Gargoyles

This morning around 4 AM, as I sat on the couch eating my bowl of Ramen noodles, surfing through the 93450276 channels on cable on my night off from the Evil Empire, I came across my all-time favorite cartoon series, "Gargoyles" on Disney XD.  Now, first of all, yeah, I KNOW the series was out from 1994-1997, which made me an adult when it was in its heyday.... and obviously that makes me a bit weird to have my fave cartoon of all-time occurring not when I was a child, but as I am a grown woman (26  years old when I started watching, actually).  But hey, if you ever watched the series, you'll understand why I fell in love with the cartoon as an adult.  The whole series was geared toward an older demographic rather than the younger set that Disney normally targeted for the morning watching audience.  I actually got hooked on it because I always put the TV on Disney in the morning for my son Brandon when he was old enough to watch television (I think he was like a year old or so at the time).  Of course, Brandon would find other things to do to occupy his time, like play in the toilet, rip up his daddy's Car and Driver magazines, or eat the dead June-bugs that were stuck in the sliding glass window track.... so I would end up watching the show by myself, with my cup of coffee in hand.  From the first time I sat down and viewed my first episode, I was completely addicted to it.  It was fascinating, the characters, the story line - I found myself riveted to the TV.  I never missed an episode, and was thankful that it went into reruns so I could see the ones from the previous seasons.  It was like a soap opera, only in animated form, like Aeon Flux (I watched that a few times back in the day) and kept to a running story line that made it necessary to watch all the airings to know what was going on. 

Can you fall in love with a cartoon character?  Heck yeah!  (Figuratively, people, I'm not a freak.)  Goliath was - and still is - the perfect man, just bigger, with wings, a tail, and a loin cloth... and stuff.  Tall, dark, handsome in a blue sort of way.  Quiet, mysterious, strong, and brave... he is everything that I dreamt of in a man, only in a gargoyle's cartoon body.  Of course, he had his flaws - that whole "turning into stone" thing during the daylight hours is kind of a bummer, and you'd need a ladder to dust him.  I loved his voice, deep and soothing...even though I do not find Keith David the least bit attractive, the man has a great sound.

Back to my point for the Halloween side of my thought process this morning.  I want to rebuild my verion of Goliath, who many of you know passed on to the great landfill in 2008.  I really missed his presence in my cemetery this last Halloween.  He was like a sentinel, as he should be, watching over the graveyard as I slept, and greeting me when I came home.  I miss having him in the dining room during the off-season.  He was my first papier mâché prop since elementary school, and the first big project I ever really did, so I was really proud of him.  I learned a lot in the process of creating him, and in refinishing him a couple of years later.  I know I can make him even better this time.  It also helps that I have a much more well-suited man to be my duct-tape dummy victim for the main form this time too.  My hunk-o'-beefcake man, Tom, is 6'3" and a giant, so he will be perfect for creating the RIGHT size and proportions for Goliath.  The first body for Goliath needed a LOT of work, extra foam added in here and there, to get the proportions right since it was created from two people's bodies - upper body and torso from my ex, who is narrow-shouldered, and the legs were done from a DTD of me from the waist down, so they were too short and needed a lot of work lengthening and bulking up.  I hope Tom knows what he's in for with being a DTD victim... 

Anyway, that's one of the major props that I would like to accomplish for the 2010 season.  It took me 18 days, I think, from start to finish, to create the original version of Goliath.  I'm thinking this one may take a bit longer since I don't have all the spare time that I had when I made the first one, but the process itself should be much easier since I know a lot more about how to do it all.  Thankfully, I already have all the materials needed to create him too, so all that is left is to get that motivation to git 'r dun!

2009's Party at the Dead End

The story goes pretty much the same as last year, only this year we had only 14 guests actually show up.  I finally got into the spirit of things, late, but I did it... with only 2 weeks to go, I got the house ready.  I spent 2 days working on last minute stuff, food prep ALL day long on Saturday... all while being sick and in pain, even having to call out from work because I felt so bad.  But I kept going, just to throw this party together because I had already committed to it.  Had so many people, AGAIN this year, begging for invites, telling me how much they look forward to it, yadda yadda... that I didn't wanna disappoint anyone by canceling.

I did not enjoy the party at all.  I will not be throwing one next year.  I am very thankful to those friends who did come; they are good sports to stick around the completely boring party that was going on.  It was a lot of work, a lot of stress, for not much enjoyment.

Finally a bit o' fall inthe air!

Last night, we opened some of the windows in the house before going to bed.  The fresh air smelled good coming into the house and you could feel the slightest bit of a coolness on the breeze.  Yes, folks, autumn has finally come to Florida!  Last night's low was around 58° here in the Jacksonville metro area and was a PERFECT companion for the annual bringing down of the Halloween boxes from the attic.  All the main decorating boxes have been stacked with care in the main living areas of the house and now we have to weave through the  maze of them to get around.  I'm excited to finally get the gossamer up on the walls today and transform the beiges and tans in the house to the Halloween blacks, grays and reds.  It's crunch time, and I've only just started, but I'm hoping that the cooling off from our 90°+ weather helps to speed me along in my attempt to "git 'r dun" in the 24 days I have left until the party.  Wish me luck!

Images, images and more images!

I found a lot more images today on my quest for graphics to use with my invitations.  There is one site that stands out in particular, mainly because of its HUGE collection of public domain images that deal with religion, ancient signs and symbols, medical reference (skeletal charts), literary images, tarot, and so much more.

I could peruse this site for hours!

http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/

Printables for Halloween

While I was perusing the interweb today for some vintage graphics for my Halloween party invitations, I stumbled upon a nifty craft blog with some links for images that you can print out for your bottles and jars for Halloween displays.  A couple of the sites listed I was already aware of, but some new ones were on there that  I really enjoyed.  This image from Love Manor was the one that caught my eye:

 

Image source:  http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3293/2782116590_3275791a85.jpg?v=0

Take a gander at Free Printable Fun:

http://freeprintablefun.org/2008/09/free-printable-halloween-potion-bottle.html

Dollar Tree's offerings for 2009

I decided to get in the spirit of Halloween by visiting the closest Dollar Tree today with my daughter and we picked a few things out to bring home with us.  They had some usable new stuff, a lot of the same boring stuff as every year, and some really cutesy stuff that I totally passed right on by.  I saw a few painted signs I liked, so I grabbed them to put in my kitchen:

 

They had some of those small resin tombstones again as well, but I only snagged two of those that I didn't already have:

There were some small crows, so I picked up a few of them.  I wish they'd had these small skeletons last year when I needed them.  I paid like 5 bucks a sheet for 8 of them last year at WalMart, when this year they are a buck for a sheet of 4 at Dollar Tree.  I plan on making some of Willy's Fairy Art with them, so I bought a few sheets of them.  I also got a small black sparkle skull too... dunno why.  It looks more like it's coated with tar than glitter, but that's fine by me.  :)

I found some bottle labels that looked alright too.  I have about 50 wine bottles that I picked up off someone via FreeCycle, so I can use them for some of those.  I thought about using the wine bottles as invitations and making my own labels... but I decided against it.  Anyway, there are 8 labels in the package, 4 different types - 2 of each.

 

  

  

  

And I totally could not resist these socks!  

Bugs, bugs, bugs... and other things

I love my children. :) Chips off the ol' block for sure. My daughters are always on the look out for interesting things for me to use in my witch bottles and other assorted Halloween projects. Two days ago, my youngest daughter brought me a gift that she and her sister found out in the driveway:
They also bring me cicadas when they find them, knowing that they used to be called "tree nymphs" back in the old days because of their "singing".
They keep an eye out for spiders as well, since I have a nice jar 'o arachnids that I'm collecting. This particular beauty is one that my husband found in our bathroom and called me to come retrieve:
I've just decided to start using our beach findings in the display as well. I found a really nice sea urchin skeleton on our last trip to the beach:

I love mermaid's purses as well, I remember the first time I found one at Little Talbot Island. They're actually shark/skate/ray egg cases and are also called Devil's purses. They sound gross, but they're lightweight and dry somewhat hard. I was thinking of making a papier mache "Devil's Purse" on a much larger scale to add to the display. This one is from our last trip out to Talbot and is about 3 inches long:



I think a walk around the yard is in order now...