Caged...



So, I haven't been too fascinated with bird cages in the past.  I couldn't quite get why people seemed to go nuts and snap 'em up when they found them.  And, when I get that way it always comes back to haunt me.  This summer I saw the most amazing bird cage at a local gift shop.  It was HUGE!  It was about 6 feet tall, maybe 2 feet in diameter, painted green and stood on a stand.  My mind saw skeletons, crows, bats, ghosts, ghouls.....you know...you have those moments of clarity.  The mother of all bird cages was completely out of my price range so I began a search for something that would work for me.  Originally I thought round but this one spoke to me and said....bats.  I thought a lot about how to make bat guano on the bottom of this cage.  I settled for skull, moss, and wood bits.  I love my bat cage.............

The Eyes Have It....

This year I tried using florist gel (Tropical Ice).  It comes in crystal bits, add water, and it grows into gelantinous random sized chunks.  The colors are limited (red, purple, green, blue, yellow,  clear) but can be layered.  I love the way it keeps eyeballs, cockroaches, fingers, etc. suspended.  I used a chopstick to poke whatever into position...and it stayed!  I did try an experiment using food coloring and that actually worked okay.  The food coloring only went so far down and then stopped.  I have a few ideas that I'd like to experiment with this coming year.  I'll keep you posted....

BTW ~ in the second photo the fake rubbery green bean things absorbed the purple dye.  As did the glow in the dark snake things I added.  Weird....

Headless Red...

This summer we took our English Auntie and friends to Walla Walla, WA for a long week-end, wine tasting, and general look-see.  After seeing an add for Headless Red wine...well, what can I say?   I was on a mission.  So worth the visit!  I love the label, the wines, the winery, the people, the horse, ah-h-h-h.  The other wine with a Halloween label is the Four Horsemen.  A beautiful label with (duh) 4 charging horses done in black and orange.

The tasting room has a huge coffin for display and wine storage and a tiny coffin with one bottle of Headless Red.  So, yes, we stole their idea.  The Mr. and grandsons built a dozen of the tiny coffins this summer.  We went back to Walla Walla October 1 for the new release of Headless Red (great party), met the Headless Horseman (Jennifer) and came home with the spirits for the coffins.  Success!

Check out their web-site.  It has a link to a video they made for the Headless Red wine.  It's worth a look!

Ash Hollow Winery







Headless Horseman and Anya (The Horse)



Toes...

Nothing beats a comfortable pair of Zombie Feet.............

Shadows....

Made by Pumpkinrot...........

The Mr. has a Sudoku fascination...



I  like the red lighting on this sinister face...



Yeah, I know, don't use a flash....

So, I have a fascination with these creatures from the minds and skills of Pumpkinrot.  I believe anything more than three constitutes a collection........uh, I have five.  These beauties came from Pumpkinrot's Pumpkin Hollow Store.  Primitives by Kathy has their creations also.  The three sistahs and their cauldron will stay in my office during the year and hopefully some Halloween magic will eat into my brain...

Truly wish I had the photography skills to show how awesome they were lurking around the house.  I have a vision of someday making something similar only 7 feet tall to greet the kiddies on either side of the front door.  Alas, I also need some skills for that too.........

Poison....

Every year the very first things I put out for Halloween are the cauldron, apples, and brooms.  They give me that feeling of "oh yeah, now it feels like home..."



A really good broom is so hard to find.....



Random bits....

Orange lighting, shiny jars, gargoyles, a little greenery, tiny skulls, severed fingers.......what more could a girl ask for...sigh....

Bits and pieces...

Reach out....

Sh-h-h.........

After a long, long time away I am back..........

The party's over...

A good solid 9 inches of snow...Halloween is going dormant for awhile.  When I think of this time of year and things that are growing, simmering, moulding, out of sight (not out of mind), I think of peppermint.  Anyone who has grown peppermint or any mint for that matter in their garden will understand this.  Peppermint even in the winter keeps right on creeping underneath the ground.  It sends out shoots, runners to new spots.  In the spring peppermint pops up in the most unusual places.  Halloween is like that in my mind....just keeps creeping around in different directions.  You never know where.....

"It"...

I do a little tribute in our Halloween display of Pennywise the clown.  We have a water meter cover in the corner of our front yard....and well...it made sense at the time.  So, I've been re-reading "It" by Stephen King.  It's been at least 25 years since I read "It" the first time.  Wow, did I forget a lot, but it's actually a lot of pages worth of reading to forget.  Sorry, Mr. King, but after 25 years it's really hard to remember thousands of pages in detail.

Now, here's the interesting part to me anyway.  After all these years, after being in Maine, in Bangor, in the older Victorian neighborhood in Bangor...I'm getting more out of this book than I did the first time around.  I get a better visual in my mind.  Yeah, I know Derry is the fictional town but I certainly "see" Bangor and Brewer in my mind.  It's given me some ideas to improve or update or correct, if you will, our Halloween display.  Such as the balloons need to be red, yellow, blue, and green.  Although I really like the eyeball balloons we had for a couple of years.  The creepy children at play music we added this year was spot on!  I may need to make a paper boat to tuck under the clown hand...hmmm...what to do, what to do. 

Lucky lighting...

Nothing special...I just like the light on the coffin and fence.

Cobwebs and dust...

It's so disheartening that ALL of that authentic Halloween dust and all of those authentic cobwebs that spiders have been left alone to build....have absolutely no charm after Halloween!! 

One idea lights a thousand candles...

"One idea lights a thousand candles." 
    --Ralph Waldo Emerson

So, I have a great idea for a new prop for the graveyard 2011.  Ideas come from just the smallest of flickers of thought sometimes.  Ideas come from a big thump on the head other times.  I have a couple of tombstones in our graveyard that mean absolutely nothing to anyone other than me.  This prop might ring true for more than just me...

I see the backs of an older couple walking hand in hand.  Devoted, still deeply in love.  A light snow falling representing the winter of life.  Now, forward to spring.  I see two corpses with their hands clutched around each others throats in a death grip.  My title..."Retirement."

A couple of firsts...

Every year we have a "first" or a couple of "firsts".  Everyone has a moment of, "Man, first time that's happened."  We had a couple of firsts this year too! 

The first "first" was a fellow Halloween enthusiast that came to the door on Halloween night to ask if he could come in to see how the flying crank ghost works.  I invited him in and a friend talked with him while I handed out treats.  Nice man, very interested.  What he was most curious about was how we got the skeleton's jaw to move.  It actually looks like he's talking as he moves his head back and forth.  Uhhh, that was a happy accident.  I wanted to revamp my ghost with a new bucky head but it was too heavy for the motor.  So, we made do with the old styrofoam head and just cut his jaw apart and used plastic ties to "wire" it back together.  My thought was...his jaw will hang open and I'm perfectly happy with that.  The happy accident part is when we turned on the power...his loose jaw bumps up against the wire hanger shoulder part.  Wa-la!  A talking skeleton ghost!!  Yeah us!!



The second "first" was a teen that came knocking on our door the night before Halloween with an URGENT request to use the bathroom.  There was some pleading, some nervous footsteps.  Uhhh, ok, come on in.  He asked if we had a "no shoes rule".  No, we don't.  Yes, I know we should be careful about teens, strangers, etc using your bathroom.  But, hey, how desperate he must have been to knock on OUR door, use our bathroom (now a bat cave), and he did turn on the fan!



Harrison Blvd

Harrison Blvd is a Halloween must-see in Boise.  It's a street of mostly huge, historical homes lined with beautiful old trees.  On Halloween night the street is blocked and a gazillion TOTrs make the journey of a few blocks up one side and down the other.  This is a shot of my favorite......that's a lot of carving!

"October Boy"

So, I just finished reading "Dark Harvest" by Norman Partridge.  It's more like a novella and was published in 2007.  Great Halloween read and now I have a new fixation.  I really want to make an October Boy for our haunt next year.  Wish me luck!