A Very Harry Halloween

I belong to my neighborhood Bunco group, which meets once a month (it's a dice game I can't explain quickly, so google it if you are curious)  We all take turns hosting at each other's houses, and I regularly sign up to host October so that I have an excuse to decorate my house for Halloween.  This year, while browsing Pinterest for Halloween ideas, I came across an entrance to Platform 9 3/4 that I thought looked cool, and from there my mind took a flying leap down the rabbit hole of Harry Potter Decorating Ideas.
(I'm fortunate that my co-host doesn't seem to mind my enthusiasm for themes!)
For much of the theme, I was able to draw from our existing inventory of Halloween decorations, it was simply a matter of grouping and organizing.  I had a few projects that were planned and then changed, a couple ideas that came up during the project shopping, and a couple ideas that were scrapped.
So, without further ado... here are the photos from my Very Harry Halloween!

The evening begins with the entrance through Platform 9 3/4.  I was originally going to sew a curtain and paint it to look like brick, then I discovered this photography backdrop for only $18.00 (less than what I would have paid for the fabric paint)  I purchased the platform decal on online as well, and set it up on my photo backdrop stand.  (alternatively, I've seen people mount this in their doorway with a shower curtain rod)  The backdrop is vinyl, so I was able to cut up the center without any fraying of the edges.  Bonus - no wind on Bunco night, so it hung straight!

Professor Trelawney, at your service!  My costume was fairly simple - top and skirt bought online, I removed the last layer of the skirt (which was - of course- too long) and used that as the orange headband, and I wore several long silver necklaces, my own glasses (which happen to be the correct color) and comfortable shoes. 

Bonus points for the person who can spot the other fandom in the costume.

The crystal ball is actually used for photography, I did purchase it for the costume and will be using it on future photography outings

The front hall contains the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets and various HP critters

Nagini presides over the Chamber entrance

Looking over the edge of the chamber, it is a long way down.

D made this bottomless pit back in 2009 or so, as soon as I started thinking about a Harry Potter theme, I realized this can be the Chamber entrance.  I just wish I could have fit it inside the bathroom!

A few editions of the Daily Prophet and some wanted posters

Spiders flee from the monster which resides in the Chamber

A niffler is ready and waiting for the bunco money

If you have any letters to send, the owls in the owlery are ready to oblige.

Just off the front hall is the girl's bathroom... (simple window pen from the party store)

Moaning Myrtle is a new addition this year, I printed her onto a transparency and put her up using double stick tape

The family room is transformed into Snape's dungeon classroom

Detail of the mantel show the potions and ingredients (I printed the labels and bought a series of tiny bottles from the craft store)

Two of Harry's books (Quidditch through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts) are among the texts on the shelf (I already had these)  I did add embossing powder to the floo powder jar after I took this photo

Neville's toad, Trevor, sits beside a bubbling cauldron.

(the potion was created with a rotating pumpkin light and clear cellophane)

The dining room is Aragog's hollow. Done with spider webbing and large spiders which I already had in inventory

The lights in the jars are Fairy lights, similar to what Bill and Fleur had at their wedding.  I originally wanted the jars to have moss in them, however the moss was either too see through or too opaque, so I went back to fluffy clouds.

Aragog sits atop the bar

The living room showcases the candles that you would see in the Great Hall, and Hagrid's fire, where his dragon egg is getting ready to hatch

The "scales" wouldn't stick to the styrofoam dragon egg, so I had to cover it with silver tissue paper first, then roll it in the scales.  The fire is done in layers... underneath the wood is a rotating orange pumpkin light, the flames are tissue paper glued to an upside down clear plastic cup, each one sits over a flameless tealight candle. 

Bats taking off for the Forbidden Forest (not specifically part of the books, but I have them and put them up every year)

Crows hanging around Hagrid's pumpkins (I already had all of these decorations)

On the way to the kitchen you pass the closet under the stairs, where Harry's acceptance letter has been stuck to the door.  Inside the envelope is a print out of the letter.

Dinner is served in the Three Broomsticks (I know the brooms don't match the books, but I like the lights.  I made the sign by printing the label, aging the edges, the mod-podge it onto the wooden plaque)

Liquid Luck!

Refreshing Gilly Water

Harry's Patronus hangs over the head table (this was a last-minute addition to the decor, it is actually found in the Christmas section of the store.  I painted it silver.  By the way, see what I did there?  Head table?  Hahahahahaha)

The score sheets are printed on the 4 house colors, this is how players were sorted into their houses. (in hindsight, it was difficult to see the pencil on the darker sheets - if I did it again I'd put the house emblems across the tops of the sheets and print them on white paper)

Scabbers has been seen skulking around the grounds (A new purchase this year, just a common Halloween rat, I cut off the right index toe)

I couldn't resist this one.

Once the games began, I forgot to photograph the snacks we set out on the tables... I made little signs for them, pretzels were "magic wands", jelly bellies were "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans", Ferrero Rocher chocolates were "Edible Snitches" and mixed nuts were "Dragon Roasted Nuts"

The projects I didn't complete:

Turning the bird cage into a dementor - our bird cage sat in the corner of the living room with it's regular black cover over it.  I thought I could add a dementor head to the top, but I couldn't get the dementor to look right before game night.

Monster book of Monsters : I've seen DIY's about making one and they look SO FUN, but I just didn't have the time to do it correctly before game night.  I could still make it before Halloween though...

Falling into Fall

The weather has finally turned to normal Fall... chilly, dewy mornings, sometimes warm sunshine in the afternoons, and even some real rain here and there.  My brain is in full Fall mode, which means while I'm working on Fall items I'm looking ahead to Christmas projects - gathering ideas and supplies.  

My Super Secret Ornament project for D has been revealed to him, but now he wants me to make a bunch more for his friends, so I'm keeping the project offline until the whole thing is done and shipped out.  I'm happy to report, though, that his reaction was a literal jaw-drop (followed quickly by "how many more of these could you make?")

While at an outing to the State Fair, we came across a calligraphy demonstration.  I noticed the artist used a giant playing card to keep the oils from her hands off the surface of her paper, and also so that her hand would glide while writing.  I thought it was brilliant, so I took a picture to remember this trick for future drawing projects.

Halloween Decorations.  It may feel early, but I host a Halloween themed function in the first week of October, so Halloween is now a season in our house.  These are a few of the decorations, as I haven't taken photos of all of them yet.

Shelob - this year she is in full view of the front door so that trick-or-treaters can get a good look at her.

Aragog - the crate that my mystery gift arrive in is perfect for this one.

Guest Bathroom Infestation - Uhu wall tack and a couple bags of bugs makes for a fun effect!

Halloween Costume Complete!

I managed to make use of a good portion of my fabric stash.  I'd originally thought the wings would be more hodge-podge, but I had so much of the light and feathered fabrics that I had enough to make nice even rows.  I used my peaking sheers to cut the feathers and left them rough edged for a feathery effect.  The construction was much like a quilt... lay out the feathers on the base cape, determine the order, pick up the feathers and make small piles of each row... start with the bottom row and pin, stitch down the top of the feathers.... repeat until all the rows are down.  I did a loose hand stitch to attach the wings to the shirt (so that I can remove it later without damage to the shirt) and I tacked a few feathers around the neck of my shirt (which did not show in these photos, but perhaps I'll get a better shot on Halloween)  The beak is just felt, cut to the shape of my nose, and I used a glue dot to stick it to the bridge of my glasses.  I pinned my hair up in tufts - my goal was Great Horned Owl.  

Next up on my sewing table... a homecoming dress for G (which I'm not allowed to show until the night of Homecoming), then her Halloween costume, then I'm full on into Christmas gifts.  

On photography... I took an afternoon last week to shoot a couple rolls of color pinhole film at a wildlife refuge.  We hit it at high tide, which made for some fun reflections of gnarled tree trunks surrounded by water.  This weekend I have an outing to capture fall foliage with my pinhole group - I hope to roll some 620 spools so I can shoot with my Six-20, but my primary goal is the Graflex Pinhole to get enough shots for an entirely Pinhole calendar.  I'll get all that film back October 20th, which is also a day off, so with any luck I'll be happily scanning away that afternoon and evening.

With that... it's off to the sewing table!

Waskely Wabbit Holes

When I find myself distracted by a single thought that turns into an lengthy adventure (be it virtual, or in real life) I call it running down a rabbit hole.  In spite of our return to a regulated school schedule (or perhaps because of?) I found myself meandering down more than one rabbit hole in the past few weeks.

Project updates:

I have not taken as many notes as I thought I would on my garden this year, but I have drawn the general conclusion that I should stick with small variety tomatoes, and summer squash, and call it good.  I would rather have enough vegetables ripe at once to make a meal than one tomato, a tiny squash, and the beginning nubs of an eggplant.

Plus, if I stick to the basics of two plants, I have more space to try varieties and still have enough standards.  This is an indigo apple tomato, the vine only produced a few, but they were quite colorful to grow.

Rabbit Hole 1:  Missing Scissors

Having realized that there are situations where I could really use a project in my hands to make use of the time I'm spending when I'm somewhere I would rather not be, or someplace with a lot of waiting time on my hands... I decided to pull out a few ornament embroidery projects.  What should have been a quick 5 minute grab-and-pack turned into an hours long (not all at once, but stretched over a few days) search, because although I had two pair of embroidery scissors in my large tote, I wanted my blue handled embroidery scissors to carry in my purse with my portable projects.  I *just* reorganized my craft room last year, and it was really frustrating me to have "misplaced" my favorite and oldest embroidery scissors.  It was when I realized that my entire mini-sewing kit was missing that I had my breakthrough... clearly I left the mini sewing kit - with the scissors - with a recent project.

Another half an hour of searching finally revealed the sewing kit in my Zentangle drawer, which didn't make sense until I remembered that I had been embroidering Zentangle patterns on towels two years ago, and I packed the project in the tangle drawer instead of the sewing area.

Rabbit Hole #2:

G very innocently said to me one night "Hey mom, do you have that video of my first dance recital?"

It only took me about 10 minutes to find the low-quality versions of the videos backed up on my old external hard drive, then another 10 minutes to find the DVD's of all the dance recitals, but that lead me to thinking about the original tapes.  I still have our old camcorder in the closet so that I can "someday" do a digital backup of our tapes.  I decided to look at the tapes in the camcorder case, that's when I realized they were not *in* the camcorder case.  (the memory I had of tapes in the case were of the blank tapes I used to keep with the camera when we used it for recording)    After searching all our movie storage areas I made myself a cup of tea and sat down, and thought... where did I used to keep the Hi8 tapes?  On the shelf with the CD's... we don't have the CD's out anymore because we use digital streaming for music... so the CD's are in those clear boxes in the attic... which is where the tapes were as well!  That portion of the rabbit hole was a relatively short journey...

...but then I spent some time researching how to transfer the tapes to my computer.  I took this photo of the camcorder plugs for a discussion with a friend, who was able to point me in the directly of an inexpensive video capture device, which I now own, and have tested, and it works.

Not that I have time to transfer my movies to digital at the moment, but at least I have the technology.  Hopefully I'll get around to getting this done before the technology changes again.

Rabbit Hole #3

Halloween Costume.  

I needed some brown fabric from my fabric stash, which lead to me realizing that my fat quarters and felt were split among too many boxes of fabric, and I had also held onto some baby flannel for more than 16 years without using it, and if I ever make another baby quilt I'm likely to buy fresh fabric anyway...

...so I spent some time over last weekend sorting and purging my fabric stash, and getting it down to the point where it fits in my existing boxes, with a little room to spare.

In between the rabbit holes, I pulled my big tote out and set back to work on my bird quilt.  My 4 bluebird squares are done, I'm now working on the intricate Bobwhites.

A teeny tiny preview of my Halloween costume.  I have made great progress on the design and most of the cutting was completed last night.  

I will do a full write up of the process with photos of the end result once it is complete.

Rabbit Hole #4

Film photography.

We are considering a vacation out of the country, which means I'll probably not want to pack my Graflex due to it's size and weight, which lead me to poke around online for a light weight medium format pinhole camera.  Holga used to make one, but as they are discontinued the cost of a new "collecters" item is outrageous.  I did notice online that some people made mods to convert regular Holgas to pinhole, and I have an extra Holga with a broken shutter, so I briefly considered that option... only to set it aside because that old Holga doesn't have a tripod thread.  So then I looked at my newer Holga to see if it had a tripod thread...

...which is when I discovered I loaded film in it about 5 years ago and haven't finished the roll.  So... another camera to toss in my bag for the next outing.

As to the lightweight pinhole option... I will likely bring the 35mm panoramic pinhole, and I'll see if the new 120 panoramic camera (which is currently in production) might be light enough to carry.  If it feels too heavy for international travel then I might look into the Diana pinhole, or something from the Schlaboratory.  

On film photography...

My E-6 came back slightly underexposed, but still totally usable.  I'm hoping to get another outing in this week that should give me more varied subjects to shoot at a leisurely pace.

Ebey's Landing, Velvia 50, Graflex Pinhole

Halloween Highlights and Holiday Hopes

I have become so used to racing around to meetings or events or for work errands that I'm currently sitting at my desk, checking and re-checking my calendar, wondering why it is I'm here and not out there somewhere.

Clearly I'm forgetting a meeting or an important mail run or something.

My calendar disagrees... aside from the regular Thursday reminders, my day is simply a generic work day.  (It says something when sitting with an accounting program in front of you feels like a relaxing day)

The big school fundraiser went over pretty well, aside from Mother Nature deciding to dump waterfalls on us during the only portion that was scheduled to be outside (and ONLY during the time we were supposed to be outside)  Our photo booth ran steady from our early start time right up until the end - people seemed to really like the way we set it up.  Here is G in her Vampire costume at school.

This was the first time I shot with my soft box attached to the flash - I'm happy with how nice and even the lighting ended up (far better than a generic flash-on-camera blast) though I still need to work out the best set-up for photographing wiggly kids, as I discovered that trailing curtain sync mode does *not* stop motion on kindergartners hopped up on sugar. 

This Halloween was our quietest yet.  Between the home improvement projects and the work I did for the fundraiser, it took a bit of juggling to find time to carve pumpkins.  I finally just shoved the paint brushes aside, put on "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and got to work.

I went with a LOTR theme myself (is that any surprise?)

The EYE is always watching!

The carving was actually not difficult, and it ended up being very relaxing (though it took longer than one Halloween special to finish it)  I used our wood block carving tools to outline the eye and the pupil, then just kept digging veins out, criss-crossing and making some deeper and more defined.  Next I took the plastic pumpkin scraping spoon and raked it across the "white" of the eye to pop off what was left of the pumpkin skin, leaving the bits in the center so that it would be darker once it was lit up.  I painted the pupil black with acrylic paint so that it would be absolutely black, then I scraped the inside of the pumpkin thinner to make it brighter when lit.  This year I lit them with strands of battery operated white lights stuffed into a glass jar (no fire hazard that way, and more evenly lit) but those lights didn't even last the whole night so I don't recommend it.

This was the first year G wanted to try full face make-up for Halloween.  Once she was all done I just had to set up the backdrop and get a good picture.

I *love* the effect of the mask.

I dressed as Meditrina, Roman Goddess of Wine... hence the wine glass.

I attempted to put my hair into ringlets the way I always see it done in movies, but it seems that 20 years of being away from a curling iron made my skills a little rusty.

My days are slowly winding down as the month goes on.  The school fundraiser and all subsequent meetings are now done.  The art contest at the school is nearly complete - just a couple more hours dedicated to that next week and I can mark that off my list.  My only ongoing obligation to the school is to be the art docent for G's class.  This will involve trainings here and there, and a once-a-month appearance in front of the kiddos where I'll have to talk out loud and sound like I know what I'm doing.  (On top of the public speaking issue, we are also starting out with a clay project as our first lesson of the year.  Ambitious, right? Perhaps stupidly ambitious?)

Next week is a big one for me - art lesson and family birthday dinner in the beginning of the week, turn in art contest entries in the middle of the week, host G's friend birthday party at the end of the week.

I am grateful for the 3 day weekend... perhaps with the extra non-work day I may be able to pull myself together for one more big hulabaloo before the holidays strike.

My weekend starts tonight with a trip to Glazer's for their closing ceremony of their Holga portrait contest.  I have a lot of competition, so while my fingers are crossed... in reality I'm just looking forward to mingling with other photographers and picking up my copy of "Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity"