Kitschy Books

When you love Halloween as much I as I do, you often swoon over any ghoulish/Halloween theme books you may come across. Here are a few of my favorites. Also, be sure to check out Lisa Morton's Halloween Encyclopedia blog HERE for an amazing bibliography of all sorts of Halloween inspired books!
Enjoy.

This book is great to have whether you are a cat lover or Halloween fanatic. It has some great memorabilia in it. A few excerpts from the book are listed belowWhat great advertisement for hosiery!

I love these vintage Halloween decorations


I love this book and luckily it is apart of my collection. Full of great designs and funny antedotes.

What a great wolfman!
This is what I am like on a bad day. Watch out.

I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

Another great Taschen book from the Icons series. Contains a very diverse collection of devilish graphics.
This one is great too!

Wicked Words Wednesday: A tribute to Edgar Allen Poe

Poor Mr. Poe. As most of us know, the master of macabre's life was not one of fortune, recognition, or happiness. In some cases, we should be grateful for his misery since without it Poe may have easily written poems about puppies, and Virginia's beautiful fall foliage instead of dead beating hearts and tortured souls. Luckily the city of Baltimore knows how to respect their dead and recently had a funeral procession for Edgar Allen Poe a couple of weeks ago. I would have loved to join the 200+ mass of people who followed his hearse to the cemetery. Read more about the event HERE and watch a news clip about it Here.

Another terrible cake

Somehow I missed this cake last week when I was highlighting ugly halloween cakes. Between the doilies, sprinkled candy corn, and weird custard(?!?) face, I am at a loss for words.

Terrible Treats Tuesday- Halloween Supper

Halloween is all about the sugar high but sometimes you need a few savory treats to help balance out all that sweet goodness. Here are a few supper like treats with a Halloween twist for your spread:

Martha has a simple trick to making a great Halloween spread, color. Simply choose a ghoulish tone of green, or a dark rustic purple/black, or go pumpkin! Either way, you can easily play around with your food options and get pretty creative too. This spread is mostly cheese, crackers, veggies, and dip.
This Spread has a darker theme with peppered cheese, figs, plums, and other dark fruits.
These treats aren't too ghoulish looking but they have a nice autumn twist. Black bean salsa, tea dyed crackled eggs, and croque monsieurs are a perfect hot sandwich to have on a breezy night.

These crackly eggs are a nice break from the common deviled egg appetizer. Plus they are super pretty. Similiar to the ones listed above. Recipe can be found Here.

Healthy, fun, and super easy. You can really play around with this idea and create other great Halloween motifs. For example, take chopped red peppers and create a nice goatee devil.Mummy Hot Dogs. Fun, cute, great for kids, and super yummy. Pumpkin Polentas Yummy.
How great are these chips?!! Go Here for some helpful hints on how to make these creepy creature chips.

These Bat Bites are actually little cheese ball appetizers. I have a feeling they are super scrumptious.

This is what I'd like to call the Moldy Cheese Log. Don't worry, it's not moldy. Super easy to make and it is sure to add the perfect grotesque twist to your spread.


This Pumpkin Chowder is a little more traditional but a great autumn snack. I recommend using an actual pumpkin for your bowl.
Wow, doesn't this pumpkin curry look great? It also would make a great filling for the veggie stuffed intestine below.
Yes, these stuffed intestines look kinda gross, but check out the Recipe cuz it sounds super delicious.
Spider Pizza. Perfect for all ages and also easy and cheap to make. I recommend using pesto sauce instead to give it a more ghoulish look.

Monday Movie Madness-TV Spin

I got to thinking about some of my favorite creepy tv shows this weekend. This is what came to mind:

The Twilight Zone: I'll admit I haven't watch a lot of TZ episodes but Nightmare at 20,000 ft. is a classic and definitely creepy.


I know The Munsters and The Addams Family aren't exactly scary, but they were great and they have the best theme songs eva!





Another fun one is The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors specials. My fave was Bart reading the Raven, but I couldn't find a clip of it.


I wasn't allowed to watch American Gothic when it first came out, but I did finally watch a few episodes a couple years ago. Good story, but it gets a little weird after the first 6 episodes. It only lasted one season but still gathered quite a cult following.

Tales from the Crypt and Amazing Stories had their creeptastic moments. Who doesn't love a montage of short freakish stories?




Fear Itself was a mini tv series on NBC that premiered about a year ago. It recently came out on DVD. Similiar to Master of Horrors and Tales from the Crypt.



I have only seen bits and pieces of Millennium, but it looks pretty good!! Produced by the same folks who did X-Files.



X-Files may also fall into the SciFi category, but we all know how scary this show could get. One of the most frightening episodes was Home from season 4. Very Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The new TV show, Fringe, is very similiar to X-Files and worth checking out. It tends to be more on the SciFi/bioterrorism side of things, but the episode about the creature living like a gopher from this season was pretty spooky.


And the best creepy show award goes to . . . . . Twin Peaks. Bob, the Black Lodge, people talking backwards. Disturbing all the way through. Be sure to watch the Prequel to the TV show which is the movie, Fire Walk with Me.

No more sexy please.

We all know that Halloween has been taken over by the sexy costume industry. I feel like some of this may have been brought on by the revealing superheroine outfits worn by people at comic/scifi conventions. Don't get me wrong, there are some great well crafted superheroine outfits, like the ones made by the legendary Ruby Rocket.

But we all know these outfits require some serious bosom buddies and a severe brazilian wax job.
That's why I was so delighted to come across this very funny article of comic book Halloween costumes that Don't objectify women, like She-Hulk the lawyer.
The article also covers comic book costumes that sexually objectify men. It's great! Check it out Here.

Freaky Fashion Friday: The Wild Things

It's hard to not be inspired a bit by the recent "Where the Wild Things Are" craze. The fox costume that I made myself for my Halloween costume certainly drew it's look from the terrible monsters in Spike Jonze's new film, but the idea of dressing like animals goes way back. Since human beginnings we have been fascinated by our link and relationship with animals and have continuously made masks and costumes in order to take on their traits and attributes. Here are some of my favorite animal costumes that I have come across.

From a stage production of the fairy tale, "Hansel and Gretel."

Two wonderful costume renderings of characters from the beloved Beatrix Potter series.


The Costume Shop in London has a variety of amazing Comedia Del Arte animal masks.



1handmadebyheather on etsy has a selection of handmade furry animal masks perfect for children and adults this Halloween season.