Author: Head Candy Corn

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Photo Bombing Crocodile, Mad Lib Haiku and MORE for DAY 10

running_scared Look no further for your Nero and Haiku-themed word games, as well as a bonus coloring page featuring a photo bombing crocodile!

Gothtober’s DAY 9 (The book on the shelf titled Wuthering Frights) will help you download these hand-illustrated goodies by artist and illustrator, Stephanie Abler.
The name MAD LIBS is legally registered, and for lack of a better word, that’s what we’ll use here, but people have been playing this word game for eons, you don’t have to buy them at the store, you can make your own! Stephanie took matters into her own hands and made some for us. Here’s what she had to say about it:

I remember at least a couple of family gatherings from my childhood when my mom wrote mad libs for us, and we did them and just laughed hysterically. The absurd ideas that mad libs produce really delight me.

It’s hard to come up with something that weird on purpose because we naturally make connections that make sense. It takes a situation with an unknown context, like a mad lib, to come up with an idea that’s truly random.

I also love mad libs because they show how imaginative people are; when we listen to a mad lib, our minds will make meaning out of totally unreal statements.

Stephanie lives in Walnut Creek, California, where it is indeed getting cooler:

It’s been in the 80’s and 90’s in Walnut Creek. Hotter than I expected for this time of year. But since the leaves are changing and the angle of the sunlight is shifting, you can still tell it’s fall.

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Singy Songy Salutations for Gothtober DAY 9

question_buttonWe know not where it came from, but now it won’t leave us alone.

Click on the Skull Bobblehead for Gothtober DAY 9 and be greeted with another Skull… and some operatic torture! Captured on video for the very first time is this wayward spirit that insists on singing opera to us as we work into the night on Gothtober’s haunted offerings. It first began last week, right before the calendar launched, and now it is sung at least twice per day, once when the moon arrives on the horizon, and again, later, when the moon is about to sink behind the hills.

While the dedication and passion for opera is appreciated, we hope that the Singy Songy Skull meets whoever it is singing to so that we may get some rest.

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Billy Kheel’s Blood Moon Craft for Gothtober DAY 8

For Gothtober DAY 8 (the book titled Oliver Twisted) you can download a .PDF for a pattern to make your very own Blood Moon Pillow by Billy Kheel!

Billy makes stuff out of felt, thread, stuffing and whatever else feels appropriate for subjects like giant swordfish, stripmall pillows, football trading cards, and even stuffed hunting rifles for babies (yes,  you read that correctly.) Anything you ever heard about felt appliques and what’s supposed to happen with them is pretty much blown out of the water by Mr. Kheel. The things he makes are full of contradictions, from the fact that he’s a bearded dude, not your great great Aunt, and he’s sewing precious collectible items out of everyday things, or making extraordinary versions of items we take for granted or tend to not see. His sport-oriented works are especially unique, an unexplored way to show love for franchised pro performance competition.

The felt works of Mr. Kheel are irresistible. When you come upon one of his pieces, you want to stare at it, touch it to make sure it’s really fabric, take it home, and then cuddle with it… even if it’s a giant foot from the Silverlake Foot Clinic sign on Sunset Blvd.

If you want to own an original Kheel, it’s not hard, just visit Billy’s Etsy Page, he’s got many items for sale at reasonable prices in many ranges and subjects: something for everyone! And check his site to see when he’s exhibiting and teaching workshops on how to sew your own fabric creations.

Now, get your pattern and materials, follow the pattern and make your blood moon so you can howl like the rest of us!

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Angry Townfolk Burn Up Gothtober Day 7

angry_townspeople Gothtober DAY 7 (The Book titled Jane Weyre) brings us a chilling, thrilling and exquisite florescent light adventure with voice work by the Gump siblings, Arrow and Pixie Gump!

Arrow Gump supplies the harrowing narration, Pixie Gump supplies the voice of the Monster Baby, and PapaWapa Gump staged and animated all of the beautiful hand made props and scenery to form a heck of a family project! Put together with the expert editing stylistics of Brandon Minton, and man, have we got THE MONSTER’S GRAAAAAVE!!!!

Enjoy what will become a seasonal favorite for years to come, and if you see an angry green baby marching your way: Run!!!! (and then call us, because we need to know what happens next.)

Want to see some other amazing things from Michael and Brandon, respectively?

Visit BananaBee Lab!

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Zombie PSA • Gothtober DAY 6

zombie_style Have you been feeling okay? Visit Gothtober.com and click on Book 6, the one titled Tom Slayer. If you’re not feeling quite right, you might want to check out this informational pamphlet that gives you some useful tips on the symptoms you are experiencing this Halloween.

Saida Staudenmaier has quite the touch with the makeup brush, her site has some other Gothtoberesque photos on it, plus stuff from many of her other professional endeavors, check it out! Saida is quite fond of zombie makeup, she actually did a series of portraits based on the dearly departed, everyone looks a tad “stale” in an alluring yet repelling way that only Saida could truly master.

Hat’s off also to Jennifer Wenzlaff, the “main zombie” in this piece. Gothtober is powered by SparkleBlob, a multidisciplinary arts and performance  collective, your Head Candy Corn is Executive Director. Jen is on the SparkleBlob Board of Directors, and we think that this photo of her really shows you what SparkleBlob is all about, doesn’t she look great? Most importantly, she looks like she’s recently eaten brains, so we can breathe easy… for now.

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Hand-Crafted Deck Tarot for Your Talons • Gothtober DAY 5

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Castle Leibenstien, where Christy and family came up with the idea of making home made German Tarock cards!

If you’re a Gothtober Crafter, you certainly have your work cut out for you now for Gothtober DAY 5 (Click the book titled Of Lice and Men). We gave you a needlepoint project, then we showed you how to carve and dry apple heads and now here’s another fun assignment! All the way from Germany comes a pack of cards you can print, cut out, glue sides together and you then have your very own Tarot Deck! 

Germany is getting darker and colder by the day, but fall there (called Herbst in German) is beautiful.

We have a Gothtober correspondent who can verify this information for us, she lives there! Yesterday was German unification day and The Chambers family will probably celebrate their long weekend by taking a walk in their local forest to photograph mushrooms (yes, the red ones with white spots featured in the cards).

The entire deck is hand illustrated by Christy Chambers. Yes, we’re talking ALL 78 cards, proving yet again that Gothtober contributors are a pretty dedicated and crazy lot, of which we are quite thankful. What inspired this ambitious project? Here’s her answer:

The crazy idea for the cards came from a short vacation at Castle Leibenstien this summer. When sleeping in a castle, there is no TV or Internet…. This can be alarming to a modern 10 yr old. So since we were unprepared for an unplugged evening, my mother and I started to make simple cards to entertain everyone. How fun it would be to have a fancy detailed deck made by our family! I started to research German traditional card games and found that the most popular game Tarock, is played with the 78 card tarot deck. The only problem is that everyone plays with different rules depending on which part of Germany you are from. Honestly, the game is so complicated I can’t even understand some of the rules!!! Anyway, I guess I will have to stick to fortune telling. Who knew that that would be the less complicated part. I started painting, and well, here are the cards!
You’ll notice also on Ms. Chambers’ Gothtober piece, a devil doll in the background. Naturally, we wanted to know more, here’s what Christy had to say about the little devil:
The Devil is a family heirloom from Brian’s side. We have no information about him but we love him. He seems to like playing cards, Nigel says he cheats, but I think one should expect that from the little Devil.Today at the flea-market or “Flomart” in German, we almost came home with a creepy gnome with an axe but the pair of them together would have clearly been trouble.
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Click on DAY 5 Gothtober 2014 to get your set of Beautifully Illustrated Tarot cards by Christy Chambers!
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Get Witch-Slapped on Gothtober Day 4!

The Wigs Will FLY…

Visit Gothtober and click on the book titled “Discover the Zombie Within” which is number four, respectively. FromWalter Ortiz and Actor/Producer Ryan Barbato is preview of wicked shenanigans that will curdle your mascara! Slayánce is an off-the-wall horror-adventure-comedy about a séance that goes horribly, but hilariously wrong!

  • Cross dressing theatrics!
  • Watch the running and screaming!
  • Shrink in your seat from fright and terror!
  • A blood-thirsty demon!
  • It’ll scare the living yell out of you!
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How Ya Like Them Apples? Day 3 With Dianne Chadwick!

vintage_applesDianne Chadwick has done it again with a classic seasonal craft that we can’t WAIT to try! This project was posted early on the calendar for maximum Halloween decor potential. Visit the Gothtober Calendar and hit the book titled “East of Eatin'” (Book 3.) 

Upon asking Professor D.M. Chadwick about this year’s Gothtober Apple project, she sent back a very analytic and scholarly stream-of-conscious email that said some great things about Pomme de Terre, as they are fondly known as in fancy France.

Apples are lovely, apples are nice…

I always thought it was strange that apples have this perception of being the most wholesome of fruits, and yet it was the APPLE that led to Adam and Eve’s downfall. So…there’s something kind of appropriate in turning the deceptively wholesome apple into a crinkly, creepy ornament. I’m not sure why shrunken apple heads had their zenith of popularity in the 1970s, but with the DIY aesthetic that’s been booming for awhile now (I’m looking at you, Etsy), I figured the time was ripe for a tutorial for the Gothtober masses. Start now and you can have oodles of tiny, devious faces looking at you from every corner of your house by Halloween. I taught a class on making shrunken apple heads this summer at ScareLA in Los Angeles and one attendee told me she was planning to make a wreath-like necklace of shrunken heads. I can’t even begin to imagine how fantastic that is going to look!

The Gothtober masses couldn’t be happier with this opportunity to dehydrate as many “heads” as possible, thanks, Professor Chadwick!

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Slaying in the Kitchen with Gothtober Day 2

sandercock

All the way from Edmonton, Canada is a dance piece that will make your face melt off by Nancy Sandercock! Visit Gothtober and click on the Book on the shelf with the number 2 on it that is titled “Of Lice and Men.”

Watch Nancy’s visceral, frenetic, direct and gloriously globby performance called “Double Headed Axe” and if you have headphones, all the better, it’ll melt your face off even more. It was shot in Los Angeles, but edited in Edmonton by Kyle Armstrong, who also did the sound.

Fun trivia about this piece is that the cat’s name is Dawa, and she’s traveled the world with Nancy.

The other fun trivia is that this piece features Canadian film and TV star, Susan Kent!  Gothtober has a history of having some fabulous Canadian contributors, welcome Nancy and Susan to our crazy calendar! Yay Canada!

This is not Nancy’s first Gothtober, however, she has been in many a piece by Gothtober Artist and Film Maker, Barry Morse, and also has collaborated with Julianna Parr in a Gothtober piece from 2011. This is Nancy’s Gothtober debut in a project all of her own.

 

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Seeing Spot Colors for DAY 1 of Gothtober!

We are LAUNCHED!

By the skin of our teeth no less, and with a few glitches here and there, but hey: The calendar is here! Big thanks to our programmer, Jesse, wooooo!

So already we have a fabulous project in store for you, visit Gothtober.com and click on DAY 1, you’ll have opportunity to download a needlepoint pattern for you all the way from Louisiana! Nicole LaBranche, a graphic designer for film and TV, who also  runs Spot Colors, a shop in New Orleans, makes needlepoint patterns for the 21st century. If you are frightened of clowns eating you in the night, maybe this needlepoint will ensure that you’ll never sleep again. Who could forget the menacing and utterly terrible Pennywise the Clown?

Nicole made this Pennywise pattern especially for Gothtober, she’s been so busy with her shop and freelance projects, she hasn’t had a moment to actually sit down and stitch Pennywise, but that’s where YOU come in! If you sew this creepiest of clowns, will you send us a photo? Nightmares made REAL!

Why Pennywise? Why needle point? Here’s what Nicole had to say about it:

I grew up with my grandmother, mom, and aunts all crafting around me and so I was taught early on how to cross stitch.  I res-erected that knowledge about a year ago when my mom gave me and my sister all her old supplies. I wanted to combine graphic design and cross stitch and I wanted to make more modern designs.  I just started making my own patterns and kits but I am loving it and I think they are getting better and more fun as I get into the swing of it.  The Pennywise Clown is a hand drawn illustration, drawn by me, I think he came out really cute and I got my inspiration from my sister and her love (and almost obsession) with Stephen King novels.

This October 17th-19th Nicole will have a booth set up at the Fear Fete Horror Festival in Biloxi, Mississippi which she’s very excited about.  As for her store, she has lots of cute and unique halloween handmade items and gifts.  So if you’re in the area, go check it out, lots of gee gaws for your hee haws.