And So, It Begins...

Froggy's Swamp Juice

I received my first order from Froggy's yesterday. One gallon of Gothic scented Swamp juice. I will test it out in the coming days and give a full report. If I had to rate them on the Gothic scent alone, I'd give them 5 HUGE gold stars =) They've hit the nail right on the head with this one! Beautiful and mysterious incense smell. I really think that it's going to add a whole new dimension to the experience of 2nd Street cemetery.

More to come ;)

Tombstone Paint

I've recently looked into Drylock for painting my tombstones. I've seen other home haunters use it on their stones and monuments with beautiful results, so I decided to look for it this weekend. Drylock, for anyone who doesn't know, seems to be used in masonry work for patching things. In any case, it's basically latex paint with sand in it, which gives it the apprearance of cement when applied to something. I found it at Homedepot and couldn't bring myself to pay $25.00 a gallon for it... I'm a cheap-o, what can I say? ;) So, I got some play sand from my mom, took some white and black latex paint that I had from last year, mixed it all together and VOILA! I created my own version of drylock. A few coats running the paint brush in vertical then horizontal directions give the ordinary foam stone a very convincing look! I'm very excited about this new found medium.

Oh and as a side note, plastic Ovaltine container with the screw on lid makes for perfect paint storage of homemade drylock =)

Do Over...

I'm not exactly happy about having to do this over again but, I think that it will be better in the long run. I'm done for the night but, tomorrow I'll be carving away.

Big n' Orange

I FOUND IT!!!

Libby's canned pumpkin =) I was beginning to panick. I sort of remembered hearing rumor of a canned pumpkin shortage last season, and when I couldn't find it on the shelves ANYWHERE, I decided to do some research. I found out that the shortage wasn't a rumor and that Libby's themselves, only had a few cans in their wearhouse due to a very wet season last year, which ruined their pumpkin crop... EEEEKKKKK!!!! What about the pumpkin pie? The pumpkin bread? The pumpkin cookies?

So, for the past month, I have been down every baking isle in every grocery store that I stepped foot in, looking for the illusive canned pumpkin.

Last night, my searching was 'fruitful' (har har har) and I was so excited, that I bought 4 cans. =)

I'll be baking this weekend =)

Thank you Libby's for coming through!

Always Double Check...

the information for your tombstones!!! I just realized that the dates on my Edgar tombstone are HUGELY inaccurate. Most people won't even realize that it's wrong, but I will and it will bug the heck out of me. It can be fixed. I hate set-backs!

Weekend Progress

Much accomplished, much more to be accomplished =)

Pumpkin Vine Guardian

This lil' fella hopped up on one of my vines as I was watering them =) This one's for you Frog Queen!

Thrift Store Goodies

Went cruising the thrift stores with Mommers yesterday and picked up some pretty cool things. One was a jacket for my Jack character. It's still not exactly what I wanted, but pretty darn close and it was $6. Then I found a copy of Gaston Leroux's "The Phantom of the Opera" for $.39... who can beat that?


At the next store, I found this guy. A little rough for wear, but has a very vintage look, so I had to have him; $2.

Finally, I found my prize of the day. A precious little porcelin owl, sitting on a branch of beautiful fall leaves; $2.

It wasn't until I got in the car and took him out of the dingy plastic bad that he was in, that I realized that it's a Lenox piece! What a treasure =)

Houston, We Have a Problem...

So, my pumpkin vines have been maturing beautifully. Big green leaves, strong vines, lots of flowers, then last night, I come home to one type of my vine looking almost completely dead and a piece of another "broken". I felt bad, because it looked like they had been water deprived so I watered them for 30 minutes last night, making sure the ground was nicely saturated. I wake up this morning, thinking that I'm going to get some new material to make a bigger cover so that the heat doesn't affect the vines so much and find that more pieces are "broken" on my vines. At this point, I figured that it was a stray cat or possum making it's way through my garden that is breaking things and I figure I'll put up some chicken wire. Then, upon closer inspection of one of the broken vines, a green worm falls out.... hmmm, that's not good.

I run to the computer and find out that my crop is infested with Vine Borers, which are inserted in the garden by pretty black and orange moths... hmmm could it be, this guy?

The pretty little "butterfly" that I took so many pictures of last weekend? #%*%@!!!!!!!!!!! I should have known!!! UGH!!!

Next time I see one, I'll wave my arms like a crazy lunitic to chase it out of my garden.

Now I just hope that I can save my vines. I clipped the damaged parts off and sprayed them. I'll know wheter or not it's helping this afternoon.

Edgar's Stone

My Parents are AWESOME!

Found this in my backyard last night =) They are so sweet! They spent most of the day building it =) Who could ask for better parents? Thanks guys!!!