Z & Happy Halfway to Halloween!!!

Zombies

 These are my zombie babies.

Bettina Burnt, Penelope, Victoria the Victim & Anabel.

I'm growing my own zombie!

Barbie does everything else, she may as well be ready!

Happy Halfway to Halloween!!

I am a proud member of the Halloween Army . Granted, I do get my fair share of odd looks for thinking about Halloween year-round, but other people think this is all Satanic & other ridiculous-ness.  It's all fun, people!

Y

 Young Frankenstein

X

Xenophobia - the fear of foreigners or strangers

Oh wait - a fear of STRANGERS - not just strange.  Well then.  No pics.  Sorry!

W

Werewolves

 Not werewolves

(but they are eye-candy!)

V

Vampires

 Bela Lugosi

 Christopher Lee

 Grandpa Munster (Al Lewis)

 NOT a vampire!

But someplace that would be fun to go .....Vampire Vineyards!

U

Ugly & gross yet totally edible food!

This is just what everyone needs for their next Halloween party! 

(Cooked chicken breakfast sausage in hot broth) 

 (jackfruit slices, beans & shanghai noodles, bamboo shoots)

 (boiled cauliflower, tapioca pearls, shanghai noodles, hard-boiled egg slices, rice noodles)

(fat rice noodles, noodles & a mushroom, bamboo shoots)

Some of these are so disgusting looking that unless I knew what I was eating, I probably wouldn't - and I consider myself pretty adventurous when it comes to food.

All of these lovely appetizers were found at EvilMadScientist.com.  I cannot think of a more fitting name for the website who came up with this idea!!  Kudos to their madness!

T

Terrarium Mini-Graveyard!!

I saw this on one of the blogs that I follow & thought it was brilliant.

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I was wandering through one of the local Salvation Army's and came across this for a whopping $5.99.

The glass panes are held together by a single line of black silicone on the inside of the terrarium and some of it was starting to tear.  So I wrapped a belt around it (the paint bottles are to make it snug) and filled the outer gaps with hot glue.

PSA - when you're using hot glue - please remember that your skin, particularly the delicate skin on the back of your hand, does not like the hot glue.  It's been almost a week and my burn would still make a zombie proud.

I was going to attempt to smooth out the hot glue, but I had the idea to paint it brown & then dry brush black over it so it resembled wood. 

I like how that looks.


I used Sculpey oven bake clay to make some headstones.

Since it IS a terrarium, I got some suitably funky plants from the local nursery and also perused their "miniature gardening" section and found an awesome lantern and what is a graveyard without a shovel??.  If I'd used a different or bigger container, they had a really cool picket fence and a statue that would have been perfect!

"Alternanantera Ficoidea"

"Haworthia Minima"

"Sagina Aurea"  

air plant

Look how tiny these are compared to a regular house key!!

Looking down inside.

I can't with to see what the hubby thinks of it when he gets home!

edit...he likes it!

S

Spiders!

I figured I probably freaked enough people out with the snake post, so these will be nice & pretty spiders!

I found this pin on Pinterest so it was my inspiration.  As with just about any project I take on - I had to do some tweaking.  In the inspiration post, they took the leg wires & twisted them around the body wire.  Eh.  I didn't like how big that made the area between & head & body beads.    Sooooo........

 I bent the leg wire in half & added a crimp bead close to the bend to make a loop.

 Here you can see I threaded the head , 4 sets of legs and the body onto a finding.

I think I finally need to accept that the body bead is just too heavy for the legs and make a smaller spider. Which sucks because I really like those big beads! Possibly the front 2 sets of legs are too long, too. 

However, the green one up top worked out pretty nicely.

 I'd much rather have these in my house than the real ones!

R

Ravens (nope - not going the Edgar Allen Poe route!)

 The Ravens at the Tower of London.

Damn!!  They're huge!!

Ravens are fascinating critters!!

The largest of the crow family, they eat everything and can live anywhere - mountains to desert to seaside.  They are very intelligent and can learn tricks and can use logic.

They are noted many times throughout history and literary works.  They're mentioned several times in the Bible - my favorite is in Genesis 8:7, they were the first birds off of Noah's Ark.

According to legend, the Kingdom of England will fall if the ravens leave the Tower of London.

They are mentioned in several of Shakespeare's plays - Macbeth, Othello and Julius Caesar.

In Sweden they are considered to be ghosts of those who were murdered (I wonder if this is why they're called a murder of crows??) and due to them enjoying carrion, they are associated with death and lost souls.

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Q

the RMS Queen Mary

She sure doesn't look scary!

The Queen Mary made her first voyage in 1936 and made 1,001 trips across the Atlantic Ocean.   Between that and being a troop ship (aka The Grey Ghost) in World War II, she is counted among the top 6 most haunted places in the U.S. (note to self - find out the other 5!!)

Most of my sources listed below mention door 13 in the engine room where a young engineman was crushed when the watertight door slammed shut during a drill.  Smoke and bright lights are seen and the door feels hot.

During WWII, she collided with a smaller ship and nearly cut it in two, leaving 300 crewmen exposed to the elements & sharks.  There are reports of screams from the crew of the smaller ship and also the sound of the collision.

Overall there were 49 deaths reported on board the Queen Mary, but also 600 spirits lingering around her.  Sounds like a good reason to visit Long Beach, California!!

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P

Stephen King's Pet Semetery

I saw this movie with my sister (with whom I shared a room).  I don't think we slept for a week afterward!

O

Ophidiophobia - the fear of snakes

Since there are zillions of snakes in the world - these are a couple lovely Michigan species. 

 Eastern Garter Snake

My mom would swear this guy was 40 feet long 

and just ate a horse!

 Blue Racer

 Northern Water Snake

 Smooth Green Snake

OK - this is beautiful!  Look at that color!

 Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake

Michigan's only venomous snake

It is of "special concern" status, 

on the verge of being an endangered species,

 due to wetland habitat loss & evil people.

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N

Stephen King's Needful Things

One of the more confusing movies I've seen.

M

Mummification of..........a Sock Monkey!!

I saw a woman selling one of these at a craft show last fall - and I totally would have bought from her - if she wasn't charging $40 for it! 
So I made my own.

This was a small monkey - a prototype, if you will.  I wanted to mess around and see if I could get it how I want before trying out a big one.  Please excuse the 2 different monkeys - I forgot to take "before" pictures, so I borrowed the girl's.

This was a Sock Bunny, but the ears were only tacked on with 3 stitches.  

The next item is an old t-shirt.  

This one has been used for cleaning & whatnot, so it is nice & dingy.

 Ensure that the monkey is indeed dead. 

 Cut the t-shirt into strips.  They range in size from about an inch to narrower.

Allow the inspector to approve the t-shirt strips.

 I did a large running stitch along the edge 

as I went to hold the strips where I wanted.

I should not have messed with it, since I like how smooth it is here.

 (I re-did the head to use white instead of light blue thread).  

Wrap the arms, legs & tail.  Then cover the body.

 Done!

If I had kept at it and not unwrapped him several times, 

it probably would have taken 4 or 5 evenings in from of the TV.

Total cost?

monkey = $2.47

shirt & buttons = already had

needle & thread = already had.

What I will do differently next time....
-Use either green embroidery thread or puffy paint to make X's for the eyes instead of buttons.
-Possibly cover the entire body / limbs in a layer of t-shirt before wrapping so the color doesn't show thru. 
-Use shorter strips to cover armpit & 'bikini area' first before wrapping the rest.  Those were hard areas to cover neatly, especially with the tail.

My next victim!! 

L

Lumpy Brain Cupcakes

I apologize to anyone who came here prior to 6 am this morning - I knew I had a blank post scheduled to publish at 4:30 & forgot to get back online last night to actually create a post!

• Bake a batch of classic cupcakes.
  
• Spread a coat of light orange icing (we stirred drops of yellow and pink food coloring, and just a touch of green, into 2 cups of buttercream frosting until we had a hue we liked) on a dozen cupcakes.
  
• Use a pastry bag fitted with a number 10 round tip to top them with fat zigzags. It works best to first pipe two zigzags down the middle and then fill in the sides.

I like this one better, since it's made out of red velvet cake.

• Pink or white paper cupcake liners
• 1 recipe batter for Red Velvet Cupcakes
• 1 recipe Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting
• Red and black food coloring
• Pastry bag and large round tip

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Happy Friday the 13th!