when there's no more room in hell...

I have been "killing myself" since I was a young, horror-obsessed teenager, so when I heard about the virtual zombie walk I was stoked for the opportunity to get back to my blood-loving roots. I thought I'd share some photos from my zombie escapades over the years as well as my favorite blood recipe.Now, some of these pictures are from when I was very young and more than a little dumb, but I am unashamed. Teens obsessed with the flesh eating undead, holler.


But first, here are some tunes to get you in the brain-eating mood








with Nanner


out of character with Dottie

Zombie for life! Left: Age 17; Right: Age 21

Now, as for my blood recipe, if you make this you're seriously in for a treat.
Chocolate Blood:
-Water
-Coco powder
-Corn syrup
-red food coloring (the vegan-ness of red food dye is debatable, as it is sometimes horrifyingly made out of beetles, so do some research on the brand you buy)
-optional: black paint
-optional: green food coloring

I'm not including proportions because I just wing it every time. If you want thicker, scabbier blood, use more syrup and coco powder. For thinner more liquidy blood, use more water, obviously. I throw in the paint sometimes just to make it a little darker and grosser, and green food dye has a similar effect. This blood congeals like real blood so it's great for making gory wounds. The best part about this blood other than how realistically it behaves? If you skip the black paint, it's pretty tasty! If you decide to try this out with your Halloween costume or just for fun, let me know!

&& be sure to check out the rest of participants in the "walk", listed below:

Ghost Hunting Theories / Above the Norm: Bizarre Arizona / Zombies Everywhere / Holly's Horrorland / Little Gothic Horrors / Anything Horror / Katy Bennett Horror Writer and Poet / Bubba's Place / Horror Smorgasbord / Gnostalgia / Monkey Man / Words and Music / Red Shoes Chronicles / The Wolf's Eyes / My Day in a Sentence / Pixie's Horror Galore / Strange State / The Misadventures of HalloweeNut / Halloween Blues / Kweeny Todd / The California Blogging Massacre / Horror Shock Lolipop / Vanessa Morgan / Improbable Frontiers / No Really, You Can Eat It / Art By Living Dead Girl Nicole / Two Gory Chicks / A Dust Bunny in the Wind / A Ghoul's Best Friend / Zombies Are Magic / Cherry Neko Saves the World / Tall Tales / At the Mansion of Madness / The Haunted Rose / The Rotting Zombie / Halloween Overkill / Out of the Shadows / Creepy Glow Keyhole Gallery / Creepy Glowbugg / Bifocal Univision / Haiku-Koo-Koo / Sherry Soule / Anchors and Roses / Paranormal Researchers Group / Whispering Pines History / Lovely Miss Megs / Sean Thomas Fisher's Blogwash / Rise and Fight / Stump Town Horror / LoliClown's Little Blog of Horror / Zombies Can't Love / Books and Beyond / The Grave Bandits / Screaming Goregasms / Lazy Daisy Life / Icky Monster / Pretty in Fiction / Ivy's Closet / Justine's Halloween / Annie Walls / Just Johnny

moleskin monday is back! ...on tuesday

I'm rubbish at keeping up with weekly features, apparently. I like my one little feature though so I'm going to try, once again, to keep up with it! This week I have a masky man to share.

I suppose he's a little bit inspired by the season. He looks like a Halloween mask after all. I've been doodling him during classes and I think I'm finally ready to call him finished.

because gifs are fun, right?!



Yeah, I like to just hang out with monsters all day.

yard sales, thrift shops, silly animals

Hans and I went to Our Pal's Place's yard sale today. Our Pal's Place is a local no-kill animal shelter and they held a big yard sale today, with all proceeds benefiting their adoptable pets. We were very happy to go support rescued dogs and snag some pretty great finds as we did so. Even better, Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe (which has a showroom here in Georgia and sells vegan goods online internationally--check them out!) donated vegan baked goods and vegan hot dogs to the event, so we got to eat delicious food and rescue animals at the same time, which is basically my one true passion in life. My mom and my sister met us there and we had a great time browsing and laughing and spending money on good causes and such.

These are just some of the goodies we picked up at the sale. Yes, that's a holographic Jesus plaque. And all of Planet Earth was only $5! Okay, it's missing one disc, but still. I used to own the whole thing on Blu-ray, but what do you know a stubborn ex refuses to give it back to me. Anyway, I'm pretty excited to watch the series again! Oh, and why would we be interested in a holographic Jesus plaque? Because we collect silly plaques and decorate our guest bathroom with them, of course!

So far we have some wolves, and unicorns, and this evening Jesus happily joined the bunch. I think our guests appreciate this merry crew keeping them company while they do their business. No one can ever call me a bad host!

After the yard sale, we had had the itch to shop some more, so we went to a couple of thrift stores, WHERE WE FOUND THE MOST GLORIOUS COUCH I HAVE EVER SEEN. Here is a picture of it kindly modeled by Hans and a stuffed bear:

I have never more wished we had room for a love seat!

We also finally found a perfect shelf to go in our dining room, which Kenya immediately decided to live in, because cats are weird. I can't wait to decorate this shelf with pretty things.

Oh, and we got these funky grooming gloves at the yard sale. It may be a blurry picture, but it fully captures Phoenix's feelings about the gloves.

With autumn finally starting to creep out from behind the heat waves, this day spent with loved ones (and dogs! and food!) was a great way to ring in the new season.

we are going to eat you: blogger zombie walk 2011

I may seem girly with my affinity for pretty colors and dresses, but once you get to know me then you know despite girlish tendencies, I like playing in the dirt and drawing scary things. And if there's one thing I love more than getting dirty it's getting bloody and acting like a scary thing. Yes, I have been "zombifying" myself as a hobby since I was 14 or 15 and it never gets old. That's why I was so pumped when Megan turned me on to the Zombie Blogger Walk. Megan described it perfectly, "On Friday, September 30th a group of 50+ bloggers will be posting really cool zombie related posts then link to the rest of the blogs participating so you can sort of walk from blog to blog, learning anything and everything zombie related." Sounds like an awesome time to me. I can't wait to see what kinds of undead-related things people decide to share.

 

 Yes, that's totally me. Scary, right?

The "walk" is being hosted by Ghost Hunting Theories. If you like bloody, brain-eating fun, you should totally join up!

30 days of lists, finally

I'm finally ready to share one of my lists! I hated the first few I made and then stopped making them. Then I realized trying to make beautiful decorated lists isn't my thing, but I do dig just writing them out.

I know this is yesterday's list, but I wanted to share this one especially because I'm still really bummed out about the death of Andy Whitfield, who played Spartacus. That show was my jam, guys. I'm a sucker for hilariously extravagant sex and violence, I won't lie. I thought the show was top notch and Andy was so great in the title role. It was really heartbreaking to hear he lost his fight with cancer this month.

On a lighter note, I bet my other two choices made it into a bunch of people's lists! I still feel gypped about their cancellations.

farewell to summer

I loved summer as a child, fake-detested it through my angsty teenage years, and embraced it all over again in recent years. My connection with the sunshiney months is deep. I was born in June and I'm covered in freckles: I am a summer child. Of course, I do adore autumn because after all, the layery fashion is fun, Halloween is the best day of the year, and the changing leaves are beautiful. But I can't just let summer slip away without a proper farewell, and obviously nothing is PROPER unless consecrated by the internet, right?

First, this playlist I made over the summer which I brilliantly dubbed "Summer!" for your enjoyment. My feet went so beautiful many places. I seriously made a different fruity, agave-sweetened lemon- or limeade every day, you guys. Lots of time was spent with this charming man. There were some waterfalls (Hans is may kill me for posting this). Turtles were saved. Of course, this summer was extra special because we adopted Phoenix. This is my favorite picture of her and her daddy from when we first brought her home. She has grown so much! And note the post-spaying shaved tummy. Naturally, with the addition of Phoenix, many dog adventures were had. Well, you get the point. I like to spend my summers exploring the beautiful world around me, in the sunshine, with my dog and the people I love. Now summer is over, I'm busy with school again, but I'll still try to squeeze in as much fall-, winter-, and springtime exploring as I can.

What's your favorite thing to do in the summer time?

cave lovers

On the 15th I had my wisdom teeth removed and I have not been having such a fun time with the recovery (who could? This sucks!). My face looks precisely like a round little fat boy's and the pain has been a little worse than I expected. I'm the type who never takes any medicine--even pain killers--so there have been some pretty rough moments throughout the healing process. Yesterday I finally felt at least partially normal and today I'm thinking I'm more than halfway there. The swelling has gone down substantially (though now one side of my face is covered in a massive yellow bruise) and I can open my mouth almost all the way. I am so looking forward to having a feast when all this is done!

Anyway, I definitely feel like the blog is overdue for a proper art post. I always have fun sharing some of my older artwork on the blog, so today I've got series of drawings (and one painting) that were very near and dear to me for a while. (One of them is featured in my sidebar!) Not so near and dear now, I still dig the concept I came up with. Meet the Cave Lovers: These guys like to pass their time chilling in a cave a loving each other. I created these over the course of around two years. I recall dubbing the first one "the cheesiest thing I have ever drawn."

Today is my first day home alone since the surgery. Hans and my mama have been taking great care of me, and I've definitely needed to be babied. Let's hope today I'm not a big wuss and I can fend for myself (read: watch tons of Netflix and sleep on and off all day). Wish me luck!

anniversary in asheville

Hans and I just celebrated our first anniversary!

We have had a wonderful year together, and to celebrate we took a little trip up through the mountains to one our favorite cities, Asheville, North Carolina. My dad was born in Asheville and I have family living there, so I've made trips up there all throughout my life and the city long ago stole my heart. It's such a perfect place: the mountains keep it cool instead of humid, everybody smiles, art galleries pop up on every corner, the street musicians are actually fantastic, and it's so dog-friendly businesses have to put a sign on the door to indicate if dogs aren't allowed. Not to mention, the best damn vegetarian restaurant I've ever been to (The Laughing Seed) resides in the heart of Asheville on the coolest street in the town.

Hans and I would love to move there if we had the chance, but for now we'll just use things like anniversaries as excuses to visit. We spent the first day of our trip enjoying the city and the second day driving up crazy winding roads in the mountains. The mountain drive was fantastic! Spectacular scenery, and we even discovered a little trail that lead to the coolest place I have ever eaten lunch...I'll let the pictures do the talking.

(Hans's seitan curry and my pistachio-crusted seitan marsala, the best food ever ever ever) And I realize I took only a tiny amount of city-pictures with my real camera, but more are on my phone. Perhaps a separate post for those is in store? But here are many more pictures from the mountain!
The road up the mountain had so many neat tunnels. We found a trail that lead to the top of one of them (the one pictured) and we ate lunch there!
Vegan breakfast burrito, eaten atop a tunnel. The view was incredible!  
I seem to have started a "where my feet have been" series of photos. I love taking these, especially in my vibrams!

Throughout the trip, we ate at The Laughing Seed a total of three times (dinner, breakfast, and then lunch to-go), saw everything from a street magician to a human statue to a man dressed as a nun riding a sparkly high-rise bicycle, enjoyed some (read: so much) chocolate, ogled at a lot of beautiful dogs, and smiled endlessly. I'm so happy to have spent the past year with such a lovely man, and to have ended that year in such a wonderful place! I can't wait to see what adventures are in store for us in year two!

buggy beauties

I'm taking a break from my marathon of cleaning and Pawn Stars (thank you Netflix) to share with you guy my love of buggy pictures. I absolutely love bright colorful photos of bugs. These are some favorites I've come across while on tumblr and pintrest (and unfortunately since I found them through these sites, I don't have the sources. If anyone knows the sources, please let me know!).





Insects are absolutely fascinating and gorgeous. I met this cicada on my way to school the other day and snapped a couple of my own (significantly less impressive) bug photos.




So colorful! He had just come out of his shell (I totally used to collect those shells when I was a kid). He was still there by the lamp post when I was leaving school, only he had moved onto the sidewalk. I was shocked to find him hanging out in the same area hours after I first sighted him. I couldn't stand to leave him in such a risky position, vulnerable to so many stamping feet, so I picked the little guy up and released him into a little collection of trees. Happy ending!

P.S. I'm using Blogger's new interface and it's weird! I'm not sure how I feel about it. What do you guy's think?

P.P.S I'm keeping up with 30 Days of Lists just fine! But I haven't made any pretty enough lists to share yet. I keep seeing some of the most beautiful lists floating around. It's puts mine to shame! I need to step up my listing game.

phoenix & wylie

One of Phoenix's BFFs is Wylie, my sister Nanner's dog. So when Nanner and Wylie visited me the other day I had to take some photos of this irresistible pair.









I adore these goofballs. Not many things make me happier than the sight of Phoenix and her silly lolling tongue (except maybe the sight of Phoenix AND Wylie with their silly lolling tongues). I recently watched a documentary which included some evidence that owning a dog makes you live longer--I believe it. Dogs are magic.