This Week In Spooky Mail

I told you that I have spent a lot of time Halloween haunting online lately. Well, my haunting finally paid off in deliveries this week! AHHHH!!!! The first delivery was this Monster Bop print from Steph Buscema. I visited this in my cart for a very long time before pushing the buy button, but visiting its digital image just was no longer enough. This is so beyond words spooktacular! The little batties coming out of Drac's trumpet, Wolfman, it's all just to die for. This is a mashup of mid century and Halloween, which is the embodiment of all the things that make my heart scream. No brainer.

The next delivery was my Instagram haul! I felt like I was buying it all during this lady's sale, haha! I did have some self-restraint, though. I came across the picture she posted with the BOO pumpkin pail while haunting my usual halloween hashtags and immediately followed her and turned on post notifications so I wouldn't miss this sale. I was shaking with excitement until I got everything I came for. Mr. Boo is quite possibly the highlight of my pail collection. I will be getting out all of his brethren this week so they can all meet! The lighted one works and has a pumpkin, a cat, a skull, and witches. Duh, right? I've never seen the little oblong pail and I love to add new faces to my collection! The super old articulated cat has seen much better days, but I am the land of misfits, so I forgive most imperfections. His face is so classic Halloween that I needed to add him to my clowder of die-cut cats! I'm also really stoked on the green eyed guy.

I got home from work on Thursday to a pile of spooky mail! We ordered some really great vintage inspired Halloween stuff back in June and had been waiting on the pre-orders to arrive for everything to ship. I found this website through Witch House Design, who had an exclusive color way of the skeleton toy that I wanted sold through vintagehalloween.com. Obviously I had to shop around the site and found a bunch of fun things! The ghost bubbler and screaming cat paper lantern light string are Bethany Lowe Designs. I tried to find the bubbler last year with no luck, so I was really excited when I found it for pre-order! The cat lanterns were irresistible because, as we've established, we love vintage Halloween cats around here. The decals and festooning are Beistle. I have no idea what I'll put the decals on. I don't know why, but I thought they were window clings. They are repositionable, but I'm worried they'll lose their stick if I put them on the wall and expect to reuse them next year. We'll see, I guess. I also found a cute little skelly brooch! They sent a little vintage witch cake topper with the order. Once it was finally sent after the pre-orders came in, it arrived very quickly and everything was packaged thoughtfully. I'm not being sponsored by them or anything, just sharing my experience, which was great!

I got my Necromancy Cosmetica order the same day. It came all the way from Puerto Rico and arrived the same day as an order from Arizona and they were both shipped the same day. I was very impressed with the postal service! I was worried that it may arrive melted with the terribly hot and humid weather we've been having, but it was perfect. I'm not successful at makeup and don't try very often because I feel that I look ridiculous, but I just really wanted to try this lipstick the second I laid eyes on it on Instagram! It is cruelty free and vegan and made by hand by two lovely people running their own business. I think that's pretty kick ass! I decided on trying just one shade to start and I picked It's Wednesday, which is a dark gray. I really love it! I'm still learning to be confident and all that, so I'm a little self-conscious wearing such a bold and dark color. But you can't live your life trying to fit into other people's images, so if being a little spooky is who am I, so be it, right? I had to take a picture of it with my Wednesday Addams brooch from Baccurelli.  I need a Wednesday Addams dress to wear with my Wednesday Addams brooch and my It's Wednesday lipstick on a Wednesday. On Wednesday, we wear Wednesday. What can I say, I love a theme!

We spent the day today Halloween Haunting in Burnsville. It was majorly successful! I have to take pictures of my haul and tell you all about it. I also snapped some pictures of things I loved, but left behind. I had planned on watching Little Shop of Horrors and finishing up a new Halloween design tonight, but I'm terrible at doing what I plan on doing. Maybe I should start planning on doing things I don't plan on doing and not planning to do things I do plan to do and then I'll get things done. Whatever, you got this blog post out of my procrastination, so congratulations all two readers! I'm off daydream about Halloween decorations, Halloween food, Halloween clothes, Halloween music, Halloween movies, Halloween TV shows, Halloween toys, and... Oh yeah, Halloween! I'm gone!

Halloween Haunting

I found these zombie Don Featherstone flamingos at Goodwill, and they were 1/2 off!

Last time I wrote, I was in the  midst of a home invasion. They seem to happen at least every couple of months and are the worst reminder that this is not home, but simply a place where I'm allowed to stay in exchange for a lot of money. During that invasion, people from Excel Energy- not even the apartment employees- came into the apartment to change ALL the lightbulbs and change the shower head. Lightbulbs that we paid for, they took and replaced with their own lightbulbs. I had already changed most of the bulbs to energy efficient bulbs because WE PAY THE ELECTRIC BILL. It should truly be none of the landlord's business if we have energy efficient bulbs as we pay the entire bill. I had no idea they were going to go into every room, including the bedroom. I feel really violated that they not only invaded my personal space, but took bulbs we paid good money for without my permission. They also replaced a shower head that was already replaced a couple of years ago with an identical shower head. Super pointless. I'm sure I've mentioned this approximately 6 billion times, but I really hate this place so hard. 

It is the middle of summer, so what better time to ask everyone to take every single thing off their balconies so that they can stain them?! I have a ton of plants and have made the most of our outdoor living space and really didn't appreciate having to take a huge chunk of time out of two days to take everything down and then put it back. I was really sick when this happened, too, so the added required physical activity was most unappreciated. 

Due to the emotional toll these types of situations take on me, I retreat into isolation. I've been out of the loop for quite a while. During that time I've been mostly Halloween Haunting online. We finally made it out to a couple of Michael's that actually have some Halloween in store and made our first (mini) Halloween haul of 2016! They have really cool stuff this year, but $14 and $30 seems to be the magic number, so coupons are required. They had 50% off one regular priced item on Saturday only and luckily they didn't have the Halloween on sale yet. BJ and I made separate transactions so we could each use a coupon. We got a metal tea light holder haunted house and a faux mercury glass skull. I found a couple scrapbooking embellishment packs on clearance, too. Not anything mind blowing, but I'm happy that the greatest time of year has finally started!

We haven't really been hunting for junk too much lately, except for Thrifty Thursdays. I do have stuff that I haven't shared, but for the most part it's just smalls for the shop. We went to visit my mom a couple weekends ago and found a bunch of great stuff. I picked up a little plastic witch and an old trick or treat bag from Holiday. It's always a good day when I get to add to my vintage Halloween collection! 

I found the little devils and the Glasbake Lipton mug at the first antique store we visited. I'm thinking really hard on how to recreate their pitchforks and tails. Our usual haunt in that area is where I found the Halloween and the Holt Howard Santa shakers. The last time I saw this style of shaker at that same store, I left them behind and they sold right away, so I never had the chance to own them again. I had to decided between other Halloween and these, but decided on these since all the Halloween I've been visiting has been there for years. I picked up one bubble gum 024 and the Kim Chee at our shop. Had I known that I would find the same 024 for half the price at this antique store, I would not have purchased it, but its hard to leave behind pink when it is reasonably priced! My favorite lady at our shop saved the delphite 401 aside just for me, so I will treasure that always. She also had a bakelite 13 ball which I thought was so perfect for Halloween! I picked up the HH mini Santa mugs from our shop, too, because they are flawless and I'm obsessed.

The last stop on our junking adventure with my mom yielded me a box full of 4 strands of glass garland with a surprise spun head and a really swinging vintage bar! I don't have an awesome picture of the bar because I just suck at thinking of that in the moment. It is staying at my mom's house until we have space for it... in a house. It came in two mismatched pieces, but was dirt cheap and I just couldn't leave it behind! The top has a record player, 8 track player, and shelving for barware with striped red velvet. It reminds me of a mod illustration of a party where everyone has a martini in their hands. The bottom has speakers and a "fireplace" that has one of those stacks of half logs and a light with a spinning metal pinwheel to simulate flames. I love those things and have passed on a couple of them because I had no idea what I'd do with it, but now I've got the whole setup!

Another notable find from that trip is this Lefton bluebird sugar and creamer set. The sugar is missing it's head, but I got it for a grand total of $1! I am debating if I need to start yet another collection, or if I should declutter and let them go. I've been leaning more towards decluttering lately. 

This pail came from a garage/estate sale a while back. I had been watching an eBay listing of this same jack. This one was $1, so it was a huge win to find it in real life! The title of this post may be a little misleading as there is so much Christmas in it, sorry. 

Part of my online Halloween Haunting has included some clothing and accessories. I picked up this monster brooch from Friend Prices. It is really excellent and I am crossing my fingers that I can get one of his creature cuties when he does another release! This is not sponsored, I just really love this brooch. He included a great thank you card and a creature button. For clothing, check out Sourpuss Clothing. They have some great Halloween print dresses that they just released that will make your Halloween heart flutter.

I'll leave you with a shot of my pumpkins on a stick that are happily flourishing in my garden! I'm off to try to get some stuff crossed off my to-do list.