Halloween inspiration

This night a heavy breeze of colder air visited us, it was one of the signs that announce the arrival of autumn. I had to close the window to shut the moaning that prohibited my sleep. Another sign has been rows of canada goose flying to the south. 

To be honest. I have really enjoyed this summer, enjoyed my long holiday so much that I will miss these warm days with abundance of vegetables and berries from the garden. Luckily, this crybaby has adopted the Halloween holiday and embraced it with a passion close to madness, wich makes autumn something to look forward to. 

So, to prepare both myself and you, I'll show you how I survive in this desert of Halloween decorations called Sweden: By doing it myself.

This particular box was made for an internet/blog/facebook friend of mine at a Halloween swap last year. She lives in the US and should therefore be spoilt with seasonal decorations. Please check out her fabulous blog for garden, teaching, gothic inspo.

First of all, I bring out all my supplies that could have a match to something autumn/Halloweenish. Creative caos, that is. 

I use the Vintage moth as a supplier of vintage pictures. The candy bags in the photo below is made in photoshop with images from the mentioned blog. I print on ordinary printer paper, folding, glueing and cutting the edge.

This is a tin that usually contains mint pastilles. The scull head covered the text perfectly.

It contains a pair of ear dangles made of clock hands and chandellier crystals.

This blurry photo below is an ornament that could even work in a Christmas tree. The bulb is an old light bulb were I removed everything but the glass bulb. It contains black glass glitter and is embellished with a flower.

I never throw candle stumps away, I re-melt them to new candles. The lantern in the photos below was made of a small jar, it is filled with fragrant and re melted candle stumps. The jar was decorated with ribbons, lace and images. An antique chandelier chrystal is hanging at the bottom secured by wire. The wire handle and the chain is also made by me.

front

back

Heres another ornament, flip and front side. It is made of a bake form, chandelier chrystal, old images, black glitter and orange ribbons.

Everything was neatly packed in a box that used to contain hair products but is now decorated with bats and lace.

Everything of these are actually very easy to do. It's just a matter of the right tools, glue, hoarding stuff and imagination. I don't like kitschy, cheap looking halloween decorations, I prefer the vintage/victorian look. Even if my supplies are almost for free, I put a lot of effort to make it look luxurious or as if it's antique.

I hope that I could give you some inspiration and tips what you can do of scraps. See you soon, I hope :-)

Some more decorations for the season

A black frame on a black wall doesnt work wery well unless its not supposed to be bold. I changed the black ikea frame to a white dito on the witch photo I always hang up at Halloween. It looked much better. Besides, theres now a nice black frame to fill.

An easy way to give a home some spookyness is to wrap a piece of black lace around a tea light holder or a lamp. The tag on the candle comes from Msantopia.

We were lucky to see the blood moon a few weeks ago. It was so beautiful but very difficult to take a photo of. We set the alarm 4:30 in the morning to be able to see the full eclipse. One fascinating thing was that the usually cold black sky got a purple black hue. As we stood there gazing at the moon, a giant meteor fell. This was magical.

Welcome october, decorations for my home

Dear fellows. I'm so damn stressed, my job takes too much of my sparetime and I don't even have time for my studies. I have also missed to have a clean and decent home because I don't have time to keep it up. But today I  had to start a little. Im blogging from my phone so please excuse if the text looks weird and photos are not aligned.

The kitchen got a slight clean and curtains (havent put up curtains for a year). My only pumpkin for this year has turned orange plus some orange mini pumpkins gives the right colour for the season.

Of all places , I found this adorable pumpkin lantern at our "outsale store" Ö&B. It's very much my type and is a perfect add to my livingroom. That store is one of few who actually sells halloween stuff here in Sweden.

Crawling out from the crypt

Thank you Ms.Misantropia for the giveaway. I'm looking forward to read it and I hope it's not that corny as the movies ;-). I also got a card letter in my first letter and a book mark fit for a dark novel.

So were the hell have I been?

I have been working a huge part and trying to keep pace with my studies at the same time, more on that later for you who are interested. 

We didn't throw our annual Halloween party because of my tight scedule. But pumpkin cupcakes it was and Alfons carved out the huge one . The inside gave a huge batch of pumpkin puree to bake and make tasty stuff.

A tip when you carve out the meat of the pumpkin. Bake it in a pan tightly covered with an ovensheet on low heat to get a nice puree with all the flavours left.

The rest of the time has evolved around technology and science only, even at my sparetime. Oskar and his class mates joined the First Lego League challenge. It was an exciting game. They had a good chance to win but as a sensor failed to work an the other didn't have the equal calibration, they lost the semi.

We also visited the science museum for kids. Where they have a simple and harmless laboratory. My bunch are making lava lamps on this photo.

 I had to buy the Monster High Halloween pack. The magazine is ridicilous, I hate the effeminated texts in it. The craft stuff was nice and I finally have a real ink pen that works for my lefthanded writing. Yay!!

So why do I work so much? Well I teach two different math classes, I also have a class in chemistry, then I'm an examinator for some of the third grades exam assignments and I'm a mentor for a couple of students in my first grade class. This could fill my time completely but I also teach second technology and scientific specialisation. In these two last classes there are no books, no material to use, and no material to find. I teach my scientific class steel plant technology, hot forming of steel and material technology, because that's something I have knowledge of. The technology class is worse, they ought to learn mechanics like transmission, hydraulics, and pneumatics and so forth but I can't find any books of good standars. I have no idea what other technology teachers are doing in this case, this course is very new as well. I have this weekend to work on this and to do my own schoolwork, an essay about environmental sustainability work in school.

I say bye for now. See you maybe in another month...

Winter is coming

I wonder what the Swedish army is looking for in the Stockholm archipelago. Well Sweden is one of the few countries in Europe that has not joined NATO, so we're pretty sure who has visited our waters uninvited....The world got just colder. 

After we decided not to throw a Halloween kids party, I was not sure if I would even have the time/strenght to decorate. But as the stores picked up things with lovely autumn feel I decorated a little bit. It actually didn't take long time. 

The game table is decorated in the mood of the Seventh Seal

The booklet under the glass dome is a biblical one with the title " The sin against the spirit".

 The bookshelf in the background is actually a curtain that I just had to get when I passed the shop window of Åhléns. It's perfect in my dark cosy livingroom.

I have spent most of my week in the sofa, watching the two Seasons of Hemlock Grove. Perfect to indulge some gore along with the recovery of a horrible flu that caught me in fever for five days. D-vitamins, bee-pollen, painkillers and warm tea id my arsenal of weapons.

The worst thing with this flu is that it has attacked my ability to think properly, it feels like when I was sick with depression and ptds. 

Another mini glassdome I recently bought. I know I'm a sucker for glass domes. The striped cloth is hiding a batch of applecider vinegar to be finished soon.

A few decorations at the kitchen shelf. The cone is a papercraft that was made the first autumn in this house.

We still harvest red paprikas from the three buckets I brought indoors before the frost.

Next week will be my last few days at the old job. What a relief and what an excitement (and huge performance anxiety) to start the new job. This will give me the opportunity to see if teaching really is something for me. 

CorpGoth- Mid month status report: Fitting in at my new workplace

I visited the parental meeting at the school I'll be working at last week. I didn’t have to say anything important, except showing myself and do a short presentation, it went well. I had roamed around the stores for some professional clothes the day before and went home soaked in sweat, oh how I hate to shop clothes. I call the fitting booths, faschism booths because all the disadvantages of the body appear in full drama in the merciless light. Along with this post Corp Goth monthly status report is very fitting for showing what I shoped for the parental meeting.

My Restyle rib cage bag was changed to something so plain it almost is invisible. It’s also another vanishing bag that transforms to a black hole once you put something in it, if it had the colour blue, I could say bigger on the inside. I have ordered a LED-light to be inserted in it from Johan but I don't know when he will have the time. It is made of real black leather,  I’m a carnivore and prefer real leather that lasts longer.

 It’s only a glimpse as I didn’t have a tripod or a photographer, but I hope that you get the idea of the jacket I finally found after running around the whole city, so many cardigans and chanel jackets but no suit jackets (not in my size anyway). I found this one at H&M it is tailored at the back and straight at the front. The fab thing with this one is that the shoulders didn’t went sloppy on my narrow and sloppy ones, it’s usually the big problem with fitting. I also found a long sleeved midnight blue top, it looks slim but hides my belly, it has fake leather pads on the shoulders. I will definitely buy the other colours of this one. The necklace was a gift from Johan bought at ebay.

 The shoes of the brand Ara are also a bit plain but oh how my feet loves them. The heel is 2 inches and very comfortable, perfect to walk and stand in. The toes shape reminds a bit of Fluevogs ergonomically shape and the leather is thin and smooth, clings to your foot like a glove.

 I bought other clothes but that will be another post. 

The autumn leaves are shifting colour now and I tried to fold a rose from maple leaves, it was very easy.

I harvested 3 of my pumpkins the other week, they are heavy and a hollow sound is heard when knocking on the bottom. Let there be pumpkin muffins, soups, pies etc and lovely Jack’O lanterns!! Still no frost even if we have reached the other half of September.

Halloween prop

Here's one of the Halloween props for this year. I ran smoothly thanks to my skilled boyfriend. Coffin and "stones" are made by me.

I so do hate november. It gets dark by 3pm. Right now icy cold rain is pouring down and the temperature is just 4 degrees above freezing point. Only crazy people and those who really must goes outside now. I'm sitting in the sofa mostly with lit candles in my black livingroom. I don't feel guilty at all because I have an inflammation in my knee and since the doctor have bent and pressed my knee and leg during examination, it feels. I curse all the stairs and ladders at work.

Halloween kids party 2013

First of all. The picture below, does not representing the snacks for the kids party. This is what I found at Lidl (thanks to Lesthi) and we snacked on during the weekend before (except dracula teeth). It's the first time I see Halloween themed food in a store here.

Every year I must do some kind of cupcakes. This years theme was based on bought cupcake set (wrapper, topper and bone sprinkles) bought at kakburken.se. I used butter, blueberry puree, and icing sugar to make the frosting.

The smaller kids claims chocolate balls.

 I also baked simple but decorated cakes. The cutters are also bought at kakburken.

I use to do a typical american treat every year and try a new one. The first year I tried velvet cakepops with jack skellington faces and very few ate those (looks like brain, was the comment), last year I tried to serve caramel popcorn (I had to eat them myself, and loved it too, was the only one). This year I tried to serve Rice Crispie treats, Whats that?? strange, it doesnt taste anything, was some of the comments. A lot of them were left after the party. Children are soo picky about new stuff. Any suggestions of another treat I can try next year?

Soo, over to decorations. I told you in last post that we went to a flea market. This is floor candle holder is one of a pair that I bought. The candle is made of a card roll that transported one way mirror film home to us for one of the tricks.

 Store bought pumpkin garland, a black curtain and a home made boo-banner decorated the door way between entrance and kitchen.

 The old hallway had to store our sofa. 

The kitchen is quite simple and I reused lots of decorations. I don't want to use that common spiderweb as I hate to clean it off later.

Another garland, with bats.

The clock on the wall is fairly new. We have lived in this house for 5 years and never had a clock in the kitchen before. Visitors and family have ask about the time and nagged about me refusing to buy a clock until I find one I like. So this clock was nice enough to get a place in my kitchen. 

View to the stairwell. Witch painting is moved to this room and the only new stuff is the garland with red roses.

Here I am in my creepy clown costume. It looks like mad hatter in combo with the joker, not an intention, o well. The slit mouth make up did creep the young ones out though :). One of Oskars friends was dressed as the joker so we called each other cousins.

The cutest little girl on earth, Johans daughter Moa in her new bat ears and a little blood running from her mouth after a good bite of a human. 

Here are my boys dressed as zombie (refusing makeup) and a military.

So this is why all furnitures were moved from the livingroom. Crazy me, painted the walls black and covered ceiling and floor with black paperboard. Masks were painted in fluorescent colour and hung on the walls. Idea snatched from 102 wicked things to do.  After the arrival of all the kids. I dressed myself in complete black and hide in a corner with one of the masks on. Johan sent them in in small groups. It was successful and very satisfying when they screamed.

Alfons in a white shirt and glowstick

 One of the kids trying the mask that I used.

 But what scared them most was the gost story Johan told while all of them sat around the kitchen table, he accompanied the story with thunder and lightning (flashing lights from a cupboard) and eerie music. Unfortunately a friend that was supposed to make an entrance during the story was supposed to show up but couldnt because of severe back pain. One of the old kids said that it was a relief, it was scary enough.

More to come but thats all for now.