Sorry for the absence. I don't have a good reason, so I'll say ... holidays, yeah, that's why. In the meantime, go read Mutts!

Special Kitty

* Earlier this week, Glen returned from the library with special presents - 2 vintage copies of Better Homes and Gardens! I usually prefer the 50s, but I love seeing stuff I remember from when I was a kid. And one magazine in particular made me very happy.

July 1974, 100 Ideas Under $100. Including a pile of plants on a piano! But what's this at the bottom?

ah ha ha ha ha! Critical Cat is critical! Why doesn't he like it? We don't know. Why did the cat deserve a word balloon? We don't know. Did I love this so much I made it my Facebook icon? Yes I did :)

* Today we took a nice little walk down to the Owl Designer Fair at Fernwood Community Centre. And it was awesome! Soooo much cool craftiness packed into one room.
I came home with a tin of delicious Blue Christmas tea from Traveling Sparrow - tastes of (local organic) lavender and Earl Grey, and smells wonderful. I drooled over Urchin Bags, made from recycled seat belts and air bags (maybe Santa will bring me one for Christmas? :) Siempre La Lucha had great cards and tees, including a scare-owl thinking of brains. Love Monkey's felted matroyshka dolls were adorable! And boo I forgot to grab the business card of the woman with the recycled leather and felt purses :( Never mind, found her!

* and now I'm running late - see ya later!

Snow Day!

BEFORE!
AFTER!!! currently :D

Back from the dead.

wow. Not only can I not do 3 posts a week, I can't even do ONE post a week. In my favorite favourite month even. Argh.


Heh, maybe I should just put these in a box and pull them out for my entries! Let's see ...

"Unstoppable human infects movie."
"I like grotesque headshot everywhere."
"The undead outrun insane chewing cadavers."

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

* So, getting ready for dress-up time. Don't forget your make-up! And here's a book to help you out.

By T. William Smith and Michael Carrington, copyright 1981. I like that each of the steps is accompanied by a FULL COLOR and a sketch. If you'd like to be a devil (like the fellow on the cover), just follow this diagram:

or you could be Snidley Whiplash instead :)

Okay, how about a clown?

dude, cheer up, it's Halloween!

uh, as you were.

But wait, I'm a woman, what about me?
umm, something not quite so ... psychotic maybe?

Much better.

* Until next time, whenever that may be, namaste!

Countdown!

* The Halloween posts continue! (with just a tiny misstep on Monday)


* Old Navy Canada has the cutest spooky clothes for women! One of my fave pairs of pajama pants ever came from them. This year they have the pj pants, cozy socks and tees that I crave. Sadly, the store near me has a minuscule pj section, so they had none of these when I went to look.

* Target seems to have some nice tees as well. My fave is the spider web one. Also looks like they have Nick & Nora Halloween pj sets: Dia de los Muertos style skeletons, paisley owls and far-out fall leaves. And spooky socks.

* Not Halloween! This past weekend we were busy!
On Saturday night Glen, Marilyn and I saw Whose Live Anyway and laughed our butts off. It was great to see Greg Proops and Ryan Stiles live in person. And we were only 4 rows back!
On Sunday we all took the ferry over to Salt Spring Island for the Apple Festival. It was great (but cloudy), and I've never seen so many varieties of apples! We walked around a really wild organic orchard, tasted some apples and saw the cutest outhouse ever. We also visited a cheese farm (goats and sheep) and a teeny bakery.
I love that it's so easy to find local & organic foods around here.

* On Friday I'll try to provide a non-consumer oriented Halloween post ;)

Hooray for October!

* I know very well that I can't do a post every day in October, but I'm gonna try for 3 a week (Mon, Wed and Fri). Wish me luck!

* For the past few years, I've made special boxes of candy for my friends and co-workers. No co-workers this year, but the boxes continue. Here are some favorite places to find just the right graphic elements:

• The Graphics Fairy has everything from beautiful butterflies to antique photos waiting to be modified. She even takes requests!

• The UCLA Library site took some digging, but the reward is high-resolution pdfs of the Antikamnia Calendar - happy little skull-headed men going about their daily activities.

• Historical Anatomies on the Web. Once again, you gotta look around but there are plenty of skeletons and muscles to choose from.

• The Fantastic in Art and Fiction, from Cornell University, supplies demons, more skeletons in clothes, and a naked witch riding a broom.

• Just Something I Made has lots of stuff that can be easily modified for nefarious Halloween purposes. These apothecary labels include a "danger poison" label, and here's a lovely ornate gravestone border.

• And of course there's Dover. Their Old-Time Halloween book and CD combo is great, because the CD includes higher quality jpegs.

* If you want a post a day, take a drive to Neato Ghoulville! (don't forget to detour through Weird Hollow, they're dying to see you bwaa haa haa!)

they read my mind

* I took the bus downtown all by myself for the first time on Wed, to buy presents for my husband. I stopped in Chapter's to browse and from across the room it called me ...

zombie! and cross stitch! together at last! The box was all sealed up so you can't preview all the patterns inside but there are a few more pattern peeks on the back of the box. This is going on my wish list. (and the author has a blog over here!)

* In other spooky news, Martha's Halloween mag Best-Of book is on the stands (at least here in Canada). But it's a best-of so I'd strongly advise having a look through before you take it home. Almost all the projects have been in previous issues (tombstone yard, bubble wrap jellyfish costume, black vodka cocktails, etc.) But her costume on the cover is new - I wish I had access to her hairstylists!
edited to add: it is actually a book, and only has 2 ads (one across from the table of contents, and one on the back of the book) so it is alot of info handy in one place.

* So I've been volunteering at a facility, and I met one of the board members (1). His son is an actor (2) and was in Battlestar Gallactica. Lucy Lawless (3) was also in BG. But she was the star of Xena, which often guest-starred BRUCE CAMPBELL!!! I'm 4 degrees of separation from Bruce!!! this made my nerdy fan-girl day ;)

* and on that note ...