Terror Trays!

 I needed a few extra serving trays for various Halloween activities this year and of course, had to made my own!

These metal trays started out as ugly 1990 cheap Christmas graphics type deals. You know the kinds,  illustrations of rocking horses with Christmas wreaths around their necks.  I picked them up for 50 cents a piece from a thrift store.  

 I painted the trays with a flat black paint to cover up their hideous designs.  I then cut a circle of scrap book paper to use as a background for the insert.  I then applied a whole slug of these cute zombie finger 'post it' style notes all over.  The dismembered fingers came from the dollar spot at Target last Halloween.  Any cute stickers could work though.

Plans happened to change and I did not need the trays after all....but that's ok.  I plan on making a different style design...Christmas perhaps... on the back side of the zombie paper insert.  I will then get the insert laminated making it food safe and rendering the trays multi-functional at the same time. I see all sorts of themes and design inserts to be used with these!

Spookversary!

 Our friends, Mike and Heather, just celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary a week ago. Yay!

I made these cupcakes for them to celebrate... complete with a creepy wedding party and bat encrusted arch.  I made the cupcake picks from halloween stickers and paper straws.  The wedding arch is made from a metallic black pipe cleaner, stickers, and a paper straw.

Ohhhh! The Spook House!

The movie Ed Wood celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.  It is one of my favorites!  I could watch it every day and never get tired of it.

 Hey ya'll!  They got Cotton candy!

Going on Ed's favorite ride....The Spook House!

This year we attended the annual fair in our town.  Our favorite "attraction" generally is to see the carnies and the other odd balls that turn out.  While meandering around, dodging lit cigarettes, we were pleasantly surprised to see there was a "spook house"!   .

                                                

The artwork on the trailer was awesome!

We didn't go on the ride due to the fear it placed in the heart of attending company but we did get some Monster cotton candy!

An added bonus!

I found this scene by scene comparison of the movie Ed Wood to the true scenes in Ed Wood's movies that were referenced ( Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 from Outer Space).  It is amazing how much detail Tim Burton included.

Haunted Lighthouse

 Hubs and I had a ghastly date night this last weekend at the Haunted Lighthouse!

It was built in 1859 and is still operational to this day.

It boasts a gorgeous iron spiral staircase with 177 steps.

 For the haunted tour, the grounds and interiors were all spooked up.

 There were several locations where actors were dead still and appeared to be mannequins, but then would lurch toward someone.  Even when I saw it coming I couldn't help but jump!

 The clown on the staircase of the living quarters was not embodied but I volunteered Hubs to encounter it first. 

  However, beyond all the staged hocus pocus, there is another side to this lighthouse.  It is actually considered to be one of the most haunted lighthouses in the country, having been featured on the Travel Channel and Scifi's Ghost Hunters.

There are claims of a stabbing murder in the lighthouse's past which to this day there are dark stains, appearing to be blood, that will not come off the wood floors.  Other unexplained activity is echoing footsteps on the spiral staircase when no one is there,  low murmuring heard in uninhabited rooms, and icy hands grabbing the backs of legs.  Doorknobs have been seen appearing to turn on their own and doors opening and closing by themselves. There have been claims of faint apparitions of a man with a beard and a woman wearing a dark grey dress in various locations.  A paranormal team conducted a professional investigation in 2009 where electromagnetic spikes, audio differentials, and photographs of shadow-like fogs showed something was amist.
There are even ghost meters for sale in the gift shop to take on the tour.
We did not encounter any spirits on our tour but really loved the beauty of the lighthouse and hearing it's history.   Here's a bit of that history:

The top of the lighthouse still contains it's original first-order Fresnel lens system.  The Fresnel lens was invented in 1822, resembling a giant beehive with a complex system of multi-faceted glass prisms mounted in a brass framework.  The prisms reflect and refract light to magnify it, thereby taking rays of light that would normally scatter in all directions and then focusing them into several  beams.  All of this is mounted onto rotating gears that move the beams around 360 degrees over the water.  It was truly stunning seeing it at night. 

I thought it kinda resembled the Fizzy Lifting Drink Bubble Room from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!

Only we couldn't just burp to get back to the bottom of the tower!

Halloween Extension!

It's Halloween!
Which means I am up to my Vulcan tipped ears with activities and projects.  If I was this little vampire girl I would tell my bat minions "Fly! Fly! You keep the cauldron stirred ! You finish the shrouds!  You bake the creepcakes, and don't burn them this time! And you there, extend this holiday season for another week!"   So, with that demand being granted, it will be Halloween for at least another week here at MHICTY!  Once everything is finished up and properly photographed I will post it!

Spooktacular Halloween Shows

If you are looking for some great vintage Halloween shows to watch while getting all the ghouls and goblins in the spirit here are a few I recommend:

ANDY GRIFFITH

The Haunted House
("Ain't he the one that put chains on his hired man and then done away with him?? With an ax!
Shazam!"

Three Wishes for Opie
(You can't talk to Count Istvan Telecky, he lives in the 18th Century!")

Stranger in Town
("something from the supernatural!")

Divorce Mountain Style  

The Darling Baby
(Witchcraft! Just a little on my mama's side!)


HONEYMOONERS

The Man from Space

SANFORD AND SON

Coffins for Sale

 {Any episodes of Twilight Zone, Addams family, Munsters, Alfred Hitchcock Presents work as well!}

More "current" offerings are the awesome Roseanne Halloween Episodes and The Simpson's Tree House of Horror series!

Leave me your suggestions for your favorite Vintage Halloween Episodes!  I know I left a lot out!

Spider Bread

Last night to accompany our dinner of goulash (gumbo) I made Spider Bread!

I used a boxed bread mix but shaped the loaf into a spider.  I brushed the outer skin with an egg wash and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds before baking in the oven.

Pass me the neck, Clark!

Pumpkin Pancakes

 I whipped up a patch of pumpkin pancakes for PB and I recently.  Hubs says sewer rat and pumpkin pie tastes the same and he isn't going to eat either of the filthy mother fudgers... Well then, more for us, bring on the sewer rat!

I followed the pancake recipe on the side of the box of Jiffy baking mix.  I then added a can of pure pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.  I didn't measure the spices but added what was practical to me.  You can never have too much cinnamon so load up on it.  Ginger can be strong so add about 2 dashes.  Nutmeg tastes like tree bark so add 1 pinch.   Make and place butter facial features just before serving.    For folks that are pumpkin "sensitive",  regular pancake batter could be used with orange food coloring added.  For those that are health sensitive and butter is a four letter word, use sliced fruit for the ocular and nasal regions.  As far as the flavor of the pancakes go, they turned out very yummy! Substitute canned sewer rat if you have it!

I based my idea after the below image.  Mine turned out stemless due to a gang of pumpkin stem snapping bandits that have been running a muck through the pumpkin patches of our fair city.

Skull Head Biscuits

My oven's baking section has been non-functioning for three months now. That's just fine! I know I could have called a repair man like a normal sane person would have done but, no.  I decided I would work around it by using the toaster oven and, yes, even the Easy Bake Oven.  Temperatures reach baking standards inside of cars so I had that option too. Heck, why not fry eggs on the sidewalk ?! It's too hot during the summer to be firing up that oven anyway!  This worked fine for some things and disastrous for others...poor pineapple upside down cake.  May it's burned soul rest in peace.  But times have changed.  My favorite holiday is now upon us and I may need to bake some spiders or snakes or something and they aren't going to fit in the Easy Bake Oven.  So I called "the man" yesterday and within 15 minutes the oven was back up and baking.

 For the oven's first run I wanted to make something festive.  I have had this Wilton skull cupcake/muffin pan for a few years but never used it. 

Break out the Jiffy mix! Let's have us some skull head biscuits! 

Make biscuit mix as directed on box.  Fill each skull 2/3 full. Then BAKE as directed.  I microwaved a cup of cherry jelly to make a drizzle.
Delish and gruesome,  what could be better? 

Treehouse of Horror!

Simpsons stuff, you know we collect it!  My favorites are the Halloween toys that came with the kid's meals from Burger King several years back.  

This year we were given an awesome addition to the mix!

A (somewhat) life size Mr. Burns as the Head Vampire...

and Krusty the Clown as an equally menacing blood sucker!

 They both measure about four feet tall and are made from a thick plastic material.  They were given to Hubs from a friend of his that has/had something to do with a sign company.  These two guys had been hanging out in a storage shed for years and have now found their way to us, just in time for Halloween!  Apparently there is a Lisa lurking in that shed as well, yet to be found.

Here are a couple of images of the BK Simpsons collections.  The bottom section of the display shelf is generally reserved for them each season. 

For more Simpsons related fun see my other posts:
Greetings from Springfield!
Simpsons Christmas Tree
Hub's Doh! Birthday

Eerie Asylum of Ruins

 Here are a few shots of the house spooked up for Halloween!  Same stuff really, just in a different arrangement.  The large Beistle jointed skeleton on the wall is new to the mix.

 I have had these three JOLs for years and never realized that they were related!  Look at those eyes! They must be from the same pumpkin patch.  I generally have the two small pumpkins in one room and the bigger guy elsewhere.  Punky Family Reunion 2014!

 This lamp is new to the house this year.  I like the tattered remains hanging from the lower second shade.

 One of a few framed tombstone rubbings I did several years ago.

 The creep display.  Jarred brains, embalming fluid *, and vintage smelling salts from a funeral home.  The dolls didn't get to come out and play this year.

 This is the top of the green vintage Sylvania display case.  I now have four Halloween Krispy Kreme Doughnut boxes...which makes a "collection".  They are making their debut for viewing pleasure this year. 

 One of several cubbies in the display shelf.  I framed several past Halloween photos to put in each space.

New this year!  

It's a portrait of Old Man Rimshaw!
From the Andy Griffith Show, season 4 episode 2 "The Haunted House".

He is watching your every move....

* if you are wanting to make the bottle of embalming fluid be aware that the link for the image involved with the post is not functioning anymore, not by my fault, it was 8 years ago!   But I am sure there are a crap ton of images out on the nets that can be used in the same way. 

Boo it Yourself!

It is time to deck the crypt!
Vintage Halloween stuff is really hard to come by and it never is at a thrifty price.
So I say Boo it Yourself!

  I have this adorable accordion Beistle cat image saved on my Halloween Pinterest Board and have been studying it for well over a year, trying to figure out how I could reproduce it.  The accordion parts were giving me the problem.

Tuscarora!

 I am happy to say that I came up with a easy, affordable and cute solution!

It is not exact, but I am very pleased with the results.  

 The solution was found by coming across the jolly fellow seen below.   I must have those limbs! They were the key pieces I had been missing!  I found him and three other different color appendaged characters at Dollar Tree.  There are white, green, purple and orange available for dismembering.  (See them all here: "Hanging Honeycomb Halloween Characters")  The arms and legs are really long and you may even be able to make two projects by cutting them in half.  I don't do well taking photos along the way while I am making something so I will have to talk you through most of it.  

1. Go buy goofy pumpkin scarecrow dude at Dollar Tree. Dismember his limbs.  Then chunk his wretched remains into the recycle can.

  

2.  Print out the below image at full page.  

If the resolution is not to your liking, go to my Halloween Board for the original. 

3.  Cut out the cat's head and scarf.

4.  Use the hand and foot pieces as a template.  Cut out two of each from black card stock.

5.  Make the body from black cardstock. The body is the trickiest part.  I traced the body from the photocopy and then realized I did not account for the original body accordion material that was folded up. So the first one I made (seen above) looks like he is "husky" and wearing a crop top.  I made another longer body that was about 9 inches.  I still don't think I quite nailed the torso just yet but i can certainly live with it!

  6.Glue cat's head to the top of black cardstock torso.

7..  Paint the hair and nails on to the black cardstock feet and hands using an off white acrylic paint to mimic the look as seen on the photocopy.  For cohesiveness I painted hair on the body since I didn't have accordion material for the chest and he needed something going on there.

8. Hot glue feet to legs and hands to arms, then leg bone connected to the hip bone and arm bone connected to the shoulder bone.

9.  Hole punch where original hole was on his noggin.

10.  Done and hang!

There are several other images out there on the nets of vintage accordion characters (skeleton, witch, scarecrow) that could have this same treatment applied.

I am now excited thinking what other accordion characters I could make with the other colors.  Universal Monsters could work well.  I was thinking that a Creature from the Black Lagoon with the green.  Bride of Frankenstein with the white.  The only image needed is the head and the rest can be cardstock with a little detail paint.  I could even make one of PB and Hubs!