In honour of the upcoming festive holiday season, I thought I would present some past photos and share a couple of scary stories. Oh, did you think I was going to blog about Christmas? Hmm!
Halloween is such a fun time of year. JT and I usually have a pumpkin carving contest, we decorate the exterior of the house, even have a scary music loop on the night we hand out candy to the neighbourhood kiddies.
Some years it’s been so lovely and warm that we sit on our Muskoka Chairs on our front porch, sipping martinis as the little ghouls and goblins muster up the courage to step up to the porch and beg for candy; other years, like last, it’s been bitterly cold so we sipped martinis inside in front of the fire, being jolted up every few minutes with the doorbell and screams of “trick or treat!” I have a feeling that this year will be colder than ever, and possibly even snow. When it is cold I feel bad for the kiddies to have to wear their winter coats over their carefully designed costumes, yup I’ve been there!
Some of you will know that I am usually not a scary or ugly costume person at Halloween; even as a child, I was always ‘a pretty lady!’ Mom would make up my face, put fake nails and lashes on, and I would dress up with heels and hats! I’ve always left the scary, weird costumes to my younger brother (Flap Jack’s dad). A couple of years ago we were invited to a Halloween party at one of the photographers we know through my work, they really put on a wonderful first class bash in their studio. I just knew a ‘pretty lady’ wouldn’t cut it, plus JT and I wanted to go as a team. After incredible amount of research we finally landed on Bonnie and Clyde. We rented the old movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway and decided right away that we would model our Bonnie and Clyde after the characters in that movie. We scoured the thrift stores for our costumes which we made from scratch (no packaged costumes for us). We put together a very convincing couple, down to the (fake) cigarettes they chain smoked. It was about a week before the party and I’m talking to my friend (boss) Kim about the party and just had to tell her what we had planned. She suggested we go as ‘dead’ Bonnie and Clyde just to get into the Halloween spirit. Hmmmm, dead doesn’t look pretty! But JT loved the idea, so we did it. Bullet holes, makeup, drippy blood. Yup, we were ‘dead’! Soooo cool! I loved it! I can’t believe I missed out on the gore all these years. No one even needed to ask who we were, everyone knew!
Do you have a scary story you would like to share?
OK, now the scary story:
At Univerisity I befriended the school photographer, Ken who was a few years older than I. A group of us hung out. Around our third year, Ken’s parents bought a cottage. Shortly after Ken and his bud Pete went up to the cottage for the weekend. Ken was also an artistic photographer, so he was always taking the artsy shots. Ken brought a silver manican up that weekend to photograph in the light of the moon. It was one of those solid manicans that couldn’t move or turn its head etc. He and Pete were in the forest, while Pete was throwing a white cloth up in the air above the silver manican, Ken was catching the cloth and the subject in a shot! All of a sudden, they both saw the manican turn its head! But it couldn’t! What? Did you see that? It happened a couple of times, enough that these two grown men decided they’d had enough! They bedded down in one if the guest rooms with bunk beds, but they couldn’t sleep. The thought of the manican turning its head kept coming up. For some reason, Ken decided they need to name this silver manican.
These are two very suburban boys, both of English decent; after much debate, they decided to name the silver manican Ghertie! A nice German name.
It wasn’t until about a week later, they were told the previous owner of the cottage was named Ghertie and she actually died that very night they were photographing the manican in the forest!!! This story still gives me the creeps!
I spotted this recipe on Angie’s Recipes blog and I knew I had to make it for Kim (friend, boss) who is throwing a Halloween party on Sunday for her 10 year old daughter. I won’t repeat the recipe, so click here for the link. I’m not sure if my altitude is different than Angie’s but I would add a bit more flour and bake at a slightly higher temperature next time.
Oh my – if I had a mannequin turning it’s head at me in the middle of a forest my “fight or flight” would be kicking in – I’d either hightail it outta there or smack the ever living daylights out of the thing with my tripod – probably the former 😀 Those “finger” biscuits Eva… I’m sorry – they might well be the most delicious things in the world but there’s no way I could bring myself to eat them. The whole “fingernail” almond bit… it’s just too…. real… ewww 😀
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The kids loved them, Charles! Did you see Lorraine’s not quite nigella ribs and intestines… Really gross!
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Great costumes! Really fantastic! The story is very chilling….I can’t imagine!
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Thanks Ann. The costumes were great fun to make!
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Loved the Ghertie story and have had similar ‘coincidences’ in my life – we spent an evening pondering a name for our new puppy. We came up with hundreds of names but nothing seemed right. I suggested we all sleep on it. In the morning, I woke up and told my husband immediately that the name of our new dog was “Stella” (I had dreamt it in the night) – it was a name that I had no prior connection to and had not been mentioned the night before during our brainstorming session. When I walked into my son’s room that same morning to share my dream, he pulled out a piece of paper from his desk where he wrote down the name that came to him in the night. There on the paper read “Stella.”
(love your costumes and creativity!!)
(your scary fingers turned out AMAZING)
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Wow, Kelly-that is some story. It’s strange how things come about.
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Wow those fingers look unsettling really and the pumpkins rock! Kudos to the costumes as well. 😉
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Thanks Jed. Unsettling, check out Lorraine at Not Quite Nigella, she did a wonderful rendition of a skeleton using beef ribs and link sausages for the intestines…unbelievable realistic!
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Gosh..what a scary coincidence! Those fingers are so spooky!
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Thanks for the idea and recipe Angie. Mine didn’t turn out as good as your’s but they sure taste good. I hope my friend Kim doesn’t gobble them up before the party on Sunday!
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Oh what a fabulous story! I’m with John though, there’s no way I would have gone back to the bunk beds, I’d be outta there! I LOVE your costume! That’s one of my favorite movies. What a great idea! And I have a feeling Miss A will tend toward the “pretty lady” Halloween costumes. She already adores shoes and make-up. LOL. Oh – and those fingers – fabulous! Scariest Halloween recipe I’ve seen so far. 🙂
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Thanks Kristy. My mom had an amazing tickle trunk with fabulous clothes from the 50’s and 60’s so I had a field day! Good luck with Miss A and her love of shoes…mine started when I was a pre-teen!
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Great wardrobe selection for Bonnie & Clyde. What fun! As for Ghertie, maybe she was just passing through and wanted to have a little fun with the boys. One thing’s for sure, I would have put as much mileage between me and that forest as soon as possible. Forget about going back to the room with the bunk beds.
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Me too John! That story is over 25 years old and it still gives me the creeps! Even as I was typing it, I kept startling at every creek and groan of our old house!
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That story is unbelievable. I bet they never went back there ever again. And the fingers – what an original idea. They look terrific.
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Thanks Charlie Louie, the guys were guys, so they did indeed go back, but had no other ‘experiences’. The fingers are attributed to Angie of Angie’s Recipes. Although I do have a bit of creative in my bones, sadly I would never have thought of these ‘finger cookies’ particularly the ‘blood’ and the ‘nails’!
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eeek, more proof that you need to steer clear of photographers. Love the fingers!
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Thanks Greg. That made me smile! Sadly, in my line of work, it is quite impossible to stay clear of photographers…perhaps it’s just the artsy fartsy kind that we must avoid 🙂
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