Topic: Happy Halloween!

One year I had bought a zombie hand candle as a decoration, and it was really awesome. The fingers were raised up in the air and the hand itself was cut flat at the wrist so you could use the hand to simulate a living dead raising out of its tomb if you wanted (with minimum setting).

It had several layers of different types of wax materials which simulated skin, blood, and bones. The outer layer (skin) was greenish and would go away faster than inner layer (blood), which was red and was making a lot of liquid mess while melting. Then the bones layer wouldn't melt, just darken, so as it was melting it really looked like the skin would go away first, then the hand would bleed, and then you'd get the bone sticking out, with the tips getting darker and darker. Was really cool.

I had one of those and a skull candle that did the same thing. I can't find them anywhere now, if you see any let me know where. They were great fun and the kids loved them.

That hand sounds awesome!! I got some skull-type ones last year that I didn't burn, I intend to use them this year. Plus I have some stick candles that are white and drip blood as they burn, got those two years ago. I haven't really seen anything like that this year though.

In reality deads don't bleed, lol. I still think the idea's fun. The white stick candles dripping blood sound really cool too.

It's over 10 years I haven't seen anything like the zombie hand I described though, maybe even longer. If I find any I'll sure tell! Wish I knew how to make some, would solve the whole searching process.

Something similar I saw at Wal-Mart were these candies that were gummy hands with crunchy bones inside. There were feet and fingers too. I didn't get any.

No idea how to make candles though, especially layered ones like that, I would assume that would be hard.

Those sound really good, I like all things gummy. It makes me hungry for gummy worms! XD

And that hand candle sounds wicked awesome. I've never seen or heard anything like it before, which is a pity. We can't really light open candles around the house though.... Katie, one of our cats, can be very hyperactive and nosy. So lighting candles could quite possibly lead to her getting burned, or wrose, actually catching on fire. =/

My cats have learned about fire. One burned her nose a tiny bit the other singed a whisker and now they stay far away from flames. *shrug* Not really anything I could have done about that, pyromania being what it is. ;)

(note: I didn't really do it to them on purpose, I was just showing them fire and I didn't know they'd lean in that close... guess it was kinda stupid though)

The whisker has since grown back.

No jock, my dog was so smart that he could hold a taper candle in his mouth when we went trick-or-treating until the point that it got too close to his mouth and then he would drop it and let us put another one in to replace it. He was sooo smart. This dog could climb ladders and he could just feel when you had had a bad day. Okay, I'm going to stop now because I am about to cry thinking about my childhood dog.  But the candle thing...WOW, it surprised us all...and the crazy thing is that one year he just suddenly picked up a candle, unlit, and followed us when we left the house to get the goods. I think that year I was a terrorist because the older brother in E.T. was going as one. What a stupid kid I was :P

When our elder cat Toby was just a tiny kitten, he lost all the whiskers on one side of his face suddenly. Coincidently he had a appointment with the vet a day or two later and the vet was puzzled by the sudden loss as well, and his only explination to it is that I was a naughty child and cut off his whiskers (which I didn't! >_<). But we think now what happened was that while in the basement he managed to crawl underneath the water heater since he was so small. And that all the whiskers were singed off since its, y'know, a water heater.

Double post but whatever, it's been two days.

Anyways, I know what I'm going to carve now. It shall be a secret for the moment, in case someone here will actually find what I'm carving to be awesome, I want it to be a surprise.

On that note, does anyone know how to do those partial carved things? Y'know, when you get through the outerskin, but not all the way through to the inside. No one has EVER told me how to do that and it's very frusterating and limiting, so any help is appreciated.

Also, we got little Halloween lights for the first time and put them up in the front of the house, it's awesome. Gives it an extra touch of Halloween.

We've had lights up for a while now, I do those every year, they're awesome!

As for carving pumpkins I suggest http://www.google.com

Here in  Aussie we sort of think about it ,,I got myself a new scary Mask 
I go around the Street where I live  with my cloak and Mask on ,they haven't guessed who
it is ,,my friend sent me a Bat Bag and I get it filled with lollies even some Beer !!
The Guy who owns the Newsagent ask if he could borrow my horrorible Bat
that was sent to me  I told him it might scare People ,,as my Cat ..Siris won't
come near my computer area scared of the Bat he just GRINNED  ,he'll know why
I call this YULK!!!! so ugly .
  bats

Do it right, honey.

http://tinyurl.com/yj7dyfw

That tool has something scary Zivi. I hate when a program takes control of my mouse.

I had to share this. Found it on the web when I looked up "carving a pumpkin" for Cecilia.

For carving pumpkins, Cecilia, what I'd do is, make a drawing, buy pumpkins, buy a set of wood-carving tools (or even pumpkin carving tools if there is), and try away.

A pumpkin has a particular hardness, shape and texture, you'll need to experiment a bit to get to what you want. I'll have to do the exact same myself as I never carved one. I don't even know what face I'll carve on it. But I won't try to make a masterpiece with my first one, lol.

We do in fact have a pumpkin carving kit, and my idea is sketched out. But it doesn't seem to come with specific "carve just through the skin" instructions. And I looked all over the internet and could only find one suggestion. And that was to buy a power tool for $70 and then buy a special tip just for that purpose. T_T

And AHHH that pumpkin is so SCARY. o_o; I wish I could make something like that, though.

I love you. I totally forgot about that.

Ok, got a long way to go before being as good as that sculptor who did the Predator above, lol, but here is my own carved pumpkin for this Halloween. Mine's the one with the "tree" on the left. Spent 4 hours carving this today, thought I might as well share the result. I didn't think it was too bad for a first one.
:)

Here's my pumpkin. I wanted to show it glowing, but the picture came out blurry.... I also had to lay on the ground to do it as well.

I just hope at least one person here knows who Scrooge McDuck is....

Of course I know who he is. I still read Disney comic books.

That is fantastic! I love it. Very creative and well done.

Also, you guys as so lucky...I went to a Halloween party here in Japan...more than half the people didn't bother to dress up and the other half went home at 9p.m...the party started at 7!

Japan blows!

[ADMIN: Defunct link to starwarsdotcom dot com removed.]

Those are pics from my Halloween. There was something on the camera that blurred some of the pictures, but it's ok. The video at the end is not the best quality, and my house is disgusting, but it gets the point across. I've been working on a moonwalk to go with it but I'm not that good at that part yet. And by this point in the day my ankles were getting tired so that's why my toestands aren't lasting as long as they would normally last. Plus I'm fairly new to this, only been doing it a month or so.

So, my dress was made by me, draped my own pattern and did it on the bias. I also made my head ornament which I see I forgot to take pics of. The choker is just a piece of lace I had laying around that I tied around my neck. The arm warmers were white and I dyed them to make them darker. For my husband's costume we bought the suit, shirt, and tie, I made the arm band and handkerchief. We hemmed his pants up so you could see his red socks, but he kept ripping the hem out somehow. We also put eyeliner on him but you can't really see that in the pictures. We also have tape on his fingers but you can't really see that either unless you look close. It's on his right hand. My dress, also, is has sparkles all over it but you can't really see them well.

My husband's pumpkin turned out great but I don't like mine.

funny enough, the first star wars costume at my house was Jango...

Great idea Cecilia, that's cool. Wish we could see clearerly.

And that's an awesome dress, Miba. It's incredible that you can craft clothes for yourself like that. I didn't know. You're really good! :)

My friends didn't dress much at the party at my house yesterday. I've been a zombie for a change, was easy to do and fun. Usually I'm one of the KISS guys, and that can take me up to 2 hours just for the makeup, depending on who I am impersonating.

Next year with my friends we're all going to dress as Zombies and instead of just watching horror movies at home we'll go out and scare people in the streets, lol.

Oh, to Cecilia, I can't quite see the pumpkin clearly, but I do know who Scrooge McDuck is.

Cin, Thanks! Making clothes is what I do want to do some day as a job. I just need to get faster at it. And less lazy! Laziness is my main problem. That dress took two months due to laziness and lack of speed. And I need to get over my shyness and low self esteem.

Very great work on the dress. Very impressive. That is a great talent to have and you guys both look great. Looks like you had a lot of fun.

I didn't see any Star Wars related costumes, oddly enough. I saw two brothers as the Joker and Batman, a family with a pioneer theme (they were actually pretty cute), a dad and his son as sumo wrestlers, some of the standard stuff you see at Halloween, and beyond that a bunch of half-assed "costumes" (if they even wore any...). I don't like it when people come and don't dress up. I don't care how old you are if you come to the door, as long as you're in full costume. Otherwise, no, go home and try again.

I'm really glad you guys like my pumpkin, it means a lot to me (even though its going to get thrown out in a few days XD). I might try and take another picture, this time with flash so you can clearly see what I carved. Though its starting to look a little messed up now. I made it by first carefully sketching out my idea on paper (an hour or so to get it right), and planning out how to carve it. Then I re-drew Scrooge onto the pumpkin and carefully carved him out, and then carved out the background. That took about 3 hours. I used a reference, but did it entirely freehand. The carving itself was based on the Moon level from the first Ducktales NES game.

Oh and I like yours too, Cin. But, how do you light it? Is the hole in the bottom? Just curious.

Can't wait to see your pumpkin clearerly, Cecilia. And thanks for your interest in mine. You made my day. :D
Was starting to think no one saw it, lol.

Not too sure what you mean though, it's hollow, so it's quite easy to light. The reason why I didn't light it is that I have a cat AND a baby at home, and I didn't want one of them to play with the candle, lol.

I don't know how it appears to you but the inside is a bit burnt, that's why it's rather reddish compared to the tree itself. I wanted my tree to stick out a little more. The whole part around the tree is empty. Sorry, I don't know how to better explain it. I guess my picture is bad. I will need a better lighting and better pictures. I'll see if I can find that kind of free time next week.

Miba, sounds to me like maybe your tools could be part of the problem too for the lack of speed. If you do a lot by hand, or with an old machine, takes longer. I'd get lazy too in these conditions. And, dress took two months, probably because there were other things you wanted to do with your free time, too.
;)

It's still a very good looking dress. Took me a little while to realize that your man was dressed as Michael, even with the poster, lol. The beard and glasses were a bit distracting
:P

No, I meant, people usually cut off the top for the lid. But when I first looked there weren't any obvious cut lines. I see them now though, since I cleaned my glasses, so I'm feelin kinda silly.

let's see... i had jango, captain rex, and i believe chancellor palpatine show up at my door this year. also had one buzz lightyear and a hotdog with mustard.

Oh, Cin, I saw your pumpkin, I just didn't really understand it. It's awesome looking, I just didn't really get it as being a tree. Maybe I'm just not looking at it right. Is it a dead tree, perhaps? I'm just used to trees having stuff at the tops, and not the sides. Or is the red supposed to be leaves? I'm sorry.

And, yeah, the beard and glasses were taking away from it, but nothing we can do about the glasses so he figured he'd just keep the beard too.

As for machines, I'm not sure how old my sewing machine is, fairly new I think, but the only stitches I care about are straight and zigzag, I don't need a bazillion different stitch types. I do have a serger which I love lots, it is my precious. I had to put the fringe and trim on by hand, and that is what took a lot of my time I think. Me and hand stitching do not get along at all. The fringe took a week and a half cause I hate hand stitching so badly. lol The back of the dress was actually a lot of the problem, I couldn't get it to lay right. That part took a week or two as well. That was probably just inexperience. But I'm learning more with each new project. For example, on this one I used mitered corners, which was something I'd never done before. And I also did it without a pattern, which was also a first for me. I never follow patterns exactly anyway, I use them as a base, but I've never started from scratch before. And I mainly sewed on my days off, and as I only get two of those a week... I guess if you took my actual time making it and added it together it wouldn't be so bad to say, like, "This took me two weeks to make." But a lot of times after work I don't feel like working more. So that's why if I do get into sewing as a job I won't be working on that till after I quit my current job, cause until then I just won't have the time or energy. Oh, and I'm entirely self-taught, that doesn't help my speed either.

My tree was a dead tree, with very few branches else it would have been too fragile. Thanks for saying it's awesome looking, lol. But since you can't really understand the image it can't be that good, eh? Oh well, was my first one.

What is awesome to me is that you taught yourself how to sew and got able to actually do great stuff. Do you have other pieces than that dress that you could show off?

Yeah, I've actually been meaning to put together a little "what I've sewn" page on my site. Maybe I'll work on that today, I don't have a whole lot else planned. (day off) When I do I'll put it on it's own thread so we don't hijack this one too much more.

Thinking of it as a dead tree I get it a lot more now. It's sure a lot better than what I did, lol. My skills at pumpkin carving stop at, well... you saw mine. And a dead tree is a good idea, very halloween-y. I didn't mean that it wasn't that good, I figured it was just me.

I don't think it's all that wrong to "hijack" a thread about Halloween now that Halloween is over. :P

Thanks. Yours was alright too. Simple is often the best bet as it's easier to make right.

In Japan Halloween lasts until December because people here just can't grasp the concept that the holidays in the movie " The Nightmare Before Christmas" are supposed to be different worlds that are active in this world at different times of the year, they can't make the separation between Christmas and Halloween, so we get Nightmare merchandise and decorations from September to the end of December! I hate the holidays here!

Here they've already got the Christmas stuff out in near full force and are already pushing Christmas shopping. It was already out before October was even over. And I don't want to think about it until Thanksgiving.

And yes December 26th it'll all vanish and it'll be time to exchange stuff in time for New Years. You'd think that, now that people are taking vacation time that it's the time to enjoy the stuff the most, but nope. That tree gets torn down, and the decorations are put away, and all the presents dissapear into the bedrooms. Lame.

And on the other end of the spectrum are our neighbors across the street, who decorate early and leave their stuff up until February....

Here we have people keeping their Xmas decorations up all year round outside, lol, just coz they're too lazy to remove them or reinstall them...

If Miba would let me I'd leave Christmas stuff up all year.. but it's not out of laziness.  Seen the web site for our radio station?  There's a reason the park is snowy and the website's red and green.

Stores here have had Christmas stuff up since early October. It's horrible. By time Christmas actually gets here I'm sick of it already. Plus at this rate in order to get any good Christmas stuff you have to buy it early otherwise it's gone by December. Same with Halloween and any other seasonal stuff.

Having Christmas up all year round takes all the fun and joy out of it. Makes it just another boring day. Oh, hey, Christmas is here now, good, now we can finally get on with our lives instead of trying to maintain months worth of good cheer.

We could skip over Thanksgiving though. I hate Thanksgiving. I hate November in general anyway.

Aw, I love Thanksgiving. Turkey is so delicious, and drowned in gravy, with a side of mashed potatoes also drowning in gravey.... Forget all those other sides, all I need is turkey, potatoes, and gravy.

The parade though, tends to make me mad.

I just hate it cause I work in a grocery store and this holiday is about food. It is complete and utter hell for the entire two weeks before Thanksgiving especially, but it's already started now. I end up in tears the day before Thanksgiving every year. I usually have to run to the back and sit down and just breath and let it out. Customers are evil, especially in the two weeks before Thanksgiving. They show you what evil little demons they all are and how much they hate you and everything about you and how they want to make your life as miserable as possible just so they can stuff their greedy fat faces. Thanksgiving is supposed to be about giving thanks for what we have, thanks to those that supply it. Thanks for the food we have because of the people who help us get it, the food that I suffer to bring to you, I get no thanks just a slap on the face. And I'm just the deliverer, forget about the people who actually farm and make that stuff. We get so busy. I'm just one person doing the job of four or five people, nothing to be stressed about, I should be cheerful and happy, right? I'm helping selfish, greedy, stupid people get more food. More more more, buy as much as you can, you're the only customer, the universe revolves around you. Go ahead, buy every last one on the shelf, not like anyone else wanted any, right? Not like you'll be going to the grocery store again in the next month and a half. All the whipping creams, spray whips, butter, milk, buttermilk, orange juice, coffee creamers, people will buy, buy, buy. I always wonder if they can even eat that much before it goes bad. Oh, and I always end up working at least 10, sometimes 11 days straight before Thanksgiving. I get Sunday off two weeks before and then I work straight through to and on Thanksgiving and then I get Friday and Saturday after it. Usually I end up working a half hour to an hour of overtime every day too. And last year I had the fun of having a cold in the week before.

Whoa, sounds like quite a hell Miba. I never really thought of the other side of things like that. There's the food, but of course behind that there's everyone working at making it possible, and these people get too often forgotten. Or taken for granted.

Your customers are not evil, just idiots, lol. I think they don't realize. Too centered on their own little business.
:P

Ewww Zivi, I already have a hard time standing Xmas stuff now, songs about snow and fireplaces on the radio are already overkill to me if they start in November and go past the 1st of Jan, lol.

If it were just of me, they'd start the WEEK before Xmas and end the week after. Not months early, lol. Like, else it gets to be too much. It's too repetitive and limited, I dunno. Really, I could like Xmas if it wasn't *so* ALL OVER for long weeks, each year.

I already like Halloween better just because they don't make such a big deal of it. There's no halloween songs. No actual halloween holidays. No family or social expectations, a lot of people don't even celebrate it, and it's OK. Makes it something optional. The day they make a bigger deal of Halloween, it might turn me off about it as well.

I guess I just hate "too much" of anything. So I can understand how you feel about all the noise and crap around Thanksgiving at your store, Miba.

Well see I'm just insane.  I accept that.  And don't let Miba fool you, she loves my year-round Christmas thing.  Sometimes something Christmasy happens in off times and she turns to watch my face to see if I'm gonna tear up.

That is the only thing I truly miss about the holidays back home...everything you said. You can't get turkey at the supermarket here! and no gravy either and alas, no mashed potatoes :(

In Aussie Halloween is strating to catch on but please explain the Pumpkins?????
that Alien one best I've even seen
I have a friend that sends me these Bats LOL!!! love them ,,
Yes I did get dressed -up as a Alien Mr Death   thought I'll try it out in the daytime
as nobody would know me ,walked pass the Pub the ,looks on the Drinker's faces
when I said ''Be seeing you all soon ''
But my poor Neighours got the treat, as I had also  had two little Gouls,, come along
with me and my cat Siris joined in he had a ball running around with us ,,only one
Lady was very rude I had to tell her it was me ,her Hissy-Fit in front of the Kids ,where
the rest we left laughting .Had my Bat bag full  of Lollies I gave them to these Kids
  bats

I know I had a post on 3,but a update on what happened on Halloween for me 
Bats

Well some of the lesser laborers are probably illegal mexicans so we don't have to thank them. :p

But, yes, sometimes the customers ARE just being mean. Like the ones that stand there and watch me pick up a yogurt and set it right and then they come in and knock it back down and leave it. I swear some of them actually smirk as they walk away. Lazy, idiotic most the time, but sometimes they are being mean. I do notice a vast difference between when I'm in there wearing work clothes and when I'm dressed normally. In work clothes if I'm walking they'll cut in front of me just so they can stop and stand in my way, in normal clothes they'll smile at me and say, "Excuse me, go ahead." and let me pass.

So them not selling turkey there doesn't really bother you, then, I assume?

I understood about half of that.

I never had trouble finding Turkey at Lawsons around Thanksgiving.  What part of Japan do you live in, the ghetto?  (or for those with the proper movie background.. "What part of Japan are you from... south Central?")  Seriously though, failing finding a Lawsons, you have oh.. about a 100% chance of getting ones in Military base commissaries.  The bases treat expats very well, especially on holidays.

Cute, lol. One thing I forgot to mention, is that here in my family sometimes, Halloween is a bigger event than Xmas... been that way this year and last year.
:P

Now that's really sad. Isn't there any way you can find any? Zivi seems to think there is.

lol.

Yeah but that confirms what I said before. They're idiots, lol. No brains or merit at being mean to people who can't bite back. They just *really* have too much free time on their hands, if that's all they can find to do for fun.

Zivi was in the navy and at one point was in Japan for a while.

Yeah, I guess. I just have to keep reminding myself that. In the heat of the moment I get so frustrated and upset I can't help but think of them as being what I said earlier. Stupidity is just so painful sometimes.