Be sure to stay tuned, since from now through Halloween, every Tuesday will be something new, with project status here, and including new episodes of Enhanced Eerie Elegance on the Eerie Elegance blog!
My party invitation was sent this weekend! I had no idea this is already my NINETEENTH annual Halloween party…wow! Someday I need to get 1994 & 1995 online, since my web presence only starts at 1996. Sure is funny to look back on those early days, especially compared to what I do now!
Of course you can tell by that letter that I have been planning this Halloween for quite awhile now. I had the first kernels of an idea standing in line at Disneyworld & the Wizarding World of Harry Potter back in March, and by April the kernel had grown to truly epic proportions, egged on again by the same friend who helped me with the Gate Ghost last year. I always enjoy Halloween, but having a collaborator who is also enthusiastic makes it so much more fun! However, the nature of the “epicness” requires most of my work to remain secret until my guests arrive at the party…but I will try to show you what I can without giving too much away!
Today’s Tuesday announcement is that my new Fabric Frames are now available on Etsy! I had announced pre-orders on the Eerie Elegance blog and the Eerie Elegance Facebook page, but now my custom-printed fabric from Spoonflower.com has arrived, and it looks great! On my list for years has been how to disguise big-screen TVs for haunted houses & castle environments, but it kept getting squeezed off the list for time and lack of screen content anyway, so I put a giant spider over it & carried on. Last year I started looking for anything I could print myself on long spools, but no luck until my friend showed me Spoonflower.com. I had investigated printing fabric last in 2008, and it was quite expensive and required more yardage that I thought I might use. Spoonflower still isn’t cheap, but it’s more reasonable, and you can buy a single yard. I took photos of a bunch of frames at other 
houses and my own, and I carved some of my own frame designs from foam for spookier themes, designed the fabric, then placed my order for the heaviest fabric they have. The fabric is still not as heavy as I’d prefer, but by folding the mitered corners instead of cutting them, the edges still should not flop. Fabric is so much better than all the cheap vinyl decorations, since vinyl shines in light, including flash photography, ruining your atmosphere.
Fabric Frames are $25 each plus shipping $5 US / $17 international. Each kit includes 4 sturdy fabric strips 4.5″x58″ long, instructions and double-sided tape as a compact & easily reusable solution to transform your flatpanel TV from a sleek & modern black hole into a fancy “carved” picture frame that belongs in a haunted house or castle! Check out the 8 designs in my Etsy shop or at the Eerie Elegance order page.
There are two other new products for this year! I already announced the Tasty Tombstones for sale on July 13th, and I’ve already sent out two orders, one for custom epitaphs! These premiered at my party last year, using photos of my custom-carved & painted foam gravestones, with epitaphs changed digitally into the “punny” thirteen names I’ve been using for years…and they still make me laugh! There’s still plenty of time to buy these printed frosting sheets to use on your own cookies for your Halloween party!
Also, as of last week on the spooky 13th, I announced the Ghost In Chains video I used for the Gate Ghost last year is now for sale, only $5 for the silent digital download to use in your own haunt!
This ancient tattered Ghost In Chains is silently screaming and reaching toward the living as her aura brightens and fades, until her last attempt causes her to disappear. Show this 48-second clip as a silent loop for your personal haunt in isolated viewing locations like a high window or a corner where audio cannot be heard. Perfect for projectors, video screens, or even reflected Pepper’s Ghost illusions. You are welcome to add your own sounds after purchase for your personal use as long as it is not distributed. You can purchase the Ghost In Chains video on the Eerie Elegance order page!
Alrighty then, back to projects! The first project was a new fabric stained glass panel for my pantry door. This is the new crest for Castle Brittahytta, and fabric markers and normal markers both work great on white lining fabric. I had tried using my free leftover canvas curtains for a Mardi Gras mask stained glass panel before, but that fabric was definitely too thick. The lining fabric is perfect! I will be making more of these for other holidays for sure, since they are fun to design and fairly quick to make! Just make sure you tape the fabric to cardboard so it doesn’t slip or wiggle and to soak up the ink that bleeds through the fabric.
Since I didn’t get the beads done on my Victorian Webmistress costume last Halloween, I decided while I had time I should finally get that done. I had though I would handstitch individual beads, but then when I found a nice iridescent aqua fabric paint, I decided that would be infinitely easier, especially for the dots to come closer together towards the center of each web. It looks like I imagined now, like morning dew on spiderwebs in a garden, and so much better than the plain black on black!
I decided to try another pumpkin patch this year. I didn’t have luck at this house a few years ago, but I have a new location idea this time. I was keeping my eyes open all May & June for seedlings at my local stores, but I never saw any…odd! I had seedlings bought & in the ground by July 5th last time I tried. Luckily I had one pumpkin leftover from last Halloween, and it was only barely starting to rot, so I planted chunks of pumpkin flesh with seeds & 
guts still attached into several pots so I can move them around and a couple spots in the ground. Since I had been waiting for seedlings to buy, I was later than I should have been to plant seeds in mid-July, but at last now I have had male blossoms for a week, so I should be seeing female blossoms pretty soon now too! I might get a few pumpkins growing, but the most important needs are blossoms this month, then plenty of vines by Halloween. I can always supplement my patch with fake pumpkins. 
Back in June, I borrowed my parents’ van to buy my big building supplies for Halloween, but when I brought it back, I brought some pressboard sheets with me so we could cut them with my dad’s circular saw. Many Facebookers have tried to guess what these are for, but no one has been correct yet! You can keep guessing, but this is another surprise…sorry!
It won’t surprise anyone that there will be new steampunk props, especially after reading the invitation letter from Miss Wells, so I have been collecting junk since April too! My dad let me scavenge in his garage & greenhouse, so 
I had quite a cool Halloween Haul in June, not sure exactly what I’ll use yet, but full of possibilities. My partner in crime knew about a special electronics flea market that runs once a month early Saturday morning, so we’ve been twice and found cool stuff for cheap that should be very useful, several pressure valves, a few working 
electrical meters, and even an old Frankenstein-style knife switch! Then my parents had already brought some stuff down from my grandma’s basement, but when I visted her in August, I filled my suitcase with a dismantled curvy brass chandelier and all sorts of cool brass bits! The lantern, iron scroll & washboard had to stay until my parents’ next RV trip, but quite an awesome Halloween Haul. Thank goodness they didn’t charge me extra for such a heavy load on my flight home!
Since you’ve already seen the Fabric Frames for sale, you probably guessed I made frames for my own party, so I think I can safely show you these without revealing any secrets. Storing a giant 
foam frame to fit my 60″ plasma TV would be a pain, hence the fabric idea, but for small wall frames, I had fun designing & carving on foam with my trusty woodburning tool. A basecoat of brown then a topcoat of cheaper gold paint, and they looked good enough to clean up in Photoshop to print onto fabric to sell to others!
Well, I have been busy with so many other things too, cutting & pounding sheet metal, carving in clay, gilding paint, and even more sewing, but I can’t show any of those…darn! Even though a lot has been finished already, I think I’m only about halfway through the giant project plan…yes, the epicness requires not just my notes list like previous years, but a huge shared project plan on Google Docs with over ten accompanying files! I really hope everyone will enjoy the party as much as my partner in crime and I have had planning it! 
Until next Tuesday!
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