Cabin in the City

Books, cats and midwestern charm.

Halloween

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The Story of Bonnie and Clyde

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Prior to last year, couples’ costumes weren’t really Michael’s and my thing. Halloween was our thing, costumes in general were our thing, but never coordinating looks. But now we’re going hard into the couple thing, dressing up as some of the most famous duos ever. Last year we were Scully and Mulder, this year we donned our best Bonnie and Clyde getups.

This idea, while not exactly original, came via my gangster history-loving dad. Immediately he recommended the 1967 movie for research. Michael and I watched it dutifully. And we followed it up watching the made-for-TV version that came out in 2013. I think our costumes borrow a little more heavily from the latter, not that it really matters since neither rendition was historically accurate (OK, OK, I like gangster history, too).

At any rate, I’m pretty happy with how things turned out! I say the hats really do the heavy lifting for us with these outfits, and that’s fine by me – I love a good beret.

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Small Goals // October 2017

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Let’s start, like always, with my goals from last month.

  1. Find the perfect first-day outfit. Done! I signed up for Stitch Fix and got a handful of nice things. You can read more about my experience here.
  2. Clean up my wardrobe. Check. Got rid of a giant box of clothes plus two extra shopping bags full. I’m probably down 30+ items, and it feels great! I hope to go through this coming month and do a final sweep.
  3. Find a suitable 70th birthday gift for my dad. Done. I got my dad a fancy cribbage board and a custom deck of cards with his initials on the back. It wasn’t a knock out, in my opinion, but still a good gift.
  4. Paint the cabin’s shutters. Done.
  5. End the mattress shopping saga. Nope. I’m just as unsure as ever. I want my old bed back (but transformed into a larger size).

4/5. After reviewing these, goals, I realize how blah and wimpy they were! September is the start of fall – I should have incorporated more seasonal goals.

To make up for my lack of fall-related goals, I’m going full fall for October. I’m talking apples, pumpkins, scary movies, leaf crunching and the like.

  1. Create a great couple’s costume. After a successful go as Scully and Mulder last year, I’m sold on pop culture-inspired couple’s costumes. I’m pushing for Don Draper and Peggy Olson right now, but we have some time.
  2. Check out Old World Wisconsin’s Legends & Lore. Michael and I went to this event a few years back, and we totally loved it. I think it’s time to revisit and get our old timey spooky kicks.
  3. Make three (or more) apple recipes. Michael and I went apple picking with some friends of ours and brought home 20 pounds of Cortlands and Macintoshes. I’ve got to put those to good use (outside of snacking).
  4. Anything tarot. I am really enamored with the mystery of tarot cards, but I never seem to find the time to read them or learn more about them. No more hesitating! October is peak spooky season and prime time for spooky practices.
  5. Scary stuff. I’m big on ghosts, ghouls and anything creepy. It’s time to binge on old seasons of American Horror Story, Unsolved Mysteries (original Robert Stack episodes only!) and scary movies. (This is an easy one, but super important!)

I’m feeling good about these October goals: super achievable and super fun. What do you have lined up for this month?

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Spooky Hoops // What’s New in Kaminski Handicraft

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It’s no secret that I’m all about spooky things here on this blog – or embroidery for that matter. So it’s not really a surprise that I’ve combined the two for a few scary shop updates at Kaminski Handicraft.

My first hoop is a real pride and joy piece for me. I dabbled with a new text style and new colors to make this Beetlejuice hoop. As a kid I loved Lydia Deetz, so this one is close to my heart. Plus, I feel like the red rose fabric (major heart eye emojis) and metallic black hoop scream Lydia.

For those looking for a more obvious Halloween-theme, I obviously had to tap into my 90s childhood for a Hocus Pocus hoop. It’s really a shame that this one doesn’t photograph that well, but I think it’s bewitching nonetheless. Bonus: the fabric glows in dark. Super cool.

And of course, Halloween would not be complete for me without some X-Files references. For those of you keeping track, Michael and I won a costume contest last year dressing up as Mulder and Scully. We’re way into it. And I’m way into these hoops! You can find them here and here.

For those interested parties, get these hoops now! I ship them out pretty quickly (within three days), but who doesn’t want to celebrate Halloween sooner than later?

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Lazy Saturday: Benson’s Hideaway AKA UFO Headquarters of the World

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Full admission: I’ve always been interested in the supernatural and the unexplained. It could be all the Unsolved Mysteries I watched with my dad as a kid, or the fact that my mom always had a mild fascination with aliens. Or I could just be a giant weirdo. Whatever the case, this time of year I love to fully embrace these interests by watching scary movies, reading Jezebel’s annual scary story contest submissions and binging on the Lore podcast. But this year I took this one step further and visited one of my favorite Wisconsin oddities: Benson’s Hideaway. Yes, the UFO Headquarters of the World.

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Benson’s is my favorite kind of dive bar: looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 80s, has a few good drinks (but nothing fancy) and has a great bartender. Only Benson’s is more than just dive bar perfection – it’s chock-full of UFO and alien memorabilia. And love it.

I hadn’t been to Benson’s in ages and ages. My dad took me there as kid (yes, a child in a bar – judge away) because he knew I’d get a kick out of it. But this weekend, my dad and father-in-law were up in the same neck of the woods again camping, and I knew I had to see the UFO bar again (this time as an adult, not a 10-year-old sipping kiddie cocktails). So I of course dragged them, my husband, my mom and mother-in-law with me to see the spectacle. It was what I remembered but more.

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Me and a petrified alien from Roswell
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My dad: king of dive bars

More aliens, more pictures, more newspaper clippings. Owner Bill Benson was happy to share his book of UFO sightings all taken near Dundee, WI (it’s a UFO hotspot) along with a handful of books he and his bar are featured in. I couldn’t get enough. I will say I don’t believe in all UFO sightings or abduction stories, but, like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. Luckily for me, Bill had more than enough stories to share with me, and a few people at the bar had their own tales too. My mom and I sat riveted (while remaining healthily skeptical) and listened in. The rest of the family… not as much. But we had our fun.

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Michael and my father-in-law, incredibly skeptical

A few highlights – beyond the old fashioned and UFO beer – were seeing a supposed petrified alien in a jar, showing off my X-Files pin game and chatting with Bill. Seeing places like this really make me so happy. Wisconsin is a wonderfully weird place, and Benson’s UFO Headquarters helps keep it that way. So, please go say hi to Bill and have a happy Halloween!

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A terrible photo, but Bill Benson deserves to be included!

P.S. If you want to see more of Bill, you can check out this interview with Fox 6 News from May of this year.

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The Truth Is Out There

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It is! And by truth I mean “the perfect costume.” That’s right – some real 90s nostalgia, X-Files style. I can’t get enough of this Scully and Mulder getup. It’s too funny to me.

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Michael and I have never been ones for couples’ costumes for no real reason at all, but now being married, we figured it was time to take the leap – provided we had the right kind of couple-y costume. Well, Mulder and Scully is the perfect couple costume, so we embraced it fully. Yes, I’m wearing a long 90s lady blazer. Yes, Michael is wearing pleated suit pants with a cuff. Yes, we wholeheartedly researched what type of ties Mulder wore. And, yes, I was the one that so lovingly styled Michael’s amazing 90s ‘do. I love it all from the flashlight to the phony badges.

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And turns out other people love it too – we won the costume contest at the party we hit up last weekend. Turns out other people want to believe too.

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P.S. You can find our matching Scully and Mulder pins (though they are hard to see) here.

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Feeling Witchy

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Lately I’ve found myself trying to channel American Horror Story: Coven Jessica Lange. In attitude mostly. I’ve had a rough go of it lately – family drama, ugh – and to get through it all, I found myself asking what would Jessica Lange do? It turned out that getting in touch with my inner Fiona Goode (Supreme of all Supremes) helped me work through some tough spots. And I found that while I was trying to act the part of head witch, I wanted to look the part as well.

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Bless my mom, but she failed to get the full-length drama of this dress of dresses.
In Coven, all the witches wore fabulous black outfits with the best hats. I love that style – so much that I emulated it a few years ago for Halloween. I found that one good hat was not enough, though. I started my hunt for witch gear and was stopped in my tracks by this dress from ModCloth. It was my Supreme dress: long, flowing, flawless (and worthy of a head bitch – er, witch). I snatched it up immediately. And while I’m not an OOTD blogger, I thought it was beautiful enough to share.

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Michael humoring me as I half-sing “I put a spell on you…”
The second I tried it on, I loved it. I felt elegant, bad-ass and wonderfully witchy. I knew it was deserving of the last wedding of the season. It was the perfect support to my Jessica Lange attitude. And maybe just enough to turn me to the dark side.

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Hex, Drugs and Rock & Roll

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Just kidding. I went to work today so there was none of the above, but I am pretty proud of my American Horror Story: Coven getup.

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I’m having a very low key Halloween handing out candy but it doesn’t hurt to look badass doing it.

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Lazy Saturday: Halloween Legends and Lore

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Like most couples in their mid-twenties, Michael and I spent our Saturday night wandering around Old World Wisconsin. Oh wait – no one else does that? For shame because Old World Wisconsin’s Halloween Legends and Lore was awesome.

For you Wisconsin kids that didn’t end up there on a field trip as a child, let me give you the gist: it’s a giant outdoor museum with dozens of historic buildings you can check out with reenactors to show you the ropes. But let me tell you, their Halloween event is crazy cool – at least to history nerds like me.

Lazy Saturday: Old World Wisconsin Legends and Lore

Now let me geek out at you for a few paragraphs. Michael and I got there and we jumped right into the action, visiting each building where there’d be actors telling a story, playing a game or acting out a spooky tale. We started out learning about the legend of the Ban Sidhe (or banshee) and that woman could scream. She was so cool and I totally regret not taking a photo with her and her spot-on costume. On the plus side, I did get to hang out with this vampire. Terrifying.

Lazy Saturday: Old World Wisconsin Legends and Lore

Things got spooky when the sun went down. We checked out this haunted house. Ooooh spooky bride! It was totally my favorite vignette of the evening. Michael and I walked in, and we were greeted by a woman in mourning and she proceeded to tell us how her son-in-law just passed away and that Michael reminded her of him “only much less attractive,” and I had a good little giggle. And of course there was a good corpse bride scare.

Lazy Saturday: Old World Wisconsin Legends and Lore

We ended our evening with the tale of Baba Yaga and Vasalisa. The only thing I remembered of the folk tale was that Baba Yaga rides on a mortar and pestle, and if that’s not enough to send you into a Wikipedia wormhole, then you have higher standards than I do (but still check it out).

Lazy Saturday: Old World Wisconsin Halloween Legends and Lore

This is probably on the more obscure end of Halloween activities, but it was totally my favorite yet. If you’re intrigued, check it out! You’re last chance is October 31!

 

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Black Cat Halloween Wreath

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Scary story for all of you: I spent half of October with zero fall decorations. OK, that’s not so scary, but the best season of the year deserves more than the everyday.

Halloween Cat Wreath Craft

That’s why I decided that it was high time I whip up something for Halloween. And not just anything – a cat something, a sparkly cat something. That’s when I got the idea for this purrfect (sorry) wreath. Let’s get started.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Halloween wreath supplies

  • Styrofoam wreath – this one is 12″
  • Halloween garland – I found mine at Target
  • Foam-core board
  • Black paint
  • Black glitter
  • Orange cardstock
  • T-pins
  • Modge Podge
  • X-acto knife
  • Craft glue
  • Fishing line or very thin wire

To start, trace your wreath onto the foam-core board. You’ll use this as the template to draw your cat face. When you draw the face, try to keep it – with the exception of the ears – within this circle.

Halloween cat template

When you’re satisfied with the proportions of this kitty’s features, you’ll begin cutting out the nose, eyes and all the rest out of your cardstock.

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