Dolly Dearest

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"Because You're a Girl"

Where was this box when I was a kid? That's a girl on the box. A GIRL!! Man, I remember in the mid 90's when the "new" Creepy Crawlers commercials came out. I wanted one of these sets SO badly, but I didn't get one "because I was a girl" So much for that new fangled feminism within our family hierarchy.... Stupid ad execs gearing creepy crawlers commercials to boys, giving parents the wrong idea, making them think it was all about scaring their sisters and being gross...

Oh well. I make my own Creepy Crawlers now anyway. Who needs a stupid ole box set to help?



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The Night SHE Came Home

It's a sticky, sweaty (though fabulously stormy) Monday evening AND it's friggin' July. Again! October 31st came and went and this last week, broiling away, hiding in the basement (as usual, but this time to keep cool) watching Birth of the Living Dead, and thinking of, well, dead things, I felt the guiltily sad, horrific pains of having given up my Halloween last year. Meh, it happens, right? Wasn't meant to, but it happens. Life happens. I just wasn't feeling it-- maybe it was all the spooky sparklies sucking the marrow out of my dead carcass.

Usually, writing this kind of post is a good way to stab yourself in the foot, but with my etsy back up, new projects staggering out of the Blackthorn crypt in droves, my password finally resurrected from the blackest depths of the cobwebbed, maggoty mess of my corpsey cranium (along with quite a few others-- which happens when you get fed up and swear off the internet for awhile) and my poor old Grandpa Sawyerish laptop finally getting buried and replaced, I'm feeling in the mood and bloody bloggy...


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Living The American Scream

Yesterday, working on this years top secret Halloween project* and simultaneously wading through [a perfectly forgettable] documentary about the Mothman on Netflix, I came across a little gem of a documentary called "The American Scream". It was a recommendation for those who had made it all the way through this unnamed catastrophe of a film. Let's call it a "reward" for having gritted my teeth through that particular waste of digital celluloid...

I'd say that for any home haunter and, of course, the Halloween obsessed "American Scream" is a must. If the online forums aren't enough to fulfill your thirst for Halloween (which, let's face it, is it? Ever?) or can't quite quench that lonely, niggling only-haunter-in-my-neck-of-the-woods feeling (I'm with you on that one...), well this is for you. The documentary, the latest production from the Chiller network, focuses on three very different home haunts in Fairhaven, Massachusetts and the two months leading up to the big night October 31st. I laughed, I cried, I drooled over props, nodded my head in rabid agreement in multiples and I made two whole props after. Magic.

I'd heard whispers last year on Haunt Forum (which gets a nod in the movie, alongside Hauntcast Radio) of a documentary dedicated to home and yard haunters in the works and I'm not entirely sure if this is that one, but hey, even it is isn't I'll take it! If you have an hour and a half to spare this weekend, ditch the "Revenge" marathon for a bit and check it out. It's currently available to watch instantly on Netflix.

Check out the Official Trailer in the meantime.



*read as: "I'm too technologically fed up this year to mess with frequent updates"

Halloween 2013 Kicks Off

Halloween 2013... doesn't that have a great ring to it?

If you're a true Halloween addict you know that July 4th, for most retailers of the crafting sort, usually marks the stocking-up point for the Halloween season. Last night, after spending all last week wading through the heat playing pet sitter to the neighbors dogs, I decided to head out to the craft stores in desperate need of some autumnal relaxation therapy. If I know for sure fall is coming with tangible faux-liage, well then summer doesn't seem so bad.  My Mom had already spoken of such wondrous sightings of fall leaf garlands hovering outside a Joanns she had passed the other day. I feel like I've been living in Joanns the last few months, so no doubt I'd get there soon enough. Instead, I headed to Michael's for a change of scenery. They did not disappoint.

Sure enough, looming large over the entirety of the floral department were the tell tale seasonal signs of fall foliage and polystyrene ghourd-geousness (oooh, did I really just make that pun? my humble apologies) beckoning to us from atop their shelves-- Mom went with me, in dire need herself.

Naughty little me. No pictures were taken... I was selfish this time around and took in all in for myself. Sorry. Mostly it was fall stem arrangements, pumpkins, leaves, crows and owls and spools of Halloween ribbon (the usual for this time of year), but they still serve as a much welcome harbinger of Halloween to come.

Picked these up to thicken up my stain glass, year-round pumpkin patch I started in my window last year and the big one mostly for the skull and bats...

 

And some ribbon to tie my hair back as I start to dig in on this years haunt...

 

 

 

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Heads will Roll... in hysterics

I came across the trailer for a new Fox television series "Sleepy Hollow" on tumblr this afternoon:



Now, I try to keep an open mind about entertainment that falls into my genre of choice, but I couldn't make it through this trailer without cringing... and genuinely laughing my ass off.

Let's get this straight kids: the Headless Horseman taking on New York's finest (forgive me for not being able to decipher much details through the tears of hysterical laughter after about a minute in to this fantastical farce of cut and paste literary fiction) with an... uzi?! Was he crashing a helicopter with his trusty Hessian steed, trampling over the piled up, burnt out husks of cruisers as well?
Oh wait, I'm getting H.H. and John McClane mixed up, and why the hell not? Fox obviously has! It seems our favorite literary specter by Washington Irving has fallen victim to the same ridiculous, over-the-top, live action super hero fate that an equally favorite action star has succumb to in the last of the Die Hard oeuvre Hollywood strove to insult us with. Sure, I'll give anything a shot that Clancy Brown thought to grace even a speck of his time to-- the trailer holds no secret as to his fate so maybe I'll only have to sit through the pilot episode-- but I guarantee nothing and expect even less.

At least it's on television so the FREE part of it is ever so enticing, plus, it's Fox so there'll be more than enough commercials to distract adequately between the snicker-fits and frustrated sobs.