Most people start building for Halloween in August. Because I have some challenges, I have started building now.
We are the house with the giant inflatable cat. Everyone loves it. But I have long desired to add my own cemetery. I love making gravestones. First four are on the way.
So I posted a teaser then forgot to post the video. That is so me.
I haven’t been blogging for a few days because I have been deep in editing the next Old and Spooky video, which is about a very good show that died young. Sleepwalkers aired in 1997 for TWO FUCKING EPISODES. But they made nine. You might like it. If you want to watch the whole series before my video comes out, here’s a playlist.
And now, I must research for the next video after that, which will be ranking all the television horror movies in 1974. It doesn’t look like a good year. Wish me luck.
Slagovir is a Ukranian artist I found through Propnomicon. He specializes in gods and demons from all over the world.
Now, I’m not the cutesy type, but I have to admit, I absolutely love his minis. The more realistic ones are fantastic, but I just think the minis have more personality.
And my personal favorite…
Dear Spousal Unit: Consider this an official Christmas hint.
Petrovsky makes fabulous, bizarre sculptures in Ukraine. Here is his etsy shop. (Note: I have updated the link from the comments.) Here is some stuff:
Bill Mayer likes frogs. So much. You get one frog today, but mostly I was feeling witchy.
Ryan and Matt Murphy are twins who run a tattoo shop in Salem, MA. They describe their style as “black and gray for the grim hearted.” When tattoos are this good, who needs color?
Brooks Shane Salzwedel creates dreamy images. Blurred, overlapping, just out of reach. Their site is pretty borked, so you are better off with their Instagram.
In 2018, we were between houses. The landlord at the Silver Spring house had pulled a shitty on us. Worse move even than the one from Florida. So for Halloween, we were in an airbnb, and all our decorations were in storage. We ran out and bought our pumpkin family and some path lights. I don’t think we got any kids, but it was good to decorate a little.
Just before the plague, we settled in Frederick, MD. We were in a townhouse with a tiny yard, so I couldn’t do much, but I could decorate the garage. This is the first year I opened and decorated the garage and handed out treats from there. It worked so well, I never looked back.
And then, the plague hit. In 2020, I skipped. I thought it was the smart thing to do. By the next year, we’d moved to Virginia.
We’ve never lived anywhere as long as we’ve lived here in Virginia. It’s nice to settle in, though I know we’ll likely end up moving again soon. We have become known as a Halloween house. Every year our neighbors anticipate the raising of the giant cat, and on the night, we open the garage with some new decorative setup.
That first year, though, was still the plague times. I didn’t want to skip again, so I built a very silly contraption with a very silly monster, and rolled Kinder Joy eggs down a chute and into his mouth. I had speakers set up to a mic so the monster could talk. A few kids thought it was automated and tried to say “trick or treat” multiple times. It was a lot of fun. The setup is best seen in video:
2022 was a light display.
In 2023, I’d collected enough Lemax to do a display of everything villagey. After that, I actually got rid of the Lemax because it’s crap. It’s pretty, but you can’t breath on it wrong without it breaking. I still have more sturdy pieces by Department 56 and Bradford Exchange. The village was a big hit.
2024 was miscellaneous with a lot of skulls:
Finally, this year I brought out the blow molds:
Next year, I want to get my physical issues fixed so I can BUILD THINGS AGAIN.
