Darkness in Light

If you read my blog at all you will know that the past couple of months, most of my posts have been about rummaging through antique warehouses, making brains, talking about brains and trying to blag as many props as possible. Well last Friday it all came together and we transformed The Mezzanine in the CUC. I can now very happily announce (if you follow me on twitter this will be old news) that I am officially 1/3 of Strange Case Collective. (Follow us on twitter!) SCC consists of me, Jen and Laura and as we worked so amazingly together for Darkness in Light we thought we'd come up with a name and look for more work as a three, rather than individually. Between the three of us we can do so much and I am getting very very very excited about the 'future'. We don't have an official logo or anything yet, but we made this up to fit within the set, so it will do for now.

A massive blog post is due to come from Strange Case Collective talking all about the night, but for now I'll try to summarise it very quickly. (Im not very good at being breif) The event was brilliant and I can't get over how busy it was. It was hard to move upstairs as even the floor was taken up by people sitting on it. The performers and music were brilliant and it went so quickly. Everyone who we spoke to was so kind and nice about the work we had done and I haven't stopped smiling since then. Here are a few photos and you can see a full album of pictures on the Strange Case Collective flickr.

Jekyll and Hyde within the set

Me, sitting within Jekylls experimentation area! I drank too much poison, hence my glowing eyes!

Again a massive massive massive thank you to Boneface (follow him on twitter, his work is boss!) for the two amazing illustrations he did for us. They are so good!

Everything seems to be coming together now since leaving Uni, I'm really busy but I wouldn't change it for the world and I'm really excited about working with Jen and Laura more and seeing what the future brings. Hopefully we will get to do a lot more in the CUC, as like I've said in previous posts, its my new favourite place.

BegBlagBorrow

A few photo updates of some of the things me and the girls have been blagging, buying and working on. We are meeting up tomorrow and having a full day of working on all the stuff we've got. I'm really looking forward to seeing it all together and getting a better idea of how much we have and how we are going to lay it all out.

The lovely man at MPAC is letting us borrow a big bag of these!

They fit in perfectly and even come with their own added rust ;)

The amazing poison bottles we found in an antique shop.
Have included the smaller cider bottle to show just how big they are!

Detail for one of the bottles. Our first investment in #teamjekyllnhyde

Me, Jen and Laura have a set like this each that we are working on at the moment

Mystery Prop... Can you guess what we're going to do with it?

Laura (@pye05 you should all follow her) went to a car boot sale this week and here are some of the wonderful things she found there.

I wonder what's inside...

BOOM!

Laura has been working on it to age it, how brilliant does it look!

The official poster for the night is out now too and you should definitely come along... Amazing event stlying ;) Great music and in a brilliant venue... Did I mention its free? So you have no excuse really. The wonderful Craft Creative will be there too so again, you should definitely come along!

So again, if you have anything you want to donate, help with or just find out more about the event tweet me @sophiescouse Jen @thechatterpie Laura @pye05 or give us an email jekyllnhyde@live.co.uk

Begging Blagging and Borrowing

Today has been brilliant! As it is getting closer to the Light Night after party Me, Jen and Laura (if you're reading this Laura hurry up and get twitter) have been on a massive hunt today for as much as we can. It has been AMAZING. We have got so many ideas and we managed to get a lot today. We went back to the amazing Pilgrims Progress, Antique Warehouse. We hired a brilliant box of antique bottles and medicine jars, a great vintage mirror frame and some really creepy light cage covers!

Laura forking around with some glass. Jens face was priceless as we were digging around in the broken glass ;)

After visiting here we went over to an antique shop Laura visited last week. It is amazing! It had so many amazing vintage glass. I forgot to take a photo of what we bought in there, but we got the most amazing HUGE brown poison jars. As soon as I get a photo I will upload it. We could have spent a LOT of money in there buying hundreds of things, but settled for 3 of the massive poison jars. Our first investment in #teamjekyllnhyde more shall be revealed soon...

After here we then went over to the wonderful MPAC its an aladins cave of the most random things you could think of. From old fashioned books to plastic tubes and a billion hair clips. There is also an art and craft shop here so we bought lots of latex for skin making and modroc for skull casts. Whilst buying the latex we told the man serving us all about the after party and he found 10 gothic candelabras for us, complete with added rust! The lovely man is letting us use them and we can give them back when finished and he is also keeping an eye out for any science laboratory equipment for us!

All in all it was a very succesful day and I can't wait for next week when we meet up again and start making all of our creepy things.

Me, Jen and Laura have been talking about all our future plans and it is very very very exciting. So watch this space, we're probably gonna take over Liverpool ;)

Here are some of the amazing things Laura has found over the past couple of weeks! Isn't she wonderful...

An amazing 1950s Chemistry Set

This is going to be Jekylls amazing ledger!

I also ended today in the same way it began, at the CUC. Me and Louisa went to see Muriels Wedding at the CUC Cinema. I forgot how much I loved that film and I am now going to leave this blog and listen to lots and lots of Abba! Seriously though, you should check out the CUC Cinema, very cheap and in the wonderful CUC. My new favourite place!

On a final note, we are in need of any old belts, candles, ideally an old chair with arm rests attached and if you know anyone with a taxidermy crow that needs a new home, we will happily take it off your hands. (Its worth a try!)


If you can help with anything or just fancy asking for more info follow me @sophiescouse or jen @thechatterpie on twitter, or give us an email at jekyllnhyde@live.co.uk

Edit - I also now understand from reading over this I use the word amazing far too much.

Beg Blag Borrow Update...

This week has been all about the blagging (like always) and trying to acquire as many things as possible for our #teamjekyllnhyde event design. Me, Jen and Laura have become a bit obsessed, all of our tweets, facebook walls and text messages have become dominated with brains, eyeballs and what most people would describe as junk. I'm loving it though, it is so good to get properly stuck into something and having no bugdet has actually made it a lot more fun, although not ideal.

So this week Question Time was being filmed in the CUC in Liverpool, which is the same venue our event is being held in... Whilst watching with my Mum she pointed out that the politicians water tumblers would work briliiantly as laboratory style bottles, "Why don't you ask if you can use some" so not one to wait around I thought I'd tweet them and ask. I have said it before but I love twitter! Within five minutes and after a few tweets begging from Me and Jen (@thechatterpie) they said we could use some. Just as a reminder if any of the lovely people of the CUC (@CUCLiverpool) are reading this...

I'm sure you are all massively jealous of my amazing paint skillzzz too, but you have to agree they would look pretty good in our Laboratory. 

Here are a few pics of what we have aquired so far, I'm really looking forward to making it all look old, creepy and weird!

Jens amazing eyeball and brain jelly moulds!

Laura Sweet Jars!

My Nan has also donated a lot of things for us to use too! 

Like always, it really would not be a #teamjekyllnhyde blog without me asking...

Do you have any of the following; 

• Old unwanted books? Ideally hardback but paperback are fine too, the content doesn't matter, but if you had any really old books that would be amazing. However we will take any books off your hands.
• Glass jars? Of any size.
• Glass bottles... The older the better, but as said above, we will take anything.
• Test tubes? Beakers? Lab Coats? Science equipment? Brains*? Anthing science related that you don't need anymore?
• Creepy costumes? Top hats? Fur coats?
• Candles? Candle sticks? Anything old? Photoframes? Creepy paintings?
• Any form of junk or weird things that we haven't listed but you think... I HAVE THIS AND IT WOULD FIT IN PERFECTLY, we are open to suggestions and will take anything from you... (Within reason ;) )

Thanks for reading and if you have anything,  leave a comment, email jekyllnhyde@live.co.uk or tweet me @sophiescouse or Jen @thechatterpie

THAAANKKKSSSSS

Beg Blag Borrow

If you follow me on twitter or read my blog you will definitely know about the Jekyll and Hyde Laboratory event me, Jen and Laura are working on. This week I took Laura over to the CUC to give her a tour of the amazing Venue. You can read more about the venue in this previous blogpost. It was so nice to go back to the space and try to picture some of the ideas we have been coming up with. Whilst there, one of the staff from the CUC (I forget his name) also shown us around The Crypt. It is another amazing venue and left me and Laura wanting to plan something else inside there.

On our way back into town we decided to pop into Pilgrims Progress, a brilliant 5 story warehouse jam packed with the most amazing antiques. We could have spent hours in there, routing through the boxes and looking at all the amazing things they had on show. I was glad Laura was with me as it was terrifying, we were also told to watch out for the ghost as we where left alone to explore the whole warehouse.

This place is a prop sourcers dream and we found so many things that can be used. On the very top floor, hidden away at the back we found a few boxes full of old medicine bottles, jars and really old medicine labels. The owner has also said that we can hire them and do whatever we want to them! I'm really looking forward to filling them with lots of weird and creepy things!

Also today had a really interesting phone call from BBC Merseysides A Team to say a man has been in touch with lots and lots of old fashioned sweet jars that we can have and they will also be doing a bulletin on Sunday asking for props. Exciting times ahead... and it wouldn't be a blog post about #teamjekyllnhyde without me asking...

Do you have any of the following; 

• Old unwanted books? Ideally hardback but paperback are fine too, the content doesn't matter, but if you had any really old books that would be amazing. However we will take any books off your hands.
• Glass jars? Of any size.
• Glass bottles... The older the better, but as said above, we will take anything.
• Test tubes? Beakers? Lab Coats? Science equipment? Brains*? Anthing science related that you don't need anymore?
• Creepy costumes? Top hats? Fur coats?
• Candles? Candle sticks? Anything old? Photoframes? Creepy paintings?
• Any form of junk or weird things that we haven't listed but you think... I HAVE THIS AND IT WOULD FIT IN PERFECTLY, we are open to suggestions and will take anything from you... (Within reason ;) )

We are also looking for any one who would like to come along on the night and act within the space, interacting with the visitors and maybe encouraging them to take part in creepy and weird experiments ;) If you would like to get involved or know anyone who would, please get in touch.
 
*We joke about brains, but you get the idea.
 
If you can help with any of the above? Or even if you just want to find out some more info... 
 
Either tweet @sophiescouse or @thechatterpie
email jekyllnhyde@live.co.uk