Hallowmas Tree

I really enjoyed my Hallowmas Tree this year :)  I made my own ornaments for it, which was an interesting project.  Fun and messy, but the results were worth it.

This one came out looking like a face!  CREEPY!!!

 The hubby surprised me with the Vampire Teddy Bear from Nightmare Before Christmas :)  So of course, I stuck him on top of the tree :)

Can I Come Out Now?

Can I come out from under the wrapping paper now?  Geez, Christmas just doesn't agree with me.  I've given it a really good effort... but it always does me in some way or another.

But I'm back. 

Hope you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to a bright New Year of LOTS of Halloween goodness!

Happy Creepmas!

Creepmas is Coming!

While our Halloween decorations may still be lingering around the yard and in our homes, there's no doubt that Christmas is on it's way.  Retail stores started putting it out almost the same time Halloween decorations started appearing. But, this doesn't mean that we have to lay down like a corpsed up bucky and take it! Oh no it doesn't! It's time for a revolution and that revolution is The 13 Days of Creepmas!

Creepmas is the haunter and Halloween enthusisist's good natured rebellion against retailer's early bombardment of the red and green stuff.  For the first 13 days of December, bloggers participating in Creepmas, are encouraged to post about things that are basically a Halloween/Christmas Frankenstein.  It's all about mashing the two very different holidays together.  As Tim Burton explored in Nightmare Before Christmas, the participants also explore what Christmas is like in the mind of a Halloween enthisuist and that can become very intesting :)

Sounds like fun, huh?  Want to join in the bazar festivities? Well stop packing away your Halloween decorations! Give your Buckys Santa hats and powder your tombstones with snow! Then go check out, sign up and get your offical Creepmas badge here: The 13 Days of Creepmas

Haunter Spotlight: The House of Marrow

It's an amazing and validating feeling when other haunters spotlight my haunt.  So, I've decided to start spotlighting some of my favorite haunts, in the hopes that it gives them the same fuzzy feelings and to share their work with people who may not be aware of them.

The first on my list is a haunter who I've watched grow tremendously over the past two years.  He is only 14 years old and he's haunting like a pro.  In addition to his beautiful paper mache work and excellent photography of his haunt, he also has a talent for story telling, which completes his haunt.
Knowing that there are young haunters out there like this guy, it's safe to say that Halloween is in good hands for years to come :) 

Check him out and show your haunty support! The House of Marrow: Halloween 2012

2012 Regrets...

Sometimes things just don't go as planned for our beloved holiday.  This year was particularly tricky, for some odd reason.  Projects didn't go smoothly and a lot of older props needed repair.

The biggest regret that I have of 2012 is not completing this guy:

I had started sketching him at the end of the 2011 season, started sculpting in February, worked on wings through the summer.  But the frame for the body proved to be a challenge and the scale of the wings didn't work with the head so the project had to be scrapped at the last minute.

Raven Reaper Progress

Raven Reaper Research

Sketch

Wing Progress

I hope to get him done for 2013, although the wind has been taken out of my sails, seeing that another haunter has done a strikingly similar project.    I hope this is just a case of great minds thinking alike.

Clean Up Day

Busy, busy day of clean up.  Got almost everything off of the front yard, with the exception of the crypt, coffins and arch, all which are too heavy for me to carry by myself.  The Count is currently down with bronchitis, so it looks like the heavy stuff will stay out a little longer.

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful comments and the feature of my haunt/blog.  I hope to be able to reply to them all soon and to answer the questions that have been posted.  My work computer does not allow me to access the "reply" feature, so I like to take care of that from home.

It's a long weekend for me, so I'll be responding to you all soon :)

Happy Haunting!

Witch's Tea

About two years ago, Justine, creator of Justine's Halloween Blogspot, introduced me to the idea of having a Witch's Party.  Every year, she blogged about the wonderful time that she and her guests had at her Witch Party 2011 & Witch Party 2012 and every year I fell in love with the idea.

Finally, I convinced my mom to start the tradition for us :)  We recently became fans of a local Tea House in our area and while having tea there, we decided that we'd have a Witch's High Tea :)

So, the invitations went out.  This was the picture that we glued to the front of it.  We found it on the web somewhere:

Then I had the joyful pleasure of decorating my Mom's house with a bunch of my decorations:

And we even made a few new ones:

Spell books

 Witchy Hat Tree Topper

We did a tea tasting to figure out which teas to put in our teapots:

 These were the winners along with a lovely chai tea :)  Constant Comment became a new favorite for me :) Orange-spice goodness!

Finally the day of the tea came and we had an AWESOME spread! Lots of traditional high tea foods, such as cucumber, egg salad and pimento cheese sandwiches, DELICIOUS homemade scones with lemon curd, clotted cream and jam, corination chicken salad (with curry, red grapes and walnuts yum!) mini quiche, cookies, brownies, pumpkin bread.  We even ended up with a few other things that our guests whipped up! How cute are the JOL cookie pops?

 Can't have a witch's tea without witch hat cookies!!!

Here's Mom and I, decked out in our witchy hats!

Then all of our lovely witchy guests begin arriving!!

That's when we realized that we had "covens" joining our party!

The Bourliea Coven

The Glamerous Breast Cancer Awarness Coven 

They all decorated their hats with pink glitter in support of the lovely witch on the right who is currently undergoing chemotherpy for breast cancer.

We also had a LOT of mother-daughter teams!

My cousin and my Aunt

(who I credit with the reason I love Halloween.  My Grandmother once told me that this aunt was a real witch!)

Another cousin and Aunt, who had a BLAST putting together her "proper" witch costume :)

 More cousins :)

We even had some wee-witches in training!!!

They even tried out some brooms!

After everyone ate, we played 3 games: Match the Witch with the Movie or Book, Witchy Word Scramble and Halloween/Witchy Trivia! 

After the games, it was time for pictures!

We had an amazing time and can't wait to do it again next year!

Has this inspired you to do your own witch's party?  Maybe you already have a similar tradition.

I'd love to hear about it!

Happy Haunting!



Appreciation...

I think Mr. Gorey would have appreciated this shot ;) I'm amazed that I got my fur baby to pose for me.

CIMG6584, a photo by curlgoddess on Flickr.

Here's Mr. Gorey with his furry children :)

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012, a set on Flickr.

As promised :)