The Strange Case of Mr William T. Horton – Public Domain Review looks at a largely-forgotten artist whose works are reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley. I adore the one captioned “Giving heed to seducing spirits,” since it mainly just looks like a woman who’s annoyed because an octopus is clinging to her head. (Hat tip to pdq)
Kara’s Rat World – World Rat Day was April 4, so here are some adorable rats to celebrate.
Georgina Ryland – Makeup artist who does detailed eye makeup effects. The li’l ghost at the end of the photoset looks reasonably easy to replicate.
Nevertold Casket Company – A Seattle-based shop specializing in unique, spooky antiques and tchotchkes. Sadly, they don’t have an online shop, but you can drool over their photos.
I don’t blog much about “gross-out” foods of the type that sometimes make an appearance at Halloween parties because they don’t really appeal to me, but I’m making an exception in this case because honestly my mind is sort of blown.
Travel and Leisure has a roundup of “bizarre” souvenirs that have been available at Disney parks, most of which aren’t really bizarre so much as anachronistic: Today it may seem odd that Disneyland once had a tobacco shop, but when the park opened in the 50s it was a natural enough fit. One entry, however, brought me up short: Last year, a shop at Disney World’s Animal Kingdom briefly–very, very briefly–sold candy shaped like four different kinds of animal crap. Specifically, Tamarin, Elephant, Giraffe, and Hippo. The candy was available for a two-week period, after which it was pulled due to “guest complaints.”*
The part that I found just completely mind-blowing is how in hell this ever got greenlit. I worked for Disney. They do not just casually roll out a new product. There are meetings. There are memos. Multiple levels of management are involved. There are planning sessions and recipe standardization and sample tastings and packaging decisions and requests for signage and employee training. At no point throughout this entire process did nobody in the decision-making chain go, “Um…?” Really? Nobody?
Anyway.
According to SheKnows, the Tamarin poop was made from pretzel pearls, chocolate-peanut butter fudge, and sweet rolled oat flakes; the Elephant was chocolate-peanut butter fudge with sweet rolled oats and yellow coconut flakes; Giraffe was rolled chocolate fudge brownie and caramel; and Hippo was chocolate fudge-caramel brownie with peanut butter and rolled oats. Those combinations actually sound pretty tasty, and the candies are certainly easy enough to make and shape.
The animal-poop thing might particularly appeal to kids (it’d be an amusing addition to a zoo- or safari-themed party). Or, y’know, serve it to your friends and then sit around wondering what the hell Disney management was thinking.
*Which I take to mean one thunderous, collective, “What the Actual Fuck?”
The Little Joseph candleholder is a hand-painted ceramic doll’s head that probably moves around on its own at night. Although the commercially-available version is, uh, pricey,* there are a variety of ways that something reasonably similar could be made at home.
The easiest method would be to get a ceramic doll head (available at dollmaking suppliers, eBay, some craft stores, and occasionally at thrift shops) and epoxy a small disc-type candleholder to its noggin. If you have access to a hole saw, you could drill a candle-sized hole in the top instead.
If you’d rather make something a little more custom, look around for a “make your own pottery”-type store in your area (they seem to pop up like mushrooms). Get an unfired (greenware) doll head, drill a hole in the top, paint as desired, and have the store fire it for you.
Make sure that the doll head has a steady base or is carefully secured; you don’t want it rolling over with a lit candle inside.
The finished effect is nicely creepy, especially after some wax has built up; you can see some additional photos here.
*I wouldn’t spend $100 on a candleholder that didn’t give people the fantods, let alone something I had to hide when my mom came to visit.
I’m having one of those hair-on-fire sorts of weeks, which means blogging is going to be a bit on the non-substantive side. Here are some scary discussion threads to keep you busy.
Ask Reddit has a bunch of scary/creepy threads. BIRDGHOST has a Creepy AskReddit Thread Masterpost of several, and there’s another big list at Rebrn. If that isn’t enough, just google “askreddit scary” or “askreddit creepy” for plenty more.
Costurero Real – Etsy shop specializing in gorgeous costume pieces, including patterned like butterflies and moths. This moth cape is gorgeous.
Trust in Me – Siouxsie and the Banshees’ cover of Kaa’s song from Disney’s The Jungle Book.
The Crusades and Lovecraft’s Monsters – Series of illustrations by Robert Altbauer which mimic the style of Medieval manuscripts but add Cthulhoid monsters.
Lego Exorcist – Lego builder Vitroleum is re-creating scenes from famous horror movies. So far he’s got The Exorcist and Scream. (I think Father Merrin is a 12th Doctor minifig, which makes it especially amusing.)
Chicken Conquistador – “My mom loves chickens and Dia De Los Muertos and I love my mom, so I made this painting for her.”
Nursery Needlepoint – Since it comes from a webcomic site I think this was just supposed to be a joke; however, I see no reason why it couldn’t be used as a real embroidery pattern. I like the juxtaposition of the imagery and the text.
10 Strange Attempts To Start Internet Mysteries – The headline makes this sound like these “mysteries” are deliberate attempts to spawn a hoax, but they mainly just seem to be weird internet stuff whose meaning nobody can really figure out.
It’s time for another bunch of random stuff I want to share but can’t 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.)
Wrong Kind of Eggs
Redditor Cakorator made these super-cute deviled eggs by coloring the yolk mixture with gel coloring and piping them with a pastry bag.
DIY Electric Candles
House of Dewberry has a tutorial for turning dollar-store novelties and paper towel tubes into these spooky candles.
Haunted Mansion-Inspired Clock
This gorgeous mantel clock was made by ArdoriaStudios. It’s been sold, but is still a great bit of inspiration.
Memento Moray
This ‘toon by Gemma Correll made me giggle and I’m not even sorry.
Guactopus
Redditor imdointhis made this wonderfully cthulhoid dip from a bell pepper.
Bat Lip Art
This is by Mina-Ficent. The bats appear to be those little plastic confetti doodads you can find at party stores, probably stuck on with spirit gum.
Tentacle Earrings
I can’t find an original source for these guys, but they appear to be polymer clay. They’d be reasonably easy to DIY, although the teensy suckers might be a bit fiddly.
These little guys appear to be from this Polish site. The ears appear to be slices of radish, the tails are chives, and I’m guessing the eyes are peppercorns (although it’d be easier to attach cloves).
Pentacle Braid
One of many zillions of hairstyles done by Shelley Gifford. You could do one upside-down and wear it with your favorite Baphomet T-shirt.
Spooky Tree
From Imgur. Found via Scott Crawford, who commented upon it thusly:
To whoever put the reflective eyes on this tree by the side of the road
You, fine Sir, are an asshole
A genius but an asshole nonetheless
Here’s a cute idea that could easily be turned to darker ends: Terrariums made of edible materials. Sprinkle Bakes did a tutorial for Etsy which uses chocolate cupcake “dirt,” candy rocks*, and succulents made from candy clay. It seems to me that you could make other objects from the same candy clay. Like, for instance, tombstones.
Little individualized graveyards would be a fun party favor, or you could make a large one in a glass compote as a table centerpiece. You could use chocolate cookie crumbs rather than cupcakes for the dirt if you prefer, and switch out the candy clay with fondant or gum paste (Craftsy has a good overview of the differences between them).
The tutorial features a plastic deer as an additional decoration, but there are plenty of spooky miniatures–such as vultures and snakes–that could be used instead. The terrarium could also be made more child-friendly by using a clear plastic container (a goblet would be neat) instead of glass.
*Because the tutorial was done for Etsy she links to them for the rocks, but they’re also available on Amazon.
The hashtag #NewGreekGods showed up on Twitter yesterday, and although there were many worthy suggestions, Tree Lobsters! took the idea and ran with it. Here’s a sampling:
Indivisibis – The god of mismatched numbers. Most closely associated with hot dog bun / wiener packaging. #NewGreekGods
Joey Muha is a skilled, enthusiastic drummer whose mission seems to be to prove to the world that any song lends itself to the heavy metal treatment. Here he is doing “I’m a Little Teapot.”
His YouTube channel has loads of others, ranging from the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song to “You Are My Sunshine.”
I don’t blog much about “gross-out” foods of the type that sometimes make an appearance at Halloween parties because they don’t really appeal to me, but I’m making an exception in this case because honestly my mind is sort of blown.
The 
Here’s a cute idea that could easily be turned to darker ends: Terrariums made of edible materials. Sprinkle Bakes did a 