This short documentary about Charles Addams reveals, to nobody’s surprise, that he had a lifelong fascination with cemeteries and ramshackle houses.

(via BoingBoing)

Cleaver Clutch – Clutch purse that looks like a bloody cleaver. (Hat tip to pdq)

Cthulhu Nursery – This is utterly adorable and I want a Cowthulhu as a pet.

Morning Beast – Amusing handcrafted coffee mugs.

tauart – Artist who creates amazing effects with body paint.

Absinthe Spoon – Attractive skeletal-hand design. The site’s blog provides more details.

Wedding Ravens – Lovely custom cake. (via Cat)

Drea Ming – I’m not sure if this little polymer clay sculpture is adorable or horrifying. (It’s been sold, but the artist has similar work available. This one is definitely adorable.)

In the Shadows – Artist Pat Lillich’s gallery. I especially like The Courtesan.

Evil Spirits Vodka – No word on where to buy this yet (the distillery site is just a shell) but the packaging is just splendid.

The Ninja-Zombie Show Unplugged – Fiverr can be used for both good and evil.

The willowday blog has a really interesting idea for teabags that resemble flowers. The method involves trimming the tops of empty paper tea filters into petals and then dyeing them with a red herbal tea. Once dry, they’re filled with tea and then decorated with “leaves” cut from more tea filters and dyed with green tea. A bunch of them massed together is particularly striking.

It seems to me that this idea could be expanded considerably by cutting the filters into different shapes and using food dyes for more color options: A couple that spring immediately to mind are blood-red roses and black bat wings. Fill the bags with loose tea of your choice, tie with cotton twine, and pack in a pretty jar or basket.

For extra points, you can fill the bags with your own custom tea blends. Googling “herbal tea recipes” will turn up plenty of information, but here are a couple to get you started: Herbal Tea Recipes and Custom Tea Blends.

A “bouquet” of these tea flowers would make a thoughtful (and also easy and inexpensive) gift.

When digital artist Josiah Moore got married last year, he had the wedding party pose as an attacking zombie horde. As you do.

The resulting photo was, of course, simply a bunch of people looking sort of shamble-y in front of a scenic building on a lovely sunny day. So he plugged into into Photoshop and manipulated it into something quite wonderful:

There’s a large, high-quality image of the finished photomanipulation here.

He also did a time-lapse video of the work in process. It’s a little seasick-making because it jumps around a lot, but watching how he altered the image (erasing people in the background, using parts of other photos to add fire and rubble) is really interesting.

Even if you don’t have the digital chops to do a full-on transmogrification of an image, a group pose like this would be a fun addition to wedding photos.

(via When Geeks Wed)

As in previous editions, here’s a bunch of images I’ve run across which I want to share but might not be able to hang a whole post on. Some of them have no attribution, so if you happen to know the source for any of these please leave a note in the comments. (Click to view larger.)

	“Poison” Tea Set This was a set called Treacherous Tea Party from Etsy shop BurkeHareCo. The set has sold, but it’d be possible to DIY something similar with ceramic paint.
	Cthulhu Cross Stitch I tracked this back to Reddit, but no information on where the original pattern came from; a few comments indicate that it might be a digital image instead of real cross-stitch. Regardless, the pattern is simple enough that it should be easy to replicate. Update: In the comments, Jay says that his wife made this for him, without a pattern. Most awesome.
	Ouija Tattoo This is the work of Emmanuel Hele from Martian Arts Tattoo Studio in Portland, OR.
	Pentacle Braids This is a scan from a book on Wicca that an acquaintance posted. It’s an interesting hairstyle.
	Caution Sign I can’t find an original source for this, but it’s certainly good advice.
	Norman’s Ghost Show This vintage sideshow attraction was the work of Orton and Spooner, major 19th century ride-builders and decorators.
	In Case of Zombies If you don’t enlarge, it’s hard to see that on the end it says, “or yard work.” I don’t have an original source for this, but it’s an amusing idea for a garage or garden shed.
	The Power of Books This photo series by Mladen Penev is wonderfully evocative.
	Lovecraft’s Secret Cute little tentacular treasure box. This is by Trolladriel’s Creations on Etsy. You can see more photos (and buy the original if you so desire) here. Something reasonably similar might be DIY-able with polymer clay and an inexpensive wooden box.
	Vampire Emergency Sign The sign actually says, “Break Off In Case of Sparkly Vampires,” but I think it would be infinitely more amusing to simply have it read, “In Case of Vampires” and let the broken-off stake speak for itself. It’d be reasonably easy to DIY this using a dremel tool on balsa wood (or even styrofoam).

This short black comedy concerns a living dead girl who decides she needs some friends. (Unfortunately, the only version still available on YouTube has subtitles.)

Totus Mel Tats – Etsy shop full of lovely tatting work, including the rather wonderfully-named “ankle corsets.” (Hat tip to pdq)

Disney Considers Haunted Mansion-Themed Hotel Rooms – I would check in and refuse to leave.

Flowers Made from Mouse Bones – These are weirdly lovely. (via Cat)

Black Death – Free shawl/wrap knitting pattern.

The Shambling Guide to New York City – Amusing novel about a travel writer who gets a job writing tourist guides for monsters. The author discusses the work in a Big Idea here.

Plasticland – Lovely goth/retro clothing, accessories, and decor. (Hat tip to Cookie)

Ghost Pig – Odd little sculptural thing depicting a porcine phantom arising from a sliced ham.

Historical Sewing – Fantastic resource site for period costuming. (Hat tip to LimeyFish)

Greatest Wedding Photo in the History of the World – I’m sad that I didn’t think of this kind of Photoshoppery when I got married. (Click “Hide” to get rid of the annotations.)

Girlprops – Inexpensive jewelry and accessories. Some goth-friendly stuff like bats and medieval weapons. This would be a good source for costume or craft supplies. (Hat tip to Terri)

One of the lovely things about running a site like this is that, in addition to finding interesting stuff, interesting stuff occasionally finds me. The nice people at Urban Body Jewelry recently dropped me a line, and I agree that they are relevant to our collective interests.

The business was founded by a group of “body modification enthusiasts,” and they proudly proclaim that everyone who works for them has a lip ring, tattoo, or other mod. Their enthusiasm is reflected in their merchandise and oh, they have some awesome stuff.

They offer a variety of jewelry and accessories for all sorts of body decoration, from ear stretching kits to nose rings (even though the hipster-moustache thing is fixin’ to jump the shark, I thought this septum horn was cute). They’ve got loads of gothy stuff in a variety of materials; a few of my favorites are the black wing talons, bone rose plugs, spiderweb tunnels, Day of the Dead plugs, and the really interesting coffin plugs.

The site also offers a lot of useful information, such as a guide to stretching your ears, and a blog with handy tips like what to look for in a piercer.

Best of all, they’ve kindly agreed to offer a $25 gift certificate to one of my readers. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post by Friday, June 14 about which item you might choose if you win. One commenter will be chosen at random. (They ship internationally, so overseas folks can play too.)

They’ve got loads of really neat stuff, so go check ’em out!

Update:

The contest is over, and random.org spat back the magic number 5, which means Lauren gets the gift certificate. I shall email her with details forthwith.

Thanks to everyone who played along!

(Click to embiggen)

Japanese funeral home director Nishinihon Tenrei asked ad agency I&S BBDO to create an “unconventional” ad for his business. They decided to focus on celebrating the beauty of a person’s life, which remains after death.

The result was this gorgeous life-size skeleton made of pressed flowers and ferns, titled “Life is Endless” (Spoon & Tamago has another photo of the ad here). I would dearly love a framed print of this; unfortunately, the Tenrei site doesn’t seem to mention it anywhere (although I will note that it’s the cheeriest funeral home site that I’ve ever encountered), and the ad agency site is an impenetrable mass of Flash.

I suppose if someone were particularly ambitious they could press their own flowers and create something similar. (The less-ambitious might try a dried-flower skull instead.)

(Hat tip to pdq)

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

1. The name of this play is widely considered to be unlucky to say aloud, and is thus often referred to as “The Scottish Play.”
2. Which Shakespearean play features the greatest number of ghosts?
   A) Hamlet
   B) Richard III
   C) Cymbeline
   D) Julius Caesar
   E) The Winter’s Tale
3. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who is the King of the Fairies?
4. One of the many omens which foretold Caesar’s murder in Julius Caesar was this person’s dream about Romans washing their hands in his blood.
   A) Cicero
   B) Portia
   C) Brutus
   D) Calpurnia
   E) Pindarus
5. Anne Francis starred in Forbidden Planet, a classic science fiction movie based on which Shakespearean play?
6. The tragedy of Othello culminates in Othello’s murder of whom?
   A) Bianca
   B) Desdemona
   C) Emilia
   D) Hermione
   E) Miranda
7. “The quality of mercy,” a phrase much-borrowed to title everything from punk albums to episodes of The Twilight Zone, comes from a speech in which Shakespearean play?
8. Double Falshood is a 1727 play which most scholars agree probably contains fragments of this “lost” work by Shakespeare and John Fletcher.
   A) Love’s Labour’s Won
   B) Sir Thomas More
   C) Edmund Ironside
   D) Timon of Athens
   E) Cardenio
9. Although modern productions usually portray her as being in her late teens, how old was Juliet in the original play?
10. One of Shakespeare’s best-known speeches, beginning, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends…” appears in which play?
    A) King John
    B) Richard II
    C) Henry IV, Part I
    D) Henry V
    E) Henry VIII

(Answers below the fold)

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