Owl Wreath

$10 - $15 (based on 2018 prices)

Makes one wreath

In 2018, I participated in my office’s secret pal gift exchange, where we anonymously sent monthly gifts to a colleague. For November’s present, I decided to return to the act of wreath making (an experience soured by 2017’s haunt) and craft a fall-themed item. Although I decided to use an owl and pinecone, you can substitute the two for other fall-related decorations, such as a scarecrow and pumpkin or a crow and dried corn husk.

• One nine-inch willow wreath
• One yard of burlap ribbon
• One yard of dark brown twine
• Four four-foot garlands of fall leaves (roughly thirty-six leaves per garland)
• One stuffed owl figure
• One pinecone
• Twelve inches of steel wire
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
  

1. Wrap half of the wreath in burlap ribbon and glue the bands in place. For visual interest, I chose to spiral the fabric outward; however, you could attached it vertically. You may want to play with the ribbon’s pattern before gluing it down.

2. Wrap twine around the ribbon to hide the seams and glue the strands in place. I elected to use a color darker than the burlap to create contrast, but you can match the colors to achieve a more unified appearance.

3. Separate the leaves from their garlands. Although you could do this while you glue them to the wreath, I found that performing this step beforehand made the following process much easier. Plus, it gives you a clear idea of exactly how many leaves you have.

4. Use hot glue to adhere the leaves to the wreath. For visual interest, build up layers and vary the color patterns so that leaves with the same hues and shapes are not concentrated in one area.

5. Glue the owl and pinecone to the lower portion of the wreath where the burlap and leaves meet. You could nestle the items among the foliage (like I did) or give them a more prominent display.

6. Bend the steel wire in half, clap the folded end with a pair of needle-nose plyers, and twist both strands around each other to fashion a hanging loop and glue it to the back of the wreath.

7. Give the wreath additional bulk by fluffing the leaves prior to display. You can also adhere additional leaves around the owl and pinecone to fill gaps and blend the items.

“Ode to a Nightingale” (A Poem)

Akin to his “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” involves the temptation of the narrator by supernatural forces. As the poem unfolds, the nightingale lures the narrator away from this world and into one of sensuous imagery and immortality. After tasting the marvels of this exquisite land, the narrator contemplates death to remain there forever; however, he reconsiders and returns to the human realm, where he begins to question which domain is more real. While the entity in “La Belle Dame sans Merci” is a vampiric vixen, the force embodied by the nightingale in “Ode to a Nightingale” can be interpreted as many things: artistic creation, idealized beauty, illicit substances, and even death itself.[1]

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, —
That thou, light-wingéd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvéd earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainéd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a muséd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain —
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toil me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?[2]

Works Referenced

Davis, Paul, Gary Harrison, David Johnson, Patricia Clark Smith, and John Crawford, eds. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1900. Vol. 5. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.

Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” John Keats: The Complete Poems. New York: Penguin, 1988. 346-347.
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[1] Davis, Harrison, Johnson, Smith, and Crawford, 283-284.
[2] Keats, 346-347.

Haunted Portraits

$15 - $20 (based on 2018 prices)

Makes two portraits

For the ghost theme used in my office’s annual decorating competition, I decided to revisit a prop from 2014’s haunt and apply the lessons learned from four additional years of prop-building experience to fine-tune the item. Akin to the earlier piece, you can make a subtle statement with a small, cheap frame or a dramatic impression with something more massive and ornate. You can also create a series of portraits with several smaller window clings.

• Two 16” x 20” frames
• One 10 oz. can of interior/exterior, fast-drying spray paint in flat black
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in au natural*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat black*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in cherry cobbler*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in hot cocoa*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in spice brown*
• Eight pieces of 8” x 11.5” copy paper
• At least four tablespoons of black tea (e.g. Darjeeling, Earl Gary, English Breakfast, etc.)
• One pan large enough to soak the copy paper
• Two Halloween-themed window clings
• One 4 oz. bottle of all-purpose tacky glue*
• One bag of small spiders (roughly thirty spiders per bag)
  

1. Remove the backings and any glass from the frames and, on a newspaper-lined surface in a well-ventilated area, apply an even coat of black spray paint. Although I only used one coat, you may want more depending on your desired coverage. Keep in mind, though, that this is the base coat and much of the black paint will be covered up by lighter colors.

2. Use varying hues of brown to achieve an aged wood patina. I found that working from light to dark provided the deep tones I wanted to contrast with the lightness of the tea-stained paper; however, if you need brighter shades, work from dark to light.

3. Boil enough water to completely submerge the copy paper and pour it into the pan. Add the tea. The longer you allow the tea to brew, the darker the stain will become. Likewise, greater amounts of tea will produce a richer stain. I found that a combination of English and Irish Breakfast brewed for over ten minutes produces a nice, deep brown. Submerge the paper into the tea mixture and soak it until it reaches the color you desire. I soaked mine for eight hours and scattered the loose-leaf tea over the top of the paper to add spots. Remove the paper from the water and allow it to dry. Although it can be time consuming, this process works best if you stain each sheet of paper individually.

4. Glue the stained paper to the cardboard backings. To make it appear even more decrepit, crinkle the paper and create holes. Since the window clings will rest above these elements, preplan their location to prevent any odd placements that will interfere with the images.

5. Glue the window clings to the paper. For the best results, press the vinyl as smooth as possible, removing any bubbles and wrinkles. To assist in this process, use a firm piece of plastic, like a credit card.

6. With black and brown paint, create smears and spots on the paper. Play with the patterns until you reach the design you desire. You could also water down the paints and let the wash run downward from the top of the portrait. You may want to experiment with the consistency prior to doing this: the more water you add, the fainter/lighter the wash; the less water you add, the deeper/darker the wash.

7. Accent the portraits with a cluster of spiders crawling from a torn eye socket and bloody handprints. NOTE: The particular spiders I used were made with a slick plastic which did not adhere with hot glue. As a result, I used superglue gel to affix them to the prop.

8. Attach the frames to the backings. For added support, glue the backings in place, particularly if you plan to display these in windy conditions. If the frames did not come with hanging hooks, you can add store-bought items to the back or fashion your own with steel wire.

*You will not use the entire bottle’s content for this project.

Saving the Communal Nature of Halloween: A Mini-Essay

     In her examination of Bonfire Night, which occurs on the fifth of November in Newfoundland, Catherine Schwoeffermann explains how this annual festival, which is eagerly anticipated, is a significant communal affair: the preparation process unites family and community members with a single goal; the event gives adults a break from the toils of the workweek and children a respite from schoolwork; and the social nature of the occasion draws the public together, rekindling old friendships, forging newer connections, and encouraging the interactions of all townsfolk from every age range and socioeconomic status.[1] It is this collectivity, Schwoeffermann contends, which makes Bonfire Night and other public celebrations – Halloween among them – a vital element in the strengthening of communal networks and the promotion of intergenerational and interracial bonds. Indeed, scholars such as Lesley Pratt Bannatyne and Michael Taft attest to the cohesiveness and continuity encompassing these civic events, arguing that, unlike the family-centered festivities which constitute the majority of our holidays, Halloween holds a distinct public component, with members of communities throughout the nations that celebrate some variation of the holiday decorating their homes and businesses and welcoming costume-clad strangers with treats and toys.[2] As Mickie Mueller highlights, though, the social nature of Halloween has experienced a disheartening decline over the past several decades. By the 1980s, rumors of tampered candy and the myth of the Halloween sadist, fed by the Chicago Tylenol murders of 1982, eroded the community-wide trust of Halloween and stoked parental fears that prompted the deterioration of trick-or-treating and the prohibition of Halloween itself in several towns.[3] In an effort to save Halloween, individuals like Leonard Ashley propose communities ban together to create public havens which can alleviate safety concerns as well as reestablish and reinforce the communal connections associated with the event. The reading of Halloween-themed stories and poems at libraries, the display of child-created Halloween artwork in stores and other public venues, Halloween festivals at high schools and colleges, and the performance of Halloween plays and skits at local theaters can all, Ashley stresses, incorporate the creative works of the township and “build community spirit and goodwill at Halloween.”[4] 

Works Referenced

Ashley, Leonard. Halloween: Everything Important about the Most Popular Secular Holiday. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2012.

Bannatyne, Lesley. Halloween: An American Holiday, and American History. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 1990.

Mueller, Mickie. Llewellyn’s Little Book of Halloween. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2018.

Schwoeffermann, Catherine. “Bonfire Night in Brigus, Newfoundland.” Halloween and Other Festrivals of Death and Life. Ed. Jack Santino. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1994. 62-81.

Taft, Michael. “Adult Halloween Celebrations on the Canadian Prairie.” Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life. Ed. Jack Santino. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1994. 152-169.
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[1] Schwoeffermann, 63-64.
[2] Taft, 164; Bannatyne, 124.
[3] Mueller, 32-34.
[4] Ashley, 358-359.

The Ghosts of Halloweens Past (2014)

With my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in November of 2018, my ability to participate in Halloween festivities were limited that year, with Haunted Hill left eerily abandoned and the small number of builds I did manage to create focused primarily on decorating my office for the company’s annual decorating competition. I was, though, able to partake in a Halloween tradition which I had not participated in since my early teens: trick-or-treating. With nostalgia in mind, the space normally dedicated to the previous year’s haunt has been inhabited by the ghosts of Halloweens past. For this week’s post, we travel back to 2014 – a time when my little brother and I united for the first time since we moved out of our parents' house to haunt his home. Although I managed to create a few props (the candle pillars, trash bag creepy cloth, and withered boards), work schedules limited the number of builds and made us rely more on store-bought items. Sadly, few pictures exist of the haunt itself, since much of the time was spent erecting the display and reminiscing.

"Hallowe'en Charm" (A Poem)

Arthur Guiterman experienced a prosperous literary career, publishing sixteen collections of poetry, serving as editor of the Woman’s Home Companion and the Literary Digest, and cofounding the Poetry Society of America.[1] Known for his amusing compositions, the poet released his fifth anthology of work, Ballads of Old New York, in 1920, which contains the poem “Hallowe’en Charm,” a fanciful text that blends the author’s playfulness with the mysticism of Halloween night.

Fern seed, hemp seed, water of the well,
Bark of wizard hazel-wand, berry of the bay,
Let the fairy gifts of you mingle with the spell,
Guard the precious life and soul of him that's far away!

Oak slip, thorn slip, crystal of the dew,
Morsel of his native earth, shoot of mountain pine,
Lend his arm the strength of you, let his eye be true,
Send him like the thunderbolt to break the foeman's line!

Rose leaf, elm leaf, kernel of the wheat,
Airy waft of thistledown, feather of the wren,
Bring him peace and happiness, let his dream be sweet,
Take my secret thought to him and call him home again![2]

Works Referenced

Guiterman, Arthur. “Hallowe’en Charm.” Ballads of Old New York. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1920. 125.

Kunitz, Stanley. Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1955.
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[1] Kunitz, 394-396.
[2] Guiterman, 125.

The Ghosts of Halloweens Past (2012)

With my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in November of 2018, my ability to participate in Halloween festivities were limited that year, with Haunted Hill left eerily abandoned and the small number of builds I did manage to create focused primarily on decorating my office for the company’s annual decorating competition. I was, though, able to partake in a Halloween tradition which I had not participated in since my early teens: trick-or-treating. With nostalgia in mind, the space normally dedicated to the previous year’s haunt has been inhabited by the ghosts of Halloweens past. For this week’s post, we travel back to 2012 – a time when I spent each Halloween haunting the yard of a different friend and my studies in graduate school prevented me from building, which produced a haunt heavy with store-bought props.