Impish Impressions

Yesterday, circumstances had me looking through the cabinet where we keep all the medications.  In this process, I decided to pitch everything that had expired.  In THIS process, I found a lovely little glass bottle, from a child’s liquid medicine.  I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, it was begging to be used.  I washed it out:

and pondered what I should put in it.   It would be at home on an apothecary’s shelf, or being emptied into a witch’s cauldron.  Obviously, it needs to contain souls.

What color is the soul?  What color of liquid do I need in this bottle?  Well, according to two reliable sources, lawyers’ souls are black and viscous, but there is little consensus otherwise.

I took the bottle with me to work this morning anyway, so I could play with fonts and font sizes.  There, I ran into an auditor (who is, honestly, a very nice human being), but the thought was too good to pass up.

I selected the “chiller” font, and played with sizes:

Wound up in 44 font, for the curious. I centered it, printed it, tore the edges and then aged it.  Aging paper isn’t hard.  this method included crumpling the paper, setting it in a dish, and dumping coffee on it:

note- this really works better with sharpie marker or a toner-based copy.  inkjet printer ink is more liable to smear.

I drained the dish, and popped it in the toaster oven at 200 for about five minutes, until it was nice and dry.  I took a lighter to the edges (best done at a sink with a running faucet) to finish the effect.  I originally intended to bring it home and glue the label to the bottle, but I got impatient, and decided to hang the label from the bottleneck:

This left me with the question of “what color is an auditor’s soul?” but auditors don’t have souls, which made the next part really easy.  The bottle came with a standard plastic cap, which is entirely unsuitable for this kind of thing.  I lit a candle, and dipped the neck of the bottle in the melted wax several times, sealing it.

(it later became blatantly obvious that jar-candle wax is entirely too soft for this sort of thing, so if you want to replicate this… try taper candles or sealing wax)

That’s all there was to it:

The auditor was amused.