Today, we visit The Rattles in 1970. It’s catchy.
Halloween
This vine arch by Oak Lane Cemetery is a work of art. Hard to believe it’s pool noodles and milk jug skulls!
The video below is just an overview. Here are details on forming the roots. There are about a thousand milk jug skull tutorials out there. Here’s one I grabbed from the side bar.
I have recently developed a serious tendre for Halloween blow molds. Even the Spousal Unit likes them. They are lighthearted fun. I display ours in the foyer (yes, I call it a foyer. I also call the first room the formal parlor) so I see them right when I come downstairs in the morning. It’s a good way to start the day.
Some have lights right now, some don’t, but all are easily fixed, and I’ll light them later.
Back row, left to right:
- General Foam Light Up Skeleton, Gray Cape Edition, early 2000s
- Empire Plastics Cat on a Pumpkin, late 1990s
- Union Products Witch Candle, designed by Don Featherstone, 2006
- Union Products Bela Lugosi, designed by Don Featherstone, early 2000s
Front row:
- Bayshore Jack-o-Lantern on Cat, 1960s
- Bayshore Haunted House Lamp, 1960s
- Empire Pumpkin Man, 1969
- Empire 22″ Pumpkin, 1990s
- Union Carry Jack, 2000s, on top of two General Foam Big Jacks, 2011
- Haunted House Lamp (see below)
The orange Haunted House Lamp is hard to pin down. Companies sold molds to each other, so this could have been Bayshore, Empire, or General Foam, and manufactured anywhere from 1960 to 2011. Mine has an odd paint job, but those vary.
Why is Don Featherstone important enough to be mentioned? Because in 1957, he designed the iconic pink flamingo. Even if he hadn’t had that distinction, his blow molds designs are unusual enough to catch attention.
I love these things, and could probably fill a house with them. For now, a corner will do.
The first of my indoor displays is up. It’s been out for a month, but was sitting on the table, higgledy-piggledy. I repainted two of the witches so they looked more like sisters than clones. Now the middle one looks unfinished, so it will probably get new paint some time later. I did some alteration, mostly on the witch on the right. She had no colors in her outfit, so she got green trim and accessories.
The cauldron is a fish bowl. I added a layer of tissue for texture, glued on critters, and painted the whole thing with iron patina. The best thing is that it’s glass, and the tissue doesn’t totally cover it, so you get this when it’s lit:
There are three of these lights in the cauldron, set to strobe at different speeds, so I get a fire effect. There is also a fire & ice light aimed at the whole thing.
This is cheering me on a gloomy, dark day:
My Secret Pumpkin spoiled the hell outta me. It felt like my birthday as I unwrapped all the beautiful presents. They are really tuned into my taste. Some of this is stuff I’ve wanted, but not bought because I wasn’t going to get one more Halloween thing that year. And despite being completely my taste, I don’t already have any of it. Which, yeah, shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is. Heh. Don’t judge. I specifically remember seeing that snowglobe and whimpering a little as I passed it up. So this is amazing, and I am giddy. Thank you, SP!
It’s that time of year when we are farthest from our favorite holiday–which means it’s Secret Pumpkin time!
This year I got to make something for Pixel Pixie, who I actually know IRL. I have always wanted to spookify a box, but I was especially inspired by the work of Jamie Moore.
Of course, my stuff looks nothing like hers, but hey, that’s how inspiration works for me.
I didn’t take a picture, but this was originally a vintage Christmas box with kind of a weird Santa painting.
I gave it a fresh coat of paint, then I hand-painted the front and sides. The back and inside (except for the starry sky) are lined with pretty paper, and the whole thing got some satin lacquer. This was a blast to do, and I’ve been collecting jewelry boxes from thrift stores so I can do more makeovers.
It’s Secret Pumpkin time again, and this year my giftee was the Mistress herself, Jenna of Shadow Manor. Boy howdy did I have fun with this one.
It started with a board from Laser Lizard. I didn’t take a picture, but you’ll see the whole thing later. I wanted to make stencils for the elements that repeated, so I started sketching flourishes on the edges of the board. Afterward, they were traced and imported to my Silhouette Cameo, then cut from Contact paper. After the board was stained, the stencils were carefully applied and painted in.
You can’t see them here, but the stencils included extra little circles for registration marks, so I could get everything where I wanted it. I cut the stencil from clear plastic, laid that down, then filled in the registration marks. Then I could line up the Contact paper stencil with the marks.
Here is the finished border.
Next, even more pencil guidelines, and out came the Montana Marker. I did some preliminary sketching, then went for it. NOTE: Do not use brush varnish with Montana Markers. Trust me on this. Spray is your friend.
Some of my favorite bits from the alphabet:
Oh, and the HALLOIUJA in the first picture is a nod to the font from the original Oiuja board.
The main art pieces were a haunted house and a cemetery. Note how I snuck my signature on to one of the tombstones.
The planchette was a triangular wood piece that I trimmed down with a Dremel. I cut a hole and use a router bit to make a shelf to hold the lens.
Feet were glued on, and felt added to the bottom of them. Then it got a candy-corn paint job.
Here’s the whole shebang, with about a million coats of varnish. I didn’t take a pic, but I also made bags for the board and planchette using an extra vampire cape I had hanging around. Because doesn’t everybody have one of those?
This was massively fun, and it turned out pretty much exactly as I pictured it in my head. Sure, it may summon a demon, but it will be a very silly demon.
