Halloween parade

IT'S OBVIOUS everywhere this time of year, that Halloween has become the most celebrated holiday aside from Christmas. It hasn't been until the past few years that I've really gotten into the spirit of the holiday since my trick-or-treat years as a kid. When going out with a couple of friends, I dressed as— what else?—a spooky tree. Even though I cheated a bit and wore a cheesy web-bought costume, I did add more fake autumn leaves to it to dress it up. 

Dana and Devin have a moment.

LAST NIGHT, I realized that people—eschewing the commercial— are once again investing a lot of creative elbow grease into their Halloween costumes. It's great to see handmade and over-the-top inventiveness in designing costumes is making a big comeback. My friend Dana sewed her incredibly detailed blue gingham dress for her costume as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz—making it really work with incredible makeup and hair and glittery red flats. With white face and big overblown red lips, Devin dressed as one of the fashion show moments of the late "enfant terrible"Alexander McQueen. I also saw some other really brilliantly designed costumes such as a woman dressed as a framed Mona Lisa—as the live image in front of the frame, complete with the moody background image. There was also a group of new acquaintances dressed as the One Percent, who made their costumes from fake money and got into full character by filling their bags with said fake money and giving it to people on the street, tossing it into the air, and even burning stacks of it while smoking a cigar!

I'M GUESSING THAT next year, I will have to do the same with a costume instead of spending all my spare time on conceiving and designing trees for my blog. I've spent part of two weekends now celebrating the holiday with friends here in Atlanta. Last weekend, I attended the 11th Annual Little Five Points Halloween Festival & Parade. I haven't checked, but I'm not sure if another city that has a Halloween festival and parade. It has been an Atlanta tradition for eleven years now! Local Atlanta artist, Ronnie Land designed and illustrated the really fun and creepy logo for the parade this year, which you see here.

FUN AND CREEPY has always been my mantra for Halloween. The decorations I enjoy most have a definite macabre side, but are always fun and exuberantly creative. That was my goal when creating this "Skeleton Key Tree." So, of course, I emailed the well-known Halloween product illustrator and designer—Johanna Parker, and asked her what I could do with these amazing mercury glass skeleton head ornaments I found. Always in Halloween mode, I give her credit for giving me the idea of framing them and hanging skeleton keys from the branches. She didn't see the final results until this post. It was fun creating this tree and brainstorming with her about it. I searched high and low for the perfect craggy branch and retrieved it a while back in order to let it dry as it did. I even left some of the leaves on it to give it a creepier asymmetrical look.

EVEN IF YOU WAIT until the last minute—with a little advance planning, of course—your Halloween parade of costumes, decorations and decor can contribute to the fun and creepy spirit of All Hallows Eve. You're certain to encounter a parade of fun and creepy characters, whether receiving trick-or-treaters or going out on the town. Here's wishing you a happy, creepy and fun Halloween!

SPIRITED ELEGANCE | (Top two photos and above) This "skeleton key tree" makes use of a craggy branch with some of the dried leaves still intact, mercury glass skeleton head ornaments are from Z Gallerie. Handmade glittered frames were made from clip art glued and trimmed from matte board and the skeleton keys were found on eBay. The scene is set with a faux bois container for the tree, a faux pumpkin with calligraphy from Bayberry Cove and one with a cat silhouette and stars found at Ross. Bright green reindeer moss adds the finishing touch, along with the requisite container of Halloween candy to satisfy the spooks.

FRAMED HEADS | The image used to frame the mercury glass skeleton heads from Z Gallerie was printed from a piece of stock clip art, flipped in Photoshop on the opposite side to match up, then glued to matte board, trimmed with an Xacto knife and glued and glittered with glow-in-the-dark glitter from Martha Stewart Crafts. I thank Devin for helping me with those. Black grosgrain ribbon was tied around the tops of the frames for hanging. The skeleton keys found on eBay were simply hung from the branch with black cotton thread at varying lengths.

FLAMING FUN | These old-fashioned counter-weight wire candleholders by Bethany Lowe Designs added just the right mood. Of course they look great in the photo and can create the right mood in real life, but have to be carefully attended—especially on a dried branch—as with any live flame. The candle holders were purchased from Bayberry Cove.

PARADE OF CHARACTERS | Real pumpkins are painted with flat gray latex paint to look as if they are casted. The simple and inexpensive paper masks from Target were slipped onto the painted pumpkins making this family of last-minute apparitions come to life without any carving.

©2011 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

Halloween candy

TRICK-OR-TREAT  is the well-known mantra of ghouls and goblins that show up on your doorstep on Halloween night. The sometimes hostile supernatural forces and the ghosts and spirits of the dead are supposedly free to wander as they wish, as they walk on the thin line separating them on this scary night. Over the course of centuries, the present-day custom of trick-or-treating was born out of such superstition. Is it only that, or did our ancestors know something we've forgotten?

GIVING TREATS  to the tricksters, according to Halloween lore is said to appease the wandering spirits and keep them from doing dastardly deeds to your property (or flock, as it were). Wearing masks and other disguises are meant to confuse the spirits roaming amongst us.

AS A KID, I remember roaming around the neighborhood with a gaggle of friends, going unsupervised to neighbors homes (after a certain age) where we would find homemade fudge, popcorn balls and other treats carefully packaged in paper treat bags printed in black and orange. Of course the trickster tradition of papering (or rolling) someone's yard was great fun also (usually friends or teachers)! The freedom of these innocent times has been curtailed these days with more supervision since the trickster spirits seemed to have taken hold of the holiday. Maybe it's only because—more often than not—the treats aren't as carefully considered and made with love.

IT HAS BEEN  quite a trick to create the images of this post, but I had a lot of fun doing it, so I'm going to let them speak for themselves and not be as long-winded as usual. The large ornaments on the tree above were hand-cut and crafted in New England and sold in the online Stromboli's Wagon store on Ebay. Inspired by vintage imagery and beautifully finished in paint and glitter, it's obvious they were made with love and care. The Jack-O-Lantern metal bell ornaments are from Pier 1 Imports—in three sizes, they lend a great compositional depth in decorating this glittery tree cutout. It all sits atop a gothic-style wooden table.

SHE COULD very well be the Queen of Halloween — my always supportive and inspiring blog friend, folk artist Johanna Parker — created some wonderful Halloween hangers this year that I've added to my collection (from her commercially available collections, available here, here and here). I told her they might just become my holiday totems! In describing her thought process in making these spooky-fun creations, Johanna says "When designing these fun hangers, my intentions were to add a little more movement to my holiday product line. Typically, my Halloween characters are fashioned for the shelf, mantel or table top, so the thought occurred to me to add a little kinetics to the mix. Double-sided hangers came to mind and naturally all things that haunt us from the skies popped in my imagination. I absolutely love owls, bats truly fascinate me, and well, Mr. Moon is certainly a key player in setting the spooky mood!" Inspired by her collections of vintage holiday novelties, Johanna admits that her favorite subject matter is Halloween. And why not? Her birthday also falls on October 31st. Happy birthday Johanna!

AND SINCE cats are my favorite animal associated with Halloween (actually my favorite animal, period), I've created a simple cat tree this year. It seems that Halloween is rivaling Christmas in popularity everywhere. It's no mystery that according to History.com that one quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween. Let's hope that's enough to keep us safe from the evil trickster spirits for at least another year.

GOTHIC GLAM | (Top) This glittery tree stands in contrast to the blue backdrop painted with Martha Stewart Living paint in azurite from Home Depot. It is decorated with glittered vintage-inspired ornaments from Stromboli's Wagon and Jack-O-Lantern metal bell ornaments in three sizes from Pier 1 Imports. Altogether they form a vintage Halloween look. Since the bells ring, does that mean the spirits get their wings? 

GLITTERY RETRO | (Above, left) The handcrafted ornaments were hand-cut and crafted in New England and sold in the online Stromboli's Wagon store on Ebay. Inspired by vintage imagery and beautifully finished, it's obvious they were made with love and care. 

HALLOWEEN HANGERS | (Above, right) I couldn't resist these Halloween owl, moon and bat hangers designed by my blog friend Johanna Parker (left, in her Halloween finery). Oversized and double-sided painted papier-mâché ornaments of this size certainly set a spooky-fun scene for a tableau like this. I purchased these folk-art finds from blog friend Debbie Buchanan's online store at Bayberry Cove.

CATS IN HATS | (Bottom) These black cat ornaments in orange hats from Pier 1 Imports are a simple trick for this coated wire tree from IKEA. The multi-colored bumpy glass ornaments are from a past Martha Stewart Kmart collection. The cat/costumed folk-art figures were lent from a friend's private collection, all placed atop a sparkly beaded spider placemat from this year's Halloween collection from Target. 

©2010 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

photography, collecting and styling by Darryl Moland