your own fireplace, I recommend you to google it with the words "do it yourself". There's some good instructions out there, I usually improvise everything with what I have or what I can find as cheap as possible.

Average plastic blue earth-globe painted to look a bit older with gold-paint and white and ochre-color paint. You don't need much of the paint so it's quite cheap to make, if you can find a crappy globe with decent price - unlike I did.

Part of me feels like I should explain why a guy is interested in making stuff like these, but I won't. I think I've written about it before, at some other blog-post, so that'll do.

"The Sweetness was turned to Adamantine, Heartless cruelty, and the Purity to Voluptuous Wantonness."

More diy. Now that for the time being I am feeling a tad more energetic.

Unfortunately I cannot remember where I found this picture. Perhaps from Propnomicon-blog. That blog is one of my favourites.

I am putting together a vampire slayer-kit. Unfortunately I found my wooden box to be a bit too small for it (so there's no photos), so I need to keep looking for a larger yet cheap wooden box.. which is as easy as finding a leprechaun. I found an old bible for a few cents and a cylinder shaped wood from all the woodblocks I've collected, and I sharpened it into a stake. I have a crucifix from a flea market, but I rather keep it on my wall. But for religious items I recommend religious flea-markets - if your country has one. Those types of flea markets are usually cheaper than the average ones and there's a lot of crosses and bibles.

But the whole slayer-kit project seems to be a long road of collecting different things from wherever I happen to find them. Pretty much like every project I have. I collect things and then figure out how to use them. Small glass-bottles filled with - for example - tea-leaves. Perhaps a bag made from fabric filled with garlic or some other. And I've seen steampunk-pistols and shotguns made from water-guns, or perhaps an antique-looking prop-gun from some masquerade-shop would be a good addition to the kit. Since a larger slayer-kit looks good with some firepower and - or with some wicked blades and axes.

Step one, do it yourself. Step two, I don't know. Something exciting happens. Step three, profit.

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Here's a bit more DIY-projects.


Some of the things in different websites about "diy" are projects harder to make when you live in a country that's too young to have a lot of old objects in every flea-market. There's also no cheap stores that sell feathers, jars, paints, pins and every kind of thing you might have seen someone mentioning in instructions. Every last piece from rusty nails to cardboard is expensive - used or new.

Here's some pictures of projects I want to try to make as soon as I can. I can't remember where I got these pictures, so I'm hoping no one takes offence for me adding these here:

I want to try making something like this, but since I don't have deer horns(?) just laying around, I want to try horn-shaped wood/branches, and paint them black or dark blackish brown.

Perhaps a doll's head would be a good substitute for this - whatever the material is? Wood or plastic perhaps? There's also Styrofoam-heads on Ebay. They are cheap but not sure how practical in use.

When you have limited space, either a fake or a real one would be interesting. A fake one is perhaps a bit harder to make, since I found no instructions on how to create fake-cabinet drawers.

A real one might be easier, since if you have a cabinet of any kind, all you need is more drawers. Perhaps it's not easy to find the smallest ones, but for example any old cabinets or work-desks drawers might do the trick.

And these things seem easy enough to make:

All you need is some wood-blanks and jars. Also chains and a wall-hook. Not difficult things to obtain.

It looks like this one doesn't have real tree branches, but I would like to try out real branches. It's quicker, cheaper and easier. Although burning real candles instead of led-candles is a bit risky, and I cannot recommend it.

I have the wood-boards, but no crowbar. It's a project I'm working on. I had to get really creative for living in a rented apartment. A house of my own is a wish, that might never come to be reality, unless I am able to re-educate myself or get a second job or something. So I use my energy by creating things that I can just as easily remove if I ever have to move out of my apartment.

I almost bought a cool looking oil-barrel with rings around it, so I could paint it to look like a real wood-barrel, but I didn't dare to spend more money at the time. Real barrels are really amazing, but also expensive. Usually over ten times more expensive than an average plastic-barrels.

And here's the last one of the easiest to make diy I added here. Plastic instects painted and hanged on a frame. Easy as pie.

"Untouched by the sunlight, Or the moonlight, I stand like a statue, As the stars bring their light"

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Do it yourself. DIY. A poor man's choice. An opportunity for artistic endeavor.

I have apartment full of different kinds of wood to work on and some metal-objects. At times I get an idea but mostly I look for ideas and inspirations. With zero-budget or otherwise very low starting points.

I think I might have written about this before, but when you don't have any money to spend, you can always make something from flour, baking dough, to be exact.

Couple of years back I made few baking dough-bones and bird-skull-look-a-likes for Halloween. Perhaps a person with patience and a touch for details could make better looking skulls, I just peeked at a picture and molded them to look something like that.

(About year old pictures)

Although these pictures and their use belongs solely to me, if you, my dear reader, get any kind of ideas and inspiration from these, you may of course use the ideas - but not the pictures.

Actual modelling clay or even play-dough can allow you to make a really fine, detailed and realistic work, but like I said, when you don't have money for it, and if you want decorations for a party or something to put into your jars of curiosities you can make these cheap. Also you can make small holes into the still-wet pastry and after its dry, you can put wire through and hang them on a chandelier. All you need is some fine-grained flour, water and salt. Salt is the key-element. Without it you end up with a paste that starts to stink and rot. Unfortunately I made that mistake with a mummified-hand I made. So you don't need any actual instructions, you just add equal measures of flour and water, but add more flour to keep it dry enough to handle. Also some use ovens to warm and harden the figurines, I just put flour over a newspaper and left it to dry for few days. I'm not sure if the shape changes in the oven.

Anyway, that one is a bit difficult thing to make, but like I said, if you don't have money nor imagination to try something else, it is an option.

Another idea, that I haven't yet tried, is to carve bones and skulls out of wood from forests. I have a little experience on carving wood, but in theory it sounds like an easy enough option. Just gather up some branches and whatnot and start carving. But the tree needs to be thick enough and not rotten or old. Also it needs to be completely dry.

One interesting idea I got from several different websites, that include making statues and other decorations from dolls and doll-heads. One thing I accidentally stumbled on was a practice-dollhead, for barbers and make-up artists. The difference from kids dolls is the size of the thing:

In this picture the practice-doll was painted from its natural human-like skin-colors to white. Not the most delicate colouring technique I used there, but any other person could try spray-painting to get the best, cleanest result. I used what I had. Equally I had to get creative with the hair the doll had. I cut it off the best I could, but with closer look you can see small pieces of hair sticking out. Using any razors or carpet-knifes would cause scratches on the skins surface, and they didn't get all the hair out.

Also the doll had an average head but I got an idea to make a head with its top cut off, to reveal its "brain". It kind of reminds me of one of those phrenology-heads.

There's also couple of books I tried to transform into something else, but I'm not all that happy with the results. Cardboard, and pins besides paints and hot glue were used with these.

And there's another picture I have once shared. But I got an idea, that I haven't yet tried out. Besides making octopus-figures on bottles, all other options are equally possible, but what I haven't tried, which might work even better as a 3-dimensional decoration is an actual plastic toy-octopus. Unfortunately they are hard to find and the ones I found from Ebay are surprisingly expensive for average toys. So this plan is currently on waiting-mode. But when I find a toy to hot glue on a bottle, I would probably paint it at first. I don't know how this idea might work, but hopefully I get a chance to try.

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Cabinets of curiosities are fun things to have, and I have something like it. It goes through transforms every now and then, but currently it looks like this:

There was no space to get the whole cabinet into one picture, but as you can see, it has all kinds of jars and bottles - from grocery stores, flea-markets and alcohol-stores. Printed labels (which I need more and different kinds) and more things from flea-markets, like the candle-holders. Only the skull-replicas are from Ebay. The human-skull one was the most expensive one, and it is a real treasure.

I'll add ore pictures later, like the mummified hand and a bit better looking diy-books.

Heebie-Jeebies

My apartment is always "under construction". It's been months since the last time I did something to it. I have tables and shelves to re-paint, but I've been too exhausted to continue.
I should take a better - more well-lit - pictures of my home, especially the DIY-projects you can barely see here: fake-fireplace (picture above) and the steam-to-be-punk- computer in the picture below. It looks better from afar. The things I've used with making the both are plainly put "trash" and stuff that I've come across or collected at some point. Wood-pieces, paint and knick-knack's of all kind. But I still need to continue working with them. The fake-fireplace needs some kind of metal-cover(?) to add the fireplace-feel and also to stop my cats from going near any candles I might burn in it. It is highly fire-risky gadget to be had, but I am very careful with open-fire anyway, and I've always planned to invest on led-candles. For the safety of my dear possession but most of all for the safety of my cats whiskers. Nothing looks quite so sadly hilarious than a cat with burned whiskers.

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I've been meant to get to know the music by Nick Cave for some time now, but coincidentally I was lured into this song by the album cover. After all, I am weak for the aesthetic beauty of the night-time trees:

Also the fall-time playlist of mine consists of dark cabaret, well, what can I say, the era the music rekindles really speaks to the reincarnation- and history-freak-side in me:

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

My fake-fireplace is almost ready. I used all the wood-pieces I've gathered over the years from trash-sites. I first gathered wood-boards for painting; pieces of shelves, cabinet doors and whatever bigger pieces I happened to come across. I find re-using things the smart thing to do since just keep buying wood from the stores is quite pointless when people throw away so much of them. You can't even use them as firewood if they are painted or if the population doesn't have fireplaces or don't want to gather discarded boards to burn. There are of course cheap wood-boards for sale, like the hardboard, and it is quite good for painting. Not as easy to hang on the wall for being so thin, but it is light and cheap.
Anyway, I ran out of fitting pieces for my fireplace, but it doesn't matter since it is almost done. I shared a website-link - or two - in one of my previous posts, but there are a lot of instructions for building one. All you need to do is look.

And the painting for the roof is still underway. It's going to be a lot of work, since there are so many small details. I probably have to work on it for a long time.

I've also been planning to make my own tarot-cards. For that I think I could find a cheap, probably used, plain card-pack, paint it white and then use ink to draw the pictures I want. And of course I will plan the pictures myself.

I find the cards to be beautiful works of art. And also the original mysticism around them fascinates me. I'd like to read more about them, like how they became to be, and how they managed to survive in the world of Christianity. After all, the Christians tried to destroy every last thing that had anything to do with mysticism, witch-craft and anything not-christian-god-related. Also why are the cards what they are; why is there a Tower-card or a Hermit-card. They interest me.

"Aures habent et non audient"

Poor man's do-it-yourself: 
a found bottle and the remains of my window-paint from the earlier post "The Full Circle".

I apologize for the blurry photo, but I wasn't sure if I would even put this picture here so I took only one quick shot. I wanted to share this if there are anyone who can't afford to buy actual artistic occult-bottles - which was my inspiration on this one - and who, like me,  like to do stuff for themselves just to get things for themselves as quickly as the first inspiration comes to mind. Things, that are not perfect, but still they please me. Which is the main reason for doing anything. All the books I've been painting all the paintings and what-not's have always been just for me. And yet I think I might not be the only one. So if anyone gets an idea from this technique I used, I hope I could help somehow.

If I weren't so lazy as I am, this un-perfectionist, I could take a better picture. But enough about explaining my lack of carefulness! I had mostly red window-paint left so I used that although I would have preferred to use black paint instead. Although I do like the colour red, I still don't like to use it much. Mostly in paintings but otherwise my home hasn't got many red things.

At some other time I could show the books I've been painting. I think I wrote some other posts about finding free used books to decorate, so to speak, so that's an interesting project which I recommend to anyone out there, who might like to make some artistic-books for themselves. No reason to throw old books away when you can give them a new life.

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance"

(Copyrights belong to me)

I've been tired, lazy and spending a bit too much money on stuff for my apartment. Yet I found really fairly priced fake-skulls from Ebay, that I had to buy them. 
Skulls are one of the things I simply find beautiful; the shapes, the colours are just amazing. Truly one of those things that are naturally beautiful. I could admire them all day long.
If you, my reader, are interested in buying skulls (and if roaming in the forests looking for them doesn't "pay off"), just go to Ebay or Etsy. I usually prefer Ebay for the price. 
If I found reasonable priced skulls, so will you.

I have also been doing research on steampunk-computers, so I could pimp my desk computer into one. If or when succeeded I will post a photo. But I suspect that this will be a long project.

One project I manage to finish was transforming one wall into a dark green one. Not as dark as I wanted, but since I couldn't paint the wall nor put tapestry on it - for I live in a rented apartment - I did what I always do; bought a long fabric and attached it onto the wall. I dare say it's a good - and fast - option when you can't do anything permanent on your asylum-white-walls. The result isn't smooth, of course, and usually it looks really good without being smooth.

And talking about painting; since I feel like doing all kinds of projects, I also am slowly finishing up some of my unfinished paintings. I am excited about one particular work.

Perhaps these are the kind of projects that have taken my interest over studying. Although I admit, I feel that the studying should take higher priority, but what can I say. Everyone needs to take a little time off every now and then.

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I won't talk about the studying, since I feel a bit down by the lack of it. But like I said; I have been tired and lazy. Do not know which exactly but all I know is that I can't force myself to do anything. Have tried it - never succeeded.

Since I do not have much to write about, as I seem to have been feeling well enough not to write my usual rantings, I'll keep this post short.

(Copyrights belong to me)

For friends of humour, especially dark, twisted and hilarious humour; check out the animation-series Robot Chicken. That pretty much sums up my whole week.

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”

(Copyrights belong to me)

I'm a collector of several things, for example: literature. I especially collect classical literature works - even if I hadn't read some of it before. Dostojevski, Shakespeare, Orwell, Wilde and many others, who have been considered to be one of the great authors of all time. 
I also collect books that interest me and books that qualify those both criteria's but also on top of the previous criteria's books that are old and perhaps even aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. 
I most likely do not have any books that would be considered to be of any financial value, and even if I did, I would never sell anything I have. Oddly enough, I've grown very tight emotional bonds to my books. If there would be a fire in my home, it would mean a catastrophe. No kind of compensation would ever be enough to bring back what I would lose. So I sometimes fear that something bad might happen. I cannot think of any ways to prevent catastrophes with my budget so I try not to think about it too much. 

I used to be a complete opposite of someone who collected anything. I didn't have much, and I didn't want much either. But after some time I started to crave for something to do with the moments I had and since I used to read a lot and I watched a lot of movies, it seemed smart to get back to those old hobbies. I guess that happened when I got my first long time period apartment and I had undergone some surgery - which is something I won't write about but will mention that besides my head my body has been also poked and cut through many times like it was a needle-cushion. 
When I was recovering from the surgery's I wanted something to do, since going to school or work wasn't possible at first. I started by buying some old used DVD's of my favourite movies and TV-shows. And then I started to buy books too, since I used to be a very enthusiastic reader. Book by book, DVD by DVD I collected until I grew too fond of my collection that I just wanted it to keep on growing. Now I wanted a larger collection to also be able to share some of it with my friends and family. Like a personal library - although yet a significantly smaller version of that.

(Copyrights belong to me)

Later purchases have been two big book shelf's since the older ones were getting crowded. Now I can keep on collecting these small pieces of art to enjoy over and over again.

I have to mention too, that I almost never buy any new books. And most of my DVD's are used ones too. It's mostly for financial reasons but even if I could afford to buy anything I would ever want, I'd buy them used. Just because a book has had previous owners and some of them might be a bit rugged doesn't mean that they wouldn't last forever if you treat them well in your own lifetime. And since consumerism creates a flood of material things that keep coming, keep getting bought and thrown away, it's a never-ending cycle we must prevent with our choices or we will drown into thrash or we will use more and more resources to make more new things even if the previous things have been thrown away. 

Just because you can afford to buy everything new, you shouldn't. There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of homeless books and movies getting thrown into trash if we don't buy them for ourselves - into a home that would value them as they should be valued.

And if you get your hands to some free and exceptionally cheap books you do not care for nor you cannot get them sold you should think of other options to do with those books.

And I must mention that there are blogs and bloggers that create exceptionally amazing mythic cult-books out of old ones, and here's a link to a forum with pictures of what you can make. It seems that the original blog has been deleted for who knows for what reasons, but here's pictures of the amazing books that blogger had done:

Click to go to that forum <-

Yet perhaps you can find other instructions from anywhere in the internet. Propnomicon has many links to many places with people who are prop-experts sharing happily their knowledge and know-how's.

And here's a book-suggestion to all of you who are interested in oddities and occult, mysterious books: The Voynich Manuscript. It can be found free to see and "read" in many places all over the internet - or bought copies of it from many bookstores. It's an old book that has been written in unknown language and filled with drawings of non-existing or bizarre things like plants, that do not exist anywhere in the world.

Here's a news column of the Manuscript to the curious ones -> Link to The New Yorker.