Shivers of Delight

  We made it! Halloween in here and I wish you a happy and spooky day. Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you'll return often. That being said, I'm going to take the next week off for a rest and to make preparations to bring you more magical Halloween artists and their work in the next year. I'll continue to post on Instagram next week, so follow me there @shiversdelight. Halloween never ends in my heart.

It's probably hard to believe, but not all of our spooky decor stays visible year round. I really do have many things stored away that only come out for a few months. My Halloween art collection grows every year though, so I change things up a little and today I have some photos and a little iMovie for you.  If you'd like to see more, here is a little iMovie for you to watch of our Halloween decor.  It won't win any awards, but it was fun to make! I hope your Halloween is magical.

The effects of COVID-19 and isolation weren't all bad if you take into account that Halloween art shows, though located hundreds of miles and a plane flight away, were suddenly accessible to me. While there were good and bad points to that, I was able to make some purchases from artists that I might not have seen otherwise.  I spent more money than I usually do! The art shows were popping up weekly during September and early October- sometimes more than one in a weekend. I tried not to miss any of them. The show promoters did a fairly good job of making the pieces available and there were few real problems. I have to say that I preferred the shows that sent you to artists' individual shops rather than the ones where it became a battle of who had the fastest internet because the first person to type "sold" got the right to purchase it. Those shows were slow and stressful. I'm glad that artists had the opportunity to sell the pieces they had been working on for mont...

On the 10th Day of Halloween the panic really sets in. We're just 3 days from Halloween and I've started to wring my hands over uncompleted projects and Halloween experiences not yet checked off. It's almost a tradition of its own. The pumpkins still need to be carved, my costume isn't finished, I haven't started baking, and then, because 2020 adds another layer of hell to everything, I learned that snow is predicted for Friday and on Halloween night the temperatures will be in the 20s. Oh, and Massachusetts, just a few miles up the road from us, has been added to Connecticut's official COVID-19 "Please Don't Come Here" list.  You probably think I'd be ready to just call it quits and go to bed till Halloween is over. It's true, that thought has crossed my mind, but I don't give up that easily. I now have 3 days to replan, reorganize, and recreate this year's Halloween.  The curse of 2020 will not ruin Halloween! 

What is Halloween without It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown ? Really, I can't fathom it. It's been shown on the ABC network for 53 years! In fact, I think that 25 minutes of Halloween fun and anxiety has done as much to keep the holiday alive as anything. It first aired on October 27, 1966 - 54 years ago today. I was 2 years old then, so it's possible that I saw the very first airing and like to think that I did. Let's just say I did. I strongly suspect that we still have Halloween parties, bob for apples (at least think about it?), go trick-or-treating, and even wait for The Great Pumpkin because of Charles Schultz. How many times have you said "I got a rock"?  It's been ingrained in our psyche.  That's why everyone is just a tad upset that Apple TV has purchased the exclusive rights to the Halloween special (and Thanksgiving and Christmas specials as well) and it will only be airing on their platform. It will be free to watch for everyone Oct...

It's the Eighth Day of Halloween and this weekend we started carving pumpkins for The Great Pumpkin Project (you can read about it here and here .)  I wanted to start placing our pumpkins around town with a bang so we invited a few friends over to carve some pumpkins and then float them down the Windsor Locks Canal- a state park with a 4.5 walking trail along the canal that sits next to the Connecticut River. Windsor Locks Canal First let me say that it's always more fun to carve pumpkins with friends, so start there.  We scooped out the guts and tried to make them as light weight as possible so that they would float. Next we put them in a tub of water to see how low they would sit before we carved any details. Most of our pumpkins sat pretty low in the water so carving a face was not going to work. The other problem was they didn't always want to float with the top side up! One pumpkin insisted on floating upside down so that one had to be saved for another place. Once ou...

Our Past Halloween Invites and Cards It's the Fifth Day of Halloween and probably the absolute last day to get your Halloween cards in the mail.  It's anyone's guess how quickly the mail will get delivered these days so you might want to light a candle or recite a spell over them before you drop them off at the post office. This year we won't be having our usual Halloween party. I don't want to endanger myself or my friends by gathering inside with masks off to eat and drink. That means for the first time in over 15 years I haven't created a Halloween Party Invitation! It feels a little strange, but truth be told, it has definitely led to a less stressful Halloween this year.  We are sending out a Halloween postcard to some of our friends and family, but even that has been reduced in numbers. I was a bit late in getting it all designed and printed so I'm sending fewer this year. It's a strange year to be sure.  But it's going to be just fine.   Hallo...