Rag Pets

Horrifying Halloween!

I thought I'd share one of my favourite scary movies to chill your bones and raise your hairs on this fearsome night, Freaks:

Filmed in 1932, this creepy little movie features actual, famous sideshow freaks such as siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, Prince Randian the human torso and Koo Koo the bird girl. Freaks is a story about betrayal and revenge and taking care of your friends, and it's all set in the weird and wonderful world of a sideshow circus.
I have a big soft spot for circus freaks and sideshow acts, so "Freaks" is one of my favourite scary movies, even though it's not really very scary, but more, umh, creepy and a little bit disturbing.
I'm also partial to the Nightmare on Elmstreet series, and Ghostbusters, even though the latter is more funny than scary. Oh, and the Evil Dead series is brilliant too, and I like vampire and ghost movies loads as well. For me, scary movies are a great way to celebrate Halloween. :)

And of course, every good movie deserves popcorn, so here's a recipe a friend of mine shared for yummy caramel corn:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Caramel-Popcorn/Detail.aspx

I hope you are all having a horribly wonderful Halloween! :)

(Vintage Halloween postcard from Rhiannon Macbeth's wonderful collection of ephemera.)

Lights, camera, photos!

Despite yesterday being yet another bleak, cloudy day, I managed to squeeze taking photos of my Luv-able + Hug-able quintet in between gaps in the clouds. BooBoo, my photographic assistant, helped me with setting up the photo shoot and she kept me company as I bemoaned the lack of light. PhotoShop helped heaps too, since I had to use a mix of natural light and indoor light, the lighting was a little off and the pictures required a bit of tweaking to get the whites white again.
I did my best to make do with what meager daylight we got and I lit all the lamps I could, but I could have still done with more light. So, I was wondering if any of you have any tips on how to cope with darkening days and lack of light when taking photos?

Speaking of light, we finally got ceiling lights for our living room yesterday! It was about time too; we've been living here for three years and only now got around to getting lamps and having them hung. I know that lamps are a small, rather silly thing to be happy about, but I'm still super happy to have them. :)

The autumn "blahs"

I've got the "blahs", which are like the blues, but less sad and more just a simple lack of enthusiasm and energy. The blahs cause a lot of moping about wearing your PJs all day long, wanting to snuggle under a blanket and cravings for chocolate. I know it's all down the dwindling light and the seemingly constant drizzle that makes everything drab and wet. This season just doesn't agree with me, even if I do love the beauty of "ruska" (there isn't an english word for this, it means the the colourful time when the leaves turn) which has been especially splendid this year, getting to wear a lot of layers and drinking lots of hot coco.

I've finished my pieces for Luv-able & Hug-able, but I'm having a hard time taking photos of them, since there's precious little light now with the days getting shorter and shorter, and the dreary weather doesn't help one bit either. I don't think I've seen the sun make even a brief appearance these past few days.
I had a rather unsuccessful photo shoot today, which admittedly didn't do much to improve my already blah mood. I hope to have better luck getting pictures of my snowy quintet tomorrow. I really enjoyed making these five plushies; I decided to do something a little different and I'm happy with how it all turned out and I'm eager to get to show them off now!

Things to come

For some reason I thought I'd already mentioned this in my previous entry, but it would seem that the flu (which is still bothering me) addled my brain and I didn't. So, I'm happy to now tell you that I'll be exhibiting in the Luv-able & Hug-able show at Gallery Hanahou in New York this winter! The theme this year is "Medium and Mini", with works ranging in size from plushies perfect for hugging to teeny tiny little plushies. The show will open on the 3rd of December and it will run until January 9th, so if you happen to be in New York during that time, please go visit the gallery!

Here's a little sneak peek at what I'll be making for the show:

I'm super excited to be a part of this, knowing that my plushies will be on show in one of my most favourite cities and in awesome company too! Among the artists exhibting this year is one of my most favourite plush-artists, Christina Gordon of Jamfancy. I've been a great big fan of her work for ages, so it's very cool to have my plushies rubbing shoulders with hers, as it were. :)