Butterfly Horror Shrine

Happy Saturday everyone! I actually got the chance to work on a little something yesterday just for the fun of it, and I'm so happy to share it with you today. Way back when before my big move, I started playing with plaster and I designed and poured my first shrine. The dried, unfinished shrine was packed away and made the long trip from Washington to Virginia, amazingly in one piece. Yesterday I pulled it out and got to work.

 I was inspired by two things. The first is my oldest daughter, who is almost 20 years old and absolutely HATES butterflies. They rank third on her greatest fears list behind teeth and aliens, go figure. Don't ask why, I have no idea where the phobia came from, but it has something to do with their legs. Anyways, that is where I got the idea for the decoration of this little hanging shrine. It's all about the realization that what one person finds beautiful, another can find morbid and disgusting. It's about recognizing and being accepting and respectful of all views and opinions. We are all hard-wired differently.

 The second thing that inspired me was an incident that happened earlier this month when one of our Smeared and Smudged Forum members, Fiona, was attacked on her blog for linking one of her projects in a challenge. I won't go into details, those who saw it know what I'm talking about. Once again the "attacker" demonstrated how close-minded and unaccepting people can be. The difference of opinion was not the issue, but rather the vile way that this person presented their opinion. It was demeaning to Fi and heavily demonstrated how judgemental and snide the attacker was. It made her and her challenge blog look bad and needless to say, I WON'T EVER be participating there.

 So, the point of all that was that this shrine is about seeing it from someone else's perspective and being accepting of it, whether you agree or not. Hope you enjoy taking a look. Click the pics for a larger view.

Besides the plaster, I used a saying from Smeared Ink's As Death set, as well as some butterflies from a decorative paper that I had. The background of the inset uses foil, which fits with the Smeared and Smudged Junk Funk challenge for this month. I also inset a skull into the top of the shrine to help demonstrate the morbid aspect of the theme, which fits in with the current challenge at HDH.

The whole shrine uses tons of paint color washes, and I added in the nails across the shelf as a final little touch. Amazingly I also incorporated some glitter into the butterflies, which does not show up well in the pics. What I really like about this is the way the butterflies are suspended from the wires, which you can't really see in the pictures either. Oh well. I hope you like my make! I'd love to hear your opinions or suggestions. Have a great weekend!

I am entering this into the following challenges:

Smeared and Smudged- Junk Funk- use foil

Haunted Design House- Skeletal Remains- skully goodness up top

Left of Center- Bling It Up or LOC theme- do my glitter butterflies count? If not, at least it's LOC :)