Holy moley, look at this gorgeous thing. Alert reader Chas sent me this link to a short article on MAKE about cleared and stained animal specimens. These are more like artwork than laboratory specimens.

The article points to instructions for the procedure, although I don’t think it’s really something you could DIY over a weekend. (At the very least, it would probably take numerous tries to achieve good results.)

If you’re not up to preparing your own specimens, it’s possible to find similar items (although not so luridly colored) at science and biological supply houses. You can get replica skeletons, plastinated animals, preserved invertebrates, and quite a lot more. Some are fairly expensive, but many are surprisingly reasonable.

I’d also love to see a series of high-resolution prints of some of the stained specimens. They’d look fantastic massed on a wall.

(Thanks, Chas!)

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best ones. Country Living Magazine featured a home ostensibly made over for Halloween although the decorations are so minimal and restrained that their “Whooo, spooky” is more subtle than my everyday decor.

However, I really love these ravens.

The ones shown here are just paper cutouts (the article includes a template) in glass vases, but you could do something a little more permanent using (depending on your budget) plastic or taxidermied specimens. You can usually find decent-looking crow props around Halloween, and they’re also available online from outdoor suppliers some toy companies.

Square glass vases are easy to find at florists and craft suppliers, although if you’re planning to display them in the bathroom or other high-humidity area you would probably want something sealed. You might look for cloches and bell jars or for the kind of glass case used for displaying dolls or other tall collectible items.

I like the varied height of the specimens in the example, so you might arrange one on the floor of the case, one on a rock or other low mount, and the last on a perch: For a “Victorian curiosity” look, a simple wooden T-shape is good (available at pet stores, or just make your own out of a couple of dowels), and an interesting branch is good for a more natural setting.

This sort of accent is the kind of “stealth goth” project that’s great if you want to inject a little darkness in your decor without being overt about it. The look is somber but sophisticated, letting you entertain dreams of Poe without making your in-laws nervous.

(via theLENNOXX)

Zakka Life posted these instructions for making super-easy throw pillows decorated with doll clothes: It’s really nothing more than tacking the clothes to the pillow with a running stitch.

Given the variety of doll clothes available, it would be easy to make some wonderfully gothy pillows using the same technique. Make or purchase throw pillows in dark brocades or other luxurious fabrics and look for doll-sized ball gowns, Halloween costumes, or naughty underwear to stitch to the front. It could hardly be easier.

A set of pillows like this would also make an unusual gift, particularly if they followed a theme (nurse, witch, etc.) that was meaningful to the recipient.

Here’s a rather marvelous DIY lamp idea: Artist Ryan McElhinney piles writhing mounds of action figures and other toys around lamps, then lacquers them into something right out of Hieronymous Bosch. I’m not entirely sure I could sleep with one of these things next to my bed.

Basic lamp kits are cheap, and old plastic toys are easy to find at garage sales and thrift shops. Arrange them to your liking, glue them together, then paint and lacquer. Top with an appropriate shade, put the thrashing, shouty mass (there are some very angry-looking toys on the market) on your bedside table, and bingo! Instant nightmare fodder.

The artist uses the same technique to decorate mirror frames, and I’m sure you could do something similar to lots of other objects like vases or wreaths. This might be a unique way to repurpose an outgrown collection of small plastic toys that you aren’t quite ready to get rid of entirely.

(via BoingBoing)

Billing itself as having “a story for every storey,” Grow House Grow! specializes in wallpaper designs with a narrative background.

They’ve got some designs inspired by female Victorian naturalists, such as Ms. Treat, whose illustrations of carnivorous plants influenced Darwin, and Ms Ward, whose dual interest in microscopy and drawing insects is captured by late-Georgian silhouettes interacting with oversized bugs (I especially like the figures leading a mantis on a leash and reclining on a giant spider).

There are also patterns inspired by Edward John Smith (the ill-fated captain of the Titanic) and by the death of Ka Cox, who was associated with Aleister Crowley. Even the color variations are evocative: Choices for Captain Smith include “Silhouette,” “Epoque,” and “Promenade,” and Crowley’s are “Felt Leaf,” “Primrose,” and “Veil.”

As is often the case for quirky, high-quality wallpaper, it’s fairly pricey. On the plus side, they offer “sheets” as well as rolls, so it might be possible to feature a small amount on one wall and use less-expensive paper on the others. You could also use it to decorate a non-wall surface like a decoupaged tabletop.

(via The Steampunk Home)

This foam-and-latex mirror frame is currently on clearance at Terror Syndicate for $55. I think something fairly similar could be DIY’d pretty easily and inexpensively if you’ve got an existing mirror (or picture frame) that you’d like to skullify.

Foam skulls and bones are popular Halloween props, so they’re fairly easy to come by. If you don’t want to wait until Halloween decorations start showing up in local stores,* you can find them online year-round: Searching for “bag of bones” will turn up a lot of products like this, and you can also get foam skulls with flat backs here. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you can also cast your own bones: this article at MAKE explains how to make foam skulls.

You’ll probably want to choose a wooden frame, since adhesives might not stick as well to slick metal or plastic (and if you use hot glue to attach the bones, it may also melt plastic). It doesn’t matter whether the frame has dents or nicks, since it’s going to be covered with bones, and you’re also going to paint it so the color isn’t important either. Nose around local thrift shops for ugly old frames that you can convert.

Lay the bones on the frame, moving them if necessary until you’re happy with their arrangement, then glue them in place; you may need to cut flat spots on the backs to seat them properly. Decorate as desired. For a rotted-corpse look similar to the example above, use pantyhose and latex to make sticky-looking “skin” (this tutorial goes into detail on that process). You can also make drippy-looking strands with hot glue similar to the method used for this frame, or use papier-mache or polymer clay to smooth off cut edges and add detail. When thoroughly dry–which may take a while if you use latex adhesive–spray-paint the desired color. You can also hand-paint additional detail such as “moss” or “ichor” if you like. (You can also go in a completely different direction and cover the whole thing in glitter and fake gemstones if you’re feeling particularly perky.)

Add a mirror or appropriate photograph and hang with pride. Cheap! Easy! Customizable! Whee!

*Incidentally, I like to wait until right after Halloween when everything goes on clearance, then stock up on craft supplies for the rest of the year. I’ve got more fake skulls in my basement than you can shake a femur at.

Empress Pam recently turned me on to an interesting decorating idea found in an unusual place: The restroom of a DC restaurant called Oyamel. (She’s not the only one who’s noticed it, either; about half the reviews I found online mentioned the restroom decor.)

One wall is lined floor-to-ceiling with small shadowboxes, each containing a calavera or other ethnic artwork, not to mention a hell of a lot of glitter. They’re like miniature shrines, and are perfect for highlighting small treasures. This would be a great way to display a collection of small items (like the calaveras), and each box could be decorated differently to really showcase its contents.

The Oyamel shadowboxes look fairly deep, so they probably wouldn’t be suitable for a small room where they might eat into the floor space. A wall of shallower boxes or a border of deeper boxes at eye level might work better. You’d also need to be careful if you put the shadowboxes in a bathroom or kitchen where humidity or aerosolized grease might damage the display items. “Real” shadowboxes with glass fronts can be expensive, but since these lack the glass you could build your own simple wooden boxes or even use sturdy cardboard. Cheap, easy, and highly unique.

(Photo from this site)

Alert reader pdq sent along this link to a neat tutorial on making wall decals using ConTact paper, along with the comment, “The instructable itself is straitforward & easy, but the tentacled bit pictured is MARVELOUSLY Cthulhu-oid.” Right on both counts. (The author calls it “Tim Burton-esque / Tokyo Plastic vision of swirls,” which also works.)

The tutorial is nicely detailed, including instructions on sketching the design in advance and tips for ensuring that the paper won’t ruin your walls (note to non-US readers: ConTact is a brand rather than a description, so double-check to make sure you’re using similar stuff). There are also bonus instructions for using the scraps for bamboo and creepy tree silhouettes.

I really love the wiggly “tentacles are invading from another dimension” look of the finished decal, and since it isn’t permanent you could update it whenever you wanted a change. The paper comes in a variety of colors (including “chalkboard”), so there are all kinds of decorating possibilities without the long-term commitment of paint or stencils. Neat!

UK-based PaperBoy specializes in wallpaper for children, specifically boys, which seems unnecessarily niche but that’s another story.* One of their designs is Animal Magic, featuring attractive animal sillhouettes with their skeletons screen-printed on top. I love the clean lines and the fact that they offer a range of tones, from just-barely-glimpsing-the-bones to more obvious skeletal overlays. They’ve also got a fabric in the same pattern, with the same more-or-less-obvious skeletons.

Unfortunately for those of us who are not very rich goths indeed, the hand-printing involved in producing these puts them way the heck out of our price range: £105 per meter for the cloth and £120 for a 10-meter roll of wallpaper. Eeyouch.

However, a similar look might be possible to DIY using purchased stencils, screen printing, or hand-painting. I doubt you’d want to hand-stencil your entire living room, but a frieze near the ceiling or one wall of a bathroom would probably be do-able. You could also paint enough fabric for a simple dress, or just use the skeleton-inside-the-bunny idea as one-off illustrations on throw pillows or tote bags. If you like needlework, a set of these animals would be fun to embroider along the edge of a skirt or as a sampler.

*What? Girls can’t like dinosaurs?

The Burntwire Brothers spent two years customizing a room in their house just for playing Dungeons and Dragons. Decor includes iron-bound doors, sconces, swords, horned skulls, medieval-looking chandeliers (with dimmers that the DM can control), hidden strobes, fog machines, and a simply ridiculous number of books and modules. You can see more photos and a few design notes here.

Even if you’re tepid about D&D, the decor is great inspiration for adding a dungeon-esque element to any room in the house. I would absolutely love a library decorated like this.

(via BoingBoing)