One of my favorite ornaments on my own tree is this little vulture, given to me by a friend. It’s made out of a mussel shell and a crab claw, with tiny rhinestones for eyes.

These are adorable little ornaments, and couldn’t be easier to make. If you like seafood, they’re also free.

To start, you need a mussel shell and a small crab claw; one from a blue crab is about the right size. The easiest way to obtain these is to have a seafood dinner and save the remnants.

To clean the shell and claw, pick out any scraps of meat (you may need to use tweezers to get up inside the crab claw). Scrub thoroughly with an old toothbrush. If they still smell funky, you can clean them further by freezing them overnight buried in a mixture of three parts salt to one part baking soda, or by boiling them for about 20 minutes.

After that, soak them in a 50-50 solution of bleach and water (wash them first if you’ve buried them in the baking soda stuff). Soak the claw overnight, and soak the shells until the “periostracum” (the flaky covering) is gone. Fish out and let dry.

Now the easy part: Orient the shell so that the smaller end is pointing up and hot glue the claw, beak-like, to the hinge. When dry, spray-paint black. Glue on a couple of little beads for eyes, and attach a loop of ribbon with a dot of glue.

You can make a bunch of these and have your own little flock.

For futher inspiration, check out Tideline Salvage (if you’ve ever attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival, you’re probably familiar with these guys), who make extremely elaborate versions of the same thing. Also bats, rats, roaches, and other oddities, all from salvaged natural items. Cute!

Previously:
Halloween Tree
Halloween Tree Part 2

Following on the previous Halloween Tree post, let’s tackle another homemade ornament: Shrunken heads!

Apple-head dolls are a common sight at craft fairs, at least partially because they’re so blinkin’ easy to make. You can make your apple heads cute and rosy-cheeked, or you can sew their mouths shut and stick hatpins in ’em. Follow your bliss.

You will need:

• Firm, bruise-free apples
• Vegetable peeler
• Paring knife or other means to cut bits out of the apple
• Solution of lemon juice and salt. Different instructions give different proportions, but 1/2 cup of lemon juice to 3 tablespoons of salt should do it
• Decorative elements such as round beads for eyes, yarn or wool for hair, and so on
• Sealant (optional, but recommended)

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There are a number of spoof movie trailers which “reimagine” a given movie via clever editing. These happen to be two of my favorites.

Scary Mary:

Shining:

Okay, my Drafts folder has reached critical mass. Here’s a bunch of random stuff for your amusement and edification.

Skull Wing Tips – A bit on the pricy side (although I don’t buy quality men’s shoes, so what do I know?), but a nice way to subtly introduce your personality into a Mundane job.

Skull-and-Spider Boxers – The Jack Skellington print is cute, although I question the wisdom of wearing underwear that says “Nightmare” on it.

Spooky Ink Stamps – Some of these are a bit cutesy, but a couple (like the bat from Inkadinkadoo) would be very nice for personalizing stationery.

M.A.C. Cosmetics – Their “Looks” section has a changing catalogue of ways to use their makeup to achieve different effects. They had some neat Goth looks for Halloween (although they’ve apparently taken them down now and there’s no archive, so rats), but there’s a Dita Von Teese how-to up right now.

Bat Clothespins – This site doesn’t list a source, but I must own some. (Hat tip to Rowan)

The Best Product Name Ever – I particularly like their tagline–in two languages, yet–“Inspired by the Original” (via BoingBoing)

I once had a friend send me a Harry & David gift basket, with the note that she had narrowly been talked out of sending (and here I’m quoting directly from the ad copy) “Ten Plagues of Egypt Chocolate Gift Basket! Yes, you too can down chocolate locusts, caramel boils, and dead cattle in this cheery collection.” I could most definitely be friends with whomever came up with the idea of a Ten Plagues chocolate collection.

Ditto for whomever produced this cute set of wine markers. Because nothing says “Party!” like a big suppurating boil.

There’s one for each of the Plagues. The set uses pretty commonly-available charms, so if you’re feeling crafty you could put together some of your very own.

Link (via Awesome)

No, not the book, although it’s a fine read. A real Halloween Tree.

I have a number of unusual Christmas-tree ornaments in the form of folk-art wooden ghosts, blown-glass spider webs, and much else; it’s surprising the ghoulish decorations you can find if you put your mind to it. Every year I joke that if I get one more gothy ornament I’m going to spray-paint the tree black and call it a day. I won’t actually go that far, at least not until Shadowboy reacts to this with a chuckle instead of wide-eyed horror, but in the meantime I can dream.

This month I think I’ll do a series on handmade spooky tree ornaments. Obviously, you can adapt these to the more traditional color palette if you really have to, but if that’s your gig you may be barking up the wrong blog.

Let’s start with an easy one that actually has a little bit of mainstream credibility: The Christmas Spider.

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Here’s a yummy and nicely historical winter drink, great for warming up after building that snow, um, bat.

Lamb’s Wool was popular in Britain since at least the 15th Century, and probably much earlier. The name has been said to come from the fluffy appearance of the roasted apples, but it’s actually a corruption of la mas ubhal (Gaelic “day of the apple fruit”), a reference to apple harvesting.

Anyway, yum.

3 apples, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
3 Tablespoons butter
3 (12 ounce) bottles dark beer
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon mulling spices or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 350F and place apples and butter in a baking dish. Bake 30 minutes.
2. In a large saucepan combine apples, beer, brown sugar and spices. (If using whole mulling spices, place in a tea ball or muslin bag.)
3. Bring to a simmer (do not boil), pour into mugs, and serve.

Note: The apples can be made up to three days in advance and refrigerated. Bring to room temperature before continuing.

(NaBloPoMo is officially over so weekend posts probably won’t continue, but this is just one for good measure.)

Uncialle’s Halloween Darksite is a trove of spooky inspiration. I love the originality of her ideas and her vast enthusiasm.

One of her projects that I’ve been itching to try is the Pocket Cemetery: A terrarium made over into a miniature graveyard. She’s made tombstones out of Sculpey clay, uses bare twigs as miniature trees, and even plants grass seed in early October so that the cemetery can be properly grassy by Halloween. My very favorite touch in her cemetery is the little plastic skeleton buried right up next to the glass, with a tombstone appropriately positioned aboveground.

Now for the fun! There are countless things you can add. Go wild in a miniatures shop! In her Pocket Cemetery, Uncialle has placed a tiny red wagon with two pumpkins in it, as if a small child had visited, and perhaps run home, frightened. Two tiny, glowing red LEDs are monster eyes, hiding in the shadow behind a tombstone. Miniscule black paper bats hang from “invisible” sewing thread in the tiny trees. A tipped-over vase beside a tombstone spills out dried flowers, while a miniature white pitcher holds “fresh” flowers. Tiny stones can create a stone wall. You could even put in a witches’ hut, a tiny hand reaching from the ground, miniature people, a goblin, or a mummy going for a stroll!

I’ve been saving various odds and ends for a terrarium of my own: A marble pestle that broke in half is eventually going to be a ruined obelisk, and I have miniature bones ready to strew about. Now that the last of our tropical fish is sleeping with the humans, I’ve informed Shadow Jack that the aquarium is mine. (He’s learned not to argue when I get that look in my eye.)

A miniature cemetery like this would be an intriguing focal point for a room, particularly if it were in a Victorian glass terrarium or a Wardian case. Add a blue lightbulb for moonlight, and you can have your own little pocket of gloom to meditate on even when it’s perfectly sunny outside.

Artist Margaux Lange makes jewelry and accessories out of Barbie body parts. The result is both intriguing and creepy as hell.

I enjoy the funny juxtaposition of wearing the body, on the body. Barbie has become the accessory instead of being accessorized. I take pleasure in the contrast and contradiction of something mass-produced being transformed and revealed as a unique, handmade, wearable piece of art.

I like the daintiness of many of her pieces; you wouldn’t necessarily notice immediately that the jewelry contains little dismembered body parts, thus enhancing the Zoiks Factor when you looked closer.

Here’s her Website and her Etsy shop.

(via Awesome)

Here’s another neat commercial product that could easily be stolen adapted for the home game. These ties are freehand machine embroidery, and I like the loose, casual look of the finished skulls.

There are all kinds of embroidery patterns and clip art that are there for the googling, or if you’re artsy you could draw a design yourself. Be sure to keep the lines relatively simple, since you’re going to have to follow them with a sewing machine.

If you’re sufficiently comfortable with your sewing skills to attempt a freehand design, get a blank silk necktie or scarf (psst: Shadow Manor sells these) and either draw the lines lightly on the tie using tailor’s chalk or transfer the pattern to tracing paper and pin the paper securely on top of the tie. Then, moving slowly, follow the lines with your sewing machine.

If you’re no good with a machine, hand-stitch the pattern using a contrasting color of thread; the stitches won’t be quite as tight, so you’ll need a contrasting color for the design to stand out. Either way, you’ll have a unique and fashionable accessory.