Happy Halloween Everyone - be afraid ... be very, very afraid

pic from the scariest shop in Brooklyn (yes, the shop of the stairway rabbit - have you seen that one - very nightmare worthy - frankenkitty)

secrets of halloween past or where have all the scary kids gone ....

This picture from the Artisan Collective team blog has me thinking that Halloween used to be alot more scary

(and I mean really scary, like Paranormal Activity 2 promos, Miley Cyrus wrapped around a stripper pole, my fondness for reality television and stirrup pants all rolled together scary)

and actually picturing these things all rolled together is kind of grossing me out, but kind of also making me hungry for the leftover spaghetti in my fridge which I will be devouring when I am finished with this post.

(yum yum)

Anyhoo - just look at these kids - would you open your door for these kids?

(yes, even that Little Rascally one in the front who is probably holding a hatchet or a sickel or something equally deadly, but all sweet-little-farmboylike just out of frame)

I don't know where Jen got this picture, but I never see anything this scary on my front steps on Halloween ....

although truthfully I don't see much of anything on my front steps on Halloween anymore.

Last year I gave up on the invisible trick or treaters

and this has nothing to do with my natural inclination to lock myself in the house, peek out from behind closed blinds and ignore the doorbell.

(I don't know what has happened to them, but we get less and less every year - I think because we have a driveway that is longer than 10 feet and the kids are just way too tired to walk all the way to my front door having been driven everywhere in a comfy-cushy Landrover since the day they were born or they've heard that hubby likes to give bags of pretzels, sorry kiddies, I know pretzels suck, but I can't convince him of this)

I put a bowl on my front porch and went to bed- I counted the bags of pretzels first and there were 20 bags. In the morning there were 17 bags. So we probably had 3 kids who each took 1 bag .... sigh ...

In my day we would have dumped that entire bowl in our pillow case, ran like hell and then come back later to check for refills.

The only thing we didn't like was when people gave us taffy, not sure if this was just a Jersey thing, people would have boxes of saltwater taffy from the boardwalk and give out individual pieces like tootsie roll size for Halloween - yuck - and pennies - we really hated pennies.

Anyhow, am hoping for some really scary costumed invaders this year and I'm thinking its time Olive wore something scary, too and not her usual cutie patootie stuff, and it looks like I have exactly 96 hours to figure it out ...

... stay tuned

Kick Starter - Project Olive Tree with MatchStickGirl

I have been doing Kiva donations for a long time as part of my creative tithing commitment and recently the amazing Estella from StaroftheEast made me aware of a great site called Kickstarter which helps launch creative projects

and a creative project hoping to be launched and looking for funding from the incredible photographer Frances J. Melhop of Matchstickgirl.

You have likely seen and been inspired by her amazing photos on Etsy:
well, Frances has a dream and her dream needs a kickstart:

Frances lives in New Zealand making her amazing photographs and has been dreaming for 10 years of flying to Italy and using the oldest and original photographic techniques and equipment

(a pinhole camera, Kodak box brownie and monorail - head under the darkcloth - she will shoot black and white 5x4 inch sheet film and 120mm roll film)

to photograph the amazing 1000 year old Olive trees of southern Italy.

(they are protected and very fairytale - so gnarled and twisted they appear to have human bodies and faces interwoven inside the trunks)

Her project is looking for Kickstarter funding and Kickstarter is a place where for as little as $1.00 we can make donations to other creatives

and it is another great use for our creative tithing dollars - helping the dreams of other creative professionals come true definitely puts a fire and energy to our own!

Frances has 9 days to reach her dream (Kickstarter projects must get full funding or they are cancelled). Here is a link to Matchstickgirl's dream if you can send a little of that Olive tree fairy magic her way!