Skeleton Scarf – Hand-crocheted scarf featuring a life-size skeleton.

Steampunk Apartment – This is some amazing decorating work. (via xJane)

Rest – Introspective zombie is introspective.

Pet Flytrap – Sells a variety of carnivorous plants (including rare and unusual cultivars), terrarium kits, and supplies. Their sampler pack is a nice way to get started.

Heiroglyphic Typewriter – Translate words into their heiroglyphic equivalent. Nice way to easily design cartouches.

Toy Shining – This storyboard mashup of Toy Story and The Shining is certainly…unique.

Animatronic Cat Ears – Instructions for making moveable cat ears. The same idea could easily be used for horns, antennae, or tentacles.

Mütter Ball – If you’re in the Philadelphia area, this 1920s themed fund-raising event in the Mütter Museum looks like a hoot.

Insects at Home – Dioramas made from real bugs, depicting them doing mundane things. If you’ve ever wanted to own a tarantula hanging laundry or a beetle collecting stamps, you’re in luck. (via The Bloggess)

First Look: Johnny Depp as Tonto – So Johnny Depp is going to be Tonto in an upcoming Lone Ranger movie. You guys, I don’t even know where to begin with this. (Maybe I’ll go with, “what the hell is that thing on his head?”)

Once again Pinterest fails in the attribution department, so I’m not sure who’s responsible for these screaming pigs-in-blankets. They are, however, undeniably awesome and would be an easy hors de’oeuvre for a cocktail party.

Since the sausages don’t appear to be baked into the dough, I’m betting that the cones were made using the same general method as for these crescent-roll “carrots:” Strips of dough are wrapped around a cream horn mold and then baked before filling. In this case, you’d want to add two bumps of dough for eyeballs (just stick them on with a little egg wash) and two small rolls of dough split at the end to make arms or fins or whatever those things are.

Once baked, make your favorite recipe for cocktail franks (the ones in barbecue sauce are tasty) and insert one into each cone. Decorate the eyes with a little dab of powdered sugar thinned with milk, then add a pupil using either food coloring or a dot of melted chocolate (be careful not to use too much if you plan to re-warm before serving, lest it melt and run).

Super-easy, and hilariously dramatic.

Hm; I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned Sillof before now, but my archive turns up nothin’. Time to remedy that.

Sillof is a self-taught sculptor (his day job is a high-school history teacher) who specializes in wonderful kitbashed action figures. His figure collections include a steampunk version of Star Wars, a Gaslight Justice League (including villains), and a set of “Victorian Avengers” (which for some reason have vanished from his site, but the Wayback Machine has descriptions and photos are available here).

In addition to simply being splendidly detailed, the figures all seem somehow plausible: Of course a steampunk Hawkgirl would have clockwork wings, and Black Manta would wear a vintage diving suit. The figures are great inspiration, not only for making models of your own, but also for cosplay ideas. I definitely want to sew a gaslight vampire hunter costume based on Sillof’s Blade.

I’m feeling silly today, so I’m going to dust off a game that Kristabella used to play on her blog a few years back. The rules are simple: Given the choice of each pair of people below, irrelevant of gender, you have to pick which one you’d sleep with. Choosing death instead is not an option.

Let’s begin, shall we?

The Classic Vampire Matchup
Dracula Bela Lugosi	vs.	Dracula Gary Oldman

The Those Masks Have To Come Off Some Time Matchup
Jason Voorhees	vs.	Michael Myers

The Hot TV Moms Matchup
Lily Munster	vs.	Morticia Addams

The Vampire Hunter Matchup
Blade	vs.	Van Helsing

The Tortured Gothic Poet Matchup
Lord Byron	vs.	Edgar Allan Poe

The Creepy Dead Girl Matchup
Kayako from The Grudge	vs.	Sadako from Ringu

The C’mere You Little Zipperneck Matchup
Frankenstein’s Monster	vs.	Herman Munster

The Oh Hell No Matchup
Pennywise	vs.	Pinhead

The Videogame Vixen Matchup
Alice from Resident Evil	vs.	Rayne from Bloodrayne

The How About Both, Can I Choose Both Matchup
Eric Northman	vs.	Alcide Herveaux

Leave your choices in the comments (feel free to expand on why you made each choice). And remember…Death is not an option.

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!)

Strange New Leaf-Nosed Bat – Photo of a new species of bat found in Vietnam. I’m a big fan of bats, even the funny-looking ones, but I have to admit that I’d be less likely to snorgle this one than some other species.

Fantasy Novel Title Generator – Stumped for a title for that big, fat, derivative fantasy novel you just extruded? Have no fear! This generator pumps out surprisingly plausible titles.

Octopurse – Squeee!!!

Haunted B&Bs – Large list of (US only, sadly) bed and breakfasts that are purportedly haunted.

Thing… – A steampunk riff on “Thing” from The Addams Family. When personal household robots become a reality, I want mine to look like this.

Hair Chalking – Tutorial for adding a bit of temporary color to your hair.

Gothic Noir Magazine – Interesting-looking new goth mag. Their “official” Facebook page is here.

Floral Boots DIY – Easy method for adding fabric detailing to a pair of boots. Obviously, you could use gloomier fabric and more interesting boots.

Barnacle Ceiling Lamp – Kill it! Kill it with fire!

Demon Hunter – (First photos in gallery.) Astonishing cosplay version of a Diablo 3 demon hunter.

The fabulous Sisifo recently pointed me to this splendid photo by deviantART member Wickedweb (some photos borderline NSFW). She wasn’t sure of the substance used for the “tears,” but suggested that for costuming purposes eyelash glue mixed with matte black eyeshadow might work.

I dug around through the gallery comments and finally found one where the artist identifies the stuff as black acrylic paint, which is fine for a photograph but definitely not something you’d want to wear around your eyes for an extended period. I’m wondering if homemade fake blood using black food coloring instead of red would provide an appropriately drippy look (although ideally it’d be nice to find something that dried with that pretty glossy look instead of staying wet). It really is a wonderfully striking look, particularly paired with the silvery eyeshadow.

Be sure to check out the rest of her photos too; she’s trained as a makeup artist and has some fantastic inspiration, like lipstick styled after the patterns on poison-dart frogs.

Thanks, Sisifo!

For as much whinging as I do about the inapt use of Flash on Websites, it’s lovely to find an example of Flash being used really well.

Designer Patrick Galbraith worked with a music historian to create the Map of Metal, an enormous and detailed map that illustrates the interrelationships of various genera of metal music. You can grab the map and drag it around to view different areas, or use the navigation slider in the upper corner. Clicking on a node will display a description of the features of that particular style of music, plus a list of representative songs. Click on a song, and its video will start playing in an adjacent window.

So if you’ve ever been curious about the origins of Deaththrash or want to know how Drone Metal is related to Funeral Doom, this is the place to look. They also sell an attractive poster of the full map.

(Bonus Link: Did you know there was an Encyclopaedia Metallum? I didn’t until I saw it referenced on the Map’s “About” page. Neat.)

(Hat tip to Beth)

(No prizes, but if you can answer them all without googling you get bragging rights.)

1. What fictional town is the setting of the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers?
   A) Santa Mira
   B) Cuesta Verde
   C) Antonio Bay
   D) Haddonfield
   E) Santa Carla
2. In the Child’s Play series, what is Chucky’s last name?
3. Who portrayed Count Orlok in the 1922 classic Nosferatu?
   A) Gustav von Wangenheim
   B) Max Schreck
   C) Alexander Granach
   D) F. W. Murnau
   E) Wolfgang Heinz
4. Who portrayed him (or rather, portrayed the actor portraying him) in the 2000 movie Shadow of the Vampire?
5. Which U.S. state was the setting for The Blair Witch Project?
   A) Virginia
   B) Pennsylvania
   C) Delaware
   D) Maryland
   E) Tennessee
6. In what film, based on a Stephen King novel, is the phrase “They’re all gonna laugh at you” repeated?
7. In The Omen, Damien’s nanny hangs herself. What is the name of the evil nanny who replaces her?
   A) Mrs. Woodhouse
   B) Mrs. Castavet
   C) Mrs. Baylock
   D) Mrs. Spencer
   E) Mrs. Spiletto
8. What giant creatures are the featured menace in the 1954 classic THEM!?
9. At the beginning of Night of the Living Dead, whose grave are Johnny and Barbra visiting?
   A) Their grandmother’s
   B) Their grandfather’s
   C) Their aunt’s
   D) Their mother’s
   E) Their father’s
10. Who played Ash in the Evil Dead series?

(Answers below the fold)

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Tim Burton’s 3D feature-length remake of his 1984 short film Frankenweenie is due out this October. Looks like a hoot.