This years Christmas tree in Victorian gothic style

So this is our tree in all it's humble glory. I sprayed the tree with snowspray to get a nice frosty look. Hey we don't have any snow at all, it's so weird, I can't remember a christmas without snow, so I took the fake snow indoors instead. The glitter garland is tucked deep in the twigs to give a modest glow to it. Colourscheme is red, black, white and beige. The white linenribbons are dyed in coffe and all the decorations are old or handmade.

I used my lightbulb ornaments and homemade firecrackers. Well this is how the firecrackers look like in sweden (but more colourful) homemade in tissuepaper. They are a mix between the common ones and victorian funeral candy.

The pictures below shows some real funeral candy that gives you a hint of what has inspired my decorations this winter.

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They all link to the same site, a funeral museum.

So would you like to make your own decorations? It's easy and you can make it with things you have in your home. This is what you need: Tissue paper two colours (these are from gift wrapping), a hard paper roll (you can use a toilet roll if you like and last some nice papers to decorate with.

Measure out a rectangular piece with the paperroll. You need to roll it up several rounds. You can see that the paper is more than three times wide as the roll.

Pleat the sides by folding both papers against the center of the paper. Leave the middle unpleated for the paperroll.

Cut strips of the pleats with a scissor not too wide strips.

Put the paperroll on top and roll up the paper tightly. As the black paper is underneath it will be on top at the roll.

Finished roll

Tie a ribbon or a thick thread at the end of the roll and knot tightly. 

Time to embellish the roll. I choosed to use the nice folder we got with a tea delivery and a single shiny dresden trim.

 Tomorrow is Christmas eve, the day most are giving gifts to each other. We will wait until christmas day when the family is gathered. Instead we will go to the only pizza place that is open tomorrow (a muslim family running it) and eat som turkish barbecue or pizza. I guess it will be us, the muslims and a bunch of lonely people.

I wish you all a Happy Christmas, a lovely Yule, en God Jul or whatever sodding holiday you are celebrating. Anyway it is a time for gathering, and giving to those who aren't as lucky as you. 

Am I giving something, yes. I give my share to the local woman rescue team (don't know how to translate). Maybe more about that another time. Big Hugs to you. XOXO.

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.

Modest decorations. Gothidays 2012 day three

I realized yesterday when I decorated my home that I don't use or have much decorations in my home. I can't overdo it and I can't use things I don't like, like kitschy santas, figures of straw and bright red pointsetta cloths. One thing I always do is my own Advent candle tray. This year, I used a silver tray and white moss. I have made the numbers with iron thread and a few pearls and the ribbons are old letter ribbons.

I choiced to go for a quick fix for the door this year. A friend of mine had bought a grave wreath for her door for only 2,5 € at the supermarket. I went to look for one myself and came home with this one. You simply lay it in front of the grave stone. I sprayed it with snow spray and added a shabby hemp rope to it and hung it on the door. 

I'm a bit embarrased to show the door. I painted the porch the first summer we moved in but haven't painted the door yet.

I have started to look for nice boquets in the supermarket for fair prices and this time a twig of white lilies came with me home. This is how the mirror table in the hallway look like now. The table cloth is a art noveau cloth that I have embroderied myself. I almost cannot imagine myself doing this with all those stiches! A praying madonna stands under the glass dome.

Home decorated for Halloween

 Every year, the house is transformated in the end of october for our annual Halloween party. Some things are repeats from earlier years, if you want to see them, click the Halloween tag on the sidebar or the end of this post. 

We bought two sculls on a aquarium store, one is displayed under a glass bell at the hallway table, a little led-candle lights it up from the inside.

The zinc cones that always hangs in the kitchen are embellished with black paper strips and fake mini pumpkins. The dark figure sitting on the shelf in the corner is a dark sow. A local folk tale entity that lurks in the shadows.

The old hallway was cleaned from exercise bike and clothes hangers and was furnished with a corner for spells and prophecies.

Some pictures of the Ghastlies and the haunted house with black bottle brush trees.

An improvement from last year in the livingroom. The white piedistal is changed to a black dito. 

The mossy twigs got some black decorations and a black bow around the neck of the jar.

This is how our home will look the rest of november. In Johans opinion it should look like this all the year around :)

I will return later with pictures of some Halloween treats.

Sculls and black flowers

Rusta have a new wallpaper I got little cravings for. I'm not into sculls very much but this wallpaper is quite cute without being to much kitsch. The butterflies makes the print a little sweeter. I have lots of walls that needs new wallpapers, paint...so where whould I put it?

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Last weekend when we were in Johans cottage we visited a local thriftstore. Well, local in these hooks means 30 km away. Anyway one of the things I bought was these pointy Mary Janes, cheap and nice :)

Yesterday I had a hunch that this was the definite end of summer. I picked a few boquets to fill the vases. I have grown balloon flowers this year and they went huuuge. 

I love the black pattern on the envelope of the seed capsules. 

The blue flower is very modest compare to the rest of the plant. It looks so exotic in a swedish garden.

My hunch made me put on a head light and go out and take down the tomato plants last night. 17 buckets of tomatos was moved inside the garage. And I heard two owles scream while I was working :). We have owls here!!

In the morning the day after (saturday) I had to go to work for some production tests. The garden was covered in frost.

The beautiful september days are here with crisp leaves on the ground, a high clear air to breathe, and a soft cool wind that sweeps the clouds away. Autumn has arrived.

Letters in the mail

 My real mailbox has been busy theese weeks and I will tell you the reasons. 
First our swedish ebay site had an auction with short time left on their homepage that I couldn't resist: I bought this octopus necklace for less than a dollar. I will use it for a project, maybe a necklace or a fascinator...oh please give me suggestions!!!

I was the first to leave a comment on the Insomniac's Attic and for that she rewarded me with a gift and sended it all the way from Canada. A sheer long, full width petticoat!!! How generous isn't that? The quality is amazing and it flows around the legs. I fell in love with it instantly. 

Look at the lovely details! It's a bit crinkly after the package but i think that is perfect. I will use it as a skirt and as a petticoat. These petticoats comes in several colours and can be found at the Insomniacs beautiful webstore. She sells lots of beautiful vintage interior things with a darker twist.

On top of that she added this lovely scull decoration. I hung it at my hall mirror right away. Memento Mori says the text on the head. The back is covered with silver glitter. 

There are lot's of Shabby chic people that write the text Carpe Diem on their walls....I'm thinking of writing Memento Mori instead. It's like Carpe Diem but more underlined, serious. That you shouldn't take life for granted and use your life to something useful. The life as a living is just a second compared to the time of death. Don't waste it!

There has also been lovely letters and postcards left in my mailbox. Oh It's like Christmas day every day! I have sent a few letters myself and have lots of letters to answer this weekend. I've joined a wonderful little group of letter writers. I have missed the excitement of having a letter in the mail and sending letters to dear friends. The letters I've been writing so far has tend to be long and rich of words. This is how I am; Give me a pencil and a paper and I will poop words (there is a swedish word for that...don't know the english one). It's a little harder to write the blog actually, words doesn't flow exactly. And if I speak, god I begin every sentence three times and speak very slow and prefer to not speak at all, if I'm not very eager to tell my opinion though. I long for the weekend now, a crackling fire in the stove, writing a bunch of letters in the light of a paraffin lamp an owl howling outside in the woods......

Maybe it's the movie we saw that put me in this cosy mood. I've just seen The woman in black, on dvd. It totally freaked me out and it was a wonderful movie. The perfect classical ghost story. I recommend it to all of you who haven't seen it.