Love, Death and Roses.......and tattoos, sort of.

According to the cliche, the only sure things in life are death and taxes.
Well, maybe that is true somewhere, but even Scrooge and Maleficent (according to Disney) experienced love in their lives before they went off the rails, right?
A couple more cliches.....
Love is timeless
Love never dies
Love is eternal
Etcetera, etcetera and so on. So I'm adding love to the short list of sure things.
And then there are tattoos.

In the last few years I've become pretty interested in the art of tattoos. Not because I have a desire to get one, I do not have a personality suited for something so permanent. I'm the kind of person who likes to move furniture around a lot and never have the same hairstyle. A tattoo for me is like making Bobby Flay eat waffles for the rest of his life.
No, what fascinates me about tattoos is that just about everyone knows someone who has one.
Another saying I've heard many times (though it's not in the cliche category)  is 'no human is ever more than ten feet away from a spider'.
Perhaps the same could be said about tattoos.

They are everywhere and while some of them are tasteless, spelled wrong and just down right awful, there are some masterful, magnificent, beautiful tattoos out there.
So I'm adding tattoos to the short list of sure things. And possibly spiders since I brought them up.
I know there is a cliche in there somewhere. Maybe the cliche is that most tattoos always seem to have roses.
So all this wordiness is an explanation of where the inspiration for these  pieces came from.
Love, death, tattoos.

As usual, most of the supplies are from the wonderful Alpha Stamps.
Go HERE for links to what was used.

Complete Supply List:
1 1/2 inch red paper roses
1/2 inch red paper roses
Mini Rose buds-red
Old Fashioned Roses (in black)
7/8 inch Fancy Fan Black Lace (on the sides of the tombstones)
Star-Crossed Novel Scrapbook Paper
Star-Crossed Honeycomb Scrapbook Paper
Plastic Skeleton
Red and Pink Glass Heart Charms (the little heart glued on the skeleton ribcage)
Antique Gold Fancy Flower Filigree
Clock Face Button
Large Red/Gold Glass Heart Bead (in the hand inset in the tombstone with the heavy stamped frame)
Paper Mache Tombstone Set
A Gilded Life- Love Wings Pendant-Gold

Additional:
Heavy Stamped Brass Frame
Six Pointed Snowflake Filigree
Vintage Hands (2)
Oval Frame in Brass (bent in  half and used as a bracket under the hand holding black roses)

A couple of quick notes....these awesome tombstones are paper mache and about an inch thick. The one pictured above I cut a hole in to inset the hand holding the heart. I put a block of cardboard scrap inside the bottom of the tombstone to elevate the hand to the right height and glued it down.
Easy peasy!
All the banners were printed on stiff white scrapbook paper, cut to the shape they are and then aged up with paint.
The bases the tombstones are sitting on are all scrap chipboard I covered in matching paper, painted and then glued to the bottom of each tombstone.