Creepmas Ornaments

Looking for the perfect Creepmas ornament? Here are a few of my favorites...

 


UnDead Ed has some more fabulous ornaments this year.  I adore the one I got last year, it's been up since October.

That's right Snowman Poop by Crankyamoeba. My favorite is a bit more disturbing, but I didn't want to scare the faint of heart. 

Every tree needs a cute Cthulhu looking octopus like this one from Girl with a Frog Tattoo.

This skull from the Madame Macabre Shop is quite elegant with an understated bit of sparkle. 

How cutely disturbing is this little elf from Paper Moon Gallery?

Santa Skulls are always a classic and you can find this one at Foot Steps in the Wind. 

Not quite as classic, but who doesn't love a Santa fetus?  Also check out the zombie fetus by Feti.
How can it be so cute and yet so very, very wrong.

Speaking of wrong, wouldn't it be great to have this guy by Dogzillalives?  I imagine playing the Christmas pickle game with him, except you'll know when the kids find him because of the screams. 


 

Creepmas Nativites

I thought it wouldn't be right for me to poke at other people's nativities without doing one of my own. I did throw it together at the last minute, but it has all the major players. 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (at least that's the name they tried checking in at the inn with) and their little baby. The ghost angel, the three wise mummies and of course the witch and pirate shepherds. 

I had found a bunch of creepy nativity scenes, but then I found an awesome site by Eric Pazdziora and he's already done most of my finds, plus a whole lot more with better commentary than I would've come up with. They aren't all creepy, some are tacky, some are just bizarre, but all are worth a gander. Behold his collection of Sock Monkey Nativity Scenes. 

There is one that he missed but you can see it in all it's glory at Craftastrophe.

In case you don't click through all his other nativity collections, although it would be a shame not to, and you miss it, I'm reposting this link to The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas. It brought me to tears, in a good way.

Creepmas Worthy Videos

This video has all the makings of a holiday classic and one that we enjoy year after year.

 

 
Also on our yearly list is Billy & Mandy Save Christmas. It not only has Death personified, but vampires too! Although if you’re looking for skin crawling creepy, stick with the stop motion Rankin and Bass films.

Speaking of skin crawling, this video does just that.

 

Still looking for a holiday movie to curl up in front of? I would recommend The Pact. It's not a full fledged Christmas movie, but it does take place during the holidays.

I’ve always loved a good ghost story, but it seems like lately good stories have been replaced with jump scares induced by black eyed spirits, with gaping maws, that make weird clicking sounds and jerky movements.

I expected The Pact to be more of the same and was pleasantly surprised. It does go at a slower pace, but I can't say that's a bad thing. It’s not completely without flaws, but it delivers a well done ghostly murder mystery. I also enjoyed the bone chilling after effect, when I rehashed it in my head. I look forward to seeing it again.  

I will close with a campy 80's video for a Creepy Christmas.

Perler Bead Skull Ornaments

I came up with this design using leftover perler beads from a kit. 

 

To hang it on a decorative hook, I added 7mm square jump rings to the corner and attached a bow to hide the jump rings. If you don’t happen to have that stuff laying around, just use thread or ribbon.

The design below started out as a creative exercise to use exactly all of the leftover beads,

but he’s my favorite now. 

To get that shimmery look, sprinkle fine glitter over the beads, cover with parchment paper and iron as you normally would. It also helps to have a layer of parchment paper under the peg board if you want to keep glitter off your ironing board.  

 

 Here’s the design that was left on the paper after I flipped it over and glittered the other side. Yes, I took a picture of it, I think it looks cool. 

Here are diagrams of the designs, plus a bonus one I might make some day if I get more beads and a larger peg board. Or you can design your own, Kandipatterns.com has printable blank patterns, and an online designer.   

 

 

 

Zombie Pin-Up Calendar

Look what my husband got me for Creepmas!

He says it’s NOT a Creepmas present, but I ignore him because it obliviously is.
He’s a bit bah-humbug about Creepmas.
He says it’s not a REAL holiday. It’s just something people made up.
I say that’s every holiday, but he ignores me even though I'm obliviously right.
Then we give each other that look that silently means we agree to disagree.
That’s a nice way of not saying, “I think you’re being utterly too stupid for me to even bother trying to talk some sense into you.”
He says St. Nick’s isn’t a real holiday either.
St. Nick ignores him and fills his stocking anyway.


But let’s hear more about my awesome Creepmas present. 

It’s a Zombie Pin-Up Calendar!
But wait there’s more! 
All the proceeds go to help fund the Broom St. Theater!
And that’s not all!
It contains their 2014 schedule, so you’ll never miss a play!

I was introduced to Broom St. years ago by a woman named Karen who I have unfortunately lost touch with, so if you happen to run into her, tell her I said hi. Broom Street is one of many reasons I will forever be indebted to her. I’ve seen some of the most amazing plays there.

For more information on Broom Street Theater check out their website BSTonline.org

For more information on their Zombie Pin-Up Calendar check out Facebook.

Creepy Sock Monkeys

Even though Christmas started creeping into some stores as early as September, for me it was the hideous (as if there is any other kind) sock monkey ornaments that really heralded in the season.  To add insult to injury two isles over the Halloween merchandise was already being clearanced.  It was still two weeks until Halloween. 

Balance needs to be restored and so I welcome in the 2nd day of Creepmas with the diabolical sock monkey. I'm sure Christmas morning will find many a sock monkey under the tree.  Heaven help us all. 







I caught these two leering at me at a local store.  I don't know which is worse, a sock monkey version of the jolly old stalker who sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake or the swift, silent, and deadly camouflage one that you won't see until it's too late. 





I love the internet.  Plug in "Sock Monkey from Hell" and it spits back this collection of some of the most bizarre sock monkey pictures I've seen. 

Wondering where to find the huge sock monkey statue posing with the sock monkey boob shirt?  Again glorious internet, they are apparently scattered around Rockford, IL, home of the sock monkey and annual Sock Monkey Madness Festival.  I think an In the Mouth of Madness Festival would be less traumatic. 

Maybe you'd rather delve into some sock monkey literature or maybe paperbound nightmares would be a more apt description?

While on my quest of all things sock monkey, I found a copy of the creepy story of The Patchwork Monkey online, by way of M B Brophy.

Here are a few books that are still in print and probably serve a lighter fare.

Sock Monkeys: (200 out of 1,863) - This one intrigues me because I'm curious to read Neil Gaiman's contribution.

Update:  I found this at my local library. The inside covers front and back are two large shots showing a room full of sock monkeys. Bodies are strewn about in piles. My initial reaction was that I was witnessing some sort of mass grave. 

The rest of the book is black and white head shots, interspersed with a few bio’s. I only read a couple. Honestly I skimmed through a couple, I only read the one by Neil Gaiman. Sadly I didn’t care for it, I could see where it fit the sock monkey in question, it just didn’t appeal to me. 

The pictures are phenomenal, if by phenomenal I mean horrific images that will haunt me until the day I die. The photos really captured each sock monkey’s persona. Some look burley and mean, others look like evil geniuses and some look just plain evil.

As someone who dabbles in art projects and enjoys tweaking crafts, I could understand the impulses that led to the creation of these monkeys. I could see where the need to make the sock monkey their own, directed them to use obscure buttons or create crazy eyebrows, but for the most part these enhancements made them look all the more ghastly. I’m sure a few were created with that intention, but I would hazard to guess most sock monkeys are made with love and the desire to bring joy. That only goes to prove its true what they say, the road to hell is paved with sock monkeys.

Sock Monkey Dreams: Daily Life at the Red Heel Monkey Shelter - from the description, "...Sock Monkey Dreams dares to ask the question “What are sock monkeys up to when humans aren’t looking?” "
Not a question I dare to ask or want to know the answer to.

Sock Monkey Kama Sutra: Tantric Sex Positions for Your Naughty Little Monkey - OK this is just funny. 

Update:  I bought this one, and dare I admit that I love it? When someone combines a fad with a classic, there’s always the danger that they’ll put in minimal effort and try to extract maximum profit. This is NOT the case with Sock Monkey Kama Sutra, it’s very well done. The text is fun and informative. The sock monkey models are not creepy looking, surprisingly they are not even naked, they modestly keep their hats on the whole time. It’s definitely an enjoyable read for your inner naughty monkey. 


Almost done plugging Amazon, I came across one more thing that I have to share.

2014 Sock Monkey Wall Calendar - I used to just be freaked out by sock monkey's, you know a healthy dose of repulsion. After seeing these 12 sock monkeys I am now completely terrified and have banned socks from our home lest they form into an army of sock monkeys. I thought even a Cthulhu calendar would have to be less foreboding and after a half a second of searching I found this Cthulhu Christmas Calendar app.  How cute is that?

Last word on sock monkeys, Stacey Jean could almost lure me over to the dark side with her sock monkeys. This Sugar Skull Sock Monkey is not horrifying, it's kind of cute even.  As is the Voodoo Sock Monkey

Zombie Creepmas Cupcakes

If Death comes knocking at your door…

…bearing cupcakes it must be the first day of Creepmas!

 

Once again my daughter donned her Death costume, complete with Santa hat and candy cane striped scythe to help me kick off the Creepmas season. To see the full effect, check out our Creepmas card from last year. 

This year we handed out cupcakes to our neighbors. One of my neighbors let me borrow her paper punches so I could make tags. This year I was smart and put the web link on the back so everyone will know where to go for more Creepmas fun.

 

We also did up some candy canes for friends we'll see later. 

Our Creepmas cupcakes are a combination of quite a few recipes, so first let me give credit where credit is due.

Cherry Almond Muffin, Taste of Home - I loved the idea of a cheese cake center with red preserves. A tasty recipe in its own right that I've made before, but I didn’t think the almond crumble or the dense bottom were right for this project.

Zombie Cupcakes, Epicurious - I loved the look of the zombie hands, but fondant and gum paste doesn’t sound very tasty.

Sculptable Frosting, Sew Can Do - Sounded like it would make edible zombie hands.

Starburst Presents, Taste of Home - Festive and easy for the kids to make.

Vanilla Cupcakes, Joy of Baking - I used both the cupcake recipe and the buttercream frosting.

Disclaimer: I am not a baker. I have a few recipes in my arsenal that I’ve made often enough that there is minimal danger of me screwing them up. None of them show up in this project and I’m the last person that should be going rogue with a cupcake recipe, so continue at your own risk. The good news is you can make your favorite cupcake recipe and just slap a zombie hand and present on it and you’ve got your own Creepmas cupcake.

To illustrate my point, I thought it would be cool to pipe the jam into the center of the cheesecake mixture before baking, instead of swirling it. That didn’t work, it mostly sunk and made a soggy spot on the bottom of the cupcakes. (Sorry guinea pigs neighbors.) They were still tasty but I’ve corrected the recipe so no one has to repeat my mistake. 

Vanilla Cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 large lemon (outer yellow skin)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk


Cheesecake Filling:

1 - 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup raspberry jam, warmed


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a medium bowl beat cream cheese, egg, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Swirl in raspberry jam and set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl whisk together the lemon zest, flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. 

Drop one tablespoon of cupcake batter in each muffin cup. Push it down a little, but it doesn’t need to completely cover the bottom. Divide the cheesecake filling between each cup, about a heaping tablespoon. Add another tablespoon of cupcake batter on top. 

Bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until the cream cheese filling has set and the cupcakes feel springy to the touch (a toothpick inserted into the vanilla part of the cupcake will come out clean). Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.


Buttercream Frosting:

2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk 

In an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter until smooth and well blended. Add the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed, gradually beat in the sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the milk and beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes). Add a little more milk or sugar, if needed.


Sculptable Frosting:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon real vanilla extract
3-4 cups confectioner's sugar
Green food coloring gel

Beat butter & cream in mixer until smooth. Adding a cup at a time, blend in the confectioner's sugar to create a dough consistency. Add vanilla and beat to combine. 

Scoop out frosting to form a mound of "dough". Knead food coloring gel into frosting until color desired is achieved. If frosting seems sticky, add a small amount of confectioner's sugar until smooth.

Use 1-1/2 tablespoons of the dough to form each zombie hand. Epicurious has some nice pictures showing how to form the hands. I went with three fingers and a thumb, and just added a few knuckle lines. That's all I had the skills and patience for.

For the presents:

 

Cut strips of Fruit Roll-Ups and wrap them like ribbon around Starburst candies.

To assemble:

Frost the cupcakes and top them with a present and a zombie hand.

 

I sprinkled on some white Wilton Cake Sparkles to give it that pretty new fallen snow look.

 

 

Merry 1st Day of Creepmas!

 

Traumatized Turkeys

I can’t get out of making Rice Krispie Turkeys, but when I saw these turkey pops, I figured I could change my game. 

As usual I can’t just follow a recipe. I used a modified version of the Rice Krispie recipe on JoyofBaking.com. No one here eats Rice Krispies as a cereal and JoyofBaking.com is nice enough to put quantities in grams, so I’ve been able to do a fairly accurate recipe using a full 9 oz. box. Also it uses vanilla, which I really like.

One more thing about Joy of Baking, it’s really great if you don’t know jack about baking. The recipes are tried and true, with lots of helpful hints. I’ve never had a recipe fail me yet. No affiliation, just a lot of gratitude from someone who had never even thought about baking a cake before having kids.

Traumatized Turkey Recipe

9 oz. box of Rice Krispies® cereal
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt*
17 oz. (67 regular size) marshmallows
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

16 oz. of chocolate (dark, semi, and/or white, whatever you prefer)
Mini M&M’s
Candy Corn

*Sometimes I forget the salt, nobody seems to notice.


Butter a large bowl and set aside.

Butter, a large pot. Melt the butter and salt in the saucepan over medium low heat. Add the marshmallows and constantly stir until the marshmallows have completely melted.

Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Add about a third of the Rice Krispies, stir until coated. Add another third and do the same. Take care with the last third that you don’t dump in the powdered Rice Krispie crumbs at the bottom of the bag. Stir until all the cereal has been coated. 

Pour the mixture into your prepared bowl. Measure a 1/4-cup of the warm cereal mixture and roll into a ball with buttered hands. You can keep measuring, but I suggest using the first one as a guide and just pull it off with your hands. Rebutter them as needed. I made 60 balls, some were a little a bigger, some a little smaller, who’s ever seen a flock of turkeys exactly the same size?

The fine people at Kellogg's say to place them on a wax-paper-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate about 10 minutes or until firm. That might have helped, we’ll get that in a bit, but the day before Thanksgiving my refrigerator did not have room for 60 turkey bodies and I didn’t feel like rotating them in shifts. 

What I did was gently smush their little bodies down with a cupped hand onto wax paper, to flatten their little bottoms. Kellogg's also says to impale them with lollipop sticks. I think the turkey has been demoralized and abused enough, I’m not poking a stick up its rear. Also I don’t get the obsession with putting everything on a stick. 

In microwave-safe bowl melt 4 oz. of the chocolate. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir, microwave for another 30 seconds and stir. 

If you want to learn about tempering chocolate you should probably go elsewhere. I’ve spent a lot of time reading about the suggested methods and then mostly ignored them. I don't finely chop my chocolate, I just break it into chunks.  Then I don’t melt the chocolate all the way in the microwave, there’s always a few chunks left swimming around. I just keep stirring, until all the chunks melt. Maybe not so much stirring as smoothing the chocolate back and forth against the bowl with the back of the spoon. I test the chocolate by dropping some on my wrist, if I can’t detect any heat it’s good, yeah just like testing a baby bottle in fact that’s where I got the idea. Which isn't a completely crazy idea, turns out it's a real thing.

Worst case scenario if you don’t do it right, your chocolate ends up looking a little chalky instead of smooth and shiny. Your real friends won’t care and they’ll still like you anyway. 

Dip each ball into chocolate, allowing excess to drip off. Return to wax-paper-lined baking sheet. 

Again Kellogg's says, “Refrigerate for 5 to 10 minutes more or until chocolate is almost set. Decorate with candy corn for tail feathers and beak, gently pressing candy into chocolate and cereal mixture. Press in white candies for eyes. Let stand until firm.”

I dipped as many as I could with the 4 oz. of chocolate. I didn’t refrigerate, but did let them set about five minutes. While you’re waiting is a good time to trim the beaks. A whole candy corn gives you Cyrano de Bergerac looking turkeys, so I trimmed off about a third. Then you can try putting your M&Ms on, if they stay, you’re good. If they slide down, you need to wait. I did all the eyes first for that set of turkeys.  By the time you've finished the eyes the chocolate has set enough that the beaks will stick.

Here’s is my official technique for getting the stupid feathers to stick in without completely deforming the body (maybe this is where chilling them would’ve helped and then again maybe not), or accidently touching the chocolate trying to keep the buggers from moving around.

Insert the left and right tail feathers in at the same time, with even pressure, angling in just a tad towards each other. Press the beak into the chocolate in front while inserting the middle feather.

Most of the time this worked, some of the time bits fell off. I’ll address that later. Then I continued on working the turkeys in batches of whatever I could coat with 4 oz. of chocolate.  Doing them in smaller batches keeps the chocolate workable. I guessed at how much total chocolate is needed to cover 60 turkeys, because some of my bodies disappeared before I could coat them. There seemed to be quite a few feathers and eyes that vanished while I wasn’t looking also.

So to glue on falling off bits I heated up some red candy melts.

Here are my Traumatized Turkey masterpieces.

You can use the candy melts for good instead of evil. I made a cute little snood for this guy. Sadly he is seconds away from being pecked to death by the bloody beaked, red eyed zombie turkeys. 

Besides the turkeys, we brought a little Creepmas to Thanksgiving this year. I almost feel bad, because Thanksgiving really got shafted this year. I say almost, because if I really felt bad, I wouldn’t have done it.

It’s not every uncle that can truly appreciate the wonder and joy of a musical armpit farting animated zombie, but my kids are lucky enough to have such a one, so when they saw this they knew they had to get it for him. It worked out that wouldn’t see him until Thanksgiving and since that would be a weird Thanksgiving gift, we decided it should be an early Creepmas present.

Most of the family members we see at Thanksgiving we don’t get a chance to see again until spring or even summer and to deny them the tasty pleasure of my brains, seemed wrong. I also made cookie dough filled eyeballs and truffle surprise filled bugs.

I wasn’t completely sure how that would go over, but everyone enjoyed them. The kids (and not just the ones of my own that I’ve warped) were really excited to see eyeballs at Thanksgiving. I think I saw the pumpkin pie getting a little jealous at all the attention they were getting.

I’m thankful to have an extended family that doesn’t mind my quirks.

I’m also thankful my kids don’t have gumballs, a synthesizer and a 12 inch metal spike.

 

Disco Pumpkin

I lack the photography skills to adequately show just how awesome this pumpkin is, so you’ll just have to do your part and use your imagination or better yet make your own because it’s super easy.  What makes this pumpkin extra special is it’s illuminated with a color changing LED light. Here are a couple of stills of that color changing awesomeness.

I bought the Pumpkin Masters Star Studded Pumpkins kit years ago. According to this website it was released in 2004, which sounds about right.  It came with this handy dandy little tool, but I’m sure a drill would work just as well, probably better. 

 

In this video they use a drill and real pumpkins, and show some neat designs.

To make a pumpkin like mine you will need a fake pumpkin, white paint and other assorted paints, clear marbles, drill or other tool of choice to make holes, color changing LED light and again your tool of choice for carving out the bottom of the pumpkin. 
 

Start by carving an opening in the bottom of your pumpkin. My light isn’t very thick, so by making the opening more of an oval shape, I can insert it sideways and then once it’s lying flat it doesn’t fall out. I like to move things around.  Making a hole wide enough that you can set your pumpkin over your light source works too.   
 

Paint the inside of the pumpkin white.  I like spray paint for this. I used a pumpkin from Michael’s without any problems, but spray paint can eat into foam, so another brand might react differently.  Just something to keep in mind.  The reason for this step is so your light colors stay true and don’t reflect the orange hue of the pumpkin.  It makes a big difference, I speak as one who had to pop all the marbles out and paint a pumpkin full of holes after the fact.

After the inside is painted, then paint the outside however you like.

Mark where you want your holes.  Then poke, scrape, twist, drill, use the force or whatever your method of choice is to make holes.  Just don’t make them too big, you want the marbles to fit snug.

After you’ve made a hole you can give the marble a little twist to wedge it in. I think it looks best when the marbles are sticking halfway out, they look really cool when they light up. I also like the look of using different sized marbles.

That’s it, light it up!

Bailey’s Skull

You can find the original recipe for Boris O'Sanchez's Hand here. 

It’s basically a white Russian jello.  

 

I made a minor change, because the “vanilla flavored coffee creamer” scared me.  I hate vanilla flavored stuff that doesn’t taste anything like vanilla, and I wouldn’t have a clue as to who makes a good vanilla creamer.  So the following is based on a creamer recipe that showed up repeatedly on Google from multiple sources.

 

I had a skull mold instead of a hand, and the recipe only half filled it, but I kind of liked the way it turned out. My skull looks mottled because I let it cool a tad too long before stirring in the alcohol. 

 

 

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin powder

3/4 cup milk
3 oz sweetened condensed milk
3 oz half n half
½ tsp vanilla
1/3 cup vodka
1/3 cup Kahlua
1/3 cup Irish cream liqueur

Directions:

Makes 2 1/2 Cups

Prepare the mold by following instructions on the mold package and place in a bowl for stability.

Pour milk, sweetened condensed milk, half n half and vanilla into a small saucepan. Mix until the condensed milk is incorporated and sprinkle with gelatin. Whisk the mixture well, then let it sit for 3 minutes.

Place the pan over medium heat and bring to a simmer, whisking frequently to insure that gelatin dissolves.

Immediately remove the pan from the heat, pour contents into another bowl and let the mixture cool for about 20 minutes. Stir in the alcohol.

Stir well and pour into the prepared gelatin mold. Chill until firm -- at least 4 hours.

To unmold, dip the bottom of mold in a bowl filled with hot water, taking care to not let any water get into the mold. Dipping the mold for a few seconds helps to loosen the gelatin from the mold. Remove from water and dry off the bottom of the mold. Place a serving platter over the bottom of the mold and flip both over. Carefully remove the mold from the gelatin.

Update: First time around I didn't coat the mold with cooking spray.  Since then I've purchased some coconut oil cooking spray and it makes it so easy to pop the gelatin out, no dipping in hot water required. Coconut oil does solidify when it gets cold, if you look close you can see some flakes of it on the hand below.  Flaky skin doesn't bother me, but I thought I'd mention it.   

I've also taken to leaving out the vodka and just adding more Kahlua and Baileys.  I don't get vodka, I'd rather have a Kahlua and cream, than a White Russian.  For all I know vodka is the MSG of the alcohol world and that's why it's in so many mixed drinks and I'm just missing out on this incredible flavor enhancer, but I can live with that. I also think swapping out a couple tablespoons of alcohol with chocolate syrup might be fun for a Mudslide version. 

I picked up some Wilton zombie hand molds this year.  They looked awesome and are a nice serving size, rather than having to cut up a big mold.  The downside is each hand holds less than a tablespoon of liquid, so you'd need a lot of molds to do all hands.  I snagged a bunch on clearance after the holidays. 


 

 

Craft Party 2013

Just getting around to sharing a few pictures from this year’s craft party. It actually takes place the 1st or 2nd weekend of October every year. I generally suck at remembering to take pictures, but each year I try to suck a little less.

I love watching creativity spread like a mutant virus, seeing ideas take hold and twist and contort into something different with each new mind they infect. 

 

 

Much like what happened with this pretty little ghost, that was inspired by ghosts that we had hanging around, that were inspired by our toilet paper roll mummies that were inspired by other tp mummies on the internet, that worried the cat, that killed the rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built. 

 

 

These awesome heads were inspired by last year’s skull beads and in turn paved the way for voodoo dolls that hopefully I’ll get a tutorial of made soon.  

 

Here are a few more creations, unfortunately in the chaos I didn’t get around to photographing everything, so you won’t get to see the zombie arm or furry graveyard, among other things. 

 

 

This was the only potion bottle I got a picture of, but the glittered potions were a big hit this year.  This one doesn't contain any glitter glue, that's a couple of sticky eyeballs with glitter stuck to them.

 

 

 

 

I found this awesome Cthulhu coloring page at Yucca Flats, N.M. Be sure to check out the other coloring pages available.

 

 

I also had copies available of the FaceOff template from Skull-A-Day.  I was so close to the exhibit at the International Museum of Surgical Science this summer. But the day wasn't about me, and a little girl and her grandmother had a fabulous time at the American Girl Place where there was nary a skull to be seen, except for my skull bag. So I added a little skull appreciation into the party and my guests did not disappoint. Yes that last one has nose hairs. 

 

There were other skulls, which try as I may, I can not find the original source for and the ever popular dancing skeletons.

 

And more bead creatures...

 

We also gave out the best door prize ever this year, dried froggy roadkill. Of course I didn't get a picture of it, because I suck. 

Two summers ago the neighbor girls found a dried frog.  I think it's state had a lot to do with the drought that year.  It was almost in mint condition, all the bones were intact, the skin dried to a perfect froggy leather.  They were going from house to house showing off their find to gross out all the parents.  But to their surprise and why they were surprised I don't know, they know me better than that, instead of shrieks of disgust, I merely said, "Cool, can I have it when you're done with it?"  The darlings gifted it to me on the spot and no sooner had I put it in a jar than my husband piped up and said, "You're not bringing that in the house."  He thought it was going to rot and stink and attract bugs, he was very unreasonable and wouldn't even look to see how well preserved it was.  So I left it on the porch.  A few days later I went to admire it and it was gone.  It was a dark day in our marriage, I can't think of the last time we had such a heated argument prior and we haven't had another like it since.  The betrayal of having one's dead frog tossed in the trash, along with a very nice recycled jar, on a trash day no less with no chance of retrieval behind one's back is practically unforgivable.

This summer the girls found another frog. It was not in mint condition, it had been run over and then dried out on the blacktop, but still a very lovely gift.  I couldn't bear to go through all the turmoil and heartbreak again, so I decided the only thing better than having your own dried frog, is sharing a dried frog with friends. 

But the best part of this year's party was as people were leaving they were already talking about what they want to make next year.  That just warms my cockles*.  And not because I feel in some small way I’ve helped to facilitate a rich nurturing environment in which creativity can flourish.  No, it’s because the more people I get addicted to creepy crafts, the less crazy I seem. 

*A saying which doesn’t mean what it sounds like it should mean to my great disappointment, but I’m not one to let facts get in the way, so feel free to imagine my warmed cockles however you wish.