Today, we celebrate pastel Halloween with illustrator and artist Nikury, who hails from Finland. Nikury enjoys drawing nature, animals, and witchy stuff. Her kitten magick line features cutesy kitten familiar merch, perfect for witches and anyone looking for cute or unconventional Halloween products.
The honest truth is, I almost skipped celebrations this year. It’s hard to find something to smile about with the all world turmoil, pandemic fears, and sadness over the loss of lives taken by Covid-19, but what else is perseverance for, if not to stand up to fear and death by finding the things that make us happy and living our best lives?
People keep saying ‘I cant wait for Fall’ but no one knows what the rest the year, much less October, has in store for us. So, let’s channel our energy into making our realities good, right now.
If nothing else, it’s a helpful distraction.🎃
♦♦♦♦♦
SCHEDULED FESTIVITIES THIS WEEK:
MONDAY
Halloween Haiku Contest Contest ends at 12 Midnight Pacific on Thursday, April 30th.
(Please note: there might be delivery delays due to Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. I’ll do my best to get the prize to the winner in a timely fashion.) Please click here for contest rules/disclaimer stuff.
Add your own original Halloween haiku in the comment section of said photo
Tag at least 3 friends who love Halloween or Haiku, using the following #HalloweenHaikuContest2
That’s it!
The winning haiku based on originality, spookiness, and best invokes the spirit of Halloween.
Winner will be announced sometime after 12noon PT on Friday, May 1st
♦♦♦♦♦
TUESDAY
Halloween Haiku Zoom Watch Party
This will be my first time holding a Zoom party. It should either be fun or a total disaster, entertaining either way!
Grab your favorite cocktail, snacks, and come hang on Zoom to celebrate two years of Halloween Haiku, while we watch Night of the Living Dead, dir. By George A. Romero, 1968.
I’m going to try and share my screen with the movie playing. You’re free to stream the movie on your own, via whatever platform you choose and just follow along in the chat. Night of the Living Dead is public domain and can be found here, or on other streaming services.
Link to Zoom room will be posted on Tuesday, April 28th. Please check back here or on Instagram.
The movie starts at 7pm PT/9pm CT/10pm ET
♦♦♦♦♦
WEDNESDAY
Pastel Halloween
Celebrate Wicked Art Wednesday by posting your favorite pastel Halloween images, in honor of springtime. You might not think pastel and Halloween fit together, but it does, I swear!
♦♦♦♦♦
THURSDAY
Happy Walpurgisnacht!
Calling all witches! Come celebrate the halfway point to Halloween on Instagram and Twitter.
♦♦♦♦♦
FRIDAY
Spooky Spring Photo Challenge
25 days of gothic spring, pastel pumpkins, and flower-covered tombstones. Post on Instagram or Twitter, using #Spookyspringphotochallenge
Photo challenge clues will be posted the night be posted night before.
♦♦♦♦♦
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining my blog and sharing in the joy and love for Halloween.🎃🎃🎃
Dead. I’m mostly dead inside, besides a few Frankensteinian moments, brought on either by self-preservation or energy drinks, I’m not sure yet. Point is, the Covid-19 pandemic has made blogging kinda tough lately. When I realized I missed the deadline to post Recipe of the Month on its scheduled day, I knew I needed to post pronto, with a fitting tribute. So, where do you put dead things? In a graveyard, of course! Just so happens, I really love the idea of being buried inside Half Baked Harvest‘s Deathly Chocolate Graveyard Cakes. Everyone is dying for a good chocolate recipe these days. and this is the one.
Now, if you excuse me, I need to go rewrite my will, again.
Deathly Chocolate Graveyard Cakes by halfbakedharvest
INGREDIENTS
1box chocolate cake mix
1/2cupKahlua OR caramel sauce OR sweetened condensed milk*
2ozboxes instant chocolate mousse mix3 to 4 each
2cupswhipped cream
6full-size Snickers barscrushed
DECORATIONS
6inPirouette Rolled Wafers or pretzel rods,broken in half
This month’s recipe is dedicated to the people practicing physical-distancing during the great Coronavirus crisis of 2020. Panic buying due to the government’s request for multi-week self-quarantine has rendered the store shelves nearly empty, with eggs being one of the hardest items to find. So, when I came across the recipe over at Mommy’s Home Cooking for Easy Eggless Halloween Cookies I knew I had to share it.
Hello, I hope everyone is staying safe, staying healthy and staying home. Even Halloween fans must do their part to help to flatten the curve of Coronavirus, in hopes to minimize deaths and buy our overtaxed health workers a little time to get the crisis under control. Since the situation is so fluid, volatile and a vaccine is over a year away, who knows how this will play out, but citizens have a chance to save the day by staying indoors and doing absolutely nothing. It’s not going to get easier than that.
That said, I bet there’s a whole lot of people out there feeling anxious and stressed by the Covid-19 crisis though, so I came up with a list of things that Halloween fans can do during the quarantine to keep ourselves busy.
Write a Short Story
“Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble”
Don’t let anxiety and depression take over your brain! Get those feelings out on paper. Writing under duress sometimes produces the most creativity. Look at Shakespeare, that dude turned out Macbeth, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and dozens of sonnets during the black plague. Yep, it’s true. The Bard of Avon was surrounded by the horrors of sickness and death every day for most of his life, and yet, he spent his time writing about love. I mean, isn’t that what life’s all about? Death and love?
Witches Brew by Ka7 on DeviantArt
Binge-watch 14 seasons of Supernatural
“The road so far”
Coronavirus has interrupted the production schedule of the CW’s Supernatural, television’s longest-running paranormal show. Maybe 2020 is upset as we are that this is the series finale. It’ll be hard to say goodbye to the Sam and Dean, and their angelic sidekick Castiel, which is why we should binge-watch all 14 seasons now, to mentally prepare for the end! It’s a 15-year story that demands closure. Does anyone even remember why the Winchester brothers are hunting demons in the first place?
Create a Spooky Terrarium
“Life springs from death”
Creating a spooky terrarium is a lot like putting together a Halloween diorama. You get to work with miniatures to create a haunted scene, but somewhere in your terrarium, globe, or glass container is a real living plant. The upside is going green for Halloween is always a good idea. The other upside is if you forget to care for your living plant and it dies, well, a dead plant will fit right in with your theme. Win-win!
Work on your Halloween Smash book
“Something wicked this way comes”
Halloween junk journals are still all the rage. All you need is a journal or notebook, and some Halloween ephemera, postcards, printables, or stickers. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, just follow your heart. Make ’em big. Make ’em small. Get artsy or just manage your collection of pumpkin stickers. Since we never enough time to do all the things we want to do with our smash books, quarantine life is like a gift from Father Time.
Create a Witchy Halloween Playlist
“But the talk got shackled by the howls and the cackles From the bowels of the Black bayou”
Creating your own Halloween playlist is one of those suggestions that always end up on lists like these, but I’m challenging everyone to get specific. When you’re done creating a witchy playlist, with only songs about witches, make a zombie one, then, werewolves, vampires, okay, apocalyptic tunes to dance to, you get the picture. With any luck, the rabbit hole you fall into should last the entire pandemic.
∴∴∴
You’ll notice I left off reading scary books and watching spooky movies, not because they’re not great ideas to keep our minds entertained and occupied during these surreal and unsettling times, but because those are things you should be doing every day anyway.
Let’s practice good physical-distancing, so we’re all here when Halloween 2020 rolls around this October!🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃
During these difficult and surreal times, I just wanted to give a shout-out to the Halloween community. We all want to be here this Halloween 2020 because it’s going to be quite the spooktacular celebration and we don’t have time for Coronavirus! So, let’s do our part and help flatten the curve against Covid-19. I realize I can’t be the only one suffering from a little anxiety and stress, so, I thought I’d repost my Advice from a Jack-o’-lantern. I hope it helps a little.
Stay safe, stay healthy and stay home, my friends.
I’m so excited to share the artwork of artist and jewelry designer, Natalie L. Ewert, who hails from Southern California. Natalie’s art features animals, fantasy, steampunk, and macabre themes. She also takes commissions.
Share an original and scary Halloween or horror-related haiku from October 31st through November 2nd, using the hashtag #Halloweenhaikuchallenge for a chance to win an awesome $25 gift card from Dark Delicacies in Burbank, CA.
Here are the details:
Contest Locations
There are three ways to share your haiku:
Post your haiku on Twitter, using the hashtag #HalloweenHaikuChallenge and tag me @Halloweenkristy to ensure that I see your post
Post your haiku on Instagram, using the hashtag #HalloweenHaikuChallenge and tag me @Halloweenkristy9 to ensure that I see your post
Halloween Haiku Message Boards. Look for the board that says Halloween Haiku Challenge to post your original or scary halloween haiku.
Judging Criteria
1) Originality. (you must be the sole author of the haiku you post, no exceptions)
2) Scares. The scarier the better! It is Halloween after all.
3) Style. All haiku, senryu, zappai are eligible and fall within the usual standard 17 syllables (5-7-5). Sorry, Tanka or any other style of poetry is not acceptable for purposes of this contest. We’re not hating, just a matter of space and time.
4) Participants may post up to three haiku for consideration.
The Prize
The winner, chosen by November 4th, will be gifted a $25 gift card only to Dark Delicacies in Burbank, CA, an amazing specialty bookstore, dedicated to all things horror related, and recently named one of the top ten bookstores in Los Angeles by Travel.com website.
Disclaimer
All works are copyright of their respective owners. By participating in this contest, you agree that Halloween Kristy can use your haiku to further promote this contest and www.halloween-haiku.com on social media (Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) Unauthorized use, modification, reproduction or distribution of copyright poems entered into 2019 Halloween Haiku Challenge without express written permission from the copyright owner is strictly prohibited.
Halloween Kristy reserves the right to remove and discredit any haiku and/or images posted here or on social media containing plagiarized or copyrighted material, pornography, vulgarity, racist, sexist or bigoted views.
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!
That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man,’
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
*Reading along with horror icon Vincent Price is quite haunting.
You must be logged in to post a comment.