Halloween Comic Fest!

Got my comics all ready to give away!

Today I'll be working at the comic shop! And you know what I'll be wearing right?! HOWLLLLL!

A trip back in Halloween time!

You guys might remember photos from last year's Halloween trip to Farm Girl Antiques. There were plenty more cool displays on this year's trip! A couple of the items might look familiar from before but they're being shown in new ways.

How adorable is this sassy jack-o-lantern? Even the potato chip label on that container looks cool alongside these pumpkins. It has that same vintage/graphic flavor.

Same with that cracker box in this pic. I see "Fancy Crackers & Cakes" on this label, but I had it in my head that this was a box that held firecrackers. Maybe that's because of the sun that looks sort of like a sparkler.

That little triangle with a cat face on it is a hat. It might be hard to see, but there are little silver jingle bells on its corners.

I really like how this picture ended up, just really simple with the black, white, and orange. And I can imagine the kid in this costume carrying that lantern.

It may be hard to tell what's going on here, but this circle is a magnifier and it's in front of a page in a book. I don't think I've ever seen a magnifier that sits upright like that. It looks like something that should be in a science lab.

Spiders in a bottle:

These cut-outs were placed on an old school desk, which seemed appropriate. They look like something that could be hanging as a decoration on a schoolroom wall.

These orange frames are so beautiful. I like the way Venetian glass frames glow. And how perfect is Carole Lombard and a black cat in there? Note the jar of skulls behind her.

The sister frame to that one had another cool pic of a girl with her cat in it. The reflection on that picture was a total accident, but I like the way her face is hidden. I think that makes her look ghostly.

"Essence of common vampire BAT SPLEEN ~ Use with caution" The essence of tiny spleens. If you think about that, it sounds like a pretty tedious process. Especially if you read further: "Steeped in brine for three hundred days and nights"

Some displays like this one go with the "Farm Girl" name. I thought those orange lights were so cute on that old woodwork. Those are vintage napkins in the frame at the bottom.

You can step out into the old window display area in the front of the store. You know, the area mannequins might have been displayed back when this was a clothing store. That's where I took the next several photos.

I like this one because there are all kinds of reflections going on. Reflections of the buildings across the street, of that architectural element, and of a building in the mirror. I'm not even sure which direction that building in the mirror was facing. There could be a reflection of a reflection thing going on.

You might have noticed the old tin ceiling in previous pics.

You can imagine this as a large clothing store back in the day, right?

In the middle of the store was this fashionable skeleton, riding in her carriage.

She even has a cat in her lap.

A tiny, velvety pumpkin was the trip souvenir. Check out the cute label on top of it. Like in a few of these other photos, I'm just now noticing some of the type close-up. "Serving witches since 1674"

There it is in all its adorable fuzziness.

So there's another year's fun trip to the antique store! Did you see anything that you would have wanted to take home?

P.S. ~ If you'd like to revisit last year's shopping adventure: 

An Antique Halloween Atmosphere

Good enough to eat?

There has been one Halloween craft I wanted to be sure and make during this season. It was a craft I'd seen a few photos of online: a donut pumpkin!

Some of you might know that I've been looking all season for the perfect, donut-shaped pumpkin so I could make this creation. This is easier said than done. There are a lot of different pumpkin shapes out there, and for the most part those shapes are not like that of a donut.

After much searching, I was very lucky to find a little pumpkin at Dollar Tree! I was extra lucky because I think it was accidentally packed in with a shipment of totally different pumpkins. I peeked into an unpacked cardboard box that the Dollar Tree employees hadn't gotten to yet. Inside were plenty of yellow and orange pumpkins with flowers coming out of the top. Floating around with all of them was this little guy:

Looking at the image on the side of the cardboard box, I could see that no green pumpkins were included in this shipment. And I never saw another one through the entire store! So, lucky me!

My first step was to spray paint the pumpkin white. It looked almost like stone or ceramic at that point.

Next, I painted more or less the top half of the pumpkin pink.

Then I coated the pink part with this clear, glittery paint called "Disco Crystal". I thought it gave the pink "frosting" a subtle, glazed look. You can see what the paint looks like here: FolkArt Disco Crystal You can get it cheaper than this with a Michaels coupon, etc. I've used this paint on so many projects! It's great for sticking loose glitter on crafts too.

Which is just what I did! Now things were starting to look yummy.

But I wasn't done yet! Time for sprinkles! The "sprinkles" are actually little lines of puffy paint. Yes, I still have puffy paint like you'd use on clothing back in the day. It stayed good since the early 90s!

Mmm... I know better than anyone that this is plastic, paint, and glitter, but I'm still wanting to eat this donut! Never mind that it also has a stem.

With any luck, I'll find some more donut-shaped pumpkins so I can make a few more of these. I'll have an eye out for more during my After Halloween Hauling!

Tons of pumpkins and some creepy creatures

Last Friday night was the highlight of the Halloween season so far! My mom and I saw probably the most jack-o-lanterns we've ever seen together in one place. The jack-o-lanterns were in a public park along with all kinds of homemade creatures and displays. It was all extremely cool and made me feel like a kid who was just in awe of everything. I felt like I kept saying, "Look over there!" all night.

This picture was taken far away from the line of pumpkins. Neither end of the line made it into the frame and this line of pumpkins was several rows deep. It might be kind of hard to tell that because of the crowd. As you can see, there were a lot of pumpkins! I think there were over 1,000.

Here are a few of my favorite carvings, starting with a graveyard:

Does anyone recognize this flaming face next to Spider Man? There is something so familiar about this design.

Grr... That's a feisty little pumpkin. I like that ghost too.

This snake is one of my top favorites. Look, they even carved the motion of the rattler!

A skeleton fish and sugar skull:

Do you remember that old Simpsons Halloween Special where Bart plays the part of the raven, while Poe's "The Raven" is read by James Earl Jones? Well, here's the Bart Raven in a carving! I was so excited to see this one.

You have to love this!

I like what is happening with the top of this devil/mask pumpkin. I don't know if the top was set like that purposely but it gives this cool hair-like effect. And how neat is that cabin with trees? I like how they scraped a layer of pumpkin off to make the little cabin.

A bat on a skull?

I know about the Evil Dead movies enough to understand this, although I haven't seen any of them. Still, I can appreciate a good carving! That chainsaw had to be tricky to cut.

This is like a beautiful Henna design!

There was a band playing and their stage was lit up in blue lights. Those lights made a really cool, electric contrast to all the orange pumpkins. That blue and orange combination created some of my favorite pumpkin pics of the night. (And yes, I'm realizing that I'm saying that about pretty much all of the pumpkins.)

A frog-owl?

It was like the pumpkin patch came alive and a bunch of creepy critters sprang out of it. Like these pumpkin zombies:

And this weirdly human-like pumpkin couple:

Yikes! Doesn't he look real? I thought that without the flash, these looked like real people in costumes.

And their incredibly creepy pumpkin baby! Look at its leaf-like hands. I knew I was in for something before looking in the baby carriage, because I could see the reactions of those who were looking in there!

We could see pumpkin experiments happening through the window of a building.

Through another window there were pumpkins and this floating ghoulish head that looked like they were painted with blacklight paint.

Slimy zombies were stumbling toward us!

Someone did a great job with this one.

I was tempted to lighten some of these photos, but I didn't. I wanted to show just how spooky these things looked in the dark.

There was a hearse with a driver that looked like he climbed out of the back.

There were a number of those cut-out face creations around.

I'm onto him!

After walking around for some time, we went inside a community type building. Outside of that building was this awesome reaper display.

You have to love this one:

Looking up on the way in, I saw a... something. The feet crack me up!

This tall pumpkin creature was by the entrance. He barely fit in the space.

There were of course more cool decorations inside. A kid was setting off the music that went with these props and doing some kind of jig while I was taking this pic.

I imagine this would make a good photo op for a group of people if they wanted to peek through the eyes and mouth.

These are possibly vintage and genuinely creepy.

We were surprised to find out there was a magic act happening inside. It was a pretty good act by one of the more friendly magicians I've seen.

So, it was a super great night. I can't remember the last time I was surprised and creeped out by Halloween decorations. A lot of the displays I'm used to seeing seem store bought or like something I've seen before. These homemade ones were much more atmospheric than I'm used to! It didn't hurt that there was a bright moon in the sky and the trees were glowing orange from all the lights. The whole thing felt classic, welcoming, and old-timey.

Not surprisingly, there was a big crowd out wandering around and taking pictures. So I'm happy to say this event was appreciated!