Halloween Is Over...

This is all that is left of Halloween!

The Wednesday Witches had their party today. We got together for a pot luck lunch and then mini making...

This is what we made.  Potion Bottles.  I grabbed a package of five colors of metallic glitter glue at Walmart.  It worked well to fill the bottles.

These are the ones that I bought at Walmart the other day.

They still need more trimming...

Here's a bunch of the ones that we get at Dollar Tree, with fancy stuff to put on your fingernails after polishing them.

I still need to put some tops on this bunch.

Tomorrow, I will get back to work on Albert.  I can hardly wait.  I am getting as bad as Tessie.

I need a nap.

See you tomorrow.  With Albert....

Albert's Waiting...

I got Sidetracked.  I had good intentions of doing Albert this afternoon. 

It didn't happen.  I got a call from April.  She and Amare wanted to come over and help me decorate for Wednesday's Halloween Party. 

I told her to come on over.

We had a great time.

I worked on the back door.  I have never done that before.  It turned out pretty well.  Webs and Spiders all over the place...

April volunteered to do the bookcase.  I usually do that... I gave her the ladder and some spider webs and told her to have at it.

She did great.  The top also have some weird lights.  I forgot to turn them on before taking the photos.

Amare did most of the rocking chair... I am going to have to add spiders to that one.

Looking pretty good so far.

Kota thinks we are all mad.  I am going to have fun keeping him out of the webs.

He is fascinated with the sudden appearance of all of those spiders and webs... Not a good thing. 

I may have to remove the bottom half of that one until the day of the party! 

He seems to think that I put them there for his amusement. 

I am going now to see what I can do to prevent him from swallowing spiders and webs whole. 

Back to the family room.  See you tomorrow.

Way Too Much Fun!

Was had by all...  The party started in the Tudor Trailer before I even got out of bed and was still going strong when the Witches' party finished.

The Skeleton Crew escaped their basket and joined the fun...

They were all over the family room and as I feared, the Skeleton Crew has doubled in size! The girls in the aprons fit right in with the boys. 

I hear talk that they are forming a union and are going out on strike if I don't let them stay out this year... We shall see... I think that I have a butterfly net somewhere around here.  That should do to round them up.

As for the big witches, we made hats and brooms.

I made rose making tools for everyone.  We didn't have time to learn that today.  Next week we will do those. 

Sorry that this is late.  After everybody left, I fell asleep. I'm up now... Maybe I will go make some roses or clean up the family room and kitchen...

No... I think I will watch TV for a while and then go to sleep for the night.... It has been a LONG day!

See you tomorrow.

The Calm Before the Storm...

Well... It looks sort of calm... Maybe.

I got the centerpiece in place on the table for tomorrow.

Amazingly, the Skeleton Crew hasn't shown up yet.  I am going to have to go check the basket.  The ones in the photo have spent the past year in a box in the garage... I don't know if it is a good idea to let them mingle... I may have double the members in the Skeleton Crew by this time tomorrow!

In order to get the table ready,  I had to have the counter looking like this!  Needs to be cleared before tomorrow at one.

Walter and I keep eating the candy corn.  There will probably be nothing left by tomorrow.

We got invaded by spiders, rats and bats. Not to mention the witches, skeletons and pumpkins.

I put some spider webs here and there and hung some icky looking stuff over the curtains.

It took me most of the day just to get up what I did. 

I will still have more to do tomorrow and I have to cook besides.

It is a pot luck, but I still have a few cooking type things to do.

So far, nobody has shown up at the Tudor Trailer.  I am sure that, by the time I get up in the morning, the party there will be going full steam.

I don't think that the spider webs will keep the party goers at bay.  They will probably be hanging from them by the time I get back there again...

I am going back now and see if I can finish up a few more things.  Then I am going to get up early in the morning and go to the grocery store for a few things that I forgot.

See you tomorrow at the party!

Getting Ready...

Wednesday is the Halloween Party for the Witches.  I have been working on the trick or treat bags for two days. 

My contribution will be kits to make Halloween treats.  Brooms and Hats so far...

The stuff in the first photo is wallpaper that I found a long time ago.  It looks just like cobblestones.  It is vinyl and can be painted. So if someone doesn't like the color they can change it.

They will have enough stuff to make several brooms.  Rosemary handles as well as plain old everyday straight handles.

I will put a tutorial for the bendy ones like this one tomorrow.

The hats will look something like this.  Tessie got hers early. 

If you ever want to make a Witch's hat and don't want it to be straight up and down, you can either make it with a paper lining like this one and just crumple it up or you can stick a pipe cleaner inside if it is just fabric.  Then bend the pipe cleaner the way you want the hat to go.

In answer to your next question... Yes.  Tessie gets along well with rats. Big and small...

I am going to cut this fabric up and use it for napkins.  Then everyone will get to take their napkins home to craft with. 

Tessie is insisting that I make her an apron from this fabric tomorrow.

She says that it will be her Halloween costume.  I think that she just wants another new apron for Halloween.  Any excuse for a new apron...

I still have a ways to go before Wednesday.  I had better get at it.

See you tomorrow.

Sunday Miscellaneous...

 Just a little bit of everything...

First, we had a pretty spectacular sunset last evening... The funny thing is, if you turned around and looked the other way, it looked all black and stormy.  Weird weather.

I got more done on the Bunny Hutch this afternoon.  Slowly but surely...

Here is two thirds of my fig crop for this year.  A couple of years ago the tree froze.  I was not sure that we were gong to ever have any more figs.

It looks like it is slowly coming back to where it was.  This is six of the ten figs that are on the tree at present.

I am happy to report that Tessie will have Bug Beer in cans as well as other assorted flavors.

I stopped at Dollar Tree today and this one package of pencils will yield a LOT of canned drinks.

I run them through my saw and cut them in about 1/2" lengths.  Then I paint both ends silver.  If I want them to look open, I add a small jump ring and a black ink triangle on one end.  Easy to do and fun for the witches in a couple of weeks. 

I am having the witches Halloween party this year.  Last year about this time, I was not in the mood to celebrate anything... Now I am back to all kinds of witchy things.

Anyway, go find some Halloween pencils and make yourself some canned bug beer and other assorted yummy treats...

I am going to go chop up some pencils now.  See you tomorrow.

Mashed Witch....

This is about how I feel this morning...

No.  I didn't crash into a wall.  Barb, a fellow Wednesday Witch, presented each of us with these smashed witches that she made.

Little did I know that this was what I was going to look like after a day of merriment....

Anyway, I have not gotten a lot done this morning.  I still have to finish cleaning up the party mess... thus the mashed witch...

 I did manage to finish the other two thirds of the rope ladder.  Probably not a good idea.  It just makes it easier for the Doctor to run away if he succeeds in his quest to pilfer parts...

It will actually hang down the back of the house when finished and the tower itself will face the back as well.

I had to go into town this morning for groceries and such.  I found this thread at Walmart.  It is nylon and multicolored.  I thought that it would be something fun for the net over the hot air balloon that I plan to make for the Steampunk Mercantile.

Tessie immediately confiscated it and wanted a new hammock... I don't think that I am ready to macramé her a hammock... She already has a wicker swing chair.  Shouldn't that be enough?

She tried to talk the grim reaper into doing it when I said that I wouldn't...

I think that "Push button for service was the wrong phrase to use.  I should have  been more specific.

I am thinking that cross stitching rugs would be a better use of my time than tying knots for a hammock.

Back to work. 

See you tomorrow.

Getting Ready....

 Door bell works. Check!  I am trying to get everything ready for tomorrow's Wednesday Witches' mini meeting. 

This door bell was a cheap-y plastic thing from Walmart about ten years ago...  It had a solid blue background, solid white face and hand and solid gray cloak... The lantern was plain old brown.  

I went to work with acrylic paints and "fixed" it.  The eyes and light flash.  When you push the button under the lantern, you hear a really loud banging on the door and a deep voice says..."Come in... If you dare!"  Then you hear a really loud creaking door and footsteps...

This thing is really scary... No not the flashing lights and the sound effects.... The scary part is... It has never had a battery change!  Ten years and still going strong on the original battery!  It is enchanted...

I think I bought this witch the same year.  The fiber optics in the hair broom and pumpkin change colors as long as it is plugged in...

In her case, I painted her face and re dressed her.  The apron is antique lace and she has ostrich plumes and other feathers on her hat...

I tell you, they just don't make Halloween decorations like they used to!

Now about the real Halloween.  Matilda has been hanging on the landing platform of the Witches' Warehouse for as long as there has been a Witches' Warehouse.  Maybe one day she will learn not to drink bug beer and fly...

The poster for Frog in your Throat cough medicine was a real one from the turn of the last century.  I wonder why it didn't last... I would buy it if it were still around...

The cobwebs that you see inside the Warehouse are real... I have pet spiders that live there.  They seem to like it.

The Warehouse is ready and waiting for the party..

I actually did a bit of cleaning....  Not too much.  The spiders would get in a tizzy and move out if I disturbed them too much. 

We wouldn't want that to happen...

As for the Terrible Two?  I warned them not to go into the woods...

Would they listen...?

Nope...

As far as I am concerned, they are on their own....I warned them.  I do hope that they make it out alive... It would be boring around here without them. I have work to do. 

See you tomorrow.

The Season of the Witch.....

For the Wednesday Witches, this is it...

As far as Tessie is concerned, this is it.  She has been buzzing around my head as I get ready.  She picked up Zar on the last cycle...Now they are doing the "top of the world" scene from Titanic.

I do wish that they would settle down and just party like regular people...I fear that is too much to ask.  They are headed to the Witch's Warehouse.  That party will last for at least three days.  They're taking the long way around...and around.

She, who shall remain nameless, started on the bug beer a bit early and missed the broom landing platform...She has been hanging there for a while now.  Maybe someone should go out and pull her inside.

Since the party hasn't started yet, Tessie's eldest sister, the spinner is still working at straw into gold spinning...

She can't be bothered to clean her room...Bug beer spilled on the floor last week is still there. It doesn't bother her a bit.

Zofi is at her fortunetelling station. No takers so far....Someone left their magic carpet in gear and it floats in place, waiting for it's owner to come and roll it up and put it in the proper basket... It's kind of a waste of magic to keep it running if you're not using it.  Oh well. 

 I think that it's about party time...Esmeralda is shooing out the last customer.  Then the party can start.... This particular customer is not in the in crowd... She just comes in and wanders around to waste time.  Never buys anything...

Anyway, the big witch party starts at noon.  They  pass the warehouse to put them in the mood for the day...

Speaking of starting at noon, I still have to make the bug beer and the swamp slime. 

Sorry about no work on the crooked house, but there are more important things to do.

Eat, Drink and be Merry!  For the Wednesday Witches, tomorrow will just be another day.  Back to work on the crooked house for me.

Happy Halloween! See you tomorrow.

Countdown to Halloween....

It's commmmmming.....

I am having the Halloween Party here this year, for the Wednesday Witches.  Instead of midnight, we start at high noon on the 30th this year...

So....I have to get ready.  So do the other people in the house.

Tessie offered, as usual, to help with the decorating.  And also as usual, as soon as she found a comfy place to sit, watch and drink pumpkin tea, she did so.

She pulled up a pumpkin and there she stayed.  Oh! And she also pulled up a napkin ring that I found at a thrift shop and plopped a Woodsie circle on top to use as a table.  I was going to paint the napkin rings and circles to match and use them for that very purpose.  She beat me to it.

Zar  put his recliner in the pumpkin that I decorated a couple of weeks ago.  His table is an upturned stone candlestick.  It already had a flat surface.  He plopped a pizza on it and that was the end of his and Spike's help.

Somehow, when I sat the pumpkin on the table, the similarity of Zar's pose and the skeleton in the bowl were quite evident...  Both lazy to the bone....

I didn't have to do anything to the Tudor Caravan.  It has pumpkins and strange creatures living there year round...So of course, Tessie and Zar jumped right in.

I have a lot of life sized decorations all over the place.  Some still need to be put up.

George changed location this year.  He is haunting the Nine Dollar Dollhouse.  I am not sure how he is going to get out.  It took a lot of squeezing to get him in there.

As for Daisy, she just sits and knits now.  No longer the life of the party....In real time, she is almost 40...In witchy time, I think that she is at least as old as Tessie.

She has held up pretty well, considering that I made her from nylon stockings, cotton fabric  and polyester batting.

I did notice that there is decorating going on in the Witch's Warehouse too.  I don't get involved in that and tend to stay far, far away.  I don't want to spend the next two weeks trying to get out of a frog spell  ...Ribbit....Ribbit.....

See you tomorrow.

Halloween Hideout

I was awakened about 4:30 AM by a lot of rattling and banging from the garage...

I got up...Got dressed and went out to see what was going on.

It was the Terrible Two.  Last year, after Halloween, I bought one of those large light up Halloween pumpkins on sale.  I had good intentions....But never got around to doing anything with it.

It seems that Tessie has a long memory, when it comes to things that I am supposed to be doing for her benefit.

The two of them dragged Jack in and placed him on my bedside table.  The inspected it and pronounced it "do-able".

Then the proceeded to gut it(take out the light) and handed me a bunch of tools.

Tessie, very sweetly, said, "Get to work!  I want this done by 10:00AM.".

OK. It was only sweet by Tessie's standards.

So... I got to work.  What is the use of arguing with a short, short tempered witch?  I know better.

I couldn't find my keyhole saw.  That would have made an easy job of it.  I suspect that the two of them have been installing doors in the real house walls again.  They find it easier to get from room to room, without getting stepped on, that way.

After I got the hole cut, the longest part of the job, I discovered that the inside was a bilious green plastic... I covered that with acorn brown paint.

Did I mention that they no longer make Styrofoam pumpkins.  They are now made out of a pretty hard plastic and the thickness is about 1/16".

The next step was to make a pattern for the floor.  I laid a piece of copy paper in the bottom and creased around the edge, where the floor meets the walls. Then I cut that out of 1/4" foam core.  I tried it for fit and trimmed it a bit.  Then I cut one just a little larger.

I found some shredded cork paper in my stash and decided that would be good for the flooring...After all, this is not a museum piece and will probably rest in the garage between Halloweens.

I also found a piece of the embossed plastic ceiling tile that was painted black, with silver highlights.  Perfect to cover the hole where the light had been.

I used some silk rope trim around the edge of that, clipping Vs at the corners. and glued the tape attached to the rope to the back.

I also used this for the front opening.  Starting at one corner, I glued across the bottom and as I approached the corner I clipped straight in on the tape so that it would fit nicely in the corner.

I didn't bother with moldings.  Most of that part is covered by the furniture.

While I was working, the Terrible two grabbed a tray and raided Tessie's Townhouse, my workroom and the Witches Warehouse.  I have a feeling they aren't done.  They did find enough to make it look livable for photos, but I noticed that there wasn't any food or drink around.  Oh well.  That will come later.  I have to go clean up the mess from a four hour project, minus time for breakfast. 

I am hiding the other pumpkins.  I have one like the one to the left of the photo in real life size.  It would only hold a 1/4 or 1/2 scale house...Thank goodness!

See you tomorrow.

Halloween III.....

This year, the Wednesday Witches made Halloween last...Three Wednesdays in a row.

I volunteered for the third one.  As they arrived, they were greeted by the witches that live and work in the Witch's Warehouse.  It sits in the front hall, by the door.

In the family room, Buffy and Spike were watching the goings on from the crypt.

Spike still hasn't convinced Buffy that the cookies aren't laced with arsenic.  Buffy hasn't even tried to convince Spike that she isn't going to use the hook on him....

As for the witches, we had a good time....No miniatures were seen. 

Several of us are doing Kumihimo at the present time....I found my finished ones and brought them out to show.  I tried to find my supplies for making the braids.....No where to be found.  I cleaned out the boxes that they were in a couple of weeks ago.  Put them in another container and immediately forgot which one...I tell you!  It does NOT pay to clean the workroom!

And Tessie?  She spent the afternoon hanging from the pull chain for the fan light! 

She  must have said something he didn't like.  He chased her up the chain from the center of the table and there she was.  Trapped!

Maybe that will teach her to agree with everything that the spider says...

She is still hanging there.  I guess I am going to have to go and chase the spider back to his web in the corner, so she can get down now.

I did get two partial rows done around the edge of the Russian rug last night...All the while I was praying that the new glasses will arrive ahead of schedule.  I think it will go faster once I can see what I am doing....

Gotta go rescue Tessie.  She is now yelling things that are going to just make Mr. Spider madder than he already is.  That can't be good.

See you tomorrow.