Make a Rorschach “Moving Mask”!
This one will be sure to creep the kiddies out… make a moving, color changing Rorschach mask. I guarantee you this one will have people doing a double take!
All you need is some stockings (you can get these anywhere) and thermochromic paint. The magic is in the paint on this one!
This mask provides a really eerie, breathing effect. Thinking of giving this one a try?
1990 Life Savers Orange Witch Bucket
I have a growing collection of plastic Halloween pals. It started out with Bayshore plastics and McDonald’s Halloween pails but now seems to be taking up another cause: Branded plastic candy containers.
I have already, in part, covered the 1989/1990 Mars containers that include a Snicker Ghost, 3 Musketeers Goblin and Milky Way Jack O Lantern. Today, I received a plastic trick or treat pail that is from the same generation, a 1990 LifeSavers candy pail with a green witch sticker.
This is snazzy because I don’t recall seeing this, ever. Chances are, it was very near to the Mars containers above, but the Mars containers not only looked much more appealing, they were also filled with better candy.
I did a quick eBay investigation (Internet Gumshoe) and there were only 2 variants of this bucket, and it wasn’t in the plastic. The renderings of the witch changed, probably 1990, then 1991.
I have to guess that this baby is 1990. Does anyone remember this? Were there more in the series? I like to think that this witch pail was CHOCK FULL of Life Savers and weighed like, 26 pounds.
1990 Life Savers Witch Bucket
I took a slew of photos so you can check out the details!
Forsaken Haunted House, Mentor Ohio
For as long as I’ve been haunting my own back and front yard, I can say with completely honesty I had never been to a professional haunted attraction until this year.
I, Jen, am 32.
In my defense, I like, barely left the house for ten years. Everyone in this area (Lake county/Cleveland, Ohio) used to hit Nightmare in Painesville. When I was a freshman in high school, my geography teacher even tried to recruit students to volunteer to work there. I was always intrigued but as a 14 year old, whatever the admission was to Nightmare was too expensive for me.
So this year I bit the bullet and went, Forsaken haunted house in Mentor. I was a tad apprehensive, I will admit it. I’ve never been to a haunted house, PLUS I’m generally teeming with anxious energy. At least I could sop up the PUDDLES of extra adrenaline my glands normally secrete if I had to run from a particularly hungry looking undead, right? I had that in my corner.
Forsaken haunted house basically runs in two modes, typical haunted house mode and something else called Blackout. We (myself, Guy and Krystal, my sister-in-law) went to the normal night. First thing that catches your eye as you find the place is an ambulance parked out front. This does nothing to calm my nerves, or Krystal’s.
So we follow the signs down the longest driveway I kid you not, I’ve ever been down (did they do this on purpose, to create tension, because it works) and park. Tickets, enter. It’s all inside, which is nice. You can choose the “house” you want to go in first. You get your ticket punched so they know that you’ve been through that house. We chose the district first, which was a kind of downtown in this now desolate little town.
For huge chickens, let your eyes adjust to the dark for a minute before your husband (ahem) drags you into the first house. You’ll be glad you did.
Krystal was fully latched on before we even entered house 1.
I have to say, the insides are meticulously well put together. Details abound, but you better catch them quick, because even though the zombies cannot intentionally touch you, they sure did a good job of getting me to move my ass. After your first REAL legit scream, you actually feel better.
Second, we took Wheaton Manor, which according to the website, is the mansion of the mayor that caused all the havoc that you walk through today. People were jumping out of the fireplace, for God’s sake. It was ridiculous. More screaming. Krystal had a leg wrapped around me, I believe.
At the end of this, a guy with some fucked face and a chainsaw tried to saw me in half. I literally pushed Guy out the door.
Last was Quarantine. I won’t give too much away but there is a lot of walking, a lot of chain link fence and zombies everywhere. Guy was heard screaming the loudest in this part of the haunt, which Krystal and I found exceptionally humorous, as she and I are now officially fused together and identify as one single person.
When you get done, there’s this total feeling of accomplishment. I went in not knowing what to expect and the way they scared me was entirely different that I thought. Be the one in front or be the one in back, they are going to get you.
Forsaken Haunted House Ticket
So you could say I felt pretty confident. This wasn’t a small time, chump change haunted house. So what did we do?
WENT BACK FOR THE GLOWSTICK NIGHT THREE WEEKS LATER.
Let me begin at the end by telling you I made it out and I forced myself through the entire thing.
They give you a single glowstick for your whole group. It was the three of us again and I threatened Guy the entire hour we were in there to hang on to that glowstick or I’d file for divorce on Monday. Upping the ante a little more, the monsters can touch you, and boy, did they.
A LOT of hair stroking, and some guy screamed in my face. Guy (who isn’t tiny by any measure) nearly got dragged away, he held on to that glowstick though. I can imagine how ridiculous it must have looked: Guy hollering and being carried away by a rather large football player zombie while Krystal and I tugged and screamed, trying to “rescue” him.
It was epic. We never did lose that glowstick though and made it through all three houses (backwards, to further disorient ya). There were people in the parking lot, that were too chicken to even try.
We actually came out with more glowsticks than we went in with
Verdict: I could get addicted to haunted houses. I need to extend my “borders” a bit, because I would LOVE to go through others. If you’re a veteran or a first-timer who thinks they have balls o’steel, go on, try the Blackout dates.
Halloween Manicure: Orange & Glitter Tips w/Accent Nail
I love this design. The only reason it’s “Halloween” is because of the colors, so you could do this with any color for any occasion. It’s versatile and easy!
Wet ‘n’ Wild Wild Shine Nail Color, Sunny Side Up
L.A. Colors Art Deco Black Sparkles
L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Silver Glitter
Generic Black Striper
Sunny Side Up required 2 or 3 thin coats on my nails, but the color is pumpkin perfect.
Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up – Perfect Pumpkin Orange!
The stripers make putting on the tips so easy. I just hacked off all my nails, so the tips were simple. Use the black glitter striper for the 8 tips (leave your ring finger all orange for now). Load the striper brush up and roll your nail across the brush. Let your hand stay still. This is the easiest way to do tips.
Black Glitter, Black and Silver Glitter Stripers
Take the plain glossy black striper and flick a couple of lines on your ring finger, like I’ve done below. When the black glittery and plain black are dry, add a thin line of silver glitter just under the black tips and add a few touches to your ringfinger fan design. Top coat, and you’re done! Go show off your classy Halloween mani!
Orange and Black Manicure with a Touch of Glitter
Halloween Decorations are Garbage
Whoa back up the trolley! What you say?! Halloween decorations are awesome!!
Ok, I agree with you. Completely! Seeing as how we’re both awesomely on the same page of the book, have you ever given any thought to the pumpkin trash bags from the mid to late 1980′s? Leaf bags, they call them.
But um, you just put leaves in them. Or, if you live in a climate that things actually bloom all year, bunched up newspaper! Garbage? Nay!
Right, garbage either way you look at it. Yet I, as a kid (8, 9, 10 or so) WANTED THESE DESPERATELY. I remember specifically driving to school in the morning. They were in a select few yards the first 2 years, but daily I made sure I looked. Those huge, orange, dewy pumpkin bags. How could a red-blooded little Halloweenette NOT want these things?
Yeah, because they are garbage bags. – Says 32 year old me
But I did. I seem to remember there not being a lot of variety in pumpkin Halloween leaf bags, and I remember the first few I saw being big ones! Big orange pumpkins with definite black stripes and either a happy, non-threatening face or the MAW OF A MANIACAL KILLING MACHINE.Which would I choose?
The scary one.
Being a kid I didn’t have any money so while I’m sure I asked for them at the store, I didn’t get them for a couple years. Suburban kid problems, I know. Oh and you wanna hear CRAZY?! The nice pumpkin leaf bag and the evil pumpkin leaf bag were the same.damn.pumpkin.leaf.bag. 2 sides!
Eventually I did get them, though, and it was a package that contained 3 or 4 or 5 or something. My friends and I actually walked to the guy with the most trees and leaves in his yard, knocked on his door with our rakes and asked him if we could please take his leaves. He seemed stunned, suspicious, then wised up & fuck yeah, rake my leaves for free, neighborhood children.
So we did. And there were a bunch of us and we stuffed my small pumpkin bags full of wet leaves, it was just fun. It had to be, I never recall another time raking leaves and laughing my heart out at the same time.
I don’t remember if I ever put out pumpkin leaf bags after that year. They are just garbage bags, you know. The week after Halloween, you’d see them in the trash, a kind of crazy self-fulfilling prophecy, their whole life.
Fond memories of trash bags, because they had a pumpkin face on them! How silly, I’m sure. The bags are back now, and you can get monsters, spiders, whatever. I have no idea how they don’t blow away actually.
But I’m taken back to those couple of years when my childhood was beginning to become more past and less future, and I smile with my lips and with my heart at the silly grinning garbage bags.
Halloween Manicure: Green Skull & Jewel
This Halloween manicure is actually a rather quick one. It’s one or two coats of green, a quick stamp with black polish, the placing of a black rhinestone and top coat!
Here’s what I used:
Seche Clear Base Coat
Revlon Sassy
Nail Art Stamp Nail Art w/ Stamper (Skull)
Black Rhinestones
Black Color Nail Art Stamping Polish
Wet N Wild Glow in the Dark Nail polish
I allowed my base coat to try and then slicked on only 1 coat of Revlon’s “Sassy”. It’s a nice, thick polish.
I chose to put the glow in the dark polish on before I stamped for a couple reasons. One being I had less chance of wiping my stamp design away and the other… I wanted to skull to block the glow when the lights were off.
I ended up doing 3 coats of the glow in the dark topcoat. It barely changed the color of the Revlon and until I got to three coats, it wasn’t too even in the dark. Overall, though, I was happy with the glow of this polish.
I highly recommend the black stamper nail color I linked above. It’s much cheaper than Konad and works very well. Dig out your plate with your skull on it and just stamp the thumb.
On the middle finger on each hand, I added a single black rhinestone.
This is an easy manicure that has an eerie, earthy feel to it, and you’ll love that it glows in the dark whenever you’re around black lights!
Green glow in the dark Halloween manicure
Halloween Party: Blacklight Glow Room
I had a grown up Halloween party a few years ago and I themed every room differently. My guests saw every room because I put together a scavenger hunt that made them go up to the second floor, through the first, outside around the back and back in and down to the basement.
Even though your guests have been to your house countless times, the fun of throwing a Halloween party is how different you can make your space look with just the lighting.
This blog will be focusing on how I created an abandoned black light room.
Get your light source
I set everything up in a fairly large living room and only used one 48″ black light. Now is the time where the blacklight purist in me begs you to do the right thing and get an actual tube blacklight. Incandescent (purple) party bulbs and even the newer blacklight CF bulbs will not cut it.
Just say NO to fake blacklights
I had a big fluorescent fixture just hanging out in my basement, it was hanging off the ceiling by a couple of chains. Guy pulled it down and hung it off those ceiling hanger things that, you know, let you hang stuff off the ceiling.
One light, on one far end of the room, lit up the entire thing. This is the one I used.
See what turns on
You can go for broke and hang your big light or you can take a little tiny, battery powered black light tube around and see what’s reactive. To my surprise, ALL my blowmolds from the 60′s and up were very reactive. Put reactive things all over the place.
Our plaid, preppy couches didn’t bounce back any of the ultraviolet, making the room dark and awkward. This was very easily fixed by throwing some bright white sheets on top of the couch and love seat. It did double duty, because it looked like an old set of covered, forgotten furniture. You could do this on anything, a dining room table, individual chairs, pictures on the wall (pillowcases?), etc.
See how awesome the white bedsheets looks under the black light? The difference in the glow vs. not having them on at all is night and day.
Accent lighting
You think, “Why would I want any other lights on? Won’t that take away from the UV glow?”… and it would, if it’s either too overpowering or you weren’t using REAL blacklights. We purchased the compact fluorescent bulbs from Lowe’s or Home Depot. We figured it would be authentic, because it’s a fluorescent bulb. Wrong. It is better than the 25 watt incandescent party bulbs, but it gave off way too much light and not enough UV (if any). In the picture of the couches I posted, above, see the lamp between the 2 blowmold pumpkins? That’s the CF blacklight!
“Outlining” an area
Having the dark couch problem licked, the fireplace looked lackluster. It’s a honey blonde wood stain with copper glass door. We managed to make it the focal point of the room, as it should be, by doing 2 things:
Lit it up. We threw in a green party bulb (or led bulb, I can’t recall, but you could use either, as long as they again, aren’t too bright) and bounced it off the back of the fireplace. Then, we took neon printer paper I had lying around, and cut it into thin strips, taping it together to make lengths long enough to outline where we wanted. We used several different colors.
It looked better than I could have guessed it would look, and the orange, green and pink really popped.
Blood and bloody handprints
A lot of people break open glow sticks for instant glow juice. That’s a great idea, and has lots of uses, but I didn’t want to mess around with the stuff inside glowsticks to make blood and bloody hands dripping down my walls. I tried 2 things, Vaseline and laundry detergent.
Vaseline was so.damn.hard to remove, and didn’t glow *all that well*
Laundry detergent came right off, and it was much better at glowing, too. Total win. It was easy, it was fast, it was non-damaging. Check below, to the right of Dracula, for our laundry detergent glowing hand prints.
We put up a dark sheet to keep the red light from the dining room and foyer out of our glow light living room. We sat on the floor, played a drinking game involving questions (and some dares) out of a plastic trick or treat pumpkin and drank the most delish caramel apple shots EVER.
Yeah, it was a good time.
(Caramel apple shots – half butterscotch schnapps and half apple pucker – enjoy!)
Beginners Guide to Collecting Old Halloween Diecuts
Halloween diecuts and paper decorations are generally more rare than plastic items because they are so fragile, and because they were inexpensive. Collecting them is a really exciting hobby though, and there is a lot to learn, especially before going out and actively seeking out pieces.
Some are truly old, but aren’t at all rare. I’ve gotten loads of old Halloween diecuts for free or very, very cheap.
There are many good books out there, but my personal favorite has got to be Vintage Halloween Collectibles: An Identification & Price Guide by Mark Ledenbach. It is full of helpful information and eye candy, too.
McDonald’s 2012 Halloween Pails
I was wondering if McDonald’s would continue on with issuing Halloween buckets. in 2011 McDonald’s Halloween pails were “blanks” that came with stickers so you could make the face look however you wanted. There was a monster/Frankenstein and a pumpkin.
In 2010, the McDonald’s Halloween pails also came with stickers that you put on little Mr. Potato Head illustration on the bucket.
In 2012 they’re going with a character again, this time? Scooby Doo.
Interesting enough choice, I suppose, and I’ll get all three because I have a stack of plastic buckets from every other year, so to stop now would just be weird.
All three have “Scooby-Doo!” written in a classic squiggly font on the handles. The blue bucket with white handle has the whole gang walking and includes pointy stickers, the white with black handle has Scooby with a few different expressions and stickers to place on his face to change his look. The third is green with an orange handle and has the coolest stickers, retro looking monsters and ghouls.
These buckets will be available at participating McDonald’s locations the second week of October, 2012.
Parts & Bloody Bits – Gory Dinner & App Ideas
Planning a Halloween menu? Here are a few great appetizers and main courses. If your overall vibe is “bloody” or would make an actual cannibal RSVP, keep reading…
 Meatloaf hand
You’ll need a pan shaped like a hand, other than that, it’s really just a meatloaf with onions for nails (I know they’re onions, but they.really.make.me.cringe.) I really fancy the melted cheese on top, looks like charred flesh. Nice. |
 Fresh Zombie Meat Halloween Appetizer
Cooked chunks of steak served with a tomato based dipping sauce and of course, garnished with some red bloody splatters. Mmm, zombie meat. |
 Eyeball Soup
Fire roasted tomato soup served in a stark white bowl. The eyes are balls of mozzarella with Spanish olives as pupils. |
 Fleshworm
Pork tenderloin, prosciutto and thin spaghetti make these creatures that are awfully convincing lying there, dead, on YOUR dinner plate! These are a bit of work but they more than hit their goal of *almost* too frightening to eat. |
Here’s a series of great cookbooks with food ideas that aren’t too “cute”.
This should provide a little inspiration! Red foods are your friend on stuff like this, and meat is always an obvious choice.
