If Willy Wonka ever decided to set up shop in Hell, I’m fairly sure the result would be something like Cryptocurium.

They’re custom candymakers based in New Jersey, and their “handmade edible art” takes its themes from strange legends and macabre fiction. They’ve gotcher Chocolate Aztec Sacrificial Hearts, Absinthe-Flavored Lollipops, and Gummy Cthulhus right here, pal.

They have a whole range of Lovecraft-themed lollipops, in shapes ranging from the Necronomicon to Nyarlathotep (he’s raspberry-flavored, in case anyone was wondering). Their Chocolate Skulls come in four varieties, including “Spicy Xocolatl,” and although they aren’t quite life-size they’re about the size of a baseball and surprisingly inexpensive.

The one that really blows my mind, though, is their Edible Vampire Hunter Kit, which includes hard-candy bottles of holy water and holy oil, a fabulously-detailed miniature chocolate bible, a dark chocolate crucifix, white chocolate garlic, and three milk chocolate wooden stakes. Yowza.

I can’t find anything on their site about whether they ship internationally or not, but for folks in the U.S. there’s still time to order before Easter. (If you don’t think an Easter basket filled with candy Shoggoths wouldn’t be hilarious, you may be on the wrong blog.)

The fabulous Pensive Pumpkin recently sent me a note about Jesus Del Pozo’s Halloween perfume, along with a comment that amounted to, “Where does a perfume with major notes of iris and lime get off being called ‘Halloween’ anything?” A sentiment with which I heartily agree.

The perfume has been around for quite a while–it was introduced in 1997–and I would have sworn that I’d mentioned it in some long-ago link dump, but a look through my archives turns up nothing so it’s entirely possible that I looked at it and thought, “Where does a perfume with major notes of iris and lime get off being called ‘Halloween’ anything?” and declined to post about it. But upon revisiting the link I see that the line has been significantly expanded, so now I’m going to post about it so I can point and laugh.

Additions to the Halloween line now include Halloween Kiss (notes of orange, watermelon, pear, and violet), Halloween Kiss Sexy (lemon, peach, freesia, peony), Halloween Water Lily, Halloween Freesia, Halloween Fatal Rose (which has a great name but whose notes include pear, blood orange, peach elixir, vanilla mousse, and…Coca-Cola), Halloween Tropical (notes of lime, iris, gardenia, lavender, violet, rose, and pink pepper), Halloween Sun (bergamot, lime, cardamom, orange and apple), and Halloween Fever (which in addition to smelling like bergamot, orange and rose, has the most disco label ever).

:::heavy sigh:::

Even more annoyingly, when you google “Halloween perfume” this stuff is pretty much all that turns up for the first several pages of results (with the lone exception of stuff on Etsy tagged that way, some of which is pretty neat).

I suppose that something in this line would be nice to wear if you don’t really care for heavier, darker scents but want to do some Halloween representin’ anyway. I’m just sort of dismayed that THE Halloween perfume smells more like a fruit salad than a vampire’s boudoir.

(Thanks, Pensive Pumpkin!)

Y’know that bit in Type O Negative’s “Black No. 1” about, “Her perfume smells like burning leaves…every day is Halloween?” Check it out: Burning Leaves perfume (“the smoke of burning maple leaves”).

Perfumer Christopher Brosius hates perfume, but in addition to Burning Leaves he offers scents like November, Forest/Wild Hunt, and In the Library. Sounds like our kind of hater.

In addition to blended perfumes, he also offers single-note accords (I’m rather taken with “Wet Pavement London” and somewhat less sure about “Locker Room”), moth-battling wardrobe sprays, and fragrances for the home. (He also apparently does custom fragrances, but according to the site he isn’t currently taking on new clients.)

If you’re looking for an unusual scent, this is an interesting place to browse around.

(via Cult of the Great Pumpkin)

I am rarely moved by Shoe Lust, but I gotta admit that these boots are pretty mind-blowing. They’re a one-off design, “hand painted and embossed leather boots with forged steel curly heel.”

The creator is Pendragon Shoes, an Australian duo who hand-make amazing shoes and accessories. They do quite a lot of work for theatre and film, and also retail some “off the shelf” designs which are a bit simpler and cheaper. They also do one-offs and commissions, and I have no idea how much those cost but they’re probably worth it. You can see a few of their unique designs here, and there’s a link to more on their site.

If you’re looking for the ultimate in shoes for a wedding or other important costume, these folks might be just what you need.

(Hat tip to Rebecca)

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.

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.

In 2010 Poland’s largest coffin manufacturer, Lindner, published a promotional calendar featuring models posing with their caskets (apparently sex sells no matter what the product is). Despite the expected outrage from religious groups and other anti-fun organizations the calendars became immensely popular. They followed up with a similar 2011 calendar featuring lingerie-clad models enacting scenes from movies like The Godfather and Reservoir Dogs. (Some of the images can be seen on the Lindner site, and googling “Lindner calendar” turns up plenty of page scans.)

They 2012 version is now available for purchase on their site and it is highly NSFW in that they’ve ditched the lingerie for body paint. It appears that they ship worldwide, and their rates are surprisingly affordable; 57 zlotys works out to around $16US.

Even if you don’t care about the models, the coffins are lovely. (Plus if you have this hanging in your kitchen you’re almost sure to scandalize the in-laws, so bonus.)

The marvelous xJane recently pointed me to this post about “Bedrock Bones,” a line of hairties, necklaces, and other accessories that look like brightly-colored bones. She lamented that they don’t seem to be available in the US, which most likely is partly due to the fact that they’re all handmade (here’s the artist’s Facebook page) and partly because New Zealand is apparently beyond the grasping clutches of Hanna-Barbera’s legal department.

Fortunately all is not lost, since these should be easy to DIY.

At first glance I thought that the bones were made of hard rubber, but I suspect that instead they’re molded out of polymer clay. The shape of the bone is simple enough that even a beginner should be able to make something similar. You can search for “polymer clay tutorials” for tips on working with the clay, making holes for stringing (which you’ll need if you make a necklace), and so on. I couldn’t find any photos of the hair ties that showed how the elastic was attached, but it doesn’t look like it’s actually baked into the clay. A couple of sites on making clay hair accessories suggest attaching the elastic with a bit of hot glue, which should work well.

If you aren’t up to sculpting your own, you might try spray-painting little Halloween prop bones with plastic-safe paint and stringing them on a necklace or attaching them to a hair clip. I have to admit, though, that I’m much more taken with the shape of the Bedrock line, so taking the trouble to make them out of clay would probably be worth it.

These would be a cute stocking-stuffer, and would also be attractive as toppers for gift packages.

Thanks, xJane!

Back to Lovecraft is an album of H.P. Lovecraft’s poetry, set to bluegrass music, by four Corsican artists. You guys, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

(via SF Signal)

I recently ran across this neat T-shirt featuring a skull made of triangles, and although it’s great as a shirt it strikes me that the same idea could also be adapted to other media.

In particular, I think this would work well as a quilt. Quilts made from triangles (there’s a good primer here) are nearly as easy as those made from plain squares, which makes them a splendid project for beginners. Depending upon your skill and ambition, you could make a quilt with a different-colored skull in each block, or you could simply do one large skull which fills the center of the space. You can also choose whether to do the skull(s) in one solid color or use a mix of shades as shown here.

The nice thing about triangles (or plain squares) is that they’re easy to scale up or down. If you don’t feel up to tackling a whole quilt, a smaller skull would look great on a wall hanging, throw pillow, tote bag, or item of clothing.