Mr Forrest, The Farmacist!

Meet Mr E Forrest, Pharmacist, known as Epping to his friends, who are few and far between, let me tell you. He is not a nice man and suspicion is rife in town that he is really a Poisoner. He has outlived four of his wives so far and rumour has it, he keeps his exes in the Attic. Well, look for yourselves! His last wife has been overcome with chloroform and then forced to drink from a bottle of poison, which she is still clutching in a dead man's grip. He doesn't have much in the looks department, with that overgrown moustache, but he lures them up the aisle by polluting the local well with his Love Potion. When his Elixir from the Fountain of Youth wears off, he trades them in for a younger model and switches the bottles for ones of strychnine. He keeps the skeletons in the attic amongst the cobwebs, the bats, and the mice, and eventually grinds down their bones to make more of his secret potions. The locals mistrust him for his cures but visit regularly when bothered by rats ....... He evades the long arm of the law as the local Sheriff, Sherwood, is his brother.

I wanted to create the feel of a sinister pharmacy in a wild west town, where the pharmacist mixes up his own tonics and potions from eye of newt and essence of bat. I have used the wonderful Apothecary stamps by Artistic Outpost from Happy Daze, and a wooden house curio box also from there. I painted it with Fresco Finish paint in London Night, then crackle, then Vintage Lace, and rubbed black ink around the edges. I lined all the sections with ledger paper from the Tim Holtz 'Lost and Found' paper stash, building up the design with a ledger stamp from Crafty Individuals, and some of the smaller stamps from the Apothecary set. I didn't want the whole piece to have a dead, monochrome look, but I didn't want it to be colourful either, so I have just added a touch of colour with Distress Inks in Stormy Sky, Shabby Shutters, and Barn Door, and a little bit more colour by cutting out some of the labels from the pharmacy themed paper from the same Stash.

The poor wife in the attic, amongst the bats and the spiders - and even a rat,
nibbling at her toes!

Rows of bottles and keys to the drugs cabinets. The bottle far left is
actually an empty lip gloss tube, with a bit of cut up cork.

 A  bottle of perfume, and Mr Forrest in front of his shop

Rows of blue bottles

Is that more skeletonized remains I can see?

 I used an assortment of tiny bottles, with labels either from 7 Gypsies or from pieces of the Tim Holtz Stash, together with some shrink plastic bottles stamped in blue (like Neal's Yard blue bottles), with stamped labels made up from the stamp set.

I wanted depth, partly in the layers of stamping on the backgrounds, but also positioning the items at different levels in the compartments to look like deep shelves. Some of the stamped images were cut out with a tab on them, so they could be glued down standing up. Some of the shrink plastic bottles were curved slightly whilst they were still warm.

I didn't have any bats so I embossed some black card with a bat embossing folder and cut them out. The cobwebs from Brenda helped to create the spooky scene.

I am entering this for the Happy Daze 'Christmas and Hallowe'en' Challenge' and the Samuel Taylor challenge, who have a great prize of  a Configurations box. I am also linking this up with the Artistic Outpost October Referral Programme. I am joining in My Mojo Monthly which this month has a wonderful interview with Tammy Tutterow and next month will be Jo Capper Sandon! We are invited to say a little bit about our inspiration and this piece was definitely one where the mojo was in good flow! That is down to Gingersnaps who have had some tremendously inspiring and spooky makes this month, for their Go Poe theme. It has really got me into the creepy zone! I am entering this for their Horror Stories challenge because although I had the chance to join in as a DT at the beginning of the month, I didn't think I knew any horror stories. Little did I know the creepy imagination that lurked within ........,!