Halloween mini albums frenzy

When one of my friends asked if I was going to post Halloween mini albums for sale on Etsy, I hadn't thought about it since I'm caught up in the baby girl mode waiting for my second granddaughter to arrive.  But Halloween is my favorite time of year so thanks to Elizabeth I went into my usual obsessive mode of creating and made four books in less than a week.  I love to see a variety of styles and colors, was always that way with weaving scarves and shawls, making beeswax collage etc.
But this had to beat them all in productivity.  And I only spent $3.59 cents.  I already had enough supplies form collecting Halloween items for years in my stash. 
I was very fortunate and kind of went into the zone watching British TV shows, favorite movies (Firefly, "9", The Englishmen Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain) and cluttered up my living room with scrappy goodies until one could not sit or walk, except for my narrow place on the couch. 

Since I've been making these for a few years now, I have a system of  steps.  First I apply all the background pages to chipboard or cereal box cardboard, often cut with Tim Holtz edge dies. Then I add photo mats, next come the embellishments, then the words and scripts. Ribbons and bling with jewel spots are next followed by rubber stamping, flowers, metal pieces, Tim Holtz additions.  I love using  embossing cards (Bingo and Spirals), die cuts, Perfect Pearls  and other accent techniques. The last thing I do is make the tags.  It's like dessert after a large dinner of baked potato, veggies and yummy steak!

Of course I love using all my favorite designers, including 7 Gypsies, K and Company, Graphic 45, Reflections.  But even more fun was looking through my vintage pieces.  I've been collecting these for years and I love adding them to my distressed look.  I'm not a cutesy kind of gal.  As a goth from way back, a VOG (very old goth) I  like an edge to my work and even though these are meant as children's albums, I hope they have enough dark touches to appeal to all those moms out there who really get into Halloween.  I also like to add the New England flavor.  We're known for our dark sides what with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and authors like Nathanial Hawthorne and the nearby town of Salem, Mass., the witch capital of the U.S.  We were brought up on the macabre even in school and ghost stories and witches tales were common folklore. 

Back to work on "Interference Equation - Fireworks" today. Listening to a switch off of Din of Thieves and IAMX. I need to read more Fissure submissions, but Monday's are my days for my writing. I do need to go fill out more job applications, but may do that tomorrow. Procrastinating isn't my usual way of operation, but I don't want to look like a drowned rat.
High Time I stepped off the ego train and went back into the world of my confused and bizarre, but spiritual, quantum physicist, Sean O'Connor, as he stumbles through his erratic life in Greenville, SC. He looks a lot like the man in my painting, "The Philosopher," except he has black hair. Haven't painted any other of the characters but need to.
Spending a weekend with my granddaughter, doing fun real world little girl things, brought me back down to earth. I kind of slid up into a freakish bubble after the art show and poetry readings. so time to get grounded in my little world that I know the best, where Carl Jung and John Fowles whisper warnings, tests or answers, and I struggle to make a little bit of sense of it all in my cozy nest.
Of course, Halloween month is our favorite month and as Kendall says, we get to play with all of our October friends, who are: ghosts, witches, black cats, skeletons, gargoyles, vampires pumpkin-headed creatures and werewolves. Most of them are now living on our porch advising on which October movies to watch which night. We watched Corpse Bride, Saturday and I'll also have to work in Bram Stoker's Dracula, Frankenstein, Mirromask, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Crow, and other faves within the next few weeks. Some of those are not for Kendall, but I mustn't forget my roots either.
Books will be Coraline by chapters, Wolves in the Walls, and the Graveyard Book which I've been saving for her (and for myself to savor) for this month.