Category: halloween

Making a Haunted House from Recycled Boxes

Should I have posted this before Halloween? Yes, most definitely! But I forgot, so here we are, and I think that getting this posted before Thanksgiving is still fair. Fall is still here, even though Black Friday is coming at you like asteroids headed for Smallville.

We made a haunted house from recycled cereal boxes and other sources of repurposed cardboard to transform what could have been trash into a piece of Halloween decor from what we already had! The only materials we had to purchase for this project were acrylic paint and felt. We used Apple Barrel brand paint, which is less than 1 USD at Walmart or less than 3 USD on Amazon for big bottles. We also purchased sheets of felt that were 25 cents a sheet. For the adhesive, we used Tacky Glue for construction and Mod Podge to smooth out seams.

Our inspiration was the Addams Family mansion from the 1992 movie version. We wanted an old, mansard-roofed, Second Empire-style, Victorian-era house to play the role of haunted house. I wish our actual house was a bit more historical. It was built probably in the 1930s, but I question if it is a bit older, from the 1910s, from the style of woodwork. So a nice, old spooky build was just the ticket. We gathered inspiration from Pinterest and set forth to construct the house. We used two Honeycomb cereal boxes glued together, which are a bit taller than the average box. For the roof, we chose cardboard from a 12-pack of Wild Cherry Pepsi cans and some mac n cheese boxes for the roof line. The porch was constructed with a Wegman’s 12-pack of sparkling water. Miscellaneous cardboard scraps supplied the porch beams, door, and shutters.

To paint this, I bought an array of colors to mix custom shades. For realism, weathering and highlights, it is important to mix depth into the shades. If you have ever watched Bob Ross paint, you will know that he is always adding depth to his paintings with colors that exist in the natural scenes, but that your eyes may not recall what the colors on their own actually look like. If you want to paint a sky, you need more than just sky blue. If you are going to paint a tree, you need more than just brown and green.

I put two layers of paint on the pieces, which I painted after they were glued and fully dried. The first layer was necessary to block out the cardboard and the branding, which I could see shining through the matte paint. This was an excellent time to try mixing shades. I was able to try several colors underneath the final layer, which helped me determine the color scheme of moody charcoal, black, and burgundy for the roof and trim. The paint not only adds character but also preserves the pieces under a layer of acrylic. The final touch was a cutout silhouette of Gomez and Morticia in the window.

This project took a lot of drying time, and therefore was a month-long project that was finished a few days before Halloween. Because of this, I did not accomplish all I wanted to do, including moss, more weathering, ghosts, etc. Next year, I plan to add on. In the meantime, I am sharing this to inspire you to craft with trash for the upcoming holiday season. Let’s celebrate sustainability and underconsumption and make those decorations with repurposed materials! It truly is a blast. Happy Crafting!

I was inspired to get crafty by these YouTube creators:

  • With Love, Kristina
  • Aunt Dena
  • Rachel Maksy
  • Maybe Bre
  • Blondie Knots
  • Kathryn Kellogg
  • Lizfoolery

Happy Halloween or Samhain?

As a kid I carved pumpkins, as I mentioned in my jack-o-lantern pants posts, many moons ago. But as an adult, who has spent many years diving into history, the specifically Irish history of my ancestors, I have found myself switching to a new tradition. Turnips.

The turnip was the orignal carving vegetable for the original halloween, samhain in gaelic. Irish culture gave the traditions of halloween to the British colonizers and Irish immigrants took the traditions with them to America. Trick or treating, costumes, jack-o-lanterns carved pumpkins are all adopted from this key festival of ancient Ireland.

Samhain was a two day celebration. A bit like new year, a bit like day of the dead, and a time when the division between the spirit realm and earthly realm became thin. Fires lit the dark night, masks were worn and turnips carved to warn off evil spirits. The dead could return for a visit and it was unsettling. The world could end, if the gods were not placated.

Of course all this uncertainty is part of the human life and how we make sense of the changing seasons and our unpredictable world. I think its fascinating how they processed these uncertainties in a feast day, abd found ways to distract themselves in the darkness of short days and impending winter. Along with the othet traditions mentioned there was divination and superstitions, like predicting future outcomes with cabbages, or just games of chance, such as finding a small trinket in your slice of pie.

How does the macabre play role in Samhain and why do we have such traditions as graveyards and ghosts? It was a part of the ancient Samhain traditons to visit burial places, make offerings to the dead, and even eat in silence. Of course, while leaving a place at the table for a lost loved one or other spirits that may roam.

There is also a darkness to this festival, and layers to how far things are taken due to beliefs. This is where I stop feeling comfortable, when it gets into the druid roots. It could be quite a sinister feeling ritual, and the druids, well I had to pause my Udal Cuain research because this druid pagan chapter of culture is too dark for me. Any religion that practice human sacrifices is a no for me dawg.

But if you would like to learn more about the lighter and in my opinion, more fascinating parts of Samhain I highly recommend checking out the Ulster Folk Museum’s website.

Happy Halloween!

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Halloween Crochet Vest

Every October, I feel more alive. I don’t mean to sound like a cringe, halloween obsessed person. I think, October fills me with life because it is the first wave of chilly air, and gray, rainy skies. Summer’s heat and bright sun, is great, but I feel burnt out from the stimulation by the end of August. It’s a time to reset and rest, in the spooky season and colorful leaves.

For another reason, I’ve realized this year, Halloween feels like a recharging time, because it is a holiday that is just about fun. There is no family meal, no presents, no longing or ache for those who have died. It is a holiday that does have a focus more on death but in this healthier other space.

It gives me room to breathe before Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the anniversary of my Grandma’s passing, to feel free from this heaviness. For a moment, things feel simple and joyful again.

So to honor this time, I made my first Halloween themed garment with a self-drafted pattern using granny stitches, double crochet, and treble crochet to make this pullover vest breathable.

Purple, black, and orange are colors that work with my existing wardrobe so I believe this piece will fit in all year around…aside from the summer, for obvious reasons.

This is just one of many Halloween inspired creations, I am brewing up. I excited to see those come to life soon!

As a fellow neurodivergent person, or a neurotypical, do you look to October as a time to recharge? What’s your favorite “ber” month?

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#77 – Giant’s Causeway

I’m currently watching the newest season of The Great British Bake Off, and it is bringing back wonderful memories from my childhood, thanks to one special contestant – Iain Ross. Iain is from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and his Irish charm reminds me of my trip to Ireland as a kid. He reminds me of the people I met, including my family members who live in County Antrim. He reminds me of my grandma, Florence, and my Gormley family tree. But I also remember the wonder of exploring this place called Ireland (and Northern Ireland) as an 8-year-old kid, who heard the legends of the places we saw, and found the stories truly magical.

Now, for political reasons, I wasn’t able to see Belfast due to some tensions around Orangemen’s Day. But there were lots of other cities and sites were got to see. There were stories of Dunluce Castle’s kitchen falling into the sea during a party. That was probably true. There are the ruins of tall towers, made to hide in safety from Viking raids, and also historical. But then there were the stories that lean into the fantastical, like the story of Finn MacCool and the Giant’s Causeway.

I had forgotten about the magical origin story of Giant’s Causeway until Iain turned the story into a pastry sculpture for the showstopper round. Finn MacCool, also known as Fionn ma Cumhaill in Gaelic, led a band of mythical warriors called the Fianna. Now, a giant Finn was in a rivalry with another giant in Scotland called Benandonner. To reach him, Finn created the causeway on the coast of County Antrim, which faces Scotland’s coast across the Irish Sea. When Finn saw how big Benandonner, standing in the distance across the sea, Finn decided this might not be a wise idea. Instead, Finn fled to his house, where he hatched a clever plan. He asked his wife Oonagh, to help him hide himself under a blanket, to disguise himself as a baby. Benandonner passed across the sea on the causeway, determined to settle the fight with Finn. He knocked on the door, but instead of Finn, he was greeted by Oonagh and a rather large sleeping baby, which Oonagh introduced as her son, Oisin. This terrified Benandonner. What could his father look like if this were the size of the baby? Benandonner fled back to Scotland, thwarted by the cleverness of Finn MacCool. In his haste, Benandonner ripped up the Causeway so that remnants only remain on the coast of Antrim, at the Giant’s Causeway site, and on the Scottish island of Staffa at the Fingal’s Cave site.

We know now that the hexagonal basalt rocks are evidence of volcanic eruptions that formed the Causeway in Ireland, but isn’t the creativity of my ancestors better? This story is one of my favorites. I may have been able to see through Santa Claus, but this filled me with the possibilities of a land where giants and magic roamed, and it filled me with a sense of wonder to exist in this place of extraordinary things. That’s what I began to explore in Udal Cuain and what continues to bring me back to Halloween every year – Samhain. The original celebration from Ireland.

Have you ever been to Giant’s Causeway? Did you know about the myth, and what do you think of it?

Sources:

https://giantscauseway.ccght.org/history-and-folklore/

https://giantscauseway.ccght.org/geology/

CCGHT’s Mythological Landscape of the Glens of Antrim publication

Forest Creature Hat

Have you ever wanted to look like you emerged from a cozy video game? Maybe you’d like to wear a hat that reminds you of spooky season? Behold my new crochet adventure, not my first hat, but the second stitched together for this autumnal season.

This hat is inspired by the pointed witch hats, either sewn or made from yarn, that make an appearance in October, either in patterns that I see advertised or inspiration sources online. I didn’t want to make anything too witchy. I am not aiming to be a witch; I am looking for something fantastical. My hat is more of an allusion to the pointed, wide-brimmed headwear, while also aiming to be something a bit historical, rural, maybe hobbity in form.

The inspiration image I used for this project is a hat from Animal Crossing: New Horizons – the frugal hat. It is a subtle nod to a scarecrow, while it could belong in the wizarding world. I chose to crochet this project for the ability to sculpt the hat in a way that is freeform. I love how crochet lets you create without managing all the stitches on a needle; instead, I was able to switch from the hat portion to the bill with ease. I crocheted onto the side of the hat and used varying stitches of single crochet, double crochet, and granny stitch to add the frilly volume to the bottom.

Another reason I chose to crochet, over knitting this hat, was to provide the hat with more structure than knit stitches. Crochet stitches have more body to them. This was a scrap project, using leftover yarn from my first sweater dress, now a cardigan, made in 2023. Which was also scrap yarn, from a previous scrap yarn project – my cat ear beanie from 2024. As time passes, and I make more things, I love seeing how projects are connected through materials over time, because scrap yarn is kind of magical. It’s always worth it, in my opinion, to hold on to the extras for these random projects that call for just a little bit of yarn.

Finally, this hat project was inspired by one other seasonal topic, the state of my country. It just never stops right now….ahhhh!!!

Am I living in the 1950s? No, but dang was this what McCarthyism was like? I’m sick of the FBI telling Black Americans not to mourn Assata Shakur. Charlie Kirk is being touted as a martyr by MAGA and the primarily white church, tainting the message of the gospel with that Nationalist sham of a funeral, complete with Hitler-esque photos by the orange man. It’s getting ICY in a lot of places nationwide. So, I made a witch hat, because the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and 1693 were not about witchcraft.

Instead, they were about religious extremism, sumptuary laws, xenophobia, and social tension. It was profitable to report your neighbor as a witch. You could gain financial and political power by reporting people who did nothing wrong. So I made a witch hat, because I am done with the injustices being played off as not that serious, and I am tired of our own political witch hunts. I feel helpless and angry all the time because of the Idiocracy. So I made a hat to try to do something creative with my feelings.

This forest creature hat, named by my sibling, was designed by me and created using worsted-weight acrylic yarn with a 5.5 mm crochet hook.

Remaking My First Sewing Project Four Years Later

Last September, I felt this aching in my creative heart to make what I didn’t make well the first go around. A project that some would say was insane to attempt as a beginner because of the difficult nature of velvet and the frustration that is sewing with stretch fabric. The dress pictured below was my first wearable garment. I saw the same purple stretch fabric on sale for Halloween at my local Joann’s and my heart skipped a beat. It still exists – I could try again!

You see the first dress I made was constructed so poorly that I ended up cutting it down into a skirt because I was embarrassed to continue wearing it out. After all, the bodice was bunching up and gathered strangely in the back. I lacked the confidence to keep going and try to alter the dress for success. I see now that it would have been an easy make to take out the gathers and bunches of fabric for clean seams, but that kind of thought came with trial and error. I needed a bit more experience and patience to make it right, and at the time in 2020, my younger self was not willing to wait.

But what if I am living in the past? My mind thought, maybe I should let it be and let the dress be a learning experience. I put the purple velvet down and left it, it was not on sale, it would be a sizeable impulse purchase at 15.99 a yard for 4 yards. I can’t justify 60 USD for a passing whim, that would be a poor use of money. So I left the daydream and moved on. Still thinking about that fabric. Another few weeks passed, finding myself in my local Joann’s again. It was my favorite place to explore. I went to the shopping plaza over the weekend where Joann’s remains live boarded up with the lights still on. It was eerie. I found myself thinking about what was blocked off inside? Was the fabric slumbering in the bolts, waiting to be made into something new? Would the yarn ever find a home in a fiber artist’s hands? It felt like a mistake, a bad dream, but it was not. It is over and now it is just a memory.

Anyway, on the second trip to Joann’s during the Halloween sales, I found my purple beloved. The bolt was still full, now marked down to 7 USD a yard. But this time I couldn’t get the project out of my mind. I’m glad I did give in to the creative urge or this project would be left without an ending. At the time, I had no idea Joann’s was going to go under. I thought I had plenty of time to remake this when in reality the window was closing. As I worked on this dress in 2025, I followed Joann’s story with frustration and weight of expectation. This remake is the final try, for this fabric I will never find again.

I made a different dress from the original and that surprised me. I believed going into the remake project that I would duplicate the same dress but with better technique. Instead, it was a project of feel. This time, I had a dress form I could drape the garment on. I had fabric clips with securely held the the slippery fabric together while on the dress form or for a quick test of fit on my own form. This time I understood proportion and where this dress would fit into my wardrobe instead of making a dress that only went with my moto jacket. I reinforced the shoulders and was thoughtful about my stitching, to make the garment strong. I added darts to pull the dress in where it was fitting baggy instead of leaving it like a velvet sack.

It became something new and I am okay with that. None of us are the same as we were years ago, we grow and evolve with every passing year. Making a dress for now, with the spirit and the fabric of my first garment, but with a new neckline and a new fit I think is an inevitability of learning and growth. I had the patience this time to try on the dress, mark what was not fitting right, and go back to work until it was correct. That was not something I was willing to do when I started, because it was all so new and confusing, but with time and practice, those new concepts became a familiar old friend. Like this tan carpet. It wasn’t until I looked at the 2020 mirror photo and the 2025 mirror photo that I saw it. The carpet in the house we bought looks just like the carpet in our apartment in Meadville. How random is that?

I have one more section of the purple velvet left over that I plan to make something with, possibly a mini dress, a blouse, or maybe a jacket. I think knowing this fabric is a relic now, makes me feel unwilling to finish this scrap project, because once it is done. I’m going to feel like my time experimenting with fabric from my first craft store is done. A chapter of my sewing life is over, and I hate saying goodbye. I’m a sentimental person. When things end, I take it hard. I dwell on the loss and muse on it. It might be unhealthy. It certainly makes life harder as a person who wants to keep things alive that are gone, it’s why I think I was drawn to study history in college.

As I keep making things, some of these projects become an archive of crafting past. What are some things in your own life that have moved from the present to part of your past? Does it surprise you to consider these things as your history instead of your current story? Thank you, reader, for joining me again down this sewing memory lane. I hope you have a wonderful day!

Favorite K-pop Spooky Music Videos

It’s Halloween week! Here are some of my favorite k-pop music videos to watch during this time of year that provide that festive fun. Red Velvet does horror-esque music videos better than anyone else in my opinion. I love how goofy Stray Kids music videos can be, they always look like they are having fun!

First mention is Chill Kill by Red Velvet. This one pulled me into the story so well that I gasped when the twist came. This album has been on repeat for me since I rediscovered Red Velvet this summer.

The second mention is Venom by Stray Kids, one of the first music videos I watched of theirs after Maniac. I love the theatrics, the spider, and the way they use shadows.

Good Boy Gone Bad by Tomorrow X Together was my first introduction to TXT and I didn’t know this is a weird, less loved song from them. I thought the music video was fun.

Next is Up All Night by Bang Chan, Changbin, Felix, Seungmin which came on my radar by either Starminy on Instagram or Kpopandcranes. What a fun ride! It’s like if Noel Fielding got to plan an episode of Bake Off.

Peek-A-Boo by Red Velvet is a song I’ve been listening to recently and discovered the music video is pretty spooky. I adore how weird they are.

JJAM by Stray Kids came out this summer and dang its such a fun ride. The green jam reminds me of Nickelodeon Slime.

Witch by Xikers was released this fall and wow, it has made me a Xikers fan. I love their new album and have listened to this song over and over again.

This last one is not technically a music video, but a special Halloween performance video.

The Black Cat Nero performed by Ateez is not my favorite song but I like the rock opera style of it and feels true to who Ateez is as a band, they are storytellers and performers who commit to their performance.

What’s your favorite Halloween inspired media for the season? Happy Halloween everyone!

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