Is It Too Early for Halloween? Or Nah?

After all the Summertime celebrations have ended and all thoughts turn towards fall and back to school and Halloween....can I just say I am so ready. Both for the cooler temperatures and mostly decorating my house and figuring out this years costume(s). Last year I made a large head-dress with antlers

 and kind of skimped out on my actual dress. This year there is a kind of plan in our neighborhood for a group costume, I don't know if we are still holding each other to this but if not, and really even if......I think I might finally make my mermaid dreams a reality and show my true form this year. It all came from a post about how shell crowns are the new flower crowns and just...OMG

You can look at all the rest of the beauty on Chelsea Shiels' instagram: @chelseasflowercrowns.

So now I am super inspired to try my hand at making my own, and luckily Florida has many shells to choose from to help in this endeavor. Also my favorite part of Halloween is making parts of my costume, as well as make-uping my face.  I am about to pin all the things and watch all the tutorials.

We are not doing any inside party this year, all will be on the outside/front of the house, I'm sure my man has something planned to make a big impact, and don't worry friends, it'll be documented properly this year!

Can't wait to get started!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

DIY Antlers and Now Floral Necklace Tutorial PART 3 :)

Welcome back! This part of the tutorial is very optional. If you made the antlers and want to be done there, that's totally cool. I'm going for some drama so I added huge flowers!

STEP ELEVEN:

Cover your headband in a ribbon or fabric so the glue can better stick to it.

STEP TWELVE:

Plan out what flowers to use before attatching them. Add embellishments is so desired.

The beige flower had those same middle bits as the blue, but I had to cut them out to get the skull to properly fit.

STEP THIRTEEN:

Attach you flowers! Figure out your pattern and make it your own :)

And done! Also I realized that unfortunately the antlers and the frog piece I made earlier no longer fit together on my head. So now I at least have options during the night to switch out my "crowns". It really works out too since my antlers dried a bit wonky and stopped fitting through our doorways :/
So they are outside antlers now.

True to form I wanted more! I wanted to maybe make a floral crown to wear with my frog piece.....That did not work out. Instead it became a floral statement necklace and honestly that's fine. I was over extending on this costume and I needed to be done with it to move on to other home decorating!

STEP ONE:

Cover your base in tape, I also glued on leaves to cover the tape.

STEP TWO:

Have your baby skunk help you pick out your flowers :)

STEP THREE:

Make your arrangement, glue it on and that's it!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Come back for more Halloween themed shenanigans soon!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

DIY Antlers PART 2

Hello again friends! Here is part two of perhaps a part three or four series. Doing so many parts because realistically that's how many days this is happening over :)

Ok, there's the continuation of the Antler Saga:

STEP SEVEN:

After you have let your paper maiche layers (2) dry completely you can begin the texturing and painting.

Ok, So what I did there is use hot glue to build a little base on my antlers. Just like real ones, they need that rough looking bit at the bottom. Then I made little bumps and continued up the antlers with lines of hot glue. It makes the antlers look rough and works for when you paint layers.

STEP EIGHT:

Paint the first layer of color. I used peach because I had it, but you can use whatever colors you'd like.

Let that dry. Paint on a second coat to cover any dark areas of newspaper.

STEP NINE:

Mix up a darker color, I used an avacado green and black. Paint that over the antlers and at the bottom, rub it off on your texture bits so it shows through. On real antlers there's this type of gradient.

Like at the base of these.

This is my interpretation:

STEP TEN: 

Paint a second layer of the dark color on the antlers, making sure to cover patches of light. Don't repaint over the rubbed off texture parts though. 

Then let the antlers completely dry overnight and wonder if you should paint more, source answers from friends and plan out your floral attatchments.

Stay tuned for PART 3 (and maybe FOUR :))

Keep on, keepin on, 

M.

DIY Antlers & Floral Head-dress PART 1

My first tutorial!! Halloween is in full force over here in my little haunted house. I bought a bunch of weird gourds and all the costume supplies. Today I shall put in part one of how to make your own wearble antlers and skeleton head-piece. Part two will be a floral crown of epic proportions.

I watched and read alot of pins before starting on this project, so it's a blend of sorts. Here we gooooo.........

YOU WILL NEED:

• 12 Gauge Wire
• Heavy Duty Aluminium Foil
• Wide Headband (2, holes optional but made it much easier to work with)
• Painters Tape or Masking Tape
• Electrical Tape
• Flowers
• Skeletons/Skulls
• Ribbon
• Paint, Colors Your Choice
• Newspaper (not pictured, and almost forgotten)

You will need some of these items more in part two, but here are the steps for how I began making my antlers!

STEP ONE:

Make a shape for the base of your antlers, freehand or with refrences,

STEP TWO:

Wrap the wire base in the foil. Some tutorials only used foil as the base, which is really crafter's choice. I wanted the wire for strength but also because I would be attaching the antlers to a headband.

STEP THREE:

Oooh got a little ahead with that last picture! Ok, so once you wrap the first base antler with foil, cut smaller pieces of your wire and attach them to your base. I then used the electrical tape to smooth it out for the future foil. Antlers, like eyebrows are sisters and not twins, so don't worry if they aren't super symetrical. Also leave about 2 inches of wire bare at the bottom for attaching purposes. Oh and, when you wrap the foil, make the bottom a bit wider to mimic real creature horns.

(Unlike me who did end up fussing with these too long before I recognized their unique ways.)

STEP FOUR:

Wrap the entire thing in masking or painters tape. It provides a more textured surface for the paper maiche and it smoothes out the foil bumps.

STEP FIVE:

Attach the antlers to your headband

The headband/wire combo really holds up. And at Halloween party time, that is clutch.

STEP SIX: 

Prepare your paper maiche. One part Mod Podge and one part water. Use plastic dishware.

Cut newspaper strips.

Cover your work station :)

(I never did use the foam brush except to mix)

It's the same paper maiche technique you learned in school, dip your paper, squeeze off excess, adhere to surface. Continue until you have one full layer and let dry. You can wait a couple hours or do overnight like me only because I wait to be lazy the rest of this night haha.

While your antlers dry, begin on your floral head pieces. I am making two of them along with my antlers because obviously I love to make myself crazy/my Halloween character this year is Dramatic! :)

So here's my little frog skeleton head piece:

STEP ONE:

Find a headband that is big enough to fit on the front of your forehead. Once you have it, take your skeleton and wire this creature to the front middle.

I used electrical tape to cover the comb bits on the headband for pure comfort. 

STEP TWO:

Put some flowers on it! 

Lana Del Rey that skeleton. Make an outrageous crown for yourself. It's the best holiday for it!

 

STEP THREE:

Your antlers are pretty dry by now, so go ahead and put them on with your frog piece. See how they look together and decide "Is this enough or too much?" Spoiler, you can never be too much.

Tomorrow I shall be continuing on the antlers, so look for PART 2 soon :)

Keep on, keepin' on!

M.

Decorating for Halloween

Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow I go up in my creepy attic and get our Halloween stuff down for both costuming and decorating purposes. I want to and I don't. I don't like my attic but I'm super excited to sort through stuff and make over my home into the macabre little mansion it was born to be :)

I still haven't started on ANY of my costumes yet and I'm slightly freaking out. I absolutely need to get my party one done and the others will fall into place hopefully *fingers crossed*

IDEAS:

Party, swamp witch like this:

 Lily Rabe in AHS Coven, mixed with

 This cool headdress (Artist unknown), mixed with

Some combination of these looks, by Jessica Haze @jessicahazemua on instagram

For our neighboorhood Haunted Hike, some sort of alien/otherwordly being:

Along the lines of this but IDK how great it will turn out. Practice time!

Actual Halloween always gets the simplest, maybe vampire this year? I'm not 100%. I always try not to repeat costumes but upcycle parts of old ones so we'll see what happens. 

Until then...

Keep on, keepin on,

M.

Ready For Fall!

Hello Internet Friends!!!!
   I have missed this. I am ready to take this blog and really do it a great service. I'm also really ready for Florida to be on the autumnal trend. Let's hear it for sweaters and boots for real y'all. But back to the blog, I really do like writing when I get down on it. I need to stop making silly promises to the ether and make serious promises to myself. What good is having a creative outlet if you never use it? It just makes more brain clutter, not to be confused with brain matter, haha you need that! Ahhhhh anyway....I'm going to write. That's it, that's all. I'm going to just get out there and do it or else I'll always kick my own ass on what might have been.

New to this blog at least, I want to start giving you a visual into my little ramble world, so thus now I shall add photos of said skunk or adventures or cool things my man and I create.

Speaking of my man, he and I are starting to plan and build for our annual Halloween shin-dig which is in the third year of life. It is the most fun I have all year. I love planning a costume, I love decorating, I love making party food and drinks and I LOVE having a blast with my friends.

Here is a taste of the first year:

And then last year(Where we really went all out):

What does this year hold? I'll tell you that the theme is a VooDoo Bayou after our fantastic trip to New Orleans this January. I think I've settled on being a swamp witch, but who knows? I tend to be indecisive when it comes to costumes! Trust that this adventure will be well documented this go-round. Til then....

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

I started really writing again....

Ok, so I had tried writing a short story for an anthology, and bummed myself out by not finishing it.
Now I still only have Part 1, but I will put it out on here for your reading pleasure!
Hopefully this one won't turn out like Inga.......unfinished :/

Lena opened her eyes to see the sun streaming through her curtains. Looking at the clock on the wall she saw it was 7:40AM. "Ugh, so early. Brain why are you waking me up on a Saturday?"

She rolled over to her snoozing skunk shielding her tiny eyes from the morning glare. Covering Isis with her blanket, she eased out of bed to go make a cup of coffee. Everything was quiet in her lovely bungalow. Setting the kettle on, she peered into the living the living room and saw that in fact, her husband was not sleeping on the sofa.

"He must be outside." she thought to herself. A blue jay caught her fancy suddenly and had it not been for the piercing whistle filling her kitchen, she would have stayed transfixed on the bird's activity.

"Wake up, will you. Might as well go get a bit of fresh air and find Magnus." Her thoughts prodded at her.

"Oh well, ok. I'll find my shoes and robe. Also, is it off to be answering your own self? Hahaha, please don't answer that..."

Down the steps and across the garden path she stolled enjoying the morning dew and the hazy sunlight. As she neared the edge of the vegtables, she heard the sweet sounds of The Doors wafting from Magnus' workshop. He was up and at it. Knocking softly on the old shed door so as not to startle him, she noticed a plume of pale smoke rising from another home a couple blocks over. It was May, in Florida, not really the time for a proper fire. Magnus opened the door and broke Lena's concentration with a soft kiss hello.

"Come on in love. Do you like this one so far?" He beckoned her towards his current project, the restoration of a late 19th century armoire for a client in Buffalo. The dark wood and pearl inlay was beginning to shine up just as it had centuries ago.

"Magnus it's beautiful! You are a true craftsman my dear."

Lena handed him a mug of coffee. The weather was lovely and bright, perfect for a walk. Magnus continued upon his project, Lena went in to change from her robe to a pair of shorts. The neighborhood the couple had moved to was rich with history from the 1920's. All brick roads and porches filled with fairy lights and flowers. Lena set out past the old church and down a street she hadn't explored yet. It was the oldest part of the block, the homes had been there since 1910 and had once housed workers from the first orange groves. Time had passed and now these bungalows were lined in picket fences and young couples enjoying the paper in rocking chairs. There were always goings-on within the little neighborhood and it really strengthened the community vibe. Lena was thoroughly enjoying her stroll in this part when a waft of sweet incense reached her. She turned and realized that she was standing in front of where the smoke had been trailing this morning. Looking up at the porch she saw beautiful tapestries, all vibrantly dyed. In stark contrast were a multitude of vines and plants all with an odd theme. All there flowers were shaded in dark purples and blacks. Every single one. They were breath-taking against the white washed porch.

"Hello?" Lena called softly.

To whom she was not exactly sure. She was quite a bit shyer than her dear Magnus and tended to have rather reclusive tendencies. Something about this garden, however, made her ask again:

"Hello? Is anyone home? I just had a question about your goth garden..." Lena trailed off. She didn't see a car and figured no one was home. Setting off to further explore, she suddenly heard a velvet voice from above.

"Dear, so sorry. I am up in my attic! Be down in a moment!"

Lena stared at the small attic window where she had there had just been the smallest wisp of a woman. She went back over to the steps of the porch and the door opened softly. Lena was greeted by a very small woman of about 85 with long silver hair and massive eyes like saucers. She had an emerald green pantsuit on and a beautiful crystal around her neck on a gossamer strand of gold. How that chain held such a large stone was beyond belief.

"Darling girl, how are you?? What brings you my way?"

"I-I-I just went for a walk, and then the flowers. I don't know, I was just drawn to them I guess. I, my name is Lena. And I'm alright. Your name is....?"

"Agatha. Darling, I specialize in the darker exotics you see. I can give you a few if you'd like."

Lena loved rare plants, this was a dream come true. "Sure, that would be amazing!"

Agatha smiled and began to procure some clippings and pots for Lena to take home.

"This is a Bat Flower, very hearty. And this is a Primula, which is very close to a Primrose. Finally I shall give you a little Midnight Supreme Rose. So wonderful! They are a deep black-navy edged in a bright dark blue, you will be overjoyed at the sight of there blooms!"

"Agatha these are all too much, how can I thank you?"

"Just come round once a week and help me do a bit of outdoor sprucing, I think this could be a great friendship, darling girl."

Lena waved good bye to her new found friend and walked back home with her new plant babies. Magnus was surely wondering where she had gone off to. Arriving home and unlocking the gate, Magnus popped right out of the kitchen door.

"I was getting antsy, what are all those from?"

Lena told him all about her little adventure and gave him the run down of their new mini garden. He gave her a bit of a skeptical look, but then again he was used to Lena being over excited and jumping head first into things. This was just another crazy idea to him, but then they always make him smile.

To be continued....... :)

Keep on, Keepin' on,

M.

Inga Pt. 2

A woman stood in the doorway and as Inga saw her she knew that this was the woman she had been waiting for her entire life. She had an emerald cloak and fiery auburn hair, plaited in multiple braids crowning about her head. She smiled down at Inga with such warmth and love that Inga nearly fainted. 

"Inga!" Her mother peered out of the kitchen and shouted, "Get this woman a chair, help her in! Can't you see her frailty?"

What was she talking about? This mysterious woman looked as strong as Freya!

"She can't see me like you dear Inga," the woman suddenly stated....without moving her lips.

"She sees me as an ancient, gray and hunched over my cane."

Inga obeyed her mother and widened her eyes at the woman. Her head was spinning.

(Sorry so short....maybe 2.5 will happen in a bit :))

M.

Inga

A long time past, when magic still lit the way for most people, there was a girl. She was a particularly normal girl, from a normal town carved in the side of a mountain.

Life in the mountain town was a bit tedious, mainly chores and no adventures. The young girl dreamed of more, of being a fantastic explorer and discovering new lands and new seas. Between tending to the garden and the horses the girl would daydream and lose track of chores. Her mum would always find her up in a tree, languidly swinging her leg, an expression of bliss on her face.

"Get down here, Inga! Silly child spending your life in the clouds...There are things to do!"

Inga scrambled down, picked up her basket and continued weeding the vegetable patch. She was a girl of 13, with long raven hair and alabaster skin. She had wild dreams at night of travelling across the world on a viking ship. She thought these could even be visions of her future. Despite the lore and existence of magic in this world, people still feared it. Inga could not share her visions with her family, she had to tell them to the skies and the trees and the horses in the stables.

Spring began to steal away into the harvest season and Inga helped with the canning of the fruits and vegetables. She and her mum were going about their day when a knock came at the door. They weren't expecting any visitors. Who visits the side of a mountain?

"Inga, dear, do get the door. I can't let the berries scald."

Inga went and opened the door. And there was a woman standing there. And Inga knew her life had changed forever.....





Stay tuned for part 2 :)

M.