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Halloween

Patchwork Pumpkins with Oil Pastels

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Reasons I don’t carve pumpkins:

1. Smell.  2. Slime.  3. Smell. 4. Ewww.

Did I mention I don’t carve pumpkins? Yeah. No. It’s not happening.

As much as I admire those who brave the pumpkin slaughter in a decorative fashion, I’m not doing it. That said, I still wanted some pumpkins to put out on the front steps. Problem: these pumpkins are exposed to the elements — wind, rain, unseasonably-early frost. Answer: oil paint. But oil paint is crazy expensive and won’t dry until Downton Abbey is back (because British people are mean and make us wait until January). So what is a no-wait alternative to oil paint?  Oil pastels.

Warning: you are going to want to make one of these.

Pentel oil pastels that are crazy easy to work with. They are like crayons on steroids. I could cover a whole pumpkin in a manner of minutes, and then some. The patchwork pattern here was taken from traditional Indian kantha quilts, but you could just doodle your heart out same as if it were a marker or a pencil or crayon.

Did I mention you can buy a giant box of them for under $10? I know.

Now, I had tried using pastels in art school and hated them because they were so chalky and the residue got on everything – these are much more self-contained. Kid friendly. They are still oil based so you’ll want to cover your workspace to save on cleanup, but really, y’all. These are good. Pumpkins and beyond.

Hop over to Pentel to see how to make your own!

Sugar Skull Necklace

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As much as I admire those adults who dress up in elaborate Halloween costumes, I don’t have too many occasions to wear one (shout out to the chicken costume in my basement!).

Just the same, I like a little festive touch to my outfit. You know. To match the candy cauldron.  Sugar skulls are my new favorite autumnal motif (did you see the ones I made last year?) so this necklace is right up my alley!

The start of the show here are these iron-on patches from I Love to Create’s new Crafty Chica line. Kathy (aka “Crafty Chica”) is one of the first bloggers I ever followed, even before I knew I was following blogs. Ha! I’ve also met her in person, and she is so darn nice. I’m thrilled that she has come out with this new line and I am so flattered to take part in showing off the goods. And hey, did I mention I got a cool necklace out of it? For real, y’all. You can make this on your own for under ten bucks.

Get on it. For directions, head on over to I Love to Create!

Yay, November.

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Has anyone out there on the interweb heard of this thing called leftover Halloween candy?

It is a new phenomenon.  A no-good something akin to global warming or decorative hair feathers, I suspect.

When I was but a wee tatertot, no adult ever had to worry about leftover candy because there never was such a thing. You’d just have candy and pass it out until it was gone. Then, all you could do was turn off your porch light and pray nobody egged your house. The festivities ran from dark-o’clock to 9pm, maybe 10pm if it was a weekend, and neither rain, nor sleet, or nor tornado siren could keep a child indoors. Why, one time I told my dad I didn’t feel like trick-or-treating because my stomach hurt real bad and he told me that was why I needed to carry a bucket. “I don’t care how you do it, but don’t come back here until it’s full.”

Apparently, now, it is different. Apparently, now, kids are encouraged to stop knocking on doors after dusk and bad weather is a signal to stay home. This was the case last Thursday, a rainy night when not more than 15 kids came by for candy. That would be fine except I was hoping for a couple hundred and now I need to find new ways to use up all this damn candy.


Here, I know, let’s work on depleting this mountain of sugary sweets by chopping them up and adding to a vat of chocolaty brownie batter.


Is that a photo of leopard and chocolate together? Yes. Yes, it is. 


Also, speaking of leftover Halloween stuff, here is a pedestal vase I made out of a cheapo pumpkin bucket a while back. It makes for a nice goody bucket for passing out candy, or for holding some greenery from the garden, or for storing the shame that comes from eating mini Snickers for breakfast.

Yay, November.

Creepy Skeleton Necklace

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I’ve got a couple of Halloween parties this weekend, neither one of which calls for a costume. This either means I am getting old, or I need more festive friends.

This also means I need a way to infuse some Halloween fun without being the only one in the room drinking wine in a Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle costume.

Man, I hate when that happens.

Ahh. Nothing like a neck full of hand bones to break in the autumn spirit.

I found a baggy of skeleton hands at the craft store for $3.99. Thought I was going to glue them to the rim of a tray to use as a candy dish, but backed out in favor of putting my time into costume jewelery (that happens a lot around here). Twenty minutes and an old silver necklace later, it’s a big freaky statement necklace collar thing. If you are familiar with jump rings, you know how this went down. If you are not familiar and need a crash course in basic jewelry making, this is it.

This project has shown me that just about anything can be added to an old necklace with some simple jump rings. I mean, skeleton hands are only the beginning. What about, say, coasters? Silverware. Baby shoes. Bottle caps. Old copies of Sports Illustrated. If you can hole it you can hang it. I feel Christmas comin’ on!

Gourds Gone Wild

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My friend Dalemade the most amazing jack-o-lanterns out of dried gourds. Look!
I posted a phone shot of these on Facebook last year and everyone loved them, so I thought I’d go over and take some decent pictures to show you guys. Are they not the coolest thing ever?
The one on the bottom is Tyrone, and to the left is Tonto, with Chon on the right. That might be spelled Chong. I’m not 100% on that, beg your pardon.

The light chord runs through a hole in the bottom of Tyrone, up through his neck and into Chon, where it hooks up to an extension cord with three plugs. Each gourd has a hole in the bottom slightly larger than the bulb (to allow for easy changing) and sits nestled in a piece of tin foil. Not only does the foil keep the bulb sitting upright, it reflects the light for extra illumination. Pretty nifty, huh?

Dale says he made the face holes with the blade of a hack saw. Just the blade with some duck tape wrapped around one end for grip – that’s it. No machines or drills. Just a regular one-way blade and a gentle touch, that’s it. Anything else will tear it up.

So, I realize not everyone has some hollow, dehydrated gourds sitting around the house…but you might see some on sale at the market this week, right? So why not pick one up and dry it out for next year? Just hang it up or sit it some place dry with lots of circulating air, like on top of a turned over basket or something. This guy goes into some detail on proper drying techniques (and, as it turns out, he also sells dried gourd jack-o-lantern kits if you want to get a jump start on this. He also sells boxes of dried mini gourds in bulk, which has me rather intrigued come Christmas. Hmmm….)


Many thanks to Dale for making these amazing creatures and letting me share them here. One day I’ll go over and take more pictures of Dale creations…banjos made from cigar boxes…key hooks from wooden spoons. It’s pretty impressive. I should mention, Dale is married to Nancy, aka Aunt Nancy, an amazing painter and artist extraordinaire. In addition to being my mother’s college roommate, Nancy is the person who gave me a rhinestones bezel setter at age six, which, now that I think about it, probably explains a lot about the stuff you see on this blog. Needless to say, she has great taste! Between the two of them, the house is like a candy store of artistic coolness. We should go back for a visit…

Dale has his own blog, Loitering Dog, which I highly recommend to all those who love stories of weirdness and wonder (and gourds). He doesn’t update it nearly as often as I would like (I’m greedy that way), but you can cruise the archives for a good time.

Thanks, Dale!



Skeleton Crew

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There is a serious sugar skull situation up in here.

Despite the fact that my co–worker declared my creations closer to Mexican wrestler than  Mexican skeleton, I went and made some more.

Then I went and mixed them in with my Liberace pumpkins on a bookshelf. Now it looks like Liberace and Lucha Libre went to a Halloween party at that bilblioteca.

You see how I worked in my Spanish skillz there?

These skulls started out as $2 plastic decorations from Big Lots. Love me some Big Lots. I just scuffed them up, painted them white, the blobbed on some colors…some black outlines…some rhinestones. I didn’t buy anything for this project but the skulls. Just raided the junk drawer. This tells you something about the quality of craziness you will find in my junk drawers.

The lines on this one below look a little lighter because I used a permanent marker instead of black paint. The ink absorbed into the paint and faded quite a bit. Lesson learned.

And here is the one I made last week on a paper mache mask.

Then, of course, right after I finished with these skulls on Friday, I was at Paper Source in Evanston with some friends on Saturday and what did I see? A sequin sugar skull coin purse. I mean.

It. Was. Mag. Nificent.


Twelve bucks. I didn’t buy it. Can you believe that?  I may need to go back. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m staring at this pictures and noticing how I could have done my skulls differently – a flower around one eye, a crown on the forehead, an inverted heart for a nose…and glitter. Well, not so much glitter as sequins. I need a skull of sequins. I need it bad.

Looks like someone will be making another trip to Big Lots…

I might owe her a buck.

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I decided I needed some non-scary Halloween flair at work, so I made a sugar skull out of a paper mache mask to hang up in my office. It’s festive right? And a little rhinestone action never killed anyone. And even if it did, big whoop, it’s the day of the dead after all.
No sooner than I show it off and my co-worker says, “I don’t get it. It’s a Mexican wrestler? At the ice capades?”
To which I said, “No, it’s a Mexican sugar skull. Not a Mexican wrestler. Obvioulsy.“
To which she said, “Dude, that is a tricked out Mexican wrestling mask. I’ll bet you a buck. Google it.”

 I might owe her a buck.

Skeletal Flamboyance

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Do you know what a flock of flamingos is called?

A flamboyance. A flamboyance of flamingos.

A group of peacocks is called an ostentation. A group of crows is called a murder. A group of coots is called a covert, and a bunch of starlings is called a chattering. That’s all I can think of right now. The list goes on much longer than my memory at this moment.

Man, bird groups sure are cool!

Whoever is coming up with these names deserves a gold star. I, on the other hand, deserve Halloween themed skeleton flamingos.

If the fern looks skeletal too that’s on purpose. Okay not really. I’m bad at gardening but whatever. I have skeleton flamingo lawn ornaments, I am now cool by default.

You could probably DIY these on your own, but I bought my pair for $12 from Flamingo Pink Inc, the local flamingo manufacturer just down the road aways. Yes, it’s good to have a flamingo factory in the area. These two came in a cardboard coffin (perfect for handing out candy) and a bunch of free flamingo swizzle sticks, soon-to-be bedazzled and hanging on my flamingo Christmas tree. Flamboyance indeed!

Marbleized Pumpkins

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I need another decorative pumpkin like I need a hole in the head, but you know what? It’s October. *It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.

* You should totally click that link. It’s good reading. That is, unless you are offended by curse words, in which case, you might want to skip it. Skip this post altogether, for that matter. There won’t be any more curse words in it but several were used in the making of this pumpkin. This big fat, gorgeous, tainted in profanity pumpkin. And look, it’s marbleified!

 Materials

  • Three+ bottle of nail polish. ($5+) Feel free to use your old goopy stuff, but if they have thickened up they may not spread as nicely (solve this problem by adding a drop of nail polish remover to the bottle a shake for one minute – that’ll thin it out a bit).
  • One  Pumpkin ($1+) I used a foam pumpkin because I want to keep it for years to come. In retrospect, I wish I had gone to the grocery store and purchased a variety of 50cents-a-pound mini gourds instead. They won’t last past the season but the shapes and texture would be super interesting! Also, foam shapes can be tricky to dunk in the water as they will want to float, but we’ll get to that in a sec.

Not pictured (Free)

  • Bucket of water (Free) Technically, this might not be free since your bucket will probably get nail polish all over it, so if you are the type to keep a Best Bucket, this is not the time to use it.
  • Bamboo skewers or plastic utensils
  • Paper Towels


Directions

  1. Drop nail polish into water and watch it float to the surface. Don’t get to precious about it, just dribble five to ten drops and move on to the next color. The colors will most likely blob together, but not blend together. That’s good.
  2. Use your bamboo skewer or a plastic utensils to draw straight lines through the blob of color floating on the surface. I find the best technique is to draw long, straight lines, then let the water movement take care of the curving action. It’s a matter of preference.
  3. Use one hand to dip the shape into the surface of the color blob and hold it below the surface. Note, if the pumpkin has a front side/good side, dip that side first.
  4. While the pumpkin is still submerged with one hand, use your other hand to wipe a paper towel along the surface of the water and watch all the nail polish cling to it. The surface will now be clean and you can pull the pumpkin out.
  5. Let it dry on an old tin can or a wire wrack – something non-porous (paper towels will clean and foil will smudge). The water beads will drip off and the whole thing should dry within 20 minutes or so.

    I’m hoping this makes sense. If you want to see a video of someone using this marbeling technique, click here. She is doing a manicure and not a pumpkin but the essentials are very much the same.


Notes

  • This needs to be done outside or in a well ventilated space. Very well ventilated. Nail polish is no joke.
  • Glitter nail polish does not play well with others.  Maybe you will have better luck, but I found it to clump up and ruin the swirl pattern of the other colors. Iridescent/pearlescent polishes, however, came out gorgeous. 
  • Colors will appear more vibrant if the pumpkin is painted white before dipping (regular white craft paint is fine, just make sure it dries first).
  • Experiment. Before dipping my pumpkin, I got a feel for the process by dipping some tangerines that had gotten a little old. I like the results so much I mingled them in with my other Liberace pumpkins from last year.


Happy Halloween!


The Reluctant Princess Leia

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Yesterday was weird.

It was as though everyone I knew could only talk about the same two subjects; hurricanes and Star Wars.  

Did you see that picture of the guy scuba diving in the subway? It will be weeks before my brother can get to work.

What was George Lucas thinking? He sold the Star Wars franchise just so Disney could RUIN IT?

When will those poor people get their power back? No heat? And the tap water is contaminated?

You realize, its only a matter of time until those mousy fuckers turn Leia into a Disney Princess.

Some folks even speculated that the Disney PR people waited to announce the news until a crisis came along to overshadow the outrage. If that were true, it would appear that those PR people do not know Star Wars fans.

This is an odd subject for me. I have numerous friends who are die-hard Star Wars fans. We seem to flock together for no particular reason or common bond.  I’m not sure why, but I do the same thing with Librarians. And people born in early September. We attract each other. It’s weird.

What’s also weird is that, for all my Star Wars exposure, I have never even seen a Star Wars movie. Not one. My mother made me a Princess Leia costume because she liked the movie so much, although she thought I was too young to see it. That did not stop her from going back to the theater to see it two more times by herself. For “costume analysis” purposes, of course.

It was white muslin and the gold tassel belt was a curtain sash. I had no idea what I was supposed to be wearing, but I knew it was cute and that was good enough for me.

Happy Halloween, you guys.

***

PS: Anyone need a last minute festive touch for candy distribution? I made this last year — tape some rubber gloves to a tray or box lid, then line with tissue paper and candy. Just do it. You are fun like this and you know it.

Can I just tell you something? I bought those purple candies thinking I would be all cool and hand out Reeses Peanut Butter goodies because those were my favorite as a kid. Problem is they are my favorite as an adult. They never make it to the kids on the 31st.

What sort of candy are you handing out? Good & Plenty? Tootsie Rolls? Snickers?

Or are you that house that hands out raisins? It’s OK if you are. I won’t judge. At least not while you are looking.