Artist and culture jammer TradeMark G. often invokes the concept of Artistic License when asked, for instance, “Why on earth did you paint that toaster purple and install it on the ceiling?” or “Why do you drive a hearse that looks like a zebra?” He recently decided to back up his artistic cred with an actual license, so now he’s all official. He’s selling similar licenses so you, too, can back up your claim of being a misunderstood artist with legitimate-looking documentation.

If you live outside the U.S. and need a license for your own country–or if you just don’t want to spend the 20 bucks–I expect you could do something similar with photo editing software and a laminating machine (available at copy shops like Kinko’s).

Link (via BoingBoing)

Etsy member NeedleNoodles sells patterns for a wide variety of spooky amigurumi, including this skeletal bride and groom. Her malevolently cute little horde includes Lil Spookies, Undead, Knit Spookies, and Monsters.

If you’re not quite up to making your own, she also sells completed ones quite inexpensively. I think this teeny crocheted zombie is particularly fetching.

HETFET (Humans for the Ethical Treatment of Fairies, Elves, and Trolls) is an organization devoted to stamping out the exploitation of faeries and other fantastical creatures. The site includes a chilling exposé of the cruel conditions inside one of the “fairy factory farms” that produce the world’s supply of pixie dust.

Okay, if you want to get all technical about it, this is actually a viral ad site for the Hellboy sequel, but that makes it only marginally less amusing.

They even have a Cafepress store where you can get T-shirts and other “save the imaginary creatures” merchandise.

Please…give what you can, and make sure to look for the “Fairy Friendly®” symbol on the products you buy. Only you can prevent unnecessary cruelty to fantastical beings.

Comedy musician/Filker Tom Smith has taken the traditional song I Had a Cat… and done something dark and horrible with it.

His version is quite wonderful, with in-jokey references to horror and SF movies, and the music is infectious; Shadowboy has begged me to play this over and over and over and over….

You can download it in a low-res format for free, or high-res for $.99. Or you can just play it a zillion times online, which is where we’re at right now.

Link (Hat tip to SeaJade)

Skull-a-Day mentioned this fabric in passing, and I find myself immensely taken with it. The Echino collection is 44″ cotton in “home decor weight,” which could be anything from stiff calico to upholstery. I love the elegance of the images: The bats shown here remind me of old Japanese paintings, and the spiderwebs and insects on other fabrics are lovely rather than menacing.

This looks like an excellent way to bridge the gap between mainstream and goth; if you’d like a little darkness around the house but your partner (or your landlord, or your parents) isn’t so sure, decorating with fabric like this might be a workable compromise.

Bonus Link: Walter and Veronica did this nursery based on a swatch of fabric from the collection. I love the subtle little skulls.

Here’s a cheap and unique way to enliven that bare wall: Reproduction posters advertising absinthe.

The height of the absinthe boom in the late 19th century, coincided with the rise of the large lithographic advertising poster as a powerful commercial and artistic medium - pioneered by the work of Jules Chéret. Some of the greatest poster artists of the period - Cappiello, Privat-Livemont, Lefevre, Tamagno - created famous images to advertise the absinthe grand marques.

The Virtual Absinthe Museum has paired with Allposters.com to create vintage reproduction posters out of prints and advertisements from the museum’s collection. There’s some great Art Nouveau-type prints, along with darker and grittier works showing the downside of the Green Fairy. These would be a great way to add a dollop of bohemian decadence to a room.

Link (via Cynical-C)

If you didn’t have enough reason to visit Canada, the Diesel Playhouse in Toronto has extended its run of Evil Dead: The Musical. How could I have not heard of this before now?

Based on Sam Raimi’s 80s cult-classic horror films, EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL unearths the old familiar story: boy and friends take a weekend getaway at abandoned cabin, boy expects to get lucky, boy unleashes ancient evil spirit, friends turn into Candarian Demons, boy fights until dawn to survive. As musical mayhem descends upon this sleepover in the woods, “camp” takes on a whole new meaning with uproarious numbers like “All the Men in my Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons,” “Look Who’s Evil Now” and “Do the Necronomicon.”

The site mentions a “splatter zone,” so I guess there’s plenty of gratuitous gore.

I’m deeply tickled by the entire idea, but the best part of all is their street posters advertising the show.

I could weep from joy.*

Link (via BoingBoing)


*In case you’re scratching your head, the original.

This manufacturer “recycles” stainless-steel coffins collected from Southern California funeral homes. Their site says, “It is a health and safety law that funeral homes cannot resell used coffins to the general public,” but since they go on to imply that their recycling approach gives them a loophole I guess there’s no law against hosing ‘em off and turning them into furniture.

The six cast-iron legs are each embossed with the universal biohazard insignia, which I think is a nice touch.

At $4500 these may be a bit pricy, but you can’t beat them for style. They might be worth keeping in mind for your next interior decorating project.

Link (via The Presurfer)

The Haunted Mansion-Northside is the blog of James Lopez, an extremely talented artist and animator who used to work for Disney. He does not do things by halves: Last Halloween, for instance, he turned a friend’s front yard into a wrecked pirate ship. When he moved into his new house, he decided that he wanted his office to have a Haunted Mansion theme. And darned if he didn’t decorate it that way.

I cannot adequately express how thoroughly awesome this is. Three walls are covered with the Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper used in the foyer of the Disney attraction, and the fourth was hand-painted using a stencil to mimic the wallpaper in the Corridor of Doors. He’s got all kinds of pictures and busts similar to the ones in the attraction, and even managed to find a wall sconce that’s an exact match for the ones used near the front entrance.

A couple of his separate posts cover his creation of the Staring Statues and Bat in a Birdcage props that he uses as decoration.

Lopez sculpted his props from scratch, but we Mere Mortals without his vast artistic skill can find alternate ways to decorate. DoomBuggies offers a 13-Hour Wall Clock, for instance, and Haunted Mansion collectibles are widely available on eBay. You can also check out the DoomBuggies Links page for lots of inspiration and craft ideas.

This office would be a good project to build up over time, as funds and ambition allowed. As a bonus, using a Haunted Mansion decorating theme is a good way to subtly introduce goth elements into otherwise-mainstream decor; folks are somehow more comfortable with rabid Disney fans than with goths, even though I can tell you from long experience that the former are a whole lot scarier.

I’m tempted to start saving up for that foyer wallpaper right now.

This is one of those items that’s going to be viewed very differently by we darker-minded souls than it is by the mainstream. The Wedding Ring Coffin is ostensibly to help divorced people seek closure by “burying the past” instead of selling their ring on eBay like a normal person.

However, would this not be the coolest way to present a ring to a gothy loved one? The solid-wood coffin is lined with black velvet and has four little brass handles. It even comes with a brass plaque that you can have engraved with a personalized message.

I think they’re just adorable. I’m tempted to get one just to hold my rings when I’m not wearing them.