For those who like their spooky with a side of folk art, here are a few pieces from Sharon Bloom’s Halloween Boo-Tique.
I’ve featured artwork from Denise a couple of times on Spooky Moon, in part because her website is called Spooky Moon Art.
Rarely have I seen spooky mix with charming so successfully.
One of the coolest things she does is take your ordinary house, and make it haunted. Someday, when I’m not living in a too-ordinary townhouse…
You can purchase these original watercolors from Denise’s website. I found Halloween Path from her posting on the Halloween Folk Art Society group on Facebook–a group most of my readers will enjoy very much.
After driving into Baltimore for a disappointing Halloween craft show (which shall remain unnamed), I decided the trip shouldn’t be a total bust, and looked up Bazaar, which turned out to be close by.
It’s a small space, but the curation is perfect.
Lots of bones, and for you gross types, plenty of wet specimens.
They also carry fun bits of art, pins, rings, tarot, and penis candles. Because of course they do.
I ended up with some wonderful posters I talked about yesterday, plus a tarot deck I’ll talk about tomorrow.
The shop was instantly comfortable despite the size. I just felt like I belonged. Also of note, usually antiques demand a higher price at brick-and-mortar shops, but I found nothing over what I see online. Impressive.
Bazaar is surrounded by colorful shops. Lots of antiques and way too many sweets. It’s a nice place to stroll around and play dodge-hipster. I know I’ll be back.
On a recent trip to Baltimore, which I will talk about later, I found some delightful posters made by Madame Talbot.
Yes, I bought the Halloween poster, and this one:
I’ve had a thing for fortune telling paraphernalia lately.
Talbot also sells curiosities and t-shirts. Her style is irresistible. It’s all I can do not to grab up a copy of every single poster.
Welcome to October, my lovelies. It’s good to see you. For our first course, I present Jacob Crowder.
Not only are his tattoos beautiful and spooky, many of the images are characters in a story you can find on his website.
For Jacob’s most recent work, check out his Intsa.
The Black Sun, Bill Mayer
Sorry for the lack of posts. I was going to say “slackage,” but oh, it isn’t that.
We’re moving. We do this about every two years. That’s not a problem. The problem is that the timeline got moved up, so my life is all bubble wrap and boxes. I’ll pop in as often as I can, but my grand plans are scuttled.
So y’all have extra Halloween for me, k?
I’m gonna say this right up front, before y’all TL;DR: this dough is very soft. Chill it overnight, and roll it between sheets of parchment. I even cut it out on the parchment, picked out the scraps, and put the whole sheet on my cookie pan to bake. So much less hassle, even though it was tough to get a full batch at once.
I love the texture of gingerbread, but hate ginger. These cookies start with a gingerbread base, and use my own blend of spices. Your house is gonna smell so good. I’d ramble on like a food blogger, but I hate that crap, so here’s yer recipe.
Spice Cookies
- 3 cups flour (sift before measuring)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1½ teaspoons cinnamon (I use Vietnamese cinnamon–it’s stronger)
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- 3/4 cup room-temperature butter
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I use Whey Low Gold or Sukrin Gold)
- ½ cup molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Put the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix them together with a whisk. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the rest of the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients gradually and mix on low until blended.
Pat the dough into a thick rectangle (easier to roll later), wrap in plastic, and refrigerate overnight.
Once thoroughly chilled, roll between two pieces of parchment paper to about ¼” thickness. Cut out shapes while dough is still on parchment. Pick out the scraps, and transfer the parchment to a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
The scraps will need to be refrigerated for a little while before re-rolling. Trust me on this.
I bake the cookies to eating consistency. If you baked them a bit longer, you could probably build a nice haunted house with them. A practice I strongly encourage.
I get a kick out of Voltaire. Here, he adds a bit of new age to his lair, to very good effect.
It is generally acknowledged, by those, by those in the spirit, that Halloween begins today (MY BIRFDAY) and ends on October 31.
The Fall of Dorothy, by Aimee Marie
As usual, I will be blogging daily, along with the folks at Countdown to Halloween. Every year the list of Cryptkeepers gets a wee bit longer. I highly encourage everyone to head over and do some old-fashioned surfing.
I have a plan for the month, and it’s definitely different, but it will take a few days for me to see if I can pull it off. So you get regular stuff for a little while.
Happy haunting!
