Sunday, September 26, 2010

Some Halloween Costumes Past.


Thought I'd post some of our past Halloween costumes. There are way too many for one post, I'll add more as the Holiday gets closer.

This is my brother and I. I think I was five or so, he would have been four. Mom made our costumes. I remember the hat really well. I was fascinated by the construction paper shapes on the door. We got to help cut them out. The things you remember decades later.......

This is CyJimmy, Pressed Fairy Maggs and Super Me!
This was Mr. Jimmy's first Halloween with us.

The girls winning the Halloween costume contest for our town paper. I loved these costumes.

Mercy, the year we discovered Cats, the musical was on disc at the library for loan.

One of many LOTR based costumes. Mercy was an Ent. We made the mask from lightweight clay and dollar store greenery.

Maggs the mini Andourian. So cute. She looks tired here. This is after the candy getting. No one knew what she was. Poor kid.

My Andourian costume, Loads of blue makeup, an old leather jacket from the Sally Anne and a whole lotta glue. We made Andourian Ale, it was potent.

Maggie's pressed Fairy costume, She looked fabulous, she even walked around with a limp like she'd been crushed.

Close up of Maggie's Goblin ear. We made it by dipping dollar store mixing spoons in liquid latex a bunch of times (like making candles) then peeling it off the spoon and gluing them on her ears and painting them out. This is her real hair colour too, weird.... she has dyed it black for so long I forgot she was a strawberry blond.

Head to toe shot of the goblin. It's amazing how many costume foundations are housecoats.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Jack O Lantern Time.

Here are some of our past Jack O Lanterns
Can't wait to make more.


This is Jack

and his friend Ooogie Boogie


A creepy Skully Jack.


Big Cheesy Grin Jack


I think I have a Booger Jack
(By Auntie J)


I have a headache and I'm hungry Jack.
(By Maggie)


I'm confused Jack
(By Mr. Jimmy)

Have no idea what we're going to do this year. The Jack O Lanterns are never planned. We just wing them. Way more fun that way. You never know who will turn up.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Ball Jointed Doll (BJD) Vampire Face Up.

This is Gretel, Maggie's Ball Jointed Doll. The above picture shows what she usually looks like.
However, for Halloween, Gretel likes to dress up!

Wanted to share this for for all of you who want to Halloween up you BJD's

Some things you'll need:

Various colours of acrylic paint. (I use Golden artist grade 'cause I like it best!)
Fine paint brushes
Small stiff brushes (for dry-brushing)
Water (for cleaning brushes)
Paper towels (for blotting brushes)
Light brown pencil crayon sharpened (for drawing in details)
Spray sealant


Draw in the eyebrows with the pencil crayon. (Erase if necessary to correct)
I hold the piece upside down to see if it's symmetrical. Looking at it in the mirror helps too.

Mix a blush colour and load up a small stiff bristle brush. Rub off almost all the paint and use the rest to blush the cheeks and outer eye edges. A little bit goes a long way, you can always add more but removing it means starting over.

Redefine the eyebrows with the pencil.

Add eyeliner in brown.

I added Twirls on the outer corners of the eye.
I used a fine brush and brown thinned out paint.
I also added red lips.

I painted in two fangs with white paint.

Above the eye crease I added iridescent gold.
Golden acrylic paints have some pretty cool pigment choices.

She can see again. I put her eyes back in.



Easy face up for the Howlidays!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Fascinating and a skelly.

Working hard on commissions right now. This time of year is always so busy with Christmas, and Valentines and Easter deadlines looming. Soooo hard when all I want to concentrate on is Halloween.

Last year we woke up one morning to find this happy chappy on our front porch. We had a friend poll and decided to name him Porris Bentspine. He's going to become a regular in our Halloween front yard.

Maggs and I have also made some fascinators. These are adorned with FIMO skulls and black feathers. We also stuck in some beautiful flourist pins with rhinestone heads.

Here is a blurry close up so you can maybe see a bit better what we did. There is a hair clip hot glued onto the back.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Halloween Cookies......and a cake.

Here we have the table all set on Devils night for the Great Pumpkin to have a little treat. How come The fat guy in the red suit gets all the cookies huh?

We always try to make cookies and decorate them for the Howladays. The kids still love it, doesn't seem to matter how old or big they get.

Frightful Witches on brooms.

My personal favorite Halloween cookie of all time........
The ZOMBIE COOKIE!
Delicious!

Booooooooooo, Ghosties.

Gotta have a Jack or two.

Bat cookies.

The ever popular Count cookie. Love his bling!

Dracula cake! We loaded the cake itself with a whole container of red food colouring paste.
It was delicious!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Halloween Windows

We try to do this window idea every year using different silhouettes every time.
It's so cheap and easy and fast to do. You can save them and use them year after year or trash them and make more.
They are dollar store coloured plastic tableclothes cut to the size of the window. We added black plastic tablecloth silhouettes to the coloured plastic sheets. We used double sided tape to attatch the shapes and hang the pieces up.

We cut holes through both layers to show candle flames.


This is looking out from the inside.
The roses were a gift for Mom from Auntie J and the A man!
Soooooooooo beautiful!!!

Here is a blurry shot of the side yard windows. I really liked the giant spider.


Here is the front yard all gussied up.
I love Halloween!!!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Visions of Halloween Past.

I have SOOOOOO MANY Halloween pictures and projects from the past. It is difficult to know what to post. So I'm going to just post things, without sorting them into categories. I like randomness!
Hope you do too.

This is Maggie's Obitsu BJD Gretel. She is always dressed for the holidays. Maggie makes sure she is lurking decoratively somewhere in the background.


Maggie's first prosthetic. We kept it simple. Made her a pair of latex ear tips and painted her metallic green. The ear tips are easy peasy to make. Just repeatedly dip and let dry a large plastic dollar store spoon into some liquid latex. Keep making layers and letting them dry until you have something that looks pointy. Peel the dry point off of the spoon and apply it to your ear with spirit gum and paint it out to match your skin tone.
and POOF! you're a Fairy!


Some of our pumpkins past.



Maggie's zipper eye from last year. She completed this look all by herself. She watched some tutorials online and went to town. (So PROUD!) She won a prize.