Here’s an easy idea from The Anticraft: Festive eyeball ornaments!*

Their instructions call for making the eyes out of polymer clay, but you could get a fairly similar effect more easily by just painting eyeballs on round white ornaments.

You could do a whole treeful of different eyes: Reptilian pupils, Eyes of Sauron, yellow zombie eyes, bloodshot monster eyes…you get the idea. Embellish with fake-fur “eyelashes” or whatever adornment seems appropriate and your tree can watch your every move.

*Eyeball ornaments are festive, right?

I’ve somehow managed to collect a whole load of cake-related links, so you guys get them all in one whack. Enjoy.

Zombie Attack – The bride and groom on top are fighting off zombies climbing up the tiers.

Sunday Sweets: Steampunk – Cake Wrecks rounds up some lovely examples.

Halloween Cakes – Several homemade birthday cakes. The eyeball one gives me the fantods.

H.R. Giger Cake – Another one I’ve seen several places, but it’s Just. So. Awesome. I think it’s the top hat and veil on the little chestbursters that really does it.

Zombie Cake – Gorgeous sculpted cake by The Bleeding Heart Bakery.

Creepy Crawly Cakes – Another roundup from Cake Wrecks. The naked mole rat one is awesome.

Cthulhu Cake – Lots of tentacly goodness.

Gobs of Skull Cakes – A couple of these have been widely blogged, but I hadn’t seen some of the others. I like the sugar skull one especially. (Additional points for this particular blog being devoted to the twin interests of skulls and bacon. That’s…a combination.)

Halloween Cakes – Roundup from Endless Simmer. I love the spider one.

Tauntaun Groom’s Cake – With little sculpted entrails!

Naughty Secretary Club, a blog whose title is somewhat more risque in theory than in practice, posted this super-easy tutorial for making snow globes out of little glass jars and Halloween trinkets. The glitter inside Dracula’s globe is even blood-red.

This would be a cute way to showcase miniature plastic tombstones or other spooky tchotchkes. It’s cheap and simple enough to be a good project for children, but might also be a fun party activity for adults. Provide a selection of jars, glitter, and waterproof decorations, and let everyone create their own masterpiece to take home at the end of the night.

Recently in Toronto, Stephen King did an on-stage interview with director David Cronenberg. He gave a short reading from his new novel Under the Dome, related amusing anecdotes…and then announced that he was thinking about a sequel to The Shining.

He observed that even though things worked out okay in the original novel, Danny Torrance’s experiences at the Overlook were bound to have left him with deep emotional scars. King wants to explore how the trauma might have shaped Danny’s life.

The novel is tentatively titled Doctor Sleep and it finds a 40-year-old Danny working at an hospice for the terminally ill.

Danny’s real job is to visit with patients who are just about to pass on to the other side, and to help them make that journey with the aid of his mysterious powers. Danny also has a sideline in betting on the horses, a trick he learned from his buddy Dick Hallorann.

King went on to say that he wasn’t completely committed to the new novel, remarking, “Maybe if I keep talking about it I won’t have to write it.” I assume that’s because an outraged fan might bludgeon him to death before he has a chance to start.

I got this idea for a “virtual gift swap” from Bee’s Musings, who did it last year, and since I think it’s kind of brilliant I’m going to steal adapt it this year.

Here’s what we’re going to do: Leave a comment on this post or email me and tell me that you want to be part of the swap by December 15. On the 16th I will tell you who your assigned “giftee” is, and on your blog you will post a picture of what you would have gotten that person if you had money and, y’know, cared. It can be as silly or serious if you like, and since you probably won’t know the person you’re giving a “gift” to, feel free to make up whatever story you want about why the gift is appropriate.

I’ll post a list of everybody’s entries so we can all marvel at each other’s good taste. It’s a silly, fun way to take a short break from general holiday craziness, plus we can all discover new blogs we might not otherwise find. The more people who participate the more entertaining the gift list will be, so put your inner Scrooge in a corner and join in!

Isn’t Spidey cute? Artist J Salvador has created a whole collection of adorably angsty little superheroes with a host of personal problems.

You can see the entire set here. He has a few prints of individual “heroes” available for purchase in his Etsy shop, but they’re selling out fast.

Not anticipating the high demand he’s received, the artist promised that the prints would be limited-edition runs of just 20 each. Some of the comments at his site don’t hold out a lot of hope for posters or T-shirts either, so we may have to just admire them from afar. That’s a pity, because I want to take the Green Goblin home and snuggle him.

The Haunted Palace
Edgar Allan Poe

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace- reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion-
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute’s well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh- but smile no more.

I like how it takes you a second before you realize who the two combatants are.

(via Spiked)

Skeleton Onesie – Cute little onesie with a skeleton pattern.

Artist Amy L. Rawson – I ran across her zombie bunny on Neatorama, which linked to her site. None of her felted stuff appears to be on there, but I love some of her sculptures (Fear in particular).

Lovecraft 101 – Good primer on Lovecraft’s milieu.

Steampunk Altoids Tin – Tutorial for etching an Altoids tin with gears. The same method could also be used for other, less peculiar, objects. (Hat tip to Empress Pam)

18 Creepiest Landscapes on Earth – Beware the superlative. Still, pretty.

Humerus – Posters, T-shirts, and other ephemera with a heavy dollop of zombies. (Hat tip to Kitten Herder)

Roadkill Carpet – It’s carpet. With a roadkill feature. Huh.

Halloweddings – A few cute ideas in a quasi-roundup.

Characters for an Epic Tale – Awesome limited-edition print by Tom Gauld. I want this on a T-shirt.

The Great State Quilt – Not exactly gloomy, but the crafty amongst us might want to contribute to this quilt. (Non-US denizens might want to lobby her for a “countries” quilt.)

When I became convinced that the universe is natural-that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the world-not even infinite space.

I was free-free to think, to express my thoughts-free to live my own ideal-free to live for myself and those I loved-free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination’s wings-free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope-free to judge and determine for myself-free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past-free from popes and priests, free from all the “called” and “set apart”-free from sanctified mistakes and “holy” lies-free from the winged monsters of the night-free from devils, ghosts and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought-no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings-no claims for my limbs-no lashes for my back-no fires for my flesh-no following another’s steps-no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers, who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain-for the freedom of labor and thought-to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains-to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs-to those by fire consumed-to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons and daughters of men and women. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they have held, and hold it high, that light may conquer darkness still.

— Robert Green Ingersoll