Halloween Dolls and other Ideas

For more tips and holiday idehttp://dresgreening.blogspot.com/as, see my blog on tips for living green.

Today it feels like October. It is getting colder, and darker early, and there has been a spooky, misty rain. Check out Dr. E’s Greening Tips for the Common Person, my other blog as well. You can google the title and find it easily. There are photos of dolls and vintage art there, as well. I’ve also posted tips for making holiday cakes and for making miniature terrariums and dolls of natural materials. There are also ideas for homemade and craft gifts for the holidays.

I’ve been checking around the stores for great holiday and Halloween decorations and dolls. The miniature houses and accessories at Michaels still rock, as do the Dept. 56 houses and accessories. A personal favorite in my collection is a light up house entitled “Vampire Attorney” office, which was part of our local vampire display. I also have preserved as gingerbread and cookie house, bought over twenty years ago at Marshall Fields. Next would by my Elvira and Grim Reaper dolls, and the dressed skeletons my mom and I bought, but also knitted and sewed for. We have brides and grooms, Ophelia who sings “Fright Wedding” to the tune of “White Wedding,” our Puffkins and Beanie Babies and Bean Sprouts witches and ghosts, and an assortment of scarecrow dolls with pumpkin heads. My late friend, my dear Greg, would bring me cornhusk dolls to display together in baskets, and beaded miniatures to wear at Harvest. I also love the wax candles I’ve blogged about earlier, and my witches, many of which came from Salem, MA itself!

The museum has a small collection of voodoo dolls and magic dolls from around the world, and we have large mechanical Frankenstein’s monster and various other images, including one of our newest additions, The Golem of Prague. We love our living dead dolls, especially Erzebet, and our MacFarlane toys Six Faces of Madness figures. Personally, I love my carved masks from around the world, but my husband won’t let me display some of them, and my Dia de Muertos figures. We have a mechanical zombie baby and a Spasm, the Emaciated Prisoner, who shakes and moans. She is wearing some of my clothes, and a tasteful hat and slippers. I can’t bear to leave her cold and suffering. She sits on one of my beds with other dolls, but again, my husband won’t look at her! Of course, there are the doll horror films like the Chucky films, Dolls [my favorite], Dead Silence, and Interview with the Vampire, as well as Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark, and a scene with doll in the mini series Tommyknockers. Dolls are at their eeriest this time of year, and it is fun to collect them and look for them. Annalee Dolls makes wonderful Halloween editions, and so does Mattel. We have quite an assortment of Halloween and Wizard of Oz Barbies, as well as Cruella De Ville, and also doll versions Dracula, Twilight characters, the Universal Monsters, and Maleficent. We even have the Bride of the monster and a tiny Nosferatu, and the famous Hunchbear of Notre Dame. We love our monsters at the museum, and we love Halloween. Now is also a great time to visit The Shelter for Misfit Dolls online. Google the name. Happy, spooky dolling!