gruesome graveyard

the JOL this year was from a martha stewart idea and stencil. the pumpkin i got was apparently a concrete hybrid because i could not get the tools to touch it. i actually had to use a dremel to just remove the relief parts and a chainsaw to cut the top...well maybe i didn't use a chainsaw but looking back that would have worked. so this idea of cutting/carving less and adding black paint to bring out the features worked out nicely. for the duration of the photos you will get to experience ohhhhhh.....the gruesome graveyard! (say all italics with a spooky voice!)

dollar tree tombstones, severed hand luminaries (more on that in another post below) and tea lights.

light up bone lights, an old piece of a picket fence (that i could never throw out and now glad i didn't) and old moss i picked up from the ground of the local park.

black birds (i got on clearance several years ago post halloween) perched on the tops of the markers and in the background is the tree of the dead with hanging skeletons done by pumpkinbutt himself. we also had the green strobe going and the fog machine!

haunted insides

here are a few shots of the inside halloween decor. on the mantle is a dead tree branch...free, moss...free, a few crows..1$ each from dollar tree, tombstone revamped (more on that in a post below)...1$, construction paper bats...had on hand.

these are tombstone rubbings that i did while visiting my mom in NC several years ago. i draped the tops with moss and then applied a few of those sticky stretchy mice. i bought the mice on clearance a few years ago not realizing that they were of this composition. i had no idea what to do with them until now. the sticky mice work awesome on mirrors and picture frames...oh the possibilities now!

the dolls are up all year 'round but i added to the display with a framed embalming certificate from 1933 that my brother fished out of a local dumpster behind a mortuary...i don't ask questions, like why were you dumpster diving there!? i am just thrilled to have it.

some of the vintage stuff. it's hard to come by when you aren't willing to play 500 bucks for it on ebay. i have been lucky enough to get most of it from thrifts over the years.

display of the universal monsters stuff. it looks better when just the little purple lights are on and the camera flash is not, but would have been blurry.

gravemarker portrait piece

here is, in my opinion, an extremely cool and simple revamp craft project involving a dollar tree styrofoam tombstone. so it started as a styrofoam tombstone...

i then cut away the skull relief with a kitchen knife. then printed out a picture of pumpkinbutt and placed it accordingly.

i have future plans of adding spiders, moss and wording with a humorous twist (similar to "i told you i was sick"...not sure what just yet though...it will have to involve legos) i would like to do his name on it also a-la the simpson's tree house of horror credits (ex: james "hell" brooks). many unexplored possibilities!

creepy hand luminary

meet the severed hand luminary! (seen in the background...kinda hard to miss). i was faced with the dilemma that cemeteries are just so gosh darn dark but wanted the lovely severed hands to not go unnoticed! so i came up with a quick and neat solution ...take plastic severed hand from dollar tree....

dremel a hole in the palm and insert a flame less candle tip inside (conveniently also from dollar tree). now it has become a flickering morbid addition to the dark cemetery grounds!

neat-o signs

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i spotted these signs while staying in cherokee, NC.

Adventure Golf

During the summer Pumpkinbutt and i got the thrill of playing a round at Adventure Golf Pigeon Forge TN. It was full of wonderful kooky statues for neato photo ops!

pink castle! scary sharkey! wrecked pirate ship! water falls! yay!

pumpkinbutt exiting the pink castle. he is very embarrassed that someone would have the nerve to paint such a fine castle this horrid shade.

mom and i surviving a shark attack. note the "Caution" sign...i took some editing liberties...

my favorite critter there! once again, i got to play out my Ed Wood Bride of the Monster bit! if i was brave (and wanted to get the police involved to escort me out) i would have jumped into the water and thrashed around and screamed "hey! throw me that weeeskey!"

Below is my same act at the panama city goofy golf a few years and pounds less ago.


note to self: funyuns and soda for meals can have undesirable consequences in the ass and thigh regions.

bargain basement spirit board

a major super duper score i got at Big Lots! it is constructed of metal and the planchette with hands is on a spring that moves from side to side!!!!!!

we have tried our best to contact the netherworld with it but being it's a factory second we were only lucky enough to make contact with the likes of Jasper the-fair-weather-friend ghost and the inventor of fig newtons.

giving a rat's ass bday cake!

just had a birthday and felt it best to cover the cake in plastic rats

they were fun to pull off by the tails!
tried to get pumpkinbutt to lick the icing off them but he wasn't going for it....would have made a great picture!

34 rats instead of candles.

Peanut goodies YUM!

here is a very yummy and simple recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens Jr cookbook. this cookbook was reissued several years ago from the 1955 version. the neat thing is the pages have the old yellowed aged look to them but without the brittleness of an actual old book .

the recipe calls for just two ingredients, spanish peanuts and semi sweet chocolate, but i didn't have either on hand and i am damn straight not going to the store when i am sure i can find something to substitute.... instead i used salted peanuts and melted all the leftover easter chocolate candy along with the maimed buttless bunny. no, no, no. not from 5 month old rotten easter candy. we actually made these treats 2 years...and at that time with only 2 month old rotten easter candy. hey, it was refrigerated and that crap is chock full of preservative goodness!

see above, see below....pumpkinbutt posing as peanut goodie boy!

the treats really did turn out very tasty. hmmmm...now what could we do with the tons of upcoming leftover candy corn? something gift worthy for christmas i am sure!

for the "how-to" click on the recipe images above.

stuff from stuff

i am not hip to the terms...upcycle, maybe? reconstructed, yes, there we go. i took a pair of guys cargo shorts that had been worn far past the expiration date (they didn't have much more to them than what you see) and fashioned myself a snazzy hip pocket deal. no no boo boo, it's not a fanny pouch. it is on my hip.

cut off waist and a pocket...

stitch together....

hands free and no more purse burden weighing me down!

but wait, there's more!

also on these cargo shorts were some small pockets that i made into backpacks for pumpkinbutt's g.i. joe mans:

spaceboy

Recently pumpkinbutt's school had Space Day, where the kids could dress up as an alien (or space man)!!! we didn't have the least bit of interest in the astronaut look but something more like....

we decided to go with this attire...

Then using these fun facts about the film:
1.The trim on the aliens' costumes is made from masking tape, and their space boots are men's dress shoes covered by socks.

2.The filmmaker was on such a tight budget that the film's ultimate weapon, the "focusing disintegrator", was actually a Hubley's Atomic Disintegrator toy cap gun, bought for a dime, with a flashbulb added as a beam. (In some scenes the words "Hubley's" can clearly be seen embossed on the side of the gun.) Atomic Disintegrators can be bought today on eBay for upwards of $300.

I came up with this... .

The space suit is grey duct tape attached on a large black tee turned inside out and sleeves cut off.
The Focusing Disintegrator gun is a water gun from dollar tree spray painted black.
And the antennae... well, not an original idea from the film but super cute, are silver metallic pipe cleaners attached to a headband.

If i would have thought of it in time i would have found/made some kind of lobster...i mean Gargon, to further accessorized the assemble.


I must resume radiovision contact!

creepy pops

Recently Pumpkinbutt got to enjoy these creepy clown jolly pops at school. Yikes! I asked him if he wanted me to order the shirt and/or cap but he declined.

Day of the Dead Decor

For the Krewe of Hades Mardi Gras float this year the theme was Dia de Muerto rather than the ever standing Zombie theme of the years past. The craniums that generally flank the sides were given a skull-lift. Here is the one that I contributed. It was based on the design and idea of Phrenology.

Before:

After:

Each of the numbers corresponds to the original organs of Phrenology only with personal interpretations. For example 17. The sense of sounds; the gift of music = the band "The Dummies" (a band that pumkinbutt made up which is not quite music).
22.The sense of satire; the sense of witticism = MST3K.
6.Guile; acuteness; cleverness = Make Stuff! the cleverness part.

But at the end while they were decorating the float.. the bag-o-skulls got overlooked and forgotten! so now the skull just rests with the bar ware only dreaming of being in a parade.

easy peasy

very simple yet very cute. premade pot holders and oven mit embellished with some cute fabric (it's by michael miller) for my mommy!