Wormless Mother's Day

I don't like to brag, but I didn't have to make Dirt 'n Worms for Mother's Day this year.  Either my children have finally outgrown it or just forgot because we're all in this weird limbo of depressing Covid19 funk.  Don't get me wrong, I am truly grateful to be riding this low grade fog of gloom.  It means that so far we've been spared the horrors that so many others have faced. 

I am also grateful my kids are old enough to be self-sufficient, but still young enough to be here at home with me. Not that I normally go for a bunch of fanfare, but this Mother's Day was definitely more subdued than usual and it wasn't because of the absence of gummy worms. But there's two things worth mentioning as they pertain to this blog.

First, my son got me the Pumpkin King. I haven't paid attention to the Disney line of minifigs, because I could care less about princesses or Mickey Mouse. That it would also include The Nightmare Before Christmas, never crossed my mind. It's a good thing my son is looking out for me. He also special ordered the white spider web with the clear blue spider because he thought it went with the theme. Obviously he has good taste. You'll be sure to see a reappearance of Jack this Creepmas. I do hope they come out with a Zero minifig.

The second thing is a request I got from a friend. She had a last minute Mother's Day gift idea and wanted to know if I had any bottles of a certain size that she could use. I might have had a few... Can I just take a moment to say it's not hoarding if you put it to good use? Maybe one more time for those in the back row? IT'S NOT HOARDING IF YOU PUT IT TO GOOD USE! Obviously my super power is holding on to things until the universe requires their services.

So this what I, and a number of other mothers who are lucky enough to know this wonderful, creative woman received for Mother's Day. I almost feel bad that every Halloween I practically make her pee her pants by scaring her. I said almost. Her screams are much too delightful to give up.

Creepmas Came Early...

…or at least that's what it feels like.  Last week Lady M expressed interest in my pandemic masks and one does not want to disappoint the mistress of The Haunted Parlor.   By way of thank you, she has gifted me a box full of goodies!  Thank you Lady M for putting a smile on my face!

I am now the proud recipient of one of Lady M's coveted miniature Ouija boards.  So much detail in a thing so tiny, it's amazing.  I can't wait to start summoning micro demons.

And more of her laser work, bats...

…and witches & webs.  The webs are so incredibly thin and beautiful. 

It almost looks like quilled paper but with the sturdiness of wood.  

The lovely bones...

I'll have to think of something fabulous to do with all of these but you can see all the cool stuff she's done at the Haunted Parlor.  A few of my favorite posts are here, here, and here.

Also included in the mix, these tiny little potion bottles.

Pretty little bat earrings.  

And these cool skulls.

And there's still more.  It all came in this custom Haunted Parlor box, covered in vintage newspaper, where they can all reside while I'm waiting for my brain to kick in with creativity. I love the skeleton hand!

There are lot's of interesting ads and articles.  A reminder this is not our first rodeo...

Not sure if ice cream would even be the first thing anyone recovering from Covid19 would want, but all the local ice cream shops are closed anyway.  Which is a shame because the Chocolate Shoppe makes Exhausted Parent (bourbon-spiked espresso ice cream swirled with bittersweet chocolate chunks), that I'm sure everyone, not just parents could appreciate right now.

As an adult I generally pass on ice cream unless it's coffee flavored, that seems to balance out the sweet for me, although I occasionally indulge in Babcock's orange custard chocolate chip. Now as a kid, and up until my late twenties, it was always blue moon, which I didn't realize was a regional delicacy until I was older. 

Even though it's not my favorite thing, at this moment the simple indulgence of going out for ice cream would be heavenly.  Is it too much to hope Covid19 decides to take the summer off?    

From The Depths of the Deep Blue Sea

It's about time I finished this bottle, which I started back at the last craft party.  The contents were done, but I didn't like the lid.  I could've just painted it black and called it a day, but I had a vision and sometimes those bastards are persnickety.


I found a nice simple template for the boat at MollyMooCrafts.   I made mine on a much smaller scale of course. Actually I made two, slightly different sizes, because I wasn't sure what I wanted. When cutting out the pieces, instead of cutting all the way around, I left tabs sticking out here and there to aid in the assembly process.  After all the pieces where glued in place and dried, I set the boats on top of the lid and there they sat.  For a really long time.  A really, really long time, in a slightly mocking manner.

See, being made out of printer paper they were too thin and flimsy to just paint. And the thought of reinforcing their teeny tiny little hulls with paper mache seemed torturous. So they sat.  That is until The Great Nerf War of 2018. 

An epic battle some say, even though the only casualty was a living room wall.  Since I had to get everything out to patch a hole, I decided to also tackle the Father Vs Son WWF Match dent and the Ninja Sneak Attack dings.  The thing is, I live with animals, but as a result I've become a bit of a drywall repair goddess.  So there's that.

When it comes to drywall stuff and paint, I never work out of the original containers, I always just take out a little more than I think I'll.  So after everything had been repaired, I had a little bit of this and a little bit of that leftover.  I felt bad about just tossing it, so I mixed it all together.  It was maybe (didn't measure) 3 parts all-in-one primer paint, which is really thick and creamy, to which I had added some sand texture, 1 part joint compound and just a smidge of fiber reinforced compound.  Well it was all consolidated in one container now, but what to do with it? And there were those two little boats staring at me.

Well it turns out this stuff was perfect for little boats. 6 thin coats, inside and out and my little boats are nice and sturdy, with a uniform thickness I wouldn't have been able to achieve with papier mache.  On a few passes I scraped the side of the brush against the top edge of the boats to make a thick ridge.


The fabric draped over the lid and used for the sail came from my daughter's old mermaid costume.  Sometimes it pays to know someone who's been through a princess phase.  I've been using pieces of her worn to death costumes for years.  They have layers of different textured fabrics that have come in handy more than once.  This piece is some kind of synthetic satiny material. For the sail I distressed it by setting a toothpick on fire, blowing it out and using the glowing embers to burn tiny holes in it.  I started out using an open flame on the pieces hanging over the lid but that was too hard to control, stuff burns like crazy. Which leads me to realize how lucky we were that her "Princess, Sponge Bob, Jellyfish, Snake & Worm Party"*, full of princess garbed little girls, didn't play out like a scene from The Towering Inferno.

*That's the kind of stuff you end up with when you ask five year olds what they want to do for their birthday.

Continuing on, the mast is a toothpick with a few small beads on top, and is set into a small grommet.  The "water" is glue, fabric and tissue paper.  There's a little bit of cheesecloth down the sides.

If I were to do this again I would start with the lid and then add the contents.  As it was I had to cover the jar in painters tape, and keep it upright so as not to jostle the stuff inside.  I was too scared to take the lid of and work on it separately.  Things have grown in there since last year.  I can only imagine the aroma that would ensue from opening that jar. I do love the murky effect.  Yes for once that's not just crappy photography on my part, that haziness has been organically grown.  There's even an interesting line of rusty colored growth.

I rather like the idea of my pirate, decomposing next to his treasure, looking up from the murky depths of the ocean floor, contemplating whether or not it was worth it.

Creepy Crawly Adorned Bottles

This is another experimentation into altered bottles.  For these the common component is plastic creepy crawlies.

Both started out with a layer of  mod podged tissue paper.  The paper makes for a nice surface for everything else to cling to.  Then it was just a matter of gluing stuff on and painting them.

Last year while I was putting away Halloween stuff I thought the spiders made a nice design laying side by side. A normal human being would probably just have glued the spiders on by eyeballing it.  I'm am sure that would work just fine. I can be a little particular.  That's why I measured the circumference of the bottle and used graph paper to evenly lay out the spiders.  I pinned cheesecloth over the graph paper and glued the spiders to their proper places.  I let it set for a minute or two. Long enough for the spiders to stay in place, but short enough that I could pull the graph paper off.  Ignore the concentric circles they're for another project.

Gluing the spiders on the cheesecloth worked pretty well.  Once the glue had dried I applied Mod Podge on the bottle and wrapped the spider cheesecloth around it.  I still had to touch up a few legs with glue, but it was much easier with the spiders already in place.  Because the spider bodies were flat they pulled up a little in the rear, so I added a little layer of tissue paper to cover up the gap.  This also gave a little texture to the smooth plastic.  I probably could have used a heat gun to curve the bodies to the jar, but I didn't trust myself not to melt the legs.  After painting I added the rhinestones.

Next up is this centipede jar.  I really fail at photographing metallics, so you'll just have to imagine rich copper tones, champagne gold, antique bronze and just a hint of metallic green.  Beside plastic centipedes, I used cord, rhinestone mesh and lentils as embellishments.  

Hiss & Hearse Bottles

And the obsession with altered bottles continues...

I really just wanted an excuse to try different textures, so I made a couple of simple labels.  Images are courtesy of the Graphics Fairy.  Font is Carnivalee Freakshow by Livin Hell.

I was inspired by another Russian bottle. I love the way the bottle has it's own persona.  I hope I've been able to create that with this lovely couple.  I can't decide if they are dressed for a courting stroll among the tombstones, maybe fancy dress for a mourning party or perhaps the dirge of nuptial bells signals wedding attire.

Both are plastic bottles that I didn't even bother to remove the original labels from. I just Mod Podged a layer of tissue over them. Yet another thing to love about this style of bottle.

From top to bottom: Hiss is a wearing a cork & bottle cap hat inspired by a skeleton at this year's craft party.  The bottle cap didn't make quite a wide enough brim, so I flattened it a bit with a hammer.  Then the brim wasn't tall enough so I lengthened it with tinfoil.  It's a beautiful thing all the flaws that can be concealed with a coat of paint. The brim is adorned with a little plastic bat that I bought on clearance years, and I mean years ago and I finally used it! A piece of elastic cut from a cheap plastic mask gave nice lines as a hatband.  Have I mentioned you can use anything on these bottles? The middle of the bottle is textured with eggshells and there are a few smidges of cheesecloth to complete his ensemble.

Using eggshells is one of those techniques I've been dying to try.  There are a lot of different ways to lay out the shells. You can break them into small pieces and individually place each piece.  You can lay out large pieces and press them flat, creating many tiny cracks. This looks especially cool with alcohol inks which get into the fine cracks.

I went with the method were you place large pieces of eggshell on a layer of glue and then split them into smaller pieces with a toothpick.  You can use your fingers but I think the toothpick gives you better control and it can also be used to space out the pieces as you go.  It's kind of fussy, but it looks cool.  I would not have the patience to do a large surface this way, but doing a section of this small bottle went quickly.

The hardest part was cleaning the shells, specifically the thin membrane attached to the shell.  I used raw eggs so I don't know how hard-boiled might differ.  I rinsed the shells with hot water.  By grabbing a broken edge you can peel a fair amount of the membrane off.  Anything that remains will easily rub off.  I know it doesn't sound hard. The problem is without the membrane the shell becomes very fragile, so you have to very gently rub off the remaining bits if you want large pieces to work with.  You can't skimp on this step.  If the membrane is still on when you break the large pieces into place it will be impossible to space out the smaller pieces unless you cut that membrane.  The good news is gets easier with practice to clean the shells.

Eggshells open up a whole other avenue of crafting using paints, dyes, alcohol inks, decoupage and I'm sure many more techniques that I haven't seen yet. I have a smattering of cool Halloween napkins that I picked up with decoupage in mind, so you'll probably see me do this sooner or later, but for this I just painted the whole bottle with acrylics.

On the subject of eggshells, while researching techniques I fell in love with two mosaics by Linda Biggers.  One being this murder of crows  and the other this gorgeous, yet spooky tree.

From top to bottom: Hearse has on an acrylic gem, which just happened to set nicely on a large eyelet. You can't see it, but a circle of braided cord covers the eyelet.  She's wearing black netting that used to be a bag containing plastic bugs.  Over that is a layer of lace.  I think I would have preferred the look of a more delicate lace, but I'm not frilly or fancy so this is the only lace I had in my stash to work with.  Now that I'm looking at her, I think maybe she needs some pearls.

That's two more bottles down and 53,716 more to go (give or take a few).

Altered Potion Bottles

I'm obsessed with altered bottles.  I blame the Russians.  I got sucked in by their pinterest Postila.ru which led me to Stranamasterov.ru  According to Google Translate it is:  Country of Masters - a site about applied creativity for children and adults: crafts from various materials with their own hands, master classes, competitions.

The variations of bottles is endless and I want to make all the bottles with everything.  As I mentioned in my craft party post you can use anything to decorate these bottles, the hardest part is choosing what. Before the party my daughter and I each created a bottle using different items and techniques to use as examples.

The bottle above is my daughters creation. She worked too fast for me to get before and after pictures.  She started with a layer of Mod Podge and tissue paper.  Our city recycling program can't accept tissue paper, so I always save it for projects like this.  She chose to hot glue her items on.  She used twine, beaded garland, and broken jewelry; bit of chain, charms and links.  There are faux pearls, some wavy bits that are pieces of shell and of course smaller whole shells.  There is a bit of mesh packing paper, which has some neat texture. She used fabrics and even some vinyl from a repair kit which also had some interesting textures. Most items where attached before painting, but you can see some were added after for a pop of color.

I had seen bottles like this using dried plants and was curious to see how that would actually work.  I also wasn't sure what medium they were using to set the plants into.  After reading through a few translated how-to's I decided to go with a mixture of Elmer's white glue and spackle.  I added a little glue at a time until the spackle was the consistency I wanted.

First I started with a layer of Mod Podged tissue paper to give the spackle mixture a better surface to cling to.  After the tissue paper was dry I added a rough layer of the spackle gunk with a tongue depressor  and started pressing things into it.  I used twine, dried ornamental grass, wood beads and the seeds my hamster doesn't like from her treat mix.  Towards the end I stuck on a glass gem with a skull picture from the previous craft party to try and show how those could be incorporated too.  It doesn't really work here, and looks every bit the last minute add-on that it is, but it's still a valid idea.  Next time I would  make the gem the focal and work the design around that.  I would also build up the medium more around the gem.

I love how a sloppy application of spackle adds interest to the surface of the bottle.  Being able to set things into it makes them part of the bottle as opposed to merely laying on top. The downside is the longer drying time.  I let my dry overnight before painting.  Gluing items worked better for the craft party, but if you have the time, the spackle method is certainly rewarding.

Easy Way To Remove Labels From Plastic

I have been saving this jar forever.  The kids talked one of their grandmothers into buying cheeseballs and apparently cheeseballs only come in these insanely huge plastic barrels.  I have no desire to acquire another insanely huge plastic barrel full of cheeseballs.  Although I can imagine presenting a large barrel of cheeseballs to Trick or Treaters and telling them to grab a handful.  I can also imagine trying to clean raw egg off the side of my house later.  So I've been hanging on to this one all this time, since besides having the capacity to hold an ungodly amount of cheeseballs, it could also easily fit a human head or a small carcass.   

Now back when I was a kid, we had reasonable sized containers of cheeseballs. If you're wondering whatever happened to Planters Cheez Balls, you are not alone.  

The reason I've been dragging my feet about using this container was the big label.  I really dislike removing labels from plastic, they generally refuse to nicely peel off.  Glass containers are so wonderful by comparison.  Soak in a little hot water, peel off label, razor blade any remnants off, use a little oil (I like coconut oil, it makes my hands soft) on the remaining glue residue. 

On the other hand unless you have magical powers you aren't going to be able to razor blade plastic without scratching it.  Some plastic containers can't even handle a hot water soak without warping.   Even if they can take the heat, usually only the top layer of the label comes off  leaving behind all the adhesive still stuck to the bottle.  I think Goo Gone takes less elbow grease than natural oils when working with plastic, but I hate working with that stuff it's pretty harsh.  

Well I had an epiphany last week. This is not the quickest process, but very little effort is needed. I'm sure instead of letting things sit overnight, a few hours would do.  It was just convenient to do right before going to bed.  I soaked a rag in hot water and placed it over the label and let it sit overnight.  The next day I rubbed that top layer of label off and rubbed oil into the remaining adhesive.  Then I let that soak in overnight.  I rubbed off that remaining layer.  I used a little more oil to get any last bit of adhesive off and then wiped it down real good and cleaned it up with water and vinegar. 

Even though it took a couple of days, I spent very little time physically removing the label.  This was so simple I could kick myself for not thinking of it sooner.  I have used the same method since with some smaller containers I was avoiding and it works like a charm every time.  I fear plastic bottles no more.

Craft Party 2017

At the party someone asked me how many years I've been doing this and I couldn't remember off the top of my head.  Going back through old photos I realized this was our 10th year of official organized Halloween crafting. I guess I missed the opportunity to have a "10th Anniversary" party.  I can't believe I've gotten away with inflicting my addiction onto my friends for an entire decade.

The one thing you can count on every year is me not getting pictures of everything. This year I totally outdid myself and took crappy pictures besides.  I apologize to everyone who's creations look less than what they are due to my sorry photography.

It wouldn't be a Halloween craft party without potion bottles. 
There were glittery potions,

...disgusting concoctions,

...and just plain spooky bottles, 

 

Flowers might not seem spooky until you realize
that's a pile of bones at the bottom of the jar.

...and new this year, creepy bottles inspired by Russian crafters. Not that the Russian's are the only one's doing this, but more often then not I find myself on Russian craft sites.  You can check out my Craft Party 2017 pinterest board to see a few examples or search on "altered bottles".  This is what we came up with.

 

The best and worst thing about these bottles is you can use almost anything.  Sometimes having limitless choices can be a bit daunting, but this is a great way to use up odd bits of stuff.  These bottles used a variety of tissue paper, netting, twine, cord, beaded garland, old or broken jewelry, beads, glass gems, shells, dried lentils & seeds, faux flowers, and plastic critters & bones.  I am happy to see my salt dough skulls and wire components I made practicing with a wire jig finally getting used for something. 

Vampire Blood and Life Renewal labels courtesy of Love Manor. 

There were more fashionista skeletons this year.  I think the outfits were even more elaborate than last year if that's possible.  This a great way to use up fabric scraps and old Barbie clothes.  Nothing goes with gold pants like a Madonna style bustier and although it's hard to tell, the gal next to her is pregnant will a smaller rubber skeleton.  Congratulations, I guess?  

I like this bottle cap & cork top hat.  

Another great hat and who doesn't like furry gogo boots?

What this guy lacks in fashionable attire he makes up for with his interesting array of friends.  Bonus points for using a leftover piece of fence from an old project as a ladder to stand on (can't see in this picture).

There were also skeletons in jars.  Which is a nice way to display your favorite skelly, like this mermaid from last year's party.

A couple of our younger patrons came up with these jar ideas. 

The pictures don't do them justice, but I loved them so much I had to make my own.  I really like how the water doesn't cover the skeleton. I imaged it was low tide with the sea foam (sesame seeds) swirling around him.  I couldn't get the right sea levels on mine and ended up filling the jar.  Another nice thing about using jars, is the skeleton is protected. I had to snap a few joints to get mine posed right. They aren't broken all the way through, but they definitely wouldn't survive long if he was being man handled.  There was some leftover chain with tiny medallions that I piled up to look like treasure.  You can't take it with you, but that doesn't stop some from trying. 

This was a plastic bendy skeleton, partially spray painted. I like the two-face effect. You have to be careful when using spray paint on plastic, even if it's paint & primer or it says it's specifically for plastic. He's one of those plastics that doesn't play well with spray paint and as a result he will be forever sticky, but he looks so dementedly cool.  I'd be curious to see him sprinkled with black sand or glitter on the sticky bits for a little texture.

Here are some silhouette lantern jars.  Lightly spray painted in the inside and designs copied on the outside with black paint pens.  I'm glad to see more salt dough skulls finding a purpose.  I wish I wouldn't have tried to get the skulls into the first picture because it's not a good view of the four cats below.  The cat clipart can be found at ClipArtQueen. The "Eek" is from TheDiyVillage. The owl I found at FaveCrafts and the other cat is on pinterest.

One last creation is this Lost City. 

I forgot the actual name, but it's not Atlantis, because that's underwater.  

And now for the only reason my husband comes up from the basement while all this is going on, the food.

People brought some awesome goodies.  Monsters & mummies, spidery treats and other creepy delights.  There was a really pretty fall decorated cake, but I didn't think to take a picture until after I had already hacked it to pieces.  Seriously I shouldn't be allowed to cut cake, ever.

I have to admire these spider cookies, because I too once fell for the old “use a toothpick to drag out ‘legs’ from melted choc chips” and mine didn't turn out nearly as well as these.  There is a whole story about the photoshopped cookie that's plastered across the internet and has led to millions of chocolate chip cookies being decimated by toothpicks. 

I have zucchini up the wazoo this year, which is slightly more uncomfortable than it sounds.  So I might have made a few things with zucchini.  I'll post recipes later.  

I made Candied Lizard Skin (left) with one of my neighbors regular green zucchini and Frog Skin (right) with some of mine.  I should explain that mine is of the 8 ball variety, which as the name suggests is round and should be picked when it's about the size of an 8 ball.  This year my zucchini is having an identity crisis and has been more yellow than green.  

I also saved the syrup they were cooked in because it was bright green and purty.  I poured it into a beaker and set it by the food.  Halfway through the party I hear, "Mom can I drink this green stuff?" After I said yes I hear a bunch of others say, "Ooh I want to try it too!"  It wasn't until they had all tried it that I told them it was zucchini syrup.  Yeah, I'm a special kind of evil.

Alien Zucchini Ball

These are chocolate zucchini cake pops.

Since I had candy melts in other colors than the usual red and green, I decided to go for a bruised, decaying rat look. It ended up looking more like tie dye rat. 

And then I dropped the mold before I had poured the bottom, which wouldn't have been a total disaster, except this was "fancy rat" with raspberry blood, so it totally cracked and started to ooze. I sealed the bottom by laying it on top of a pool of melted red candy melts.  My husband had a great idea of adding more red candy blood to cover the cracks, which probably would've looked really good, but I think eating wise would've been too much candy melt.

Everyone at the party was very polite and lied and said my rat looked great and the cracks added character.

I do like how the raspberry blood oozed from the nostrils.
Too bad I would never be able to recreate that in a million years.  

I still had leftover purple and green melts so I decided to make Crunchy Beetle cookies in honor of Glenda Glinka:Witch-At-Large, one of my favorite books as kid. She's a bored witch who decides to amuse herself by turning into a little girl.  She's not sure what "PTA" cookies are so she decides to make her favorites in purple and green with lots of beetles.  I didn't actually want to bake anything so I dipped Oreo cookies and topped them with chocolate covered pecan roaches. 

One last thing just for fun.  I don't really decorate for the party.  Generally anything I display is a past project for inspiration or guidance.  Any other macabre stuff has probably been there all year.  The exception to that is the bathroom.  I saw this on Halloween Forum  and I knew I had to do it.

I used about 100 roaches.  Most of them are behind the door so people don't notice them right away.  There are a few strategically placed near where people would normally touch things like the light switch. Roaches are truly the gift that keeps on giving.  They freak people out even after they know they are there.  Roaches are magical that way. 

I use Loctite Fun Tak Mounting Putty. It comes cleanly off painted walls and does a great job holding the roaches. The only downside is it's blue and you can definitely see it from an angle, but trust me that's not what people see first. I did try Scotch Clear Mounting Squares, but they weren't strong enough.

And so that's what happened. I want to thank everyone for helping me make this a success year after year.