HDH challenge...

Haunted Design House

is hosting another 

Macabre Monday challenge 

and this month it's simply:

Halloween.

 Not just any old Halloween though,

it has to be creepy, macabre, Gothic or just plain scary.

Here's what I made...

This girl is made of paper mache.

But..I'm sure she'd bite you if she could.

Be sure to check out the rest of the freaky entries here.

Halloween Ball

Hi!

How has your Sunday been going ...?

I've been trying to get a lot done..

getting ready for Great Pumpkin Night,

and Halloween.

finishing up a couple of art swaps,

adding details to a few paintings I was commissioned. 

Through it all 

I feel the time slipping away..

It's almost here and then it will be gone...

Making Halloween crafts helps extend the spookiness of the season for me 

So...

I created another little canvas using products

from the lovely Lisa Kettell:)

It's simple

you need

A circus tent & 2 frozen Charlotte dolls from Lisa's shop

a 6x4 inch canvas

a small rubber bat toy..which are usually abundant this time of year

wooden frame from a craft store 

scrapbook paper

glitter glue

 acrylic paint in

blue

white

black

beige

purple

brown 

hot glue

I painted the sky and moon first

then I cut one of the dolls in half and glued her to the tent

I painted them, added arms from the scrapbook paper

cut the wings off the rubber bat

glued them onto him

then glued them both to the cavas

I attached the frame, which I painted black.

Notice he didn't photograph very well?

vampires usually don't :)

Either way..

 they're now ready to fly to the Halloween Ball! 

Hope you have an amazing day

Castle

Three Muses challenge this week:

Castle.

How did you guess it was going to have a Halloween twist to it?:)

Haunted Humpday...Vampires?

It's time once again for

Wow, after today,

 only two more Haunted Humpdays left this year..

Has it gone by quickly for you as well?

We've been having the best time!

Trying to have a mini Halloween party every week

helps us squeeze as much of the holiday as possible

into this month.

We made cookies..

I don't particularly care for these, but they are cute...

I think it's the packaging that gets us haha. 

                                              Do you like the burnt, folded up one in the corner...?

my specialty :)

I took this photo before they were all gone..the plate was completely full....

they just kept disappearing.

We also had these,

 again,

we like how they look, but they really don't taste all that great..

We made these critters (a while ago) out of 

black felt, 

wooden dowels 

glow in the dark hot glue

 glow in the dark glitter glue.

Just make your design on black felt

using a white pastel

go over it with glow in the dark hot glue

cut it out

fill it in with glow in the dark glitter glue

hot glue a wooden dowel to the back

expose to light 

turn off the lights!

we had a puppet show, then the creatures had a dance party.

 

 

We also made these ghostly heart ornaments.

You just use plastic heart ornaments

which I'm pretty sure they have at craft stores right now..

put a coat of glue inside them, then add your favorite glitters and shake them up.

draw on a ghostly face

then attach foam arms

How do you feel about vampires?

I know there are many that claim to be actual vampires...

I'm not sure how I feel about it

I think there's something to it..

I know how my girl feels about them..
this is how she does her homework most days, lol

Did you know there's a Vampire Court of Austin?

They have a king and queen.

These modern day vampires have a very interesting lifestyle.

This is Viking Slayne,

Count of the Vampire court

I know, he's beautiful..

He's a really nice guy too.

I don't know so much about the blood drinking

but i do know that he is charismatic &

if vampires have the ability to draw you in...he truly has it. 

You can find out more about him and the Vampire court here.

 I painted this few months ago..

Here's another painting I made, but he's

        an old fashioned vampire.

I think this Nosferatu

would have to lure you with flowers and the old hypnotic eye...

'cause he's not as alluring as Mr. Slayne.

How about this..

remember this paper mache vampire from a few years back?

last but not least is my (other) little vampire girl ...

I do enjoy these creatures...

Here's a neat poem by jack prelutsky

The Vampire

The night is still and sombre, and in the murky gloom, arisen from his slumber, 

the vampire leaves his tomb. 

His eyes are pools of fire, his skin is icy white, and blood his one desire this woe begotten night.

 Then through the silent city he makes his silent way, prepared to take no pity upon his hapless prey.

 An open window beckons, he grins a huge grin, and pausing not one second he swiftly climbs within. 

And there, beneath her covers, his victim lies asleep. 

With fangs agleam he hovers And with those fangs, bites deep.

 The vampire drinks till sated,

 he fills his every pore, and then, his thirst abated, licks clean the dripping gore.

 With powers now replenished,

his thirst no longer burns,

His quest this night is finished, 

so to his tomb he turns, 

and there awhile in silence 

he'll rest beneath the mud until, 

with thoughts of violence, 

he wakes and utters.........

blood! 

You know that one creepy house in the neighborhood? 

the one your friends dared you to walk by after dark?

We had two..one I've talked about before.

This other one...well, it's a whole different type of weird.

I still remember not being allowed to go near it after IT happened.

It was across the street & was empty a lot of the time.

There were two women living there when the 'incident' occurred.

One was elderly, the other in her late thirties.

One night a neighbor stopped by and asked

 if we heard all the noise coming from across the street..

being late october, we had all the doors and windows closed up tight..

so we hadn't heard anything.

having the front door open let all the sounds drift over.

they were horrific..mixed among the sounds of the radio being on at full volume..

you could hear blood curdling screams, chanting, laughter and a pig squealing.

Our neighbor said it had been going on for about an hour..

the police had been called but no one had shown up yet.

She said her sons had knocked on the door but no one had answered. 

Instead the lights had been turned off.

At one point the screams became more and more strident..

the guys decided they were going to go in there no matter what..

They crossed the road and approached the front door

After forcing a window open (and armed with only a flashlight)

they went inside.

 the screams stopped abruptly.

They were in there only a short while when they ran back out shouting.

They told my parents what they saw later..

I, of course, listened covertly.

The inside of the house was completely dark..

none of the switches worked.

It smelled of decay and the coppery tang of blood.

In the back bedroom there were strange symbols 

painted all over the walls.

in the middle of the room a large pig was lying there mutilated

In a corner hanging from the ceiling were the carcasses of small animals

all dried out and bloodless.

As if that wasn't scary enough, they noticed that 

The back door and windows were boarded up and nailed shut.

But no one was in the house..

The police didn't find the occupants there in the house

 or anywhere else in the surrounding areas.

 The land lord cleaned up the place and tried renting it out eventually...

 people moved in and within a couple of months they would pack up and leave.

The rumor went around that the women were vampires and had turned themsleves

into rats or mice when the guys went in there..

Kids at school said their parents cautioned them to behave or you might see two pale faces

with crimson eyes looking in through your window one night. 

Did I believe they were vampires...?

maybe a little bit, I was around nine years old after all.

Do I still believe it?

of course not...

not when I'm in my bed all safe and warm with the curtains drawn tight.

Ask me again when I'm outside, it's dark

& there's a clear view of the house across the street.

Then...my beliefs might change.

That's it for this week my friends...

oh!

I almost forgot...

The winner of last weeks HH prize

 is comment #9

 RickiJill from Art@home

Congratulations!

Take care, be creepy

and I'll see you soon!

 

 

Be-witched...take a word challenge

I'm all about bewitchments,

so for the Take a word challenge this week 

I created two pieces.

Images are from Lisa Kettell Designs

Fairytale Follies

"I've been watching your world from afar
I've been trying to be where you are
And I've been secretly falling apart
Unseen
To me, you're strange and you're beautiful
You'd be so perfect with me
But you just can't see
You turn every head but you don't see me
I'll put a spell on you
You'll fall asleep
When I put a spell on you
And when I wake you, I'll be the first thing you see
And you'll realize that you love me"

                -Aqualung

Three Muses..

Let's make postage stamp people!

That's the theme at the Three Muses this week.

This is what I came up with..

(click to enlarge)

Haunted Humpday...Omens?

Happy Haunted Humpday to you!

How's your week been so far?

Ours has been beautiful...

rain, thick gray clouds and thunder!!!

We had to bake a cake...this weather calls for it, don't you think?

This cutie was baked in a jack-o-lantern pan from the dollar store. 

It kind of looks like a pancake...:)

Here's our pumpkin...Helena usually draws the face on.
My niece carves it
because I'm allergic to the guts remember?
My fingers feel like they're on fire if I touch them.

Late last night, because it wasn't raining too hard, 

I took my little girl out for a drive into some of the more rural areas of town.

First we stopped and bought hot chocolate then we put on some spooky audio stories,

These were pretty good...they certainly gave us a good scare..the more you listen
the more the shadows crawl around outside.

 We made some clothespin witches tonight too.
You need old-fashioned style clothespins, magnets or fishing line.
scrapbook paper, glitter, regular yarn, eyelash yarn, paint and hot glue.

 paint features and clothes.
glue on yarn hair and eyelash skirts
cut out a hat from scrapbook paper.
cover in glitter.
add magnet or fishing line to display.
 

Helena's witch

my witch

 

Now that the wind is crisp and the bite of Autumn is in the air
we can warm ourselves by the fire while we listen closely to tonight's story.

Do you believe in omens? portents?
Wax, that, as it melts, winds around the candle
 is supposed to mean death, since the
wax resembles a winding sheet or shroud.
A crow or owl that pecks at a bedroom window means death for the occupant
since those birds are thought to have vision keen enough
to see the reaper days before he shows up.
As silly as that one sounds,
I remember something strange that happened once...
The last days or so of March many years ago
I overheard my mother talking to my dad,
She was asking him to please make sure to clean up the side yard
because there was an owl that was sitting there every night
in the tree outside the window..she could hear it hooting most of the night and
she said the owl's droppings were going to ruin the grass.
I asked her about it later
because I hadn't heard anything when I went outside in the evenings
but she insisted there was an owl.
She passed away less than two weeks later.

This story is about a very distant cousin of my father named Alex.
Alex was a good guy, hard working and kind hearted..
when his nephew called and asked if he could come help him
out with his growing business, he was more than happy to do it.
Alex's nephew, Robbie had started boarding horses
and it was proving to be a lucrative business for him.
Occasionally, Robbie would go out of town to
pick up or deliver the horses that
he boarded, When that happened, Alex would take over.
One day Robbie asked him if he could stay overnight,
 It was going to take longer than expected getting back
and since Alex was to be the first one back the next morning,
it made more sense that he stay over.
Alex told him he did not mind staying.
That night he closed up the stables and headed up to the main house, which was
on the same property.
As he unlocked the door
he heard a loud fluttering noise,
looking up, he saw a bird flying around the dining room...
He thought it was very odd and opened the window in the kitchen,
After the bird flew out, he locked up the house and headed up to bed for the night.
The family dog was acting very strange, whimpering and cowering,
Alex figured it was because the dog was not used to him sleeping there and
 dismissed any feelings of unease he had.
As he settled into the guest bedroom
he sensed someone watching him.
It was late and he was very tired, so, again, he dismissed it.
a few minutes after he had started to drift off to sleep
the dog began howling over and over.
He got out of bed and opened the bedroom door,
the dog ran in, seemingly terrified.
He tried soothing it but it kept pacing and whining.
As he was trying to decide whether or not to put the dog outside,
he heard the door to Robbie's bedroom slam shut.
He walked slowly into the hallway, convinced somone had broken in
while he was trying to fall asleep.
As he moved slowly towards the room, the door flew wide open...
no one was there...
just a cold, eerie silence
and a terrible feeling of dread.
He was sure something was in that bedroom
something menacing and evil.
He grabbed the dog, the keys to his truck and they spent the rest of the night outside..
watching the dark house for any sort of movement.

The next day he told Robbie what happened..
they tried to find answers for what had occured
but the only thing they could come up with is that Alex must have been exhausted
and imagined most of  it.
But he knew he had not imagined the bird flying around the house,
and that bothered him more than anything..
He grew up with a very superstitious grandmother..
& he recalls her saying that
 if a bird flies into your house, a death shortly follows.
Three days later, while he was getting the mail,
a man walked up to Robbie
and shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

Alright, Now I'm sufficiently creeped out for the night..
Let me know what you think.
 I have a surprise treat to give away this week,
 leave a comment and you might be the lucky winner!

Have a nice day!or night:)

 .


 

Art & Stuff

Happy first Tuesday of October!

It's raining

and our high today is 81 degrees,

Now it feels like Fall:)

Put's me in a spooky mood,

no, wait...I'm always like that.. haha!

Speaking of spooky..

Is anyone near Manayunk PA?

There's a whole bunch of creepy
 going on at

Lucky's Last Chance.

If you get a chance to go you will find the 

strange and beautiful

 paintings of  

 Johnny Oxen .

He's not the only incredible artist displaying his art there..

you'll also get to see the amazing work of 

Sam & Nicole Peralta
Rega RWK

Chris RWK

&

Mike Die

Hope you get a chance to go!
Their art will be on display throughout October.

well I'm off to carve a pumpkin and maybe go and dance in the rain:)

(probably not at the same time though)

see you later...

Creepy...

What creeps you out?

That's the question being asked this month at

Collage Obsession.

I'd have to say deep, dark water,

but I think tunnels and dirty bugs are pretty creepy to me too...

I can't imagine ANYONE being ok with going into this blood splattered tunnel,

the spiderweb alone is enough to deter me.. 

now add rodents and a baby with glowing eyes, 

I'll keep going.

Now if this dummy had read more Stephen King,

she would have paid attention to the mist coming over the lake

early that morning..

Alas, now they are spider chow.

Head over to 

Collage Obsession to check out more things

to creep you out.

see you soon.

October Moon

It's finally here!

The month we've been dreaming about..

Now most of you can get your warm blankets, sweaters and boots out of storage..

Here in AZ, the days and nights aren't quite as crisp, today our high is 108.

I'm hopeful though, since the anticipated high on Monday is only 88!

We will see.

In honor of it being one of my favorite months

I have created a little canvas using my awesome 

Lisa Kettell Designs goodies.

For this I used the Carnival Lulu & Violet Wishes dolls.

 I painted a canvas with a spooky scene then added the girls with hot glue.

I used paper clay for the horns on Lulu and for Violet's pumpkin costume.

Their candy container is also paper clay.

 Here's Lulu taking her little sister out trick-or-treating!

You can find these and other adorable embellishments in Lisa's shop.

I'm also linking this to the Take a word challenge..

this week the word is: Moon.

I hope this month is beautifully eerie to you..

See you later

.