So last week Aedan and I built the Halloween windows for Nowhere Bookshop, and the floating candles made of papertowel rolls looked fantastic but we also tried to make a ghost out of chicken wire and after several hours we had scratches all over us, a new appreciation for why people wear gloves, and a vaguely ghost shaped thing that seemed ready to give out free tetanus to anyone interested.
We both decided that it was not exactly what we’d imagined and hid her in the backroom. (If you’re interested in a lightly bloody, vaguely ghost-shaped hen house that will shank the shit out of your chickens you can probably steal it out of our dumpster whenever we get around to getting a dumpster.)
But then a friend on twitter was like, “You know you can make ghosts out of cling-wrap and packing tape that won’t make you look like you’ve been attacked by bobcats, right?” so for our first ever Fantastic Strangelings Crafting Hour I got on zoom and used a mannequin (I didn’t have a girl-equin) to make the torso and then I used a birdcage to make the dress…
…and ended up with the most jacked ghost ever, but I don’t subscribe to gender norms for ghosts or alive people, so whatever.
And then when I hung her up people in the store were like, “COOL GHOST” so I felt very good about it, or at least good that we had exactly the kind of wonderful customers who would humor me.
And then I overheard one girl say that she liked the windows but that it seemed too early for Halloween and her friend was like, “Brandy, you put up Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving. All of September is just Halloween Eve. LET US HAVE THIS.” And then Brandy was like, “Fair enough. Let’s have a drink.” And then I knew that we had the best customers in the world.
Also, Jodie the pig got a halloween costume because I thought she would be an adorable ghost, but the only twin sheets I have had superhero cats all over them.
And they were perfect.
PS. The online crafting hour was super fun so we are definitely going to do it on a regular basis. Next time we’re going to make pasties for cats, I think, so check your email for details in the near future. And if you haven’t joined yet you can do that here. It’s ridiculous. All the best things are.
I love that book stand in the window. what the heck is that thing!!
(It’s an antique cast iron and wood book stand. I think it’s actually for sheet music, but I like it for books. 🙂 ~ Jenny)
Kiddo has been making Halloween decorations since September 1 and watching Charlie Brown Halloween since Labor Day so, we are Team Halloween Eve! (She also, somehow, got our Pandora to start playing Jazzy Christmas music whenever I ask for Vince Guaraldi which, for a 5 yr old, is pretty impressive so I am just rolling with it)
I made clear packaging tape ghosts, but I wrapped up family members! Then, I cut it off, taped them back together and filled with fairy lights. Never again! Pictures upon request.
Cling wrap is scary. One evening after dinner my wife asked for some. I had to open new box and I knew I did NOT have the skills required to start that roll.
I love all your decorations! As for too early, it’s never too early. My Death of Rats and dragon skeleton are on the bookcase all year round, and I’m planning an All Hallows Eve shelf when I redecorate my studio later this fall. It’s the one under the shelf with all my plush bats. So there.
That is THE COOLEST ghost I have ever seen. I am sooo sad I do not live in your area, I would love to shop at your store!
Jodie the pig looks really happy
Technically,Christmas crafting and commercialism starts in July. So why not start Halloween a bit earlier? Halloween rocks! Can I make a plastic wrap ghost using my cat? 👻
Have I told you lately that I love you? the ghost is one of the coolest things every
That is the most fantastic home-made ghost ever! I love it.
I feel about Hallowe’en the way Scrooge comes to feel about Christmas: it is a holiday to hold in one’s heart all year ’round. It is never out of season, out of style, nor out of mind.
Ruth
Looks to me, like you taxidermied a ghost!
if you’re already in the book club, is the crafting hour just a part of that?
(Yes! It’s just a fun free online thing you can zoom into if you want. ~ Jenny)
Since Halloween candy is in all the stores, it is clearly not too early for Halloween decor! Viva Halloween!!!
I love your chicken wire ghost, I thinking you should keep them and wrap them in half of a white wedding dress and half a white wedding veil and half a black top hat and half a tuxedo as your second ghost Victor/Victoria- the non-binary Ghost.
I think we need to talk more about pasties for cats?
Your decorations are all MARVELOUS and I love them. Also, it’s definitely not too early for Halloween decorations; apparently the library where I used to work is already putting up Christmas decorations (which it *is* too early for), so you’re perfect.
I never thought I would say this but ….. I wish I was in America now so I could come and visit!!!!
Oooh. If you put a coloured light disc under the ghost would it give you a ghost that changes colours in the window at night?? (Just a thought).
Love the bookshop, and am annoyed that I’m on the other side of the world from it!!
(Ooh, that’s a good idea. ~ Jenny)
Love the Ghost, what an idea. No problem with Halloween NOW!!
So don’t give up on the chicken wire ghost… I made one a few years ago and ran into the same problem. It looked ridiculous. But… I wasn’t going to let it go after all the blood, sweat and tears I put into it. So I wrapped it with some medical gauze and purchased some glow in the dark spray paint from the local hardware store. I sprayed that sucker completely, twice and set her up in the yard. Low and behold it was a Halloween Hit!! Even adorned her with some old costume jewelry. She was the creepiest Ghost Bride on the block. Wished I still had her… Hurricane Harvey ended up being the death of her. Guess I shouldn’t have stored her in the garage but my hubby was not about to let her stay in the house all year. Got rid of the husband so now it’s time to create another one… Chicken Wire Ghost / Not another Husband!! Hope she still haunts him in his sleep.
The ghost in the window AND the ghost pig are beautiful!
Important question: will these pasties for cats be of the small hand pie variety or of the nipple-covering variety?
(They will be human sized human nipple covering that you can use to make small fringe hats for your cats. ~ Jenny)
THAT. PERFECT. GHOST!!!!!!! OMG, YES!
I’m a Halloween baby, but don’t live in the US. Growing up it wasn’t a thing here, but I’m hoping to have at least one birthday in the US for Halloween to have a “proper” Halloween (technically when I was born it was Beltane, now Samhain, given I’m in the southern hemisphere, but….)
I read that as you were trying to make a ghost chicken out of wire. I’m kinda disappointed there was no chicken.
Based on this post alone my friendship goals have extended to: those two at the bookstore, Bloggess tribe (naturally) and Jenny (of course!) 😂 I mean you’re all too cool for me, but hey, that’s all right! I’ll be the Chunk of the group (“Goonies” reference).
I love Halloween so much that my hubby and I are those weirdos who only basically decorate for Halloween and have no kids 😆😆. The neighbors are like 👀
Also after all the apocalyptically sizzling summer weather, I’m cheering on Fall like there’s no tomorrow… get it?!? AHAHAA I’ll see myself out.
If you need Halloween 365 days a year (as I do), Christine McConnell is a delightful artist you would love. I’m shocked you two aren’t friends actually.
I signed up for 3 bucks a month level on her Patreon (1st Creepy Treats level) and have not regretted it once. She does art projects and shares those in video episodes. Here is her Instagram, and yes she just bought a vintage casket 😆😬👻
https://www.instagram.com/christinehmcconnell/?hl=en
Is it ridiculous that I’m hoping there is another Halloween movie recommendation post this year? What on everyone’s spooky movie list? 👻😆
My fave are: The Burbs, Coraline, The Shining, The Conjuring, The Black Phone, and Insidious
Yay Fall!!!
(Ooh, I need to do the halloween movie list again! My most recent faves were HellBender (on shudder) and Lifechanger. ~ Jenny)
I “discovered” you, read a book-and-a-half of yours, AND ended up in your wonderfully-me bookstore, all in one week. (No, I’m not stalking, but when my husband said we were driving through San Antonio, I smiled sweetly and begged.) Thank you for getting me through a really dark week in the midst of a really hard season.
I’m almost embarrassed about the gauze and laundry starch ghost trick I was going to suggest (so obvious) after seeing the amazeballs saran wrap spirit you conjured up. Do take care, though. My husband doubts my memory, but I truly did once read about a person who was found dead–suffocated by the saran wrap they were trying to corral.
Pasties for Cats. I snorfled!!!! I wish my friend was still fostering cats so I could show up at her house with little pasties and say get one of the rowdy ones! It’s payback time! Photo shoot!
For god’s sake, don’t waste any of the blood from the chicken wire scratches! Oh, sure, it’s easy to make fake blood, but nothing beats the real thing. Also, you may be able to attract spirits with it! HALLOWEEN, baby!!!!!
The downed tree branches I’d saved all year and stuffed black ravens went up September 1st because Fall is Halloween Eve! At 109F I was ordering Halloween plates for the China cabinet and planning my outdoor displays. (While sad I couldn’t yet put out pumpkins in the heat.) The witches broom stays parked on the porch next to the front door year round, because one always needs to be a bit witchy doncha know!
Your windows are lovely, but you need Halloween books in there on display (always be selling, lol)
There’s a house down the street that’s had its Halloween decorations up at least since I started walking my daughter to school at the start of Kindergarten this year. Meanwhile, I’ve still got my meteor-shower Christmas lights on from last year because we just think they look so neat when we drive home at night.
When I was in high school, we all put up a haunted house in my English teacher’s room, and he made what was basically a roughly sculpted ten-year-old child out of chicken wire and dressed it in some shorts, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap he found at a thrift shop. Just posed it in a chair with some sunglasses to creep people out. After Halloween, he needed to get rid of it and I ended up taking it home myself because I thought it was neat. It lived in a chair in my room for years until the house burned down.
The ghost looks amazing!!!! Also, Jodi the Pig looks so cute! Why didn’t anyone tell me that there were superhero cat bedsheets?! Do they come in larger bed sizes? (no real reason, just asking…cuz..why not?!)
Would it be weird to make cat pasties for my male cat?!
I so desperately want to visit your bookstore! It looks amazing and it has A BAR! Thank you for being you and for now I will just admire and dream from the far north.
You are 100% correct. Jodie the pig’s ghost costume is absolutely PERFECT. ❤❤❤
I absolutely love the chicken wire ghost lady
Thanksgiving is kind of late, for some folks. I know someone who put up Christmas decorations right after Halloween.
The plastic ghost on the bird cage looks incredible.
Ghosts? I believe they prefer to be called Apparition Americans.
Mary E Huber…. So clever and funny!
I told my (adult) son, that “Every day is Halloween, if you truly believe.”
I stand by this.
Also, cool ghost.
I would *love* to witness the Fantastic Strangelings Crafting Hour, but, alas, I am not a member of the book club.
Is there a way for honorary Strangelings to tune in to Crafting Hour?
Also, in regards to pasties for cats: I only have a boy cat. Now I realize he has nipples. But maybe you could do banana hammocks and/or scroat cozies, too?
(It’s live to members but I think we’ll probably post them on youtube later for honorary members. ~ Jenny)
I just saw Christmas flavored candle bullshit at Target so Halloween starts NOW whether Brandy likes it or not. https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2022/09/11/high-18/
Also Jodi looks adorbs. Carry on.
scratches? are you sure you didn’t attempt to build the ghost out of actual chickens?
Your windows display is amazing! Um, I say the ghost stays year round. She can dress/accessorize for the occasion. She really looks great! (Jodi is pretty stinking cute too)
Bummed I don’t live in your area. I would be at your bookshop all.the.time. Any recommendations for a book shop in San Francisco that serves booze (because how is that not already a thing?)
Jodie the pig looks like a ghost of a nurse in the insane asylum on Halloween in the pediatrics ward. LOVE IT!
So…after following you from Canada for years…I am actually going to be in San Antonio in October for a large healthcare conference and I just realized – OMG…that’s where the bookstore is! So yes – looking forward to visiting this place in person after watching it incubate over COVID! Squeeeeee!
Hello
Omg, you tried the chicken wire ghost! I’m sorry it made you bleed, though! Like someone else said–I have faith it could still be awesome! (And that you would definitely keep it in your house all year long.) Hey, didn’t you get some arms from your friend’s relative’s magic barn of float supplies?
The decorations really do look amazing! If I lived remotely near Nowhere, I would spend SO much time there. They’d have to shoo me out with a broom at closing.
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Another exquisite window wonderfully and perfectly created by you and the Nowhere Team! I WILL get there one day!
It looks amazing. In middle school I made a life size Marie Antoinette out of chicken wire and paper mache. I know the school kept it for a while, now I wonder what happened to that.
So I totally read, ” . . . we’re going to make pastiches for cats . . . ” and I was really curious for a second.
“But the only twin sheets I have had superhero cats all over them…
And they were perfect.” 🐷👻🐱🦹♀️
Pure gold.