People are Strange, When you're a stranger, Faces look ugly, when your alone.

Reccomended Listening for this post: People are Strange by the Doors, as covered by Johnny Hollow:

It's so Appropriate

I just can't get it out of my head.

Found On Flickr: Image by Der Krampus

Found On Flickr: Image by Andras_Krautwald

Found on Flickr: Image by TrazomFreak

When your strange....... 

hehe.

I need to go back to Michaels and pick up that Skull Mask Mache they had... 

On a completely Random note:

So I'm going to go through and add Tags to my posts, and do that from now on to make crap easy to find.

Because I love you people and I'm nice. And if I decide to do it later, well... thats just more posts to fuss over. 

Candy, Candy, and more Candy.

Found on Flickr, Image By DeathByBokeh

Apparently there are people out there who would not miss Smarties if they dropped off the face of the planet. 

But. But.

I LOVE THEM!

Found On Flickr, Image by Laurel714

Found On Flickr, Image by Antigone78

Human Skulls, Antique Books, and Giant Spiders guarding awesome cars.

Found On Flickr, Image By yngvardo

This is one of those images where I literally exclaimed with joy upon seeing that I could download it. IT IS BEAUTIFUL. The antique book topped by a real human skull. My many many compliments to the photographer. 

Found on Flickr, Image by rogerjporter

Another Beautiful image of antique books. 

I want to surround my witch with books that look like they are a hundred years old... that would be awesome. 

Found on Flickr, Image by Spider Rider

Okay the awesome in this photograph is two-fold. 

First: Holy Geeze! That is a BIG spider! Apparently this is a fiberglassed beachball and PVC. So Awesome.

Second: Do you see that CAR? That really nice 1970'S 240 Z? Yeah, its EPIC. 

Spider Rider, I compliment you on your choice of Vehicle(s).

There is so much awesome in this photograph. 

Akuma, buddy, this photo find is totally for you, and a little for me. 

To the Haunt-Cast Audience, and ShellHawk Rocks.

My versions of witch jars were featured on the last HauntCast (Oh My Ghouls!) By Madam ShellHawk. I should have been listening to this for a long time... ah well, yet another thing I wish I knew before I started Haunting Eh?

You know: I play with fire, and I use honest to goodness tea-lights in my little witch jars. Then again I always use actual candles, which has gotten me in trouble more than once. But to be honest I deserved it. THUS!

I, Strublay, am not responsible for your burnt hair, costume, fur (damn werewolves... and and... other anthropomorphic animals of a furry nature making witch jars and playing with fire...), pets fur, house, condo, coffin, or mausoleum if you decide to ignore my statement above, or any of ShellHawks warnings on HauntCast while deploying your witch jars. If your stupid and burn things up, its your own fault! 

I love to see creative Ideas when it comes to simple projects like this, so if you make some awesome witch jars, please let me know!


Here the links to the posts about my Version of Rot's Witch Jars:

The still life session that started me off
The how-to tips page

REMEMBER: My version of witch jars are not rainproof. White glue is not rated for glass so it will come off if hit with water... it adds tot he grungy unwashed look but it really sucks when you've got them "Just so."

Hey ShellHawk: You seriously rock. Thank you for the shout out madam! 
*Thinks about doing a post on her ceramics and bloggy blog*
Ah well until then: 

Now back to the.... well... you'll see.
I'll be doing a post later tonight when I get tired of fussing over my newest project.
Until then.
*Hits play again on HauntCast to listen to the rest of it, goes back to the torture chamber/diningroom*

More and More Changing Plans

 

Found on Flickr, Image by Lemon Tank

 

Found on Flickr: Image by FrogMiller

 

Found on flickr: Lemon Tank

 First of all The Disneyland plan has changed, contingent on everyone else's approval. Knott's Scary Farm is much cheaper, its one night, and it's considered to be the best Halloween attraction in the world by at least one magazine.
That's what were thinking of doing instead of Disneyland. The more I see of it, the more I like it.

Apparently the Halloween party that my Aunt was throwing was called off.
So I'm out a venue to display my ideas. So I'm dedicating my time now to making Halloween awesome here at my Condo.
I look forward to when I finally have a full house of my own so that I can finally get trick or treaters and can go all out with out fussing over if every little thing is going to offend someone in my complex and get me written up and fined.
I look forward to the day that I don't have to rely on someone else to approve of my work and keep a schedule that they had set out months earlier.
*frustrated artist*

Of entryways, gravestones, and creepy cloth over paintings of oil.

Found On Flickr: Image by Love manor

Found on Flickr: Image by Love Manor

Found on Flickr: Image by Love Manor

Big, Cool Idea.

It really is amazing how I can come up with brilliant ideas in the middle of the night. I found a Book description in the publishers catalog in the back of my Greek Myths and legends book that had the title of a story that inspired this idea.  I think it shall be epic.

ZOMG awesome!

Found on Love Me Some Pumpkin Blog; Author Unknown

I went to Walmart today and found that their Febreze Pumpkin Harvest Air Fresheners two packs are on sale (!!) but as a tester I decided to pick up their Pumpkin Harvest Candle. Now I've had Febreze candles before, and they have never disapointed, and this candle is no exception. OMG, it is.... amazing.

Not even kidding. I live for scent, I'm super sensitive to it, and this captures the scents leading up to Halloween and Fall PERFECTLY.

Also on the scent front, I ran across an apple and clove scented candle in Walmart as well, put out by BHG. 

It's on the Pick up list.

One last thing. I found this pumpkin blog and I'm Intrigued by so much of it that I have to post it. Enjoy. I love me some pumpkin.

And I love me some guns, but that Deadpool/MVC3 reference would be over the heads of many if not all that reads this site.

Blair Witch Traditional, Pumpkin Bridge, and the Cthulhu Pumpkin

Found on Flickr, Image by Burning Smile

Found on Flickr, Image by  mehughes

 

Found on Flickr, Image by Sketchy_Stories

Spell Books, Spell Crafts, and the bliss of pumpkin pancakes.

Found on Flickr, Image by KoreEpiphany12

I used to start my posts with the best picture... and I've been neglecting that rule as of late...

Consider it reinstated. 

I prefer hand-written spell books, but this image looks so good I HAD to post it. Beautiful Composition. 

Found on Crafty-Chicks blog, Image Author Unknown.

I love, LOVE this lady's blog, shes a craft nut, and although that would not normally qualify for posting on this blog, she has some wonderful Halloween craft postings!

All of her Halloween posts are here and her main blog is here.

Go say hi, and enjoy.

Found on Flickr, Image by hj70ft

So I had this remarkable craving for pancakes today for dinner. I know, I know... Strublay is crazy, yes, its true. Anyway, so I dragged my husband to ihop, and guess what is back... the moist, sweet-spicy awesomeness that is Pumpkin Pancakes! Oh, god. I missed that flavor. 

I'm gonna be crazy for it until Wintersday..... 

*sigh*

Halloween in Japan

So, Halloween is gaining ground in Japan, how do I know this? Well my comrade Lloyd recently had himself a trip to Japan, and the first thing he talked to me about when he returned? The slowly growing Halloween displays that were already up before our Labor day. If I can get his memory card for a I'll post his couple of pictures to that effect, but for now: Flickr.

Found on Flickr; Image By apc33 

Japanese Kenji-o-lanterns! (Kenji is a really really common male name in Japan, and the Joke was taken from the photographer) 

 

Found on The Anime Blog 

PUMPKIN POCKY?!?! WHY OH WHY HAVE I NOT HAD THIS AWESOMENESS?!?!!!

Okay, so I'm not a gigantic fan of Pocky, and we have all of... oh... 6 places here in town to obtain it, so no, this awesomeness would not be easy to find. But if I find it, I'm trying it.

Lloyd picked up souvenirs for all of us during his trip, little things, but they are cool to have, and he gave me two: the second was a capsule mini bust from the anime Hellsing, the first however, is remarkably more up this blogs alley:

Image By Strublay

Its a Halloween punch ball! I love the font. It makes me smile. lol

I won't be blowing it up, since I cant stand the smell of latex, but i plan to keep it for my collection of Halloween ephemera. 

Oh and fun fact: there is no way to say Happy Halloween in Japanese, so you'll always see Happy Halloween written in English on Japanese websites, candies, or packaging. 

if you want to see the makers website, which in of itself is cool, go here

Its official, I want to experience one Halloween in Japan. 

Expect to see more international posts, because this is fun.

Bat Lights, Skeletons reaching from the grave, and leaves changing colors...

Found these on Apartment Therapy after doing a search for Bats on Google Search, The origional fixtures and photographs can be found at Rejuvenation . Pricey but beautiful.

Image Found on Country Living I think its a really cool idea.

Found on Flickr, Image by Lif...

We don't have color changing leaves here in Las Vegas, or at least we don't have many, its the one thing I don't like about Las Vegas, but thats a problem I can solve, sort of, with Flickr... lol

Quickie: Bookmark

Image by Strublay, art by Strublay

I needed a book mark for my Linux + Book, because I'm running low on bookmarks.

So I busted out a pen and my watercolors and I made one. 

Just a quick photo of the finished product: I'll be doing a high-rez scan tomorrow and putting it on my Deviant Art. Figured I'd feature it here because it is a Jack O Lantern, and in my signature style. 

Thing to remember

Witch Jars are not waterproof. 

We had a rainstorm, in Vegas, and my witch jars got water damaged. 

Thank YOU bipolar, random, unpredictable weather patterns. *sigh* Global Warming/Global Weirding strikes again... 

Strublay Style Witch Jars tips.

I really think its awesome that someone else is gong to use my idea to use colored glue on their witch jars, so I just wanted to put out a few notes on the idea. These are lessons I've learned from doing this with my Witch Jars, and I figure that the more I tell you, the better the idea will work for you. 

I'd like to state again that I did not come up with the idea known as the witch jar, that awesomeness I rightfully attribute to Pumpkin Rot. 

Pumpkin Rot's posts on the subject

Found on Pumpkin Rot's Blog, Image By Rot. 

I'm using pint Mason Jars that come 12 for $6 from Walmart, when working with these little guys I figured that color is a good substitute for size. Once frosted they give off a huge amount of light and look awfully nasty.

This image, and all images below by Strublay.

To color the glue I use tube Water Color Pigments like these that I picked up at Walmart a few months ago: I haven't tried using acrylics yet, but I bet you could use them in the glue just fine. Don't use Cake Watercolor pigment. 

I use White Glue/Glue All, not school glue, from what I can tell School Glue will flake off way too easily. While White Glue is not technically formulated to stick to glass, it does a heck of a job of it anyway. 

You can use what ever colors of craft paint you want for the top or the insides, but I went with flat black, because I wanted it too look like the glass had been coated in sealing resins to prevent water from getting in, or out. Furthermore, flat black paint is my goto for everything aged. 

When it comes to the brushes you use, make them ones you don't care about as the glue will ruin them.

Opacity matters, if you use a 1:1 ratio of glue to pigment, then the opacity of your final effect will be too much, as I show you below in an example. Here I mixed 1 part Yellow Ochre pigment with one part glue, and as you can see it comes out really really opaque. >>>

HOWEVER, with colors like Blue or green, or other dark colors the "advertised" color and the actual color will differ, don't freak out if your color looks too dark, when the glue dries it will dry relatively clear and the light will shine through just fine. 

Less is always more, better to work up the color in layers than going crazy and messing up the effect. Randomness denotes authenticity, don't put an even coat on to your Jar, go crazy, hitting it from different angles, stippling it, rubbing or scratching it off, the more beat up it looks the better.

For the record, Never, EVER add even the smallest amount of black pigment to your glue unless you want your glue black. The black pigment will mess up a color in a millisecond. 

Furthermore if you get it all done and dried, and do not like the results, you can wash it off and start over. Saving grace, I'm telling you.

For the side dribbles that I LOVE to do, go crazy with the color, dark is good. 

Then use the pigmented glue to add to the color near the top and slop it all up. it makes the drips look a bit more realistic. 

If you want to add more texture to your glue layers, take fine dust, ground up black chalk, strands of hair, strands of fur and stick them in the glue before it dries. I use an old blusher brush for the dust. I also get my hands covered in black pastel and grab the jar after its dried. 

I like to wrap the mouth of the jar where the threads are with hemp chord, to do this all you need to do is put glue on the threads, and keep the hemp tight as you wind it around. Occasionally soak the damn thing in glue as it will dry fast. I then paint it with black paint, and seal it again with glue.












I hope that any of this helps, and I'd love to see pictures of your Jars!

Universal Studios, Blucky does Hollywood, and looking forward to Disneyland Halloween.

Found on Flickr, Image by Biggimote

I went to Universal Studios this weekend, it was an on the fly, hey lets go, kinda thing, and I'm actually quite happy we did it. You see at the beginning of the year my sig other and I took his brother to Universal Studios and we got a heck of a deal, "Buy one day, get 2010 free" So we have an annual pass for the price of a day. (Halloween Horror nights are blocked, bummer) So we can go anytime that there isn't black out dates, for free. A really awesome thing considering that just recently the studio tour opened king kong 3d, which is highly recommended btw (go first thing at opening, the line is the shortest its going to get all day... during the middle of the day the line was 75 minutes long for the studio tour, we waited 15. However if you get stuck in the monster line, believe me it is completely worth it, King Kong is really, really wonderful stuff)

The image above is also on the studio tour, for those of you who have never been to Universal Studios Hollywood, its the house from psycho! Here the image was taken during Halloween Horror Nights, and the psycho house is rightfully lit up at night in Halloween splendor. No one does horror quite like Universal. 

Also on the studio tour was Legit Halloween-y goodness! Wisteria Lane (The stepford... er... I mean Desperate Housewives Set {You think I watch that? HA}) is dressed up for Halloween, and who made an appearance on the set? 

Why BLUCKY of course!

Found on Flicker, Image by Polly Nesia

Yes fellow haunters, that lovable blow molded skeleton we love, or love to hate, is a Television star. He's hanging from one of the houses on Wisteria Lane, and will be featured on Desperate Housewives some time during October I would not wonder. Its nice to know that even Hollywood will resort to the use of a big lots Blucky every now and again, and the really funny part of the story is that I was seriously laughing my ass off about it and my Husband just stared at me, clueless as to what I was talking about. "Honey, whats a Blucky?"

The rest of Wisteria Lane was also dressed up for our favorite Holiday, as was another set for Parenthood. I'm sorry that I didn't get pictures, but the movement was jarring and taking out the dainty 1gig microSD card from my phone and sticking it on to the adapter to save photos to for my camera was out of the question at the time... It was early morning... I was tired. Waffles.

Found on Flickr, image by Disney1955

Lastly I'm looking forward to seeing Disneyland during Halloween time. Strublay and co. will be Heading to Disneyland in October, and I'll get to experience Halloween Time at Disneyland, a rare thing considering that I'm in school full time, but my primarily online class schedule permits me to go and do things I can't with a live class. I assure you I'll be taking a ton of HQ photos for the site.

It's my goal, as a resident of the south west, to visit every theme park around Halloween time. Not all at one time mind you, but one a year or so. I've done Las Vegas' Fright Dome, and I enjoyed it, but I now want to see how the big boys do Halloween. Disneyland Resort is first, and I'm looking forward to it. 

One last thing: I've gotten some awesome comments regarding my technique for witch jars and on the blog in general, I just want to let you know I just read them, and I'll be responding with another post here very soon.

Until I get that done: Have an awesome labor day!

Witch Jars and a Still Life Session...

... All to prove I'm not ignoring my Halloween Blog.
School started this week, and I've been getting in my Halloweenie fix by going to the forum and various sites and neglecting my own and the fun that it brings along with its upkeep.
I decided on the fly that I needed to do a still life, for fun, of the Witch Jars, a couple of my lanterns I keep out year round, and the pine needles and cones on my porch...
I took a crap load of time to set it up, shoot it, and generally mess around on my porch at 2-3 in the morning.. My neighbors are going to wonder about me I think... Then again, what else is new? Also I re-discovered the awesomeness of my porch, I forget that this is the time of year where sitting out there is bearable.
I also came up with some brilliant ideas for my paper luminaries, so I'll see if it works in the next day or so.. and I figured out that I want to do more creative paper silhouettes in my windows... that will be fun.
Anyway, here is the fruit of my photo session.

Image By Strublay

Image By Strublay

Image By Strublay

As I said previously, I took watercolor paints and mixed it with Elmer's white glue to get a translucent effect, to give the grime character I guess. 

Image By Strublay

On my first one not only did I use the colored glue technique, but I also pulverized a bit of black pastel and dusted it on to the glue before it dried, and used a sooty flame to blacken them up a bit. 

Image By Strublay

Green came out cool.

Image By Strublay

The Green and Brown ones hanging from wire hangers and hemp chord.

Image By Strublay

The amber one sitting among my pumpkin candle, pine needles and a pine cone. 

Image By Strublay

The blue one is cool because I left a majority of it clear, I just frosted it with Elmer's and then dribbled the darkly colored blue glue on it... turned out great. 

Image By Strublay

Image By Strublay

Now all, its 4 am, Vegas time, and I need to go get some rest... G'Night.