Of Divination by Tarot.

Found on Flickr, Image uploaded by Museo del Tarot.

Museo Del Tarot Flickr Stream

I'm considering making a set of tarot or divination cards, that look ancient. Like, it should be falling apart in your hands, ancient. Like, so incredibly old, the paper is acting on par with cloth or leather. 

The paper should be thick, stained. The images drawn in ink and blanched watercolors, the language used should be a rarer language, the backs incredibly detailed. 

Oh yeah, it'll take a long time, but it sounds like fun. 

I don't actually beleive in divination, yet I own at least one set of divination cards. I use them in my still lives, but I think they are too shiny. Modern manufactured cards are sturdy, true, but they are too shiny and slick to fit in with a witch whose knowledge and tools has been handed down through several generations. Plus the clean-ness of the cards takes away from the effects I try to shoot for (grimy, unplanned, a whole lot of creepy). So I think I found a project I can do while in Anaheim that won't creep out my roommates too badly. I don't need my roommates going to the Disneyland heads and accusing me of devil worship. Although that would be a helluva funny story for you guys, wouldn't it?

Wait, its Disney: they'd accuse me of Chernabog worship. ;D

We has Policy? Oh yes, yes we has.

Alright, obviously there has been a touch of confusion, and I just want to clarify some of my personal policies dealing with my blog and some things about who I am.

Policy:

• If you email me, it is likely that your email will be automatically sent to my spam folder. I do not check my spam folder, so don't expect me to receive emails. This will not change, sorry. Maybe one day if this site becomes super popular (yeah right) I'll create an account just for this site, but until then, no emails please.
• If you wish to enlighten me about something that is Horror/Halloween/Prop Making related and/or "OMG AWESOME" -worthy, please feel free to let me know in a comment. I prefer verifiable links and or "Hey Strublay! Google this..."
• Understand that what ends up on full blog posts is at my discretion, just because you throw it on the comments, does not mean I'll do a full post featuring what you sent me. If your link or search term proves to be reliable, however, I will allow the comment to be posted.
• My typical sources are HalloweenForum.com, Flickr, Photobucket, ect. So if you are shy, just post your pictures on one of those sites and I'll probably run across them during my daily scans of a bunch of sites for cool pictures
• If you see that something has been improperly attributed, please let me know in a comment.
• Yes I post a lot of my own pictures. It is my blog after all. ^_^

I honestly appreciate your understanding regarding these matters.

About me:
I am an artist and college student here in the Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. I am dual majoring in IT and 'Arcane Herbology and Spellcasting'. I am an artist that does a lot of prop making (which encompass all forms of art, really) and it is safe to say I go through phases. I was born here in Las Vegas, raised here, and I love my oddball city. I lived in Arizona for a short time, and thats when my obsession with Halloween really began to blossom. I have been obsessed with the aesthetic of Halloween ever since.

My nickname, Strublay, originated from my technical theater days in High School, we were doing a play by Brecht, and my director/teacher was a smart alack and altered my first name to one that was in the play in question and used it as my nickname for the duration of the play. My cohorts in the tech department decided that my last name needed to fit in too, as my first and last name were already odd. After the play only my last name stuck around, Strublay. After I graduated, I started using it as my pen name on my less interesting blogs That no longer exist.

To Do List

Finish Linux Course Chapter 7 quiz and Final,
Find and Purchase Pumpkin Ale/or something else just as awesome,
Get Tipsy off of previously mentioned ale/awesome-ness,
Sew Circle Skirt/ dress ruffle/ apron/ cloak/ hat/ anything else, (SUNDAY)
Security Mid-term on Monday,
Arcane Herbalism, HTML, and Java Programming Mid-terms on Tuesday,
Pull out boxed Halloween Goodies
Purchase more Tea Lights and Neovana/Devotional candles,
Purchase more Pumpkins,
Purchase Samhain Incense, More Clove Incense, More Nag Champa incense, generally more incense.
Get some pumpkin dessert
Get the mixin's for Sloppy Joe's
Purchase candy (!!!!!!!!!!)
Scribe Glyphs,
Entrap Spirit in Soul Cage.
Photograph Soul Cage
Dig Out more Jars
Prep herbal/salt mixes, pine needle carpet, hangings, candles, luminaries.
Set out offerings for the dead
Carve the Pumpkins.
Hand Out Candy, Carve arcane inscriptions in to small Pumpkin, pray the souls don't kill me.

Bolts from Heaven

Found On Flickr, Image by Joe Decker

Ooooooo oOooOOoooooOOo Pretty!

We have been having a helluva lot of rain and lightning lately, so much so my pine cones have folded up... 

Luckily I brought in my Witch Jars before the rain. 

The downpours were AWESOME.

*GLARES AT THE INTELICAST RADAR* COME BACK RAIN!!!!! COME BACK NOU!

Hoarder

Found on Flickr, Image and Artwork by TheoJunior

The Caption: "The hoarder becomes what he accumulates."

Have any of you seen that show hoarders?
OMG. There needs to be a Hunted house on that. Seriously, that is modern horror right there..... every-time I watch it I get the itch to clean and organize.
It really freaks me out, honest to God.
ughhgghgghhhghghghghgbleh.

Of the Desert, and the start of Persona Week at Casa De Strublay

Theme Music for this post: The Nightmare on Elm Street Theme

I think everyone imagines Halloween in the Eastern US, with creepy wooded areas, but I grew up with a desert Halloween. I lived on a house on N. Elm Drive, so during Halloween my mom and I would joke that it was the Nightmare on N. Elm Dr. Thus the music. I'm telling you that place was Haunted.

Found on Flickr, Image by Antydiluvian

The desert is creepy in its own way, with sandstone making odd formations and twilight playing on the scant few trees and twiggy bushes. 

Bats flew everywhere at twilight, and once when I was little, a bat swooped down and picked off a bug mere inches from my face, I felt the wind of the wings as they flapped past me. My Mom FREAKED, I was laughing and ducking. I didn't want to hit the bat and hurt it. 

Found on Flickr, Image by Sandman

Storms in the desert are a different kind of animal. Torrential downpours, flooding, lightning and a LOT of wind. Once a storm came rolling over my house, and lightning struck the ground about 10 feet from my house. The sound was deafening, I felt the heat through the walls and windows, I watched the bolt hit the ground, the beating of voltage varying the light by tiny tiny amounts, and then it was gone. Being so close to such power is frightening and awesome (in the dictionary definition). 

The smell of Desert Rain, if bottled, I would wear all the time, or if it came in incense/candle/fragrance oil form would be used during my haunt this year.  

Found on Flickr, Image by missbeanie

This image is actually something I looked for very specifically. When I was in 3rd and 4th grade, our classes made hiking trips to the Grand Canyon, to prepare we used to hike at a component of Montezuma's Castle National Monument, Montezuma's Well. At these sites there are pronounced cliff dwellings that were built by the Sinagua People over 1000 years ago. It was one of the first four National Monuments dedicated by Teddy Rosevelt in 1906.

They look creepy in the morning, the darkness of the cliffs overtake the dwellings, and you can only see the outlines of the buildings. The windows are dark and murky, so you can never see whats inside the buildings.

I always liked to suppose they were haunted.

When I think about Theory and Practice my main principle is don't be something you're not. A one bedroom condo can't be a castle. So this year I'm embracing that principle whole heartedly. 

This week is Persona Week at Casa De Strublay, thus I'm focusing on my character this week, creating the costume, writing her back-story, figuring out her methodology and answering questions such as: "What would she burn in her incense censers?" 

This'll be a fun week.

Knott's post delay

Tonight I have a buncha homework to get done, (at least 4 chapters and quizzes of my Linux book, more if I can, and programming for my HTML class and Java class.) As such my Knott's post is delayed until very very late tonight, or tomorrow.
So Yeah.
Sorry for the wait.

Of Pumpkins and Knott's Scary Farms

Who went to Knott's this weekend??? Oh, your friendly neighborhood Halloween nut....   I am working on cleaning up my images from my foray to Knott's Scary Farms, once thats done I'll write and post a full review for those of you considering going. 

My night image taking really needs to improve, I'll get this yet. I also need an epic small tripod...

Safe to say, I had a good weekend, in spite of the Lack of Batboy and Little Dragon.... 

Upon arrival back home, my Husband and I stopped at our favorite Restaurant, and then went to Fresh-N-Easy for some food for the week... Luckily enough they had a helluva deal on pumpkins so I picked up my first four pumpkins of the season!  

Awesome start to my October. 

Witch Jars, Fall falling, and pine needles...

I'm supremely tired, so this is gonna be a VERY short post. A few picture posts will be forthcoming tomorrow when I finally run out of errends to do.
When in doubt/bored: Check online Classes, Facebook, Halloween Forum, look for Halloween pretties on Flickr and other image sites.
lol.
So I have so far Four Witch Jars.
Mine are inspired by pumpkinrot, but the Back Story is... different...


I imagine my odd, and wildly obsessed druid/shaman type witch pouring odd liquids and strange, thick extracts from Jars... the empties being thrown to the side and forgotten for years, possibly decades... Finally she gets to Halloween night and in a frantic rush to bring light in to her abode to hold back the spirits uses the Messy jars as candle holders: the blackened sealing resins, particularly disgusting verities of dried sludge, various fibers and dust filtering the light. The stoppers are all missing in action, used for other projects one wouldn't wonder.
Some where on there is at least one severely unfortunate cockroaches leg stuck to a jar.


Anyway, I'm achieving that forgotten, discusting, sludg-y look by coloring white glue (not school glue) with watercolors. You have to tip toe the line between opacity and color saturation to get the right look.
Its fun.
I'll have pictures some time soon, all hanging from their hemp chords and pissing off my husband.

Well its fall in Vegas, the winds have kicked up and Sunday the temperature peaked at a BEAUTIFUL 87F.  However Vegas weather is anything but stable, and the bipolar nature of our weather will kick in with low hundreds on Thursday, Friday and Saturday...

With the wind comes the pine needles and I plan on using them in my display this year... I'm letting my porch collect them, and I'll put them out on the concrete with a healthy layer of red dust... Its the desert's version of fall leaves.
Alright. G'night.

No job = changing plans

So there will be no pumpkin beast this year. As much as making one would be awesome, a lack of money, materials, and space to house it has prevented any possibility of creating one this year, or any year in the near future.
Also the automated lighting system I had devised for the front yard of the house has also proved too expensive as well.
I'm sticking to what I have, a ton of Jack o lanterns, simple western cross grave markers, neovana candles, witch Jars (pumpkin rot's creation that I'm unabashedly stealing) and day of the dead altars. throw in some lighting fundamentals, cobwebs, a low laying fog, incense and candles and I'm set. I'll probably throw in some cheap rosaries and dead flowers too...
Its best, in my mind, to throw the majority of what measly budget I can claim towards the pumpkins, since they are the heart of Halloween for me. The rest will be for mason jars, neovana candles and the rest.
It's just the way it has to be this year. I can still get the creep though, and that's my intention.

Dear Chainsaw Man.

You know that archetypal chainsaw scare in EVERY haunted house? Yeah, well in my last post I bashed it, and apparently the God of Halloween has determined that I was wrong for doing it.
Mr. Scary Chase-you-around-with-lawn-care-items is now running around tearing up my dreams. I've had nightmares for the past two nights of Mr Chainsaw.
The first nightmare was something out of a damn video game.... It started off where I was working in a pop scare haunt, every one had chainsaws and I was trying to improve upon the scare. Then this discovery channel like pop up overlayed and fuzzed out the image and gave me the complete stats on a particular type of chainsaw while giving me a 360 view of the tool. Then all of a sudden I was in a house running down the stairs with mr chainsaw running after me, I just got out of the door, a'la Halloween (movie) and I heard his foot steps right behind me and woke up. It was like Doom meets Halloween meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
So this morning I wrote this on my FB after encounter #2 with mr chainsaw man.

Dear Mr. Chainsaw Man: As much as I am flattered that you enjoy hanging out in my subconscious and proving all my lofty ideals when it comes to horror incorrect, GTFO. ~~~Not really that cordially, nor yours,
S.A.S

I'll be going around and finding pictures of Halloween later today. For now I'm going back to bed.

Somthing I forgot to mention, and the nature of fear.

All of the pumpkins that will light on their own, will be evil. Glaring pumpkins with nightmare grins lighting of their own accord at your approach, oh.... oh yes....

It will be beautiful.

One of my friends once told me that Terror could only be derived from what I like to call the pop scare style: pop ups, loud noises, chainsaws, screaming, gore, spurting blood... all that rubbish.

I despise that sort of scare. I like scares to be a deep down, stays with you, "I should not be here", give-you-nightmares kind of scare. I like creep.

The best haunted house I ever went to was a cheap piece of work put together by a local group and hosted in the parking lot of the power company. No trailers were involved. The most vivid memories were of girls, decently young, in tattered and torn dresses, in chicken coup cages. They stared, made no noise, just stared at you as you walked past. It made you question, "why am i walking past these girls and not helping them?" It made you question what you were doing, and the more you thought about it, the more those girls stares ate at you.

I had nightmares for weeks. It bothers me even now.

That, THAT is a good haunted house.

I walk through pop scare houses and never flinch, I just smile and keep walking, giggling at the terror of my comrades. It takes real creep to get me.

Innovation, detail, creep. The more it begs you, no, DEMANDS that you think about whats going on, the more it gets to you.

I work for that and it heartens me that there are others like me who like the creep.

I like me some detailed displays, and this year.... this year will be awesome.

I'm Back!

And somthing awesome has happened. My Aunt, an extremely social creature who loves to throw a party, has invited my mother and I too decorate her house for a massive Halloween party.

It's my first chance to really go all out for a Halloween display. She has a HOUSE, a with a legit front yard and everything. I haven't found a Job yet, I'm still trying, but I'm skeptical that I'll find one before the Halloween season.

So needless to say my pumpkin beasts have taken a back seat for the year. This year is still the year of the pumpkin, and I plan on taking over the front yard with as many Jack O' Lanterns as I can. If I can afford to make them all real pumpkins, then I will, but if not I'll be making faux pumpkins.

The idea is that someone will walk up to the front yard, seeing a bunch of pumpkins in the yard, some (mostly happy ones) lit, some/most that seemingly had gone out before they got there. As they walk up to the door, pumpkins begin to light on their own by some ghostly hand. Lanterns on trees and in the porch area (most inspired by Pumpkin Rot's witch jars) light on their own as well. The creep factor will be insane.


I can't wait. God I can't wait. *continues R&D*

hehehehe, I get to freak out middle aged party goers. Life is good.

The list of pictures to be taken:
HF comrades displays here in town;
My Skeleton,
my spiderwebs,
my future curtians.
Pumpkins, pumpkins pumpkins
My pumpkin spice latte I get as I go home
my labcoat
my countdown sign
my mothers house and her sundries
the candy
the food from the party
I cant believe its almost here!