Halloween Happenings🎃

Autumn, the crunching of leaves, in beautiful shades of oranges, yellows, browns and reds, and of course, the coming of All Hallows Eve. Halloween is one of my favourite celebrations, it's not as celebrated in the UK as it is in the US, but in the past years it seems to be getting more popular here, with more children Trick or Treating and houses festively decorated with spiderwebs and grinning pumpkins.

My first true memory of dressing up for Halloween was when I was around 6, when my mom bought me a plastic cape and hat with vibrant green stars on, the cape was more like a bin bag and the hat was thin plastic, but I loved it. I was also given a little gift-like bag with a rubber bat on from the Co-Op (British supermarket) I'm sure I was nagging for, mainly for the bat, I believe it was filled with sweets. My mom also took me out Trick or Treating, just on our road, however this was the UK in the 90s and no houses had any decorations and I think I got one Snickers bar from a sympathetic neighbour. This dissapointent never dampened my love of the season, however I didn't go Trick or Treating again.

There are many amazing decorations on sale nowadays and my home is filled with pumpkins, bats and witches all year round. I love going on trips to TK Maxx (TJ in US) and exploring their fully stocked Halloween aisles, collecting candles and home decor. I put up a Halloween tree and dress my windows with lights every year. However it can be difficult when it comes to packing it away as I sometimes forget what general decor I keep up all year!

I also like to hunt down crafts and things to create that are Halloween themed, I enjoy creating spooky things all year round, so I'm not too worried about not doing as many items in time for Halloween. I'll be continuing throughout the year, however I'll need to briefly move on to doing some wintery Christmas projects quite soon!

He're a few spooky figures I've done so far:

This Clown kitty I printed and painted in grayscale, which was a challenge. The red nose adds a pop of colour. 3D Model by LeylinaCustoms, the print file is currently exclusive on their Patreon for October.

This is my new favourite, I created the sweets with polymer clay and UV clay. They were super tiny! I plan on improving this design and doing some different variations. 3D Model by LeylinaCustoms, the print file is available on Etsy.

I have a small army of 3D prints primed and ready to paint -I'm currently trying to grasp some time to get them done, being a responsible adult is sometimes naff.

Cleffa and Clefairy Pokemon Ghost crossovers, I plan to add to some scenes.

A tiny Pumpkin mug ready to sand and prime for a little creature to snuggle up with.

A few weeks ago I visited a craft cafe and painted some spooky themed ceramics, I brought some home with me to complete, as you only get a two hour slot and I ran out of time painting my pumpkin!

I also have some plaster models to paint, if you check out my gallery you can see two I've done previously, one of which is the Christmas cat below I painted in traditional vintage Halloween colours instead.

I have no real interest in baking, until it comes to Halloween or Christmas, and then the recipe has to be very simple or come out of a ready mix! This year I made some pumpkin shaped shortbread, I coloured the dough orange and decorated with icing. The first batch was messy and I didn't realise I had no black icing so had to mix several colours together, turning out more brown, but they tasted lovely! I've got some better cookie cutters and black food colouring on the way to make some hopefully better looking ones.

There is so much more I'd like to talk about regarding Halloween and spooky things, but I've left this a little late and I've yet to write my newsletter, to which I have no idea what I'm writing or how to do one 😅so for now, this is the end of my ramblings for this month.