MOOD TABLE TIME! HALLOWEEN MOOD TABLE~! If you guys weren't around last year, or don't read Dinosaur Dracula (and you SHOULD), here's the skinny: if you only decorate one thing in your house this year, it should be a Halloween mood table. Take a flat surface, festoon it with creepy and crawlys and spooky stuff and everything and sit back and bask in the horror ambiance. Decon did one earlier this month on the corner of his work desk, and you can check out Matt's at DD here. Last year, this was mine, festooned in honor of Zero or Fatal Frame (that year we celebrated the seminal j-survival horror franchise with a special week).
This year I decided to try doing a different kind of mood table. Last year I went Zero crazy on the turntable I owned. But this year I started using it for mood music (got me a sweet copy of the soundtrack for Nightmare Before Christmas on vinyl), so decorating the top would be limited to a few things I can move quickly for record flipping. I relegated the Zero table to a small CD shelf in the room, but that's not really the mood table we're gonna table about today.
No folks, that little shrine display is just my appetizer. This year, I decided I wanted~~
FANFAREEEEEE~
The Halloween Mood Shelf. Ok, its going a bit outside the parameters, but this is where I felt I had more room to be more festive. last year the decorations went up super late. This year they were later than I expected (it was 2 weeks into October thereabouts when everything went up), but I was mad and determined to get up something to keep me festive. Last year was a hard fall. I wasn't gonna let that stop me. I WILL DECORATE. I WILL SURVIVE.
Then the colored corn comes out with some scarecrows roughly for 3 weeks before I start on Christmas decorations that won't come down til 2 weeks into January.
This 4-tiered shelf comes from my grandparents' house. It used to be my sister's and mine when we had a room there, so when they gave my old room to my younger cousin, I asked her if she wanted it. She didn't so here it is on my wall. I got so much kipple, I need MORE shelves @_@. You have no idea what had to come OFF the shelf to get this stuff ON. In any case, while a little more spare than most mood tables, I wanted to focus on larger set pieces with a better symmetry. Also because I wanted to use big objects that could be seen from even right below it. The center has a plaque my man Doc bought me.
I don't really know how to drive stick, but my tumblr says I do.
The left shelf. A pumpkin tree my future mother-in-law bought me when she last went to Disneyland during October. Gosh, I wanna go to a Disney resort in October @_@. For a halloween nut like me, the decorations alone would be so much fun to see. The tree has little ghost mickeys and minnies, candy corn with mouse ears, and even little trick or treat bags. The white ghost is a Dollar Tree purchase from years and years ago, part of at least a 2 ghost set (the second will come shortly). I loved these ghosts, they're super cute. In the back is Decon's birthday image, which made a nice backdrop. The bottle there is one I bought on a trip to a beach town (not sure which), and stuffed with flowers, though these are fake. I need to get some Halloweeny/fall flowers in this, since I saw a neat eyeball flower set at Michaels the other day. :3 EYEBALL. This bottle is the Elixir of Life. Its got some crazy expiration date that I'd double check if I didn't have a Wolf Mama on the floor directly below this shelf and tv. On the side is kipple I forgot to move. @_@
The right shelf. Up front is the pair to the other ghostie, and this one for some reason has a skull and bones shape hole. Its calling for some LED lights. Also up front is my incredibly busty Halloween-chan, by Mon-soeur Bome. She broke off her stand one year, but she still sits on it well enough.
In the back behind the ghost is a companion bottle that has a paper hydrangea I made earlier this year. The bottle is for Eye of Newt, but I mostly bought it for the little round part in the neck. I love weird bottles, and would collect them if I wasn't collecting everything in the world.
In the front is a bottle I painted up as Edvard Munch's The Scream. The art project was to select a famous painting and attempt to paint it on a 3D object, adjusting for the distortion. All things considered, I did a pretty good job. It usually sits in the living room, but I moved it onto my shelf and backed it with my copy of Fragments of Horror, and even stuck in my copy of Resident Fatal Game.
Top and middle tiers. At the very top is the "advent calendar" I bought at Target one year. I use the doors as the title images for the articles. There's a Halloween balloon that came with a succulent I got last year, so I stuck that in there.
The middle tier has a skull I bought for drawing back in art classes. We had to draw like 50 skulls one year, and I bought an anatomical study. His jaw's a little offset, but Harry (I call him Harry) sits around for times I need to draw skulls--more often than people think XD. Next to it is a statuette my father bought me from the ultra amazing David Lozeau, whom specializes in stylized Day of the Dead art. This guy's stuff is AMAZING, guys. I've been a huge fan for a few years, and I've got a canvas painting of a skeletal gunslinger that I adore (and is outside my door right now). He's done a line of Stratocasters, has a couple books, and tons of awesome paintings you got to see to believe. He uses a combo is gouache, acrylics and enamel to paint these gorgeous paintings (gouache is a water based paint that can be altered with water, so it takes special paint--like enamel--to keep it from lifting). The statuette, I lovingly call Buddy Baphomet, is a goat headed, skulled figure dressed in robes with beads. Its super wicked. I thought he and Harry make good shelf mates with their related themes. Also on the shelf--fallen over :/--are the Soul Reaver (right) and a staff from Soul Reaver (left) that came with my Raziel and Kain figs. One day I need a full sized Soul Reaver replica. :/ Totally need that in my life.
That's my Halloween Shelf this year (and I got plans next year to do a different set of shelves). A little spare but pretty nice and minimal. Next year, I promise to go overboard. :3
--Dio (10/21/15)