Artista Muerta – Etsy shop specializing in skull-themed art, heavy on the calaveras.

Cthulhu Bento Box – I like the little tentacled hot dog (which can be made freehand or with an Octodog).

Gaiman Secrets – PostSecret-style blog devoted to secrets about Neil Gaiman.

1975 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG – A riff on Skippy’s List, with entries such as, “A one man band is not an appropriate bard instrument” and “Clown shoes have no place in a dungeon crawl.”

Grenades – A bowlful of knitted grenades. Because why not.

The Name of My Next Band – You know how random phrases sometimes sound like great names for Indie bands? John Scalzi is a master of these. (I would buy everything Assembled Ferret Skeleton ever did.)

Spooky Clocks – Hand-painted vintage clocks with a Halloween theme.

Giant Spider Puppet – Neat video of a huge air-powered spider that some guy built. (Hat tip to pdq)

Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment – Flash game designed to look like an old 8-bit video game. Try to help Tantalus get a drink of water! Help Prometheus writhe in pain and dislodge the vulture from his liver!

If Famous Horror Movies Were Rated “G” – I especially like Nightmare on Elm Street.

This is another project that I’ve had in my Drafts folder in hopes that I’ll eventually get around to making it. Since it’s been knocking around in there for over a year that apparently isn’t going to happen any time soon, so I’m just going to throw it out here for you guys.

I saw this in a Flickr photostream, listed as “scary wine bottle lady” (click to enlarge). Given its elaborate nature I assume the components are permanently attached to an empty bottle, but I like the idea of presenting a full bottle of wine “gift-wrapped” in this fashion.

A base for the body could be created by molding chicken wire around an empty wine bottle. Cover the form with papier-mache, Model Magic, Sugru, or plain old duct tape, then wrap wire or pipe cleaners around the upper third to attach the arms. The photo isn’t clear enough to tell if the fingers are wire or actual small skeleton hands; if you can find the latter in the appropriate size it might look nicer. Something like the Skeleton Store’s Cheap Charlie might be about the right size, and it also gives you a skull and extra body parts to work with; I like the idea of a bit of rib cage peeking out of holes in the lady’s rags. The bones can be darkened and aged with a bit of plastic-safe spray paint if desired.

Once the body is complete dress it in purchased doll clothes, hand-sewn clothing, or simply scraps of fabric. The trailing skirts appear to be fairly stiff; this can be done by soaking dyed cheesecloth in laundry starch, draping it as desired–make sure you work over plastic to catch drips–then letting it dry. Add doll accessories such as a lantern, broom, or severed head; attach them to the hands with a dab of hot glue.

Now for the head. You can either carve a hole in the base of the skull (easier with a foam skull than plastic) to fit down over the neck of the wine bottle, or mold a cap on top of the bottle with paper clay or Sugru and hot-glue the skull to that (cover this “neck” with a scarf or fur stole). Glue on wispy bits of doll hair and top with a hat.

Once everything is thoroughly dry, slip them off of the empty bottle and put them on the full gift bottle. Present as an extremely unique hostess gift.

I don’t go to the mailbox because that’s where the Responsibility Monster lives.
– Hadzilla

If someone catches you staring blankly into space & asks you what you’re looking at, shush them & whisper “ghost porn.”
– IamEnidColeslaw

It’d be fun to release a gorilla in a gorilla suit at the mall and see the look on security’s face when they pull off that first mask.
– DearAnyone

Mine’s the USS Everyone Gets Home Safe. RT @scottEweinberg: Prometheus. Icarus. Daedalus. Parsimonious. #badnamesforspaceships
The No Aliens Allowed. The Nobody Dies. The Sunshine Unicorn. The Punch and Pie. #myscifispaceship
– cleolinda (More collected here)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but babies are the only parasites people keep and raise as pets after removing them from their bodies, right?
– BadAdviceNurse

Marsha is a beautiful name for a supervillainess with an army of frogs.
– sween

Tried to donate blood today but they had too many questions about where I got it.
– badbanana

Sometimes I fear that none of my work matters and I’m actually in this office so aliens can feed me coffee and harvest my pee.
– tehawesome

Those first two guys who thought Superman was a bird or a plane… ? What the fuck were they so excited about?
– shariv67

If I was a cab driver, I’d whisper “I could have kept you” to passengers before they got out.
– sucittaM

I recently linked to this necklace
featuring tiny figures in vials with the comment that I’d probably replace the people with tombstones, and my dad promptly sent me a link to some adorable gravestones meant as accessories for model train layouts. I’m surprised I haven’t written about model train accessories before now; it’s not uncommon to see layouts where the actual trains are secondary to the scenery. (They’re kind of like dollhouses for men.)

Even if you have no interest in model trains, there are loads of detailed miniatures which would be perfect added to a terrarium or simply displayed on a shelf. In addition to the basic tombstones, you can get a set featuring more elaborate graves and an Angel statue. There are also at least two complete cemetery kits: One by Busch complete with graves, hearse, fountain, park benches, and wreaths; and Woodland’s Maple Leaf Cemetery with stone fenceposts, lots of different tombstones, trees, and a tool shed.

To round out your graveyard you can purchase generic funeral attendees, which also come in Catholic and Protestant flavors.

There are also cute little horse-drawn hearses, including a rather elaborate version with lots of detailing.

If cemeteries aren’t your thing, you can also choose from a haunted house, including a version that lights up, an abandoned log cabin, a great-looking funeral home, a generic “haunted mansion” a spooky Vampire Villa, or even a full-blown castle. There’s even an electronics kit available which allows you to provide your building with lightning and thunder.

There are also plenty of little individual figures to choose from, including demons, devils, mermaids, female and male vampires, and even the Grim Reaper. Various animal sets feature crows, cats, and owls and snakes. There are also all kinds of “pedestrian” sets in themes ranging from a crime scene investigation to a group of punk rockers.

These would all be wonderful for dioramas, but if you want to more fully investigate the hobby of model railroading–it’s a fine pastime, much beloved of Gomez Addams–there’s certainly no reason why you couldn’t darken it up a bit too. Decorate the train with glow-in-the-dark paint and turn it into a ghost train passing through an abandoned village, or load it with pumpkins and send it on its way to Halloween Town. There’s almost surely a set of accessories to help you realize your vision.

Some of the more…ahem…mature amongst us may remember The Electric Company, a 70s kid’s show that was to Sesame Street as Mescaline is to Pop Rocks. The original cast included such luminaries as Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, and Morgan Freeman, who is seen here as a vampire taking a bubble bath in a casket. As you do.

As one commenter over on the YouTube page put it, “if this were an ad, i would own at least 4 caskets right now.”

(via The Gothic Tea Society)

People Take Warning – Huge boxed set of “murder ballads and disaster songs” from the early part of the last century. This would be fantastic background music for any kind of period event, like a Titanic-themed dinner party.

SinIsPretty – Etsy shop with interesting clothing and accessories like Bone Shoe Clips and a Spider Web Tap Pant Set.

Elegant Musings – Blog devoted to “vintage” (1930s-ish) fashion. Has several tutorials.

Unicorn Poop – Brilliantly decorated sugar cookies.

Spiked iPhone Case – Interesting idea for decorating an iPhone case, although this would make it rather difficult to put in a pocket or clutch.

Scientific Creativity – Surviving the World makes me giggle.

Itsy Bitsy Spider Baby Shower – I love this idea for a gothy baby shower, but the black-and-white theme is sufficiently restrained and elegant that it could also provide some inspiration for a more grownup party.

Halloween Hair – This is certainly an…arresting…hairstyle.

Randy Newman’s Theme Song for “We Need to Talk About Kevin” – Parody song that nicely captures the Pixar-esque themes that Newman has turned out.

Gearing Up for 2012 – Calendar of steampunk conventions in 2012.

Okay, in its raw form this idea has a Christmas theme, but there’s no reason it can’t be generalized to make any season magical. It’s an adorable project to do for small children.

Over at East Coast Mommy, the Elf on the Shelf (aka Santa’s Narc) arrived for Christmas duty with a packet of “magic” tree-shaped candy sprinkles and planting instructions from Santa (on official North Pole letterhead, which I thought was a nice touch). The sprinkles were planted in a bowl of sugar and somehow grew into tree-patterned cookie lollipops overnight.

Well, there are candy sprinkles in shapes beyond numbering, and plenty of cookie cutters. A child could receive a special package from the Great Pumpkin, the Solstice Hobgoblin, or simply the Fairy in Charge of Magical Botany. They could plant anything from dinosaurs to ghosts to bugs to autumn leaves, and appropriately-shaped cookie pops (or even regular lollipops) can magically “grow” when they aren’t looking.

No need to wait until next Christmas; this is a fun and super-easy way to make any day a little more whimsical.

(Hat tip to Empress Pam)

I had no idea that this was a thing, but now that I know about it I am insanely eager to participate.

Eyebombing is the act of sticking googly eyes on inanimate things in public places. That’s all there is to it. There’s a blog, a Flickr pool and a Facebook page, all devoted to the idea of “humanizing the world, one googly eye at a time.”

To get started, all you have to do is get yourself some peel-and-stick googly eyes at your local craft store–they’re oddly specific about the eyes being the wiggly sort, rather than plain stickers–and then go…stick ‘em to things. (You’ll obviously want to take care not to stick them anywhere that they might ruin the finish or peel off paint.) You can optionally take photos and submit them to the Eyebombing site, or you can simply go along in anonymity, secure in the knowledge that you’ve made everyone’s day just a little bit more surreal.

The full movie is available on YouTube. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the most cheese-tastic film of all time.

Shadaughter was a huge fan of Xena: Warrior Princess when she was little, so I was unwillingly subjected to a whole lot of really distorted mythology.* It was thus with great amusement that I recently ran across Diana, Warrior Princess, an indie role-playing game that takes place a couple thousand years in the future. Our present is as distant to them as the Ancient Greeks are to us, and there are as many gaps in their knowledge. A production company has created a series based on “our” world with, as the game description puts it, “the loving attention to historical accuracy we have come to expect from such series.” This RPG is based on that fictional series.

Run adventures in which Eva Peron is Hitler’s mistress, or JFK meets Queen Victoria. Zulu hordes swarm across Vietnam, the Spanish Inquisition stalk heretics in Manhattan, steam cars co-exist with ICBMs, Babbage engines, stealth bombers and sorcerers.

Wikipedia expands:

Diana, Princess of Wales rides around in shining white motorcycle leathers on a semi-sentient motorbike, doing battle with the war-god, Landmines, and Bonnie Prince Charlie, from whom she took her mystic powers of Royalty. She is aided by Fergie, the Barbarian Red Ken and Wild Bill Gates, while Tony the Vampire Slayer battles the sorceress Thatcher and her masked assassin Archer.

There’s also a “spinoff” expansion pack called Elvis: The Legendary Tours in which the bard Elvis has been exiled from the Land of Grace by his evil half-brother Costello. His sidekicks include John Lenin and “Senator” Joe McCartney.

The Elvis expansion was supposed to be the first of several spinoffs, including Parton: Lust For Glory (military adventure); Toni the Vampire Slayer (teenager Toni Blair fights the undead); Gandhi’s Angels (a “martial arts detective” series); and Richard of Hollywood (Robin Hood-esque adventure featuring Richard Nixon vs. the evil Uncle Sam). The author, Marcus Rowland, has stated that he has no plans to write the rest of these, which makes me very sad.

Rowland has also written a number of other RPGs which sound interesting, most particularly Forgotten Futures and its many expansions.

Remember how the future used to be?

When vast fleets of flying ships blackened the sky . . .
When psychic investigators used electric pentacles . . .
When Venus was a paradise, never fallen from grace . . .
When the government’s main job was to make the airships run on time . . .
When a gentleman could build his own spaceship and still have change of a million pounds . . .
When there were still dinosaurs and monsters in the unexplored corners of the Earth . . .

It bills itself as “complete rules for adventures in Victorian and Edwardian fantasy and science fiction,” which should certainly be right up this audience’s alley.

The instruction booklets are all quite inexpensive, so any of these might be a fun rainy-day activity with a couple of friends.

*The Dryads still piss me off.