Not Martha creates all manner of wonderful things, and then posts instructions showing you how to do the same. Her individual spider cakes are particularly inspired, with a lot of mix-and-match options that you can adjust to your skill level. There are instructions for making articulated legs out of Pocky (which look fabulous) and for filling the cakes with whipped-cream-and-raspberry guts. If you’re pressed for time, there are simpler versions involving store-bought cupcakes and piped icing.

I’m particularly taken with the one covered with googly eyes.

Link (via CRAFT)

I keep running across references to this lamp based on Marcel Dzama’s Saddest Ghost painting (I’d have to say “loosely based”). Everyone coos how perfect it would be for a child’s room and how inexpensive it is. Perfect it may be, but they are apparently using a very different scale for “inexpensive” than the one used here at Shadow Manor because the cheapest I’ve found it is $150. I don’t plan to give Shadowboy décor worth $150 until two years after his shoe size stops changing.

For something a little cheaper, try the Mathmos Ghost, a softly-glowing lamp that “morphs” through several colors ($50), or the adorable Spöka from Ikea ($14.99).

You can also get crafty and paint or decoupage a regular lampshade with ghostly images, either for your baby bat’s room or as a decorative table lamp anywhere.

Michelle of The Little Review has…well, something. “Too much time on her hands” and “An unhealthy interest in Barbie dolls” are two things that spring, ineluctably, to mind. But “relentlessness” must also be added to the list, because she’s managed to dig up enough Barbie images to populate an entire tarot deck.

The Barbie Tarot replaces the suit of Swords with Hats and Pentacles with Purses, and the minor arcana use Princes and Princesses instead of Knights and Pages. Also it’s bubblegum pink. Each card identifies the doll used and describes why it was selected.

11   Justice   Wonder Woman from Barbie Loves Pop Culture
The traditional image for Justice is a blindfolded woman holding the scales, balancing fairness and virtue against a lack of consideration and rigidity. The Amazon superheroine must balance her disguise as an ordinary woman with her use of the Lasso of Truth and indestructible bracelets to bring criminals to justice and help the downtrodden.

I’m…speechless.

Link (via The Presurfer)

Felting in Fibrespace is giving away monster eyeball pincushions to three lucky commenters. Get over to the blog and leave a comment on the post by April 7 for a chance to win.

How adorable are these? The pink one shown on the site is so realistic I think I’d wince every time I stuck a pin in it.

Link (via Spooky Moon)

Artist Bonni Reid has a wonderful albeit scanty blog where she catalogues her work (creepy with a side of surreal) and talks about her inspiration.

This one is called “Cultivated Hysteria,” apparently inspired by a quote by Charles Baudelaire: “I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.”

Sadly, most of her artwork is out of my price range; maybe she’ll offer prints someday.

Link

We’ve done patchwork and crazy quilts, so it’s on to appliqué. Appliqué is a two-dollar word for “applied,” and the idea is sort of similar to crazy quilting in that you’re sewing small pieces of fabric onto a larger background. The difference is that the larger piece is meant to be seen rather than just acting as a base. You can use the technique to make beautiful, complicated quilts, and also to do more unusual crafts such as the Anatomy T-shirt shown here (by Etsy seller takeahalliday).

The method is straightforward: Cut a shape out of fabric, turn under the raw edges, and stitch to the base. Mary Graham has a page which illustrates this, and Quilter’s Cache has a short tutorial.

Even though it’s possible to create insanely complicated effects with appliqué–any really difficult-looking quilt you see (like these astonishing Amish ones) are nearly always done this way–tackling an appliqué project doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to sweat blood. If you’ve ever sewn your favorite band’s patch onto a jacket, you’ve done appliqué. Start with simple shapes that don’t have any unusual angles, and make sure that they don’t pucker when you stitch them down. As with other quilting techniques, start off with a small project so you don’t get discouraged.

Appliqué is much easier to do by hand than patchwork or crazy quilting, so it’s more portable; you can hand-stitch the pieces onto a quilt square or article of clothing while waiting in the dentist’s office or riding the train. And, like crazy quilting, you have a lot more leeway with fabric choices because you don’t have to worry as much about durability.

You can also cheat a little on the raw edges part, either by using fusible webbing on the appliqué backing or by using a zigzag machine stitch to sew the appliqué to the background. Beware, however, that the former may leave you with stray loose threads and the latter creates a very noticeable border around each piece, so if you’re doing something fiddly you’ll need to just grit your teeth and turn under all the seams.

Appliqué is admittedly more time-consuming and potentially way more difficult than patchwork or crazy quilting, but it will give you results that you can’t get any other way. There’s a Flickr pool devoted to appliqué quilts, which should give you some idea of the range of possibilities.

We’ve upgraded our catalog and will be adding loads of new items in the coming months. We’re clearing out our old inventory to make room, so come by for some fantastic deals!

Clearance Items

Shadow Manor Home

In a masterwork of photo manipulation, David Friedman of Ironic Sans obtained some celebrity mug shots from The Smoking Gun and retouched them to look like glamour shots. These are really quite wonderful, although sadly the ones I’d really love to see–I’m thinking particularly of Nick Nolte–have not yet been glamorized.

Link (via Neatorama)

Here are a couple of nice resource sites for color inspiration of the spooky sort, for crafts, interior decor, or Web design.

Color Hunter specializes in palettes made from images; enter a tag such as Halloween or Goth, and the site searches Flickr for images labeled with that tag. The thumbnails from Flickr are used to generate five complementary colors. It’s surprising how well it works.

COLOURLovers is a design community where users upload palettes and patterns. You can search on terms like Gothic, but they also feature “best of” sets like their Color Inspiration from the History of Halloween.

Both sites are great jumping-off points for finding the perfect color combination.

(Bonus: Here’s a silly hex code trick. Make your color choices mean something.)

Quantum Mechanix, a company which primarily specializes in replica science fiction props, is now offering an exact replica of the ring that Bela Lugosi wore in the original Dracula.

The original Dracula Crest prop was in the collection of gonzo SF/F fan Forrest Ackerman, and he was kind enough to let the QM guys photograph and mold the ring for a replica. The recreation is in .925 sterling silver with a carnelian stone inlay. The company takes pains to emphasize that the replicas are identical in material and design to the original Lugosi prop.

The QM page just has a short blurb and a note that availability will be announced, but a search on “Dracula crest ring” turns up a couple of dozen resellers who are already stocking it (there are a couple here and here).

It appears that the price across sites is $199 (with the exception of one site–which shall remain nameless–selling it for nearly twice that in the apparent belief that its customers don’t know what Google is). As nearly as I can tell it only comes in size 9, but you could have a jeweler adjust the fit. It might be a bit bulky for a woman’s finger, but you could always wear it as a thumb ring and claim you were going steady with Vlad.

Pretty!