Halloween: the pre-fun.

As most of you must know, 31 October 2013 it was that time of year again: Halloween. Although it's not formally celebrated here in the Netherlands, we'd like to dress up the house and the garden. Albert's parents lived in America for a few years, his mother fell in love with Halloween en thus she brought it here. :-) For us it's THE moment of the year to horrify the garden and house. Because it involves quite some work, we start getting our stuff out of the attic at the beginning of October. The pumpkin in front of our window tells the neighbourhood it's spooky time again. :-D

Previous years we've been using our uncovered garden and drive for our Halloween decorations. Last year we used a white party tent to put our horror scene in, but we decided it should it different this year. Because a white party tent on your drive doesn't exactly set the right mood, we decided to use our garden house. That would be a lot more fitting for this year's theme: Dracula. You be the judge: is a party tent the right place for a vampire cave? :-) Well, we didn't think so. Besides, everything is better protected from the weather (which was really needed with all the wind and rain we had) and it's easy to lock up. Slowly but surely the garden house became a vampire cave.

With a cosy vampire lodging as a result: 

Until the day of Halloween itself details are adjusted. The thing we wait a little longer with is the carving of the pumpkins. They go bad so quickly after carving. Unfortunately we haven't found a way to preserve the carved pumpkins, so if you have any ideas, let us know. Albert always carves the pumpkins: 

this year assisted by our friend Femke, who you can see below with her first carved pumpkin ever: 

They have the patience that Marga lacks. But everyone has their talents and Marga's talent is making pumpkin soup: 

For this soup, the flesh that is scooped out of the pumpkins is used. It's a waste to throw it away. Last year was the first year we handed out pumpkin soup to the interested people who came to see our creations on Halloween. That went really well because the soup was all done quickly, so for this year we made 18 liters just in case. :-D  

Of course the house was Halloweened too:

That thing that will stay a while longer is Spooky Town because we also use that as our Christmas village. We can enjoy it for 3 months. :-)

Our next blog will be about Halloween itself.

True horror bears, not for the faint-hearted!

Every once in a while you google the words 'horror bears' and you stumble upon something unique and horrific: QuiET RoOM BeARs. These mutilated spawn of the mentally insane give you chills all over and aren't exactly huggable, yet they are too fascinating not to want one. They are truly horror bears! 

Behind the bears, there's this legend (which is a quote from the Etsy store of their spiritual father, Lee Howard):

"Somewhere out there, in an unknown location, there exists a mental institution that has long since been shut down, but while fully operational, was a place where nightmares were born. When the patients would get 'out of sorts' they were placed into the Quiet Room. Nobody knows exactly what happens in that room, but when (or IF) the patients come out, they come out with a missing body parts (hair, teeth, fingers), and less of a soul. With them comes a new Quiet Room Bear. Some think it's the room itself that instructs the designs of these small nightmares, but nobody is certain. Each 'session' in the Quiet Room produces a new bear."

All of the bears are one of a kind, so you always have a unique bear. The best part is that the artist takes special requests and some people have even sent him items to put into the bear. This way you can statisfy your own twisted mind. So if you really want a genuine horror bear, forget Teddy Scares and have a look into the QuiET RoOM if you dare! If you're interested in seeing more of these bears, look at the Facebook page (they have great giveaways!) or the Etsy shop and find them on Twitter. You can also find an interview with Lee Howard here.