“The appliances of bachelor Steve Fleegman have had enough. Too much pizza, too much mess, just too much. The appliances will now finally fight back against their abusive human master.”

Emo Philips voices the blender and Kipleigh Brown is the dishwasher, which makes this weird little gem particularly amusing.

Little Stag Studio – Artist Kelly Rene Jelinek makes faux taxidermy mounts out of fabric, and they look like something you’d find peeking out of a forest in Narnia. Mental Floss has some examples. (Hat tip to Pixel Pixie)

Spider Embryo – Microscopic image of a house spider developing inside its egg. There should be plush toys that look like this.

Spooky Converted Church for Sale – A church, complete with graveyard, has been converted to a three-bedroom home and is up for sale. (Hat tip to Pixel Pixie)

Celtic Ouija Table – Celtic knotwork enthusiast Charles turned a secondhand table into a gorgeous Ouija board. (Thanks, Charles!)

Reasons I Would Not Have Been Burned as a Witch – Although this is written as comedy, it’s actually a pretty incisive look at just how witch-burnings (or any kind of mob violence) get started. (Hat tip to Bruno)

Designer Daddy – EPBOT profiles a guy who makes amazing costumes for his kids.

The Unsettling Mystery of the Creepiest Channel on YouTube – Atlas Obscura looks at an odd, numbers station-y channel.

Simpsons Tarot – A few of the Major Arcana done in a Simpsons theme. (Hat tip to Fiend4Halloween)

Chumbuddies – Sleeping bags shaped like animals, including sharks, alligators, and giant squid.

UNBOUND – Instagram has a mini-series inspired by David Bowie’s last album Blackstar.

I have gotten behind the 8-ball, post-wise, but since I’ll get all twitchy if I miss a day I’m going to let my readers take over briefly.

Tell us about yourself in the comments: Plug your blog or your business*, or just introduce yourself.

I know you guys are out there; I can hear your virtual breathing. Come out of the woodwork and say hello!

*Obvious spam is obvious, and will be deleted.

I’ve mentioned Ursula Vernon’s artwork previously. I was recently overly-gifted with some of her prints, and currently have an extra Demon Rat of Vercingetorix and Bog Unicorn which I would love to share with someone who thinks having a print of a demonic rat hanging in their house sounds like a good idea.

If you are that kind of person, leave a comment here by Friday, March 18 and two people will be chosen at random.*

Whee! Free stuff!

*Non-US readers are welcome to play along, although shipping will probably be by banana boat so you might have to wait a couple weeks.

Update: – And we have winners! random.org spat back numbers 14 and 5. Those folks will be emailed separately for their snail-mail addresses. Thanks to everyone who commented!

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Xander perpetually seemed to get involved with women who were actually monsters of some type. In which episode did Xander fall for his first non-human?
   A) “Inca Mummy Girl”
   B) “Teacher’s Pet”
   C) “Witch”
   D) “The Zeppo”
   E) “Pangs”
2. In Madeleine L’Engle’s classic novel A Wrinkle in Time, the protagonists encounter the monstrous IT on this planet (which L’Engle named after a Mayan bat god).
3. What is Ron Weasley’s middle name?
   A) Fabian
   B) Septimus
   C) Bilius
   D) Marvolo
   E) Hugo
4. What well-known horror character is first described as “a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere?”
5. Penny Dreadful‘s lycanthrope Ethan Chandler (played by Josh Hartnett) was recently revealed to have been using a false last name. His real one is:
   A) Lupine
   B) Romulus
   C) Lobo
   D) Fenrir
   E) Talbot
6. In the SF series Firefly, the “monsters” are savage, violent, cannibalistic humans whose behavior has been altered by the chemical Pax. What are these creatures called?
7. Medieval European miners believed in various underground spirits who inhabited mines and might help (by indicating rich veins of ore) or hinder (by causing cave-ins). Which one of these is NOT a type of mine spirit?
   A) Grindylow
   B) Bluecap
   C) Coblynau
   D) Bucca
   E) Kobold
8. Stephen King’s son Joseph has followed in his father’s footsteps, penning several horror/dark fantasy novels. What is the pseudonym he uses?
9. This powerful witch from Shakespeare’s The Tempest was the mother of Caliban.
10. Edgar Allan Poe’s sonnet “To Science” was strongly influenced by this poem by John Keats about a serpentine demon who takes the form of a human woman to marry the youth Lycius.
    A) Hymn To Apollo
    B) Ode to Psyche
    C) Lamia
    D) Hyperion
    E) La Belle Dame sans Merci

(Answers below the fold)

Read the rest of this entry »

Marsha Onderstijn’s graduation film is a touching animated short about “the day Death fell in love with Life.” It’s suddenly awfully dusty in here.

The Kitten Covers – Classic album covers re-created (rather faithfully, really) with kittens. The site doesn’t display the original cover alongside, which is a pity; Sad and Useless has a few for comparison.

Warrior Women Wednesdays – “Every week of this year I’ll be doing a drawing of a battlin’ lady from history.”

Staked Heart Hand Pies – Recipe for strawberry hand pies with chocolate stakes.

8 Authors to Follow – The “women in horror” edition. (via Jan)

The Setup Wizard – The “daily accounts of a Muggle I.T. guy working at Hogwarts.” These sound entirely plausible.

Bats and Moon Throw Pillow – Tutorial for a cute throw pillow that looks like a flock of bats in front of the moon.

Vampire Magician – Dracula doing (bad) magic tricks is kind of adorable. (Hat tip to Pixel Pixie)

Orphan Club: ORIGINS – I love it when The Bloggess goes full stream-of-consciousness.

The Skullmate – This ceramic skull with a fabric cap is a sculpture, but a DIY version would make a cute pincushion. The Tiny Tim skulls from SkeletonStore have a pop-off noggin and are about the right size.

Joining the Internet of the Dead – This BoingBoing post and its linked articles discuss the increasingly-tangled online presences that the deceased leave behind, and how it’s important to make sure your survivors have the necessary access.

The Weasley family in Harry Potter have a magical “clock” in their living room which displays the location of each family member. Redditor tbornottb3 converted a thrift-store clock into a custom clock for his family.

His build notes and photos are here. The clock gets its data from a web service called If This Then That, which allows you to create workflows (which they call “recipes“) for various events. In this case, the family’s phone location data alerts the clock to their whereabouts:

Most of the rules are location-based (setting me to WORK if I enter my university library, HOME if I enter my dorm), but you can set other triggers too (set me to HOLIDAY if the forecast calls for snow, set me to MORTAL PERIL if the stock of the company I’ll be working for next year drops too low).

The discussion thread on Reddit has some good improvement suggestions by other commenters, and more information about his build choices (deciding, for instance, that LEDs were easier to program than movable hands). If you’ve been thinking about dipping your toes in the pool of simple programming and wiring, this would be a fun project. Adafruit sells both the Particle Photon starter kit (which includes a breadboard) and addressable LED strip required for the clock’s guts, and they’ve also got a huge library of tutorials to help you get up and running with the code.

Old pendulum clocks are common in thrift stores, and since you only need the case it doesn’t matter if the mechanism works or not. And if clocks aren’t your thing, you could use the same general idea to create an auto-updating magic mirror instead.

(via Geyser of Awesome)

Erma is “like any other normal child. She goes to school, plays with friends, and even spends time with the family.” She also happens to be the daughter of a yūrei-type ghost, so that affects her appearance and behavior just a tad. Her father appears to be a normal human, but he seems fairly sanguine about his ghostly wife and daughter.

The ‘toon, by Brandon Santiago, follows Erma’s adventures with her school chums, babysitter, and parents. It has a rather sweet, Addams Family-esque vibe, and I like how so many “normal” people in her life (like her pediatrician) just kind of roll with her peculiarities.

I think this recent strip is my favorite:

The whole series is online at Tapstasic.

(Hat tip to xJane)

It’s technically almost spring in the northern hemisphere, but here in the DC area we’ve had a very Godfather-esque relationship with winter this year: Just when we thought we were out…it pulls us back in. Our fireplace has seen a lot of use recently, and these firelighters are a handy way to get a blaze started. They’re easy to make–kids can help–and they’re pretty enough to give as a gift.

Dried citrus peels contain enough residual oil to make firelighters all by themselves, and unlike the popular DIY pinecone firelighters they don’t contain much creosote (which can build up and cause chimney fires). Dipping them in wax is optional, but it lets you choose the color and also gives you the opportunity for a little fun with chemistry.

	Start by cutting the peel off an orange in a spiral, and wrapping it into a rose shape. A picture is worth a thousand words here, so take a look at this photo tutorial from Good Home Design (click to enlarge).
	Place the wrapped peel in a cupcake tin (using a paper liner is optional, but will be handy later on). Put the tin in a warm, dry place and let the peel dry thoroughly. The peel will last indefinitely once dry, so you can continue adding peels to the tin as you use up oranges. Note: It’s okay if you can’t get the peel off in one long piece; just wrap it all back up together. The cupcake tin will hold it in place as it dries and the wax will stick it back together for good. (Also be careful not to cut too deeply into the flesh of the orange as you’re cutting; if you wind up with a lot of pulp on the peel, scrape it off. Otherwise it tends to mold before it can dry all the way.)
	When you have enough dried peels, melt some wax. Something Turquoise has instructions for making pinecone lighters which includes details on melting (and coloring/scenting if desired) wax. Their method uses soy wax flakes, but you can also use paraffin (often found in the home-canning section of grocery stores) or candle stubs. I had some half-burnt black candles, so I used those. Note: It is really easy for melting wax to catch fire (that’s what it does), so be sure to melt it over a double boiler instead of direct heat, and have a fire extinguisher to hand. If desired, at this point you can mix one of several Common Household Chemicals(tm) with the wax so that it burns different colors when lit. Chemicals and their corresponding burn color: Borax Powder [Yellow-Green] Sea Salt or Table Salt [Yellow] Epsom Salt [White] No-Salt (Potassium Chloride) [Violet] Strontium Chloride (found at pet stores in the aquarium supplies) [Red] Use ONLY ONE chemical. Mix in about 1 Tbsp per C of wax.
	Remove the melted wax from the heat and dip each peel, rolling it around to thoroughly cover. You can use tongs, but the temperature of the wax is fairly low; I just dipped them in with my fingers. Let the excess wax drip off and set them on waxed paper to dry. You may want to re-dip them two or three times, letting them firm up in between, to get a nice all-over coat. Once dry they’re ready to use, but I like to give the bottoms one final dip and then place them back in their paper cupcake liners so they’ll stick to the bottom. Then you can light them just by putting a match to the edge of the paper liner.

If giving these as a gift, pile a bunch in a glass jar or wire basket.