More stuff for my gothic bathroom

The bathroom is finished!

I finally bought the black towels (two hand towels and one bath towel).  Gorgeous and soft, I already washed them and they are ready to be used. 

I also rearranged the sink.  I took out the bottle holding the incense sticks, to make more space, and painted black the pot of the cactus.

I also bought a votive candle in a black mate glass; I placed the matchbox near it, for when it has to be used.  For the decoration, I used a quite old Martha Stewart Halloween Scrapbook paper.  And I painted the scent diffuser in black as well.  From now on, I will just pour the new recharge in it.

 And this is the final state of the coffin shelf.

The little bottles are just for decoration.  The center shelf holds a glass painted tupper that contains medical stuff; the bottle at the bottom shelf is empty for now.  

I also received a fantastic bathtub coffin tray:

I have to use it in my other bathroom, which is where we have the spa tub.  But the tray is great and I absolutely love it!  You can see that I added a black candle here as well...

And with this, my gothic bathroom is finished!  I am very happy how well it all turned out, and I had fun with the decorating and the DIY projects.

A long forgotten project: the Handbook for the Recently Deceased. And free printable!

I watched Beetlejuice when it first came out on cinemas in 1988.  I was a teenager at the time, and I remember vividly how much I felt in sync with Lidia, and how I would have loved to live in the Maitlands' home.  My dad bought me the VHS when it came out; I watched it so many times I could have recited the dialogue by heart.  Later I bought myself the DVD, and kept watching until Beetlejuice Beetlejuice came out last year.  

I was delighted when I saw all the merchandise pop up for the new movie - we did not have such things in the eighties!  I had wanted the Handbook for the Recently Deceased from the first moment.  But it was impossible to find it then.  And later, some replicas appeared, but they were valued in hundreds of dollars that I did not want to spend.  Most of them were blank journals with the original front and back cover, but they cost so much I was put off by the prices.

But I was so lucky that my husband got one for me for Christmas!  It was official merch, and it cost about $20 dollars.  The beloved book from my childhood was finally in my hands!

And that reminded me, that a long time ago, I had bought a printable to make my own Handbook for the Recently Deceased book box.  To do that, I purchased a book shadow box from Tim Holz - I think now it has been discontinued (this was in 2019!).  It looked like this:

 

A regular book box to embelish made of paper mâché

 

The inside little boxes are removable, which was great, because I wanted it to store inside my DVD copy of Beetlejuice.  A kind of personal limited edition, if you may.  But for some reason, even though I started the project anxiously, it got relegated to the back burner.  Well, now it was the time to retake it!

The image I bought to act as the cover was bigger, so it had to be manually adjusted in an image program.  I measured carefully and adjusted it to the precise size needed to cover the box.  I printed it professionally in A3 size.  It only took two tries to make it fit pefectly.  Since the box had been in storage for long, the part that holded the inside boxes came unglued, which was perfect.  It was super easy to just cover the outside with the printing, and it looked great!

So wondefully spooky!

I removed the inside boxes, and I was ready to store all my treasures:

 

If you would like to get the paper props, you can find them on Etsy.  I got mine from Paul Elder Designs, but he no longer offers them.  Instead, you can go to Legendary Tales Edit to get a whole bunch of Beetlejuice curiosities.  And from my part, I am happy to offer you the Take-Your-Turn numbers HERE. *Update*  I also made business cards with the Maitland Hardware shop info.  I hope you like them!

I hope you enjoy having your own Beetlejuice numbers!  Feel free to print as many as you like, and pass the file along to anyone; links back are nice too.  Just please do not sell the file.  Thank you very much, and enjoy! ♥ 

Going back to the basics: Paint it black!

If you have been with me for a while, you already know that I am a goth.  Well, lately this aspect of my personality is coming back, slowly but surely.

Some months ago I stumble across, totally by chance, Aurelio Voltaire's YouTube channel. The first time I heard about Voltaire (many years ago, when I still lived in the US) it was regarding some books that he had written: What is goth, and Paint it Black.  I absolutely loved them!  They were written with charm, wit, and they were so much fun!  I actually learnt some things that would help my house had a gothic flair.  Some of them I still use to this day.

In any case, he has a series of videos about how to enhance your house to have a more gothic appearance in his channel.  He teaches with tutorials, gives references and ideas for you to make your own projects.  Well, since I do not live alone, I cannot actually transform the whole house, but there is a room that I could change slightly because I am its main user.   It was one of our bathrooms.  He has several videos showcasing how he transformed and decorated the bathroom in his apartment, and I made good use of them.  Since I am renting, there is limited things that I can do, but for very little money I gave the bathroom a more gothic flair.

I started by changing the pictures on the wall.  Up until now, there had been many themes.  It started with some marine drawings (a whale, a lighthouse, a boat, and a quote about the beach); then I switched to ballet pictures, both color, and black and white.  And then, 2 pairs of pictures of Monstera leaves - to give the room a spa feeling.  

But obviously, these would not do.  So I started by buying some more adecuate posters to showcase.  I got them all from Artis Mortis Gallery, which has a fantastic selection of downloadable decor:

 

Love them!

But upon installing them, I realized that the frames were not good.  Very, very simple, we needed more of a black accent against the wall, which is off-white.  So I purchased locally 4 frames, and this was the result:

Much, much better!

Then, I rescued a floral arrangement that I made long ago, and placed it in a small vase on the sink:

 

Then, some more decorations.  I followed one of Voltaire's videos to make some nice ApotheScary bottles. If you want to have some of the labels that appear in the video you can get them here (just scroll down and you will see them).  Also, I purchased a black soap pump and a 3D printed coffin incense burner.  Voltaire also sells coffin incense burners in his store.

The label in the bottle you can get here.  I changed the letters though

But you cannot have a gothic bathroom without some coffin shaped shelf.  So I went ahead and bought one that measures 50 cm high, so it's quite big!  I installed it on the wall just this morning:

For the decorations, I made a bunch of bottles following Voltaire's tutorial.  You can watch a video on how to make cool matchboxes here.  I am working on a coffin-shaped box right now.

 

And of course, we could not forget some very special duckies!  These have been with me for years:

Say hello to Joe, Lord Ruthven and Agatha

I am still waiting on some more decorations for home; I will update as soon as they arrive.  I still have to buy a couple of black towels, but that will be next week.  But I am so happy with the results so far!

Free printable! Titanic notepad stationery

I have just finished reading a book called "El misterioso caso del impostor del Titanic" (The mysterious case of the Titanic imposter), by Carmen Posadas.  I am afraid it is written in Spanish, but if you can read Spanish, I highly recommend it.  It was so intense I finished it in barely 4 days!  My mother recommended it, and I was glad I listened.

I am not going to review it, or write a synopsis - you can research that for yourself.  But I have always been a fan of the Titanic, and I have been studying and reading about it since I discovered its history.  In this era in which recreations are possible, you can find plates, mugs, cups and saucers, towels, tickets, even stationery that are replicas of those that were used in that magnificent ship.

Well, to celebrate the book, I made a free printable for you: a sheet so you can make your own Titanic notepad:

It's very easy to make a notepad out of these sheets.  I will provide instructions, or you can watch this great video to learn the method.

First, gather all your necessary materials:

- Titanic sheets - I usually print 10; that way you get a 40 pages notepad.  You can do more or less, your choice.  Print them in regular copy paper.

- A piece of cardboard - I use 1mm cardboard; that's the same as cereal boxes or soda packets.

- White glue and a brush, or a palette, for extending it.  If you have PVA glue or Mod Podge it works as well.

- A couple of clamps.

- A pencil, ruler and scissors, or X-Acto knife.

- Optional: double-sided tape, and a magnet, or an adhesive magnetic strip.

1) Cut out all your Titanic sheets.  Cut inside the lines if you don't want any black showing.

These sheets have the logo a little off center.  That is already fixed in the printable

2) Use the ruler and pencil to trace a rectangle in the cardboard the same size as your Titanic sheets.  Hint: it measures 12 x 9.3 cm.  Cut it and set it aside for now.

3) Gather the Titanic sheets neatly, with all the borders aligned, and clip them with the clamps.  I use a scrap piece of board so the clamps won't mark the paper.

 

4) Use the palette or the brush to extend a thin layer of glue on the top edge of the clamped sheets.  Let it dry completely and repeat the process a total of 3 times.

5) When everything is completly dry, you can attach the sheets to the piece of cardboard you cut previously.  You can glue them with the glue, or you can use double-sided tape.  Naturally, you can skip this last step, but I prefer to do it so the notepad will be sturdier.  But again, it's up to you.  

 

Well, there you go!  A very nice Titanic notepad for your desk!

This is optional, but it is another idea for you to consider.  Use a piece of magnetic strip or a magnet, and glue it to the back of your notepad.  That way you can put it on your fridge or any metallic surface.  Use it as shopping list or to remind you of important stuff.

I hope you have lots of fun crafting these!  Feel free to print as many as you like, make gifts for friends and pass the file along to anyone; links back are nice too.  Just please do not sell the file or your creations.  Thank you very much, and enjoy! ♥