Oh boy, do I love these shoes. Patricia at Fashion Mongers was inspired by a pair of “Christian Louboutin for Rodarte” spike heels with studs to create a DIY knockoff. She added cheap metal studs (many cannibalized from an old belt) to a pair of plain black heels, and the results are gorgeous.
She’s got lots of pictures and construction details at her site. If you’ve got a pair of plain heels you’re tired of, this would be an amazing way to give them a new lease on life.
This isn’t exactly goth, but it made a sufficiently big splash in the crafting community that it’s worth mentioning. ThinkGeek’s most recent April Fool’s newsletter featured a fake Tauntaun Sleeping Bag which made the internet overflow with fanboy drool.
I have a unfortunate tendency to look at a project and think, “Hey, I could do that!” So I did. (And as is so often the case when I think that particular phrase, it turned out to be a much bigger pain in the glutes than anticipated, but that’s another story.)
As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?
Better yet, there’s a promotional book trailer:
The book is due out September 15, so mark your calendars.
Craftster Shirts – Skull shirts with knitting needles or scissors as the “crossbones.” You can add any slogan you want; I kind of like the one that says, “Yaaaaarn!”
Tattoos – Cracked takes a look at what your tats really mean.
Black Deck of Cards – I think I’d go cross-eyed staring at these after a while, but they look pretty cool.
Modern Alchemy – Candles with scents like “Secret Society,” “Speak Easy,” and “Salem.”
Mean Cards – Darkly humorous stick-figure cards with messages such as, “It won’t hurt, you’ll like it” and “Crying means you’re weak.” The artist also maintains a blog liberally sprinkled with the same figures.
In honor of the new movie (finally!) being released, Instructables has done a roundup of Harry Potter-themed crafts.
From lovely wands to henna Dark Marks, there are all kinds of easy projects. Some of these would be a fun party craft activity; it’d be easy to make a bunch of the paper wands and let guests decorate them. (I once did this with great success for a child’s party, using wooden dowels as the wand base, but the pretty paper ones would even be suitable for adults.)
Incidentally, the wands are from the DadCanDo site, which used to provide the instructions for free but now charge for the downloads. I’m pleased to see the free version is still available at Instructables. (Do check out the DCD site for inspiration, though; they’ve got a whole page of wands made by members, and they’re wonderful.)
UK-based designer Reid Peppard has taken taxidermy to a whole ‘nother level with a collection of wearable dead things. She’s got loads of macabre accessories, including mouse head cufflinks and a guinea pig hair comb, but I think my two favorite pieces are the rat change purse (toward the bottom of the post) and this awesome rat headdress with Swarovski crystal-encrusted tail.
Her site is ridiculously hard to read because it’s got dark grey text against a black background, but it’s worth a visit just for the pictures. She doesn’t list any prices, but you can check this post for ordering details.
Acceptable DIY versions of some of the items might be possible using fake rodents, although I’m thinking that this might be worth digging my taxidermy books back out for.*
*I remember rather vividly walking into a crowded bookstore several years ago and telling the clerk that a book I’d ordered had come in. I said, “It’s called Home Taxidermy.” Jeffery Dahmer had been caught about two weeks previously; you should have seen the looks I got.
Here’s a rather brilliant and subtle decorating idea: British artist James Hopkins carefully arranges mundane objects into artwork with “hidden messages.” I’m not quite sure how “hidden” the skulls are, but I love the arrangement.
This would be a fun project if you’ve got a bare wall to cover. Get a cheap bookshelf and arrange random knick-knacks in a similar skull pattern, collecting additional objects over time to fill in any gaps. Simple but extremely effective.
Mini-Monster Kit – Includes all of the materials you need to make a monster of your very own. A DIY version of this might make a nice gift for a child, too.
Ribcage Bag – A felted bag shaped like a human ribcage, complete with a change purse screen-printed with a heart.
Mrs. Lovett Prom Dress – Inspired by the “heroine” of Sweeney Todd, this dress is simply lovely.
Salome Coffee Set – Kind of a pretentious description and a hefty price tag, but I bet it’d be easy to do something similar with cheap whiteware and cereamic paint.
Tampon Finger Puppet – I don’t even want to know where the inspiration for this came from, but it’s actually really…cute.
Painted Glass Plates – I love the skeleton “trees” on this project at Craftster.
Curses – An interactive adventure game in which the object is to break an ancient curse that’s been placed on your family. It was originally a PC game, but it’s been ported to Java and is available to play for free online.
Shadow Manor Twitter Feed – This is just an automated tweet whenever there’s a new post up. One of my readers recently alerted me that Bloglines hadn’t been picking up this blog’s RSS feed since mid-June. We’re not sure why (and Google Reader picks it up properly), but if you’re not getting the blog updates you can subscribe to the Twitter feed so you don’t have to do anything as old-fashioned as actually checking the site for new posts.
David over at Dark Artifacts has a brilliant suggestion for a gothy accent piece: A framed manuscript page that you make yourself. I really like the “museum artifact” look, and the method couldn’t be easier.
Check out his post for project instructions. He doesn’t go into detail on aging the paper, so if you’ve never done it before take a look at Curbly or Instructables for tutorials.
Oh boy, do I love these shoes. Patricia at Fashion Mongers was inspired by a pair of “Christian Louboutin for Rodarte” spike heels with studs to create a DIY knockoff. She added cheap metal studs (many cannibalized from an old belt) to a pair of plain black heels, and the results are gorgeous.
This isn’t exactly goth, but it made a sufficiently big splash in the crafting community that it’s worth mentioning. ThinkGeek’s most recent April Fool’s newsletter featured a fake 
Quirk Books, publisher of 
In honor of the new movie (finally!) being released, Instructables has done a roundup of 
UK-based designer Reid Peppard has taken taxidermy to a whole ‘nother level with a collection of wearable dead things. She’s got loads of macabre accessories, including 
Here’s a rather brilliant and subtle decorating idea: British artist James Hopkins carefully arranges mundane objects into artwork with “hidden messages.” I’m not quite sure how “hidden” the skulls are, but I love the arrangement.
David over at Dark Artifacts has a brilliant suggestion for a gothy accent piece: A framed manuscript page that you make yourself. I really like the “museum artifact” look, and the method couldn’t be easier.