I won something & I bought some stuff....

So just for following the lovely Miss Miranda over at Spooky Little Halloween, I was entered into a drawing for a really cool book. And I won!

I confess to being kind of 'meh' about it at first, since I'm not really into blood & gore & hardcore horror. But this is actually really awesome! It's broken down into chapters like vampires, werewolves, man-made monsters (aka Frankenstein), aliens, ghosts, etc. It's full of images from old movie posters, paintings, magazines, illustrations - the whole gamut! If you click on the link up there, Miranda posted more pictures on that link, but these are a few of my favorites...

The cover art for the book "The Clock Strikes Twelve" by H.R. Wakefield

drawn by Ronald Clyne

"Bat-woman" circa 1890, by Albert-Joseph Penot

On the front endpaper...

"Hellscape", part of 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymus Bosch

Me & some friends wasted a lot of classtime in 12th grade when we found this in a book. It's one of those pieces where you're always finding something new & interesting in it.

****************

Christmas was really nice - Hubby got a me FitBit that I asked for, as well as the autobiography of Phil Collen from Def Leppard (my favorite band since high school) and this neat book. I haven't got into this one yet, since I started reading Adrenalized first. 

We got Randy a Man Crate - full of bacon jerky, bacon popcorn, bacon sunflower seeds, bacon peanut brittle, etc.  It was hilarious because it came in a wooden crate and they sent a crowbar with it, and I selected the option of having it shipped in a "diabolical duct tape cocoon"!  So the crate was in a cardboard box, and completely covered in duct tape.  And we got the girl a laptop.  There was other stuff, but those were the big things. 

Christmas Day / afternoon we met up with the rest of my family at Frankenmuth and stayed at the Bavarian Inn that has a waterpark.  Saturday, we went to Bronner's.  You can find ornaments for just about anything (except ham radio - I've looked! Randy & I are both amateur radio operators, but I digress)  It can be very pricey, tho!  I only bought 7 ornaments & big Mrs. Claus blowmold and spent $125 (~swoon~)

I still can't believe I dropped $20 on this one.  But look at the detail & glitter!  It's about 5 inches long.  I don't normally like the blown glass ornaments, but this is a nice one. 

The one on the left will look nice with some fake snow or something inside it to show off the trees.  And on the right has haunted houses & scary trees & the graveyard. 

 I really like it!

For shitz & gigglez - here's the rest of what I got there...

 The purple peacock bulb really caught my attention.  

The lighting in this pic doesn't do it justice. 

And it's hard to have a crappy Christmas when you have a happy toilet on your tree!

The heavy silver angel cat says 'In Loving Memory' and 

I'll write the names of our 2 cats that crossed the Rainbow Bridge on it. 

It's tough to find girl sailors, so I got this cute little guy for me 

and will put my rate & rank on the bottom part.

(8 years in the Navy 1992-2000)

And here's Mrs. Claus.  I've been wanting her forever and couldn't pass her up because she was on clearance for $35!  She was a display model and has a tiny little bit of paint damage on her face.  But unless you're all up in her grill, you can't see it!

She goes well with the Santa.

 So how was your Christmas?

#MGC

Creepmas Day 9 - decorating the tree

Finally!

We've not been in a hurry to decorate the tree for one reason....

Kitten. 

aka Daisy

I don't think any further explanation is needed!

 So far, the only thing she seems to be interested in is this one green ball.  Here it is behind the door to the dog's crate.

Rudy likes the Detroit Red Wings tree!

 And the Tim Horton's tree, too!

 Miss Angela's collection of dance ornaments.

 My niece got me this big ol' thing a couple years ago & I love it! 

 Penguins & bacon & ballerinas, oh my!

 And what tree is complete without it's own aircraft carrier?

#MGC

Canterbury Village

Woohoo!  A store review of Halloween stuff that hasn't been done 47 times already!  

This morning, the hubby is gone for the day (Michigan people - it's Woodward Dream Cruise time!) and Miss Angela wanted to go "do" something.  So I suggested going to Always Christmas at Canterbury Village in Lake Orion. Surprisingly, she agreed! I rewarded her afterward with a stop at the giant mall that's right there, too - Great Lakes Crossing. 

This used to be the hugest store outside of Bronners, but they condensed down into 3 smaller buildings - one of all Department 56 stuff, one of ornaments (a lot of German mouth blown ones that I don't care for) and the one with furniture & lamps & nativities & Halloween - because those totally go together, right?!!  

Let me digress for a moment.  I saw 1 lonely freakin' nutcracker in a display.  Seriously people?  You're a Christmas store - why do you NOT carry nutcrackers??? 

So anyhoooo, the sign in the Halloween section said truthfully that they carry non-scary things.  And it's true.  This guy was probably the scariest thing we saw. 

Except for this Santa!  Angel tried to tell me he was turned out in the ballet 1st position, but I disagree.  What's up with the one huge leg?

 So here was the first view....oh the glorious oranges, greens & purples!

 The gray and brown spools in the basket are chicken wire!  But for $6.99?  

  The basket on the left has ornaments about the size of my hand, but flattened.  

The had spider webs painted on them. 

 All of the shiny orange balls are plastic.  

 I didn't play with the witch to see if she was one that rose up - 

here she stood around waist-height. 

I was disappointed in the 3 foot skeletons.  Altho the plastic was heavy & sturdy feeling, the limbs were attached with wire so they didn't hang right - wouldn't pay $35 for them.  If I needed any more little guys, I'd go to Michaels.  

 I liked this guy's face and his black cat hanging on the bowl.  

 Lots of wired ribbon.

  The plush JOL scarecrows I saw in a different building for $5. 

I should have gotten another picture directly to the left - they had a pretty neat black willow tree.  You can see part of it here.  Would look awesome on a mantle or table in a foyer.  

Oh if I had a bigger house! 

  The candy corn box (lower right) is pretty neat. 

 They had some really different black wire trees.  Very sturdy. 

 The sconces were pretty cool.  Looks like they could hang up or down.

 I thought this was a cool idea.  A small black tree hanging from the ceiling with spider webs & black twigs....

 For not having "scary" things- the witches were all pretty creepy in their own right.  

 One of the buildings at Canterbury Village looks like a castle, so these guys must have been banished from there, to stand in the corner. 

 Plastic ornaments

 I liked this glass spider.  I think it was $5.95 or $6.96.  

All of their ornaments ran for close to that. 

 Happy little ghostie. 

 Happy mummy

and the cutest werewolf I've ever seen!

 

 Is it me or do the brooms like like giant doobies? 

So, altho I enjoyed browsing, I didn't buy anything.  So far I'm making good on my vow to take it easy on the buying this year.  But of course - I haven't gone anywhere I really want to shop at yet!  Most of the places I like to stop at (At Home, Halloween City, Hobby Lobby, Pier One, Marshalls, HomeGoods and now Kirklands) are all over by Angel's dance studio and since she drives herself now....I would have to make a special point of going over there!    

#MGC

C2H - 1 day!!! Inside the Maple Grove Manor

Squeeeee, can you believe it???  TOMORROW !!!

First, let's take a look at the weather report & grumble about it....this is obviously from last night, since that's when I put this post together!

 Crap, crap, crap!  I don't like that "S" word!!

Token JOL pic

 I love these guys - I got them at Bordine's Nursery, of all places!  

 I seem to be accumulating a bunch of skulls.  

There's also a Crystal Skull Vodka bottle in the kitchen. 

 I have well over 100 nutcrackers out at Christmas, so why not Halloween, too??

(and Easter & St. Patrick's...)

 All my dancing girls (including the one on the wall!)

 I love this porcelain skeleton - it weighs a ton so it gets to chill in the doll bed next to Mr. Clean. 

 The ceme-terraium

 And of course, Chester

 and Maddie!