Week-End Roundup (Or: A Fashion Show, A Listing That Almost Made it to Etsy and Some Country Air)

February is turning out to be an incredibly busy and unusually social month for me and I'm thrilled about this. It's during this month that I start to get rather antsy, with regards to winter and if I don't keep busy, I tend to get blue. Hopefully, if I keep my head down and push through all of the activities I have planned, I'll blink and it will be March. I used to dislike March too, until a few years ago when I started planning trips during that time or for the first week of April. Two years ago I went o Jamaica, last year I was in New York City and this year I'll be in Las Vegas. But, before I take this tangent and run any further with it, this is what last week-end looked like:

Friday night I covered an event on behalf of Naiade for The Models' Coach. It started late, ran later and was kind of a mess but the photographer was good company and I was happy to be in my element. While waiting (and waiting) for the show to start, I cupped my balls in one hand and, with the other, wrote to a beautiful boy I've known online for a while and asked him out for a beer. He quickly and happily said yes and I must admit the exchange helped me ignore my mounting impatience.

Saturday morning, before listing some dia de los muertos cushion covers I made on Etsy, I decided to post them on facebook. Two people expressed a desire to purchase them and so they have yet to go up on the shop.

Midday, my stepdad came around with a rented SUV and we all piled in and headed up North for some quality time with my mom's three brothers and their families.

After a loud and enjoyably emotional dinner and much wine, I got geared up for the great outdoors and began my tipsy march down the hill behind my uncle's house, to the skating rink he and his boys work so hard to upkeep every year. On my way down, I thought about all of the times I had loudly proclaimed that my next boyfriend would not be a closed-minded Quebecer who can't wrap his head around the world beyond our borders and I knew something had changed within me. While I do want someone in my life that is worldly and accepting of other cultures, a part of me realizes that he'll either have to be able to relate to this side of my family or be incredibly open-minded as, for the first time in my life, I realize that that is important to me. There are two completely legitimate sides to me, when it comes to culture and, while I would greatly appreciate finally dating someone I can take out to a seven-course meal, who can hold his own throughout intelligent and stimulating conversation, who is well-read, who gets my Monty Python references and my dry humour, it dawned on me that he's also going to need to go with the flow when my French-Canadian family lets loose. I'm not saying he has to be from here but, for a moment, I thought of how nice it would be bring someone to my uncle's house for the first time and not have to spend hours explaining and possibly consoling. Whatever happens happens but this is what I was thinking as I made my way down to get my ass kicked by my daughter, sister and cousins on the rink.

The next morning, I took some time to head back down and snap a few photos with my phone.

On the way back, I thought about the family I'd be estranged from for a large chunk of my life and about how freeing it was to open my heart to them again. Looking around the table at all these kids who look like mine and like me and reminiscing about the great times I had with these guys when I was a child made a huge difference in my life and I've been feeling it since. This may be the understatement of the year but having kin is important and I'd spent so many years defiantly preaching about my friends being the family I've chosen that I'd overlooked the fact that I could one day work shit out with these guys and have this big, beautiful, loud, funny, loving clan of my own, after all.

I came home to a gorgeous snow-covered trees. My daughter and I spent the afternoon sorting through some more of our things and relaxing.

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Thrifting, Exchanging and Sewing.

I recently came across a great little thrift shop on Monk Street, in Ville-Émard. They're unfortunately going to close in two months if they don't start making sales. They'll be one more hidden gem that just can't keep up. I offered to help them put up a more attractive window display but they can't afford the mannequins, shelves, etc. They don't have enough furniture in the place to allow for that to be used, either.

Here's a little look at what $20.00 got me:

Some time before that, I scored this coat for $15, too.

And lastly, my friends and I get together every year in January, for a post-holiday pot luck dinner. At some point in the evening, we play a gift exchange game and this is my haul from that event:

The Yves Rocher lavender shower gel is actually quite nice and I do believe I may be addicted to these Sriracha peas.

For the next little while, I'm focusing on creating as opposed to purchasing, as my new flat costs quite a bit more than my old one did and I am saving up for my birthday trip. So, you can finally expect a sewing post in the very near future.  

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Another Passenger (Or: How I Hired Yet Another Dud)

The Interview: 

I met my daughter at Alexis Nihon shopping mall and we waited for her there. She was twenty minutes late and launched into frazzled diatribe about all sorts of things within moments of us meeting. That, I am used to. What irked me was that, given the nature of some of topics, I had to ask my daughter to put her ear pĥones in. Should I have brought my thirteen-year-old to an interview? Yes. She is contemplating a career in fashion but, more to the point, it's my interview and I can, within reason, do what I want. I'm thinking I should bring Ava more often, actually. She's got a wicked deadpan stare and what people think they can say around a thirteen-year-old probably says a lot about them.

She brought samples. I liked them. I saw pictures of her work. I liked them. An acquaintance recommended her but, that should not have been a factor, given said person's personality and the fact that her "She knows her shit" was useless because this person can probably not even thread a machine. 

I have a few minor misgivings but I ignore them and hire her. I want to shoot before the leaves change colour and I'm excited about my new project!

Over the next few weeks, I assign three pieces to her: A pair of shots, a romper and a pair of pants. I ask her to make a pattern and a muslin of each. After some time, I schedule a fitting on a Monday and arrange to meet her on Friday, after work, so I have the week-end to go over what she's done and correct any mistakes.

The Second Meeting:

I ask her to meet me at the Second Cup at the train station. She was twenty minutes late. She sat down and dropped one small roll of paper on the table in between us. Within moments, I found out that this was the pattern for the shorts and that she had brought nothing else with her. she apparently spilled coffee all of the pants muslin right as she was leaving. I ask her where the pants pattern is and she gets really flustered and starts rambling again, this time about how she is almost forty and living in a room. She does, though, tell me that she had time to make herself a pair of shorts using my pattern. when I ask her where the romper is she says, "Oh, I haven't even looked at that". I pay her anyway because I want to be sure to have what I need on Monday.

The Third Meeting:

I cancel with my model because I don't trust my pattern maker. One of my best friends, Amanda, is over and, in addition to having measurements that are similar to that of the model's, we studied fashion together and she's been working in the industry since so she can help with this next meeting because I'm getting exasperated. Monday rolls around and Amanda I wait. And wait. Finally, Amanda has people she must meet so she leaves. The pattern maker is two hours late. She texts me saying she's late because her bike tire was almost flat. She shows up with nothing but the pants pattern and looks offended when I say I'm not paying her any more and that, had I been waiting around with a paid model, I would have deducted part of the model's fee from her pay. She vows to come back the next day with everything. As she leaves, she tells me she probably shouldn't have stopped at her friend's place on the way. I'm all out of "wtf"s at this point.

The Fourth Meeting:

She's over an hour late but I'm at home with Amanda so I don't care as much. She shows up and has two of the muslin with her. Her muslin is more like burlap but what bothers me the most is that she's off by a lot on the shorts. Like, over an inch on the waist. I pay her and tell her I want the corrections in two weeks. the only reason she didn't babble senselessly about how her life is a mess, this time, is that, when she's not trying on clothing, Amanda is pacing in the kitchen, behind me, and deadpanning the woman.

The Fifth Meeting:

Three weeks later, she drops the corrections off at my work and I ask her to make the romper in the upcoming week.

Online:

In the meantime, my friend (and the ex she bitched about at her interview) posts a Breaking Bad spoiler on his facebook. I call him on it, nicely but firmly. She jumps in out of nowhere and is incredibly rude. She says, "1) It's Wednesday, 2)It's the Internet and 3) The boy in Boys Don't Cry is actually a girl. At this point, Before this, I had been thinking that I could maybe give her a few samples to sew, just so we could get to the shoot but, after this, the bitch was fired.

The Sixth Meeting:

She brings me the romper pattern and, despite me having asked her for them, none of the other muslins (I had told her not to make on for the romper).

After two weeks of putting it off, she sends me some wrecked muslins by asking my friend (the aforementioned ex) to drop them off at my place when he comes by to pick my up for a week-end trip we had planned. To make matters worse, he waits until we've been gone for two days before telling me, claiming that he had wanted to avoid "weirdness". Jesus.

I must admit that I let all of this get to be and I've fallen about two months behind, which is terrible, but salvageable. This week I will hire another pattern maker (she has twenty years experience and can use PAD Systems) for some of the more complicated pieces and get back on the horse.

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Spring 2013 Wardrobe Design. Part One: Orange and Blue.

anyone who knows me at all knows that for years, i have worn black. two years ago, i shocked some of my friends by sometimes wearing purple, navy blue or grey and, for the last four or five years, i'd been whining about how i wished i could wear colour but that every time i tried to incorporate some into my wardrobe, it just didn't work out for me. the colours i did wear were solids or, on occasion, plaids. i also wore coloured tights with completely black outfits or, when out at punk or psychobilly shows, sported bright animal print accents. i also love my pale pink, vintage ben sherman shirt but that was the only pink item in my closet. two years ago i even challenged myself publicly, on another blog, to add colour to my wardrobe and failed. no matter how much i could appreciate colours and prints on other people, i just couldn't do it for myself. 

then, last year, i began falling in love with english countryside looks with an edwardian feel to them. i sought out tweeds and plaids and suddenly found myself owning brown and oxblood fabrics and clothing. i'm not sure at what point the door to my batcave was blown open and the sunlight spilled in but i remember thinking, green and blue are my favourite colours so why don't i ever wear them? i also remember buying a dark yellow sweater (bad choice, given my arabic blood but, hey, it wasn't black) and a bright purple skirt and then, the next thing i knew, i was wearing colour and loving it. 

i think part of the problem is that whenever i did try to wear colour, friends who have been trapped in a time warp and believe me to be alongside them on that particular journey would scoff. "no. that's not you," and so on. spending time away from these people and hanging out with old friends in toronto was part of what helped the transformation along. hell, spending time in toronto at all, and out of my bubble, did it, too. i felt disconnected from everyone i knew here and free to discover other sides of myself. i wandered through streets that were new to me, soaked up kensington market, perused the thrift shops on king west. a friend i met here last year, jessie, also helped with this, given that she wears what she wants and has encouraged me to wear different things, too. either way, once i took the plunge, there was no going back! and, seeing that, as a kid, i was more punky brewster than wednesday addams, this made some sense. 

contemplating a spring wardrobe for myself is not something i'd ever given much thought to because, when all you wear is black, you're somewhat limited. i had warm clothing and clothing for warmer weather. again, i could appreciate what was happening in the fashion world and what others were designing and wearing but all without adhering to any of it, myself. this year is different and i'm so very excited about it!

last week-end i headed out to the fabricville in lasalle for inspiration and found it in one meter of discounted wool suiting fabric. i immediately imagined what i would make and what i would wear it with and, running with this idea, toured the shop and picked up a few other pieces that will look amazing in my personal, spring wardrobe. somehow, the end result is a blue, orange and neutral shade pallet. while this only represents what will be a third of this season's warbrobe makeover, who would have thought that i would have fallen for these colours and prints? certainly not i, had you asked me a couple of years ago!

the top piece was what made the rest come together:

i'm absolutely in love with it! what i'm thinking is that i need a pencil skirt out of it, to wear with a blouse made out of the second fabric in the pile, one-and-half-meters or cream-coloured poplin that was on sale for a whopping $2.00.

i'm liking vogue 8119 for this.

i can see these shoes from zappos.com working well with the outfit, too. the hunt for the perfect handbag as also begun.

next up, we have this lovely, orange, crepe. 

which i intend to use with vogue pattern 8825:

the next two fabrics are chiffon, for blouses. the orange  twill will be for another skirt and i would very much like to make myself a dress out of the blue fabric on the bottom but i have yet to figure out what design i would like to go with. the first four fabrics were bought at fabricville, last week-end, and the other three i already owned. the dark blue is leftover from the grade six grad dress i made for my daughter, last june:

to add to the blue and orange pallet, i found this be-bop dress on sale at winners for $13:

i'm not usually a fan of the short skirt on curvy women, like myself, but i'm a sucker for houndstooth and i think i can rock this with a pair of black, opaque tights and a cropped, black blazer.

last but not least, i will pull out a dress i bought last summer (it's in storage now, seeing as i don't have room for all of my clothing and must alternate between fall/winter and spring/summer wardrobes. you can't see the dress but the print is really cute so i'll share it with you:

the dress came from winners, the clutch from a clothing exchange and the shades are vintage, from the 1960's, and came as part of a lot of items i won on ebay, a few years back.

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Merci à Mme Arthur Bélair et à Saint-Phil! (Or, alternatively: "Vintage Pattern Score!")

when i had a car, i tried to visit the montreal mega reuse center as often as possible. over the course of one year, i found so many beautiful treasures and i'll be sharing images of them as they relate to my different posts. in a few months, i'll be purchasing another vehicle and the mmrc is pretty much the first place i'm going to drive to. one of my best girls, annie and i have taken to calling the gentleman who works there "saint phil" because of how he clearly guards a subdivision of heaven and because of how helpful and nice he is.

on one of my last visits, i acquired a clear, plastic bag containing several brown envelopes addressed to a mrs. arthur bélair, in laval, québec, in 1959, and three vintage patterns. the envelopes had been sent from pattern companies so i thought, yay! a bag of vintage patterns! and then promptly set them aside with all of the other patterns i wanted to "one day" sort through. at the time, i was working as a relocation consultant and the job occupied my mind from the time i woke up to the time i finally lay my head down and, even though a i often daydreamed about all of the wonderful things i wanted to sew, i rarely got the time to actually do so. when i did have free time, i threw an overnight bag, some water bottles and my kids (if it wasn't their fathers' week-end) in my car and left town in order to properly clear my head. 

in the last few months, i've had more time to dedicate to, well, everything and so i've been organizing my work space, sketching up a storm and finally starting put together a few plans of action. the plastic bag from the mmrc ended up in my hands for the first time in over a year. now, i'm not one to squeal but i must admit that such a sound did escape my lips upon opening the first envelope. 

what surprised me the most was the sizing. i'm a size 10 to 12 so, as far as pattern sizes go, this is something i can work with without having to spend too much time grading. 

behold the contents of pattern number two:

and:

all three of them will be used when i start putting my spring wardrobe together, next week.

i was also quite happy to discover this lovely apron pattern:

in what i presume is mrs. bélair's handwriting, the contents of the next envelope were described to me, "pattern for little girls coat":

and here it is, in need of much love but still relatively in tact:

and how cute is this?? it's from 1957:

for women (or, rather, for me), there was also this one:

this one was also in the bag but i have a feeling it came from elsewhere because i remember bringing it home alone, at one point:

so yes, all of this was discovered right in time for the creation/revamping of my spring wardrobe and i absolutely had to share it with you!

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Roots. Part One: Elise.

i was born in montréal, québec, in nineteen-eighty, to a seventeen-year-old high school drop-out (nobody took a moment to tell my mother that there was a school for pregnant teens or that there were any alternatives at all, for that matter) and an eighteen-year-old whiz kid who'd been working on one of the first prototypes of the electric car with some local scholars and who would spend a good decade sporadically reminding me that he'd turned down a full scholarship to concordia university because he had become a father and "someone had to pay the bills". with my dad usually holding down two jobs and my mom struggling with her new role as a housewife (my brother came along a couple of years after me), i ended up being raised by a whole group of people and it's only in the last few years that i've truly begun to appreciate how each of these people laid a stone or two in my foundation and, whether directly or not, guided me toward what i am aesthetically drawn to now and, in some cases, created within me severe aversions toward other style elements. 

growing up, one of my two favourite people in the world was my paternal grandmother, elise. no matter what i am sewing, not one half hour goes by without me thinking of her. she grew up very poor, one of a multitude of children, and had to drop out of school in grade four to stay home and help with the younger children. eventually, she got a job at a luggage shop, got married and had four children of her own. times were difficult for her in the 50's and 60's and, for a time, one of the rooms in her apartment was a makeshift shop that instantly became a craft room when an inspector came by. she and my grandfather would walk down the street with a baby carriage, in which they'd stuffed some of the lovely dolls she had made, trying to sell them to passersby. 

most of her children's clothing was handmade. here is my father (right) with his older brother (who sadly passed away almost ten years ago. more on him soon) in matching outfits my grandmother had sewn. 

she eventually saved enough money to buy a triplex on rue de lorimier, just south of holt, in montréal's rosemont district, and the ground floor apartment was my first home. i obviously don't remember too much from when i was a toddler but i know that she constantly made me matching dress and bonnet sets like this one:

and made me my first bikini:

i remember my aunt and mother often running to my grandmother for a dress they wanted to wear that very night. she would always stop everything she was doing, including breathing, just for a moment, while she quickly thought of what she would construct and then inevitably said yes. a few hours later, whoever had asked for a new dress could be seen admiring herself in a then-sexy (it was, after all, the 80's) dress that been expertly made with love. 

when i was seven, my parents split up and, while they screamed at each other and tried to work out how to go about separating, i was sent to live with elise, at her new duplex on davidson street, for almost a year and my brother was sent to live with our maternal grandmother. i had already grown accustomed to falling asleep to the sound of my grandmother's sewing machine and waking up to it the next morning, to groping the hundreds of fabrics she had in boxes or on rolls, in her fabric room, on floor-to-ceiling shelves, to emptying out jars of colour-coded buttons, counting them, admiring them and putting them back where they belonged but this was the year i started to want to create clothing for myself. i must admit that, at that age, i mostly sketched out an idea or selected a pattern, picked out fabric from the magical fabric room and asked my grandmother to make whatever it is that i wanted and she did, usually in one evening but most certainly within two days. i don't know how many seven-year-old kids can say that this is their norm but, boy was i in heaven. 

that summer my brother and i were sent to an awful, awful camp and, at the end of august, 1987, my father arrived in a gold-coloured, ford pickup, it's bed piled high with our belongings, and told us we were moving to ontario. right before this time, my grandparemts also got divorced but continued to live next door to each other. 

from then on, time with elise became even more sacred, as she was suddenly two-hundred kilometers away, instead of six. we started visiting our mother every other week-end and getting some time with elise during summer and christmas holidays. she was more than someone to visit. i escaped to her home and hid under her wing. i drank green tea out of a large, geisha-shaped mug, ate grilled cheese sandwiches stamped with "i <3 you" and i got to wake up to the sound of her sewing machine somehow blending in just fine with vivaldi's four season and to the smell of belgian waffles. she started teaching me more about seams, garment construction and pattern alteration and i became more and more convinced that i would one day be a fashion designer. one of the most exciting things that happened on several occasions was when my grandmother would call me and tell me to quickly turn the tv on and  switch over to fashion file, where a design very similar to one i had drawn would be making it's way down a catwalk. this trend definitely helped me to believe that i could do this. 

in addition to all of the crafting and sewing, i learned how to hunt treasure. elise would take me to seemingly random church basements in east montréal and would buy me the few items i really swooned over. this is where my love for beautiful vintage fashions stems from. i got into even more when i started delving into old hollywood biographies but, for many years, this was it. i still have crocheted gloves, a cloak, jewelry and a pillbox hat that i found in the early 90's, while thrift shopping with my grandmother. sadly, over time and in my late teens and early twenties, i lost shoes, the red bowler hat with black satin ribbon and crow's feathers and many other items i had found and cherished, back then. 

when i started fancying goth clothing, my grandmother was the one to help me sew a cloak and, a year later, made me a killer, royal blue, vinyl mini skirt. 

in two-thousand, my daughter was born and i gave her my grandmother's name as her middle name. around that time, my grandparents packed up, sold their duplex and moved to gatineau to be closer to the rest of the family (everyone ended up migrating to ottawa or gatineau at some point, for various reasons). a few years ago, she sold her house and she and my grandfather moved into apartments. she sent a trunk and five boxes of fabrics and notions my way and, a little while ago, sent her surger to me, too. i still have a hard time using some of these things, as they symbolize the end of sewing for elise and that breaks my heart.

elise is the person i call the day after a clothing exchange to let her know how it went, i call her when i'm having trouble with the lining of a coat i'm assembling or if i have a question about what seam i should use. she is the one person i know who is guaranteed to understand some of my deepest loves in this life and it makes me sad to think of her living in an apartment building, in gatineau, of all places. i wish her health was good enough to allow her to come down here for some shopping and sewing but those days are gone. i'll see her in a few days, over holiday dinner and games, at my father's house and i'm grateful for that. i hope she knows how instrumental she was to me in choosing this path and sticking to it because i daresay that, without her, i would not be where i am today. 

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Ink and Lace

for a few years now, i have loved the look of lace on tattooed skin, if done right. i may still be tweaking my winter wardrobe, as per my wardrobe challenge but spring is not too far ahead and soon i'll be focusing on what i'll be wearing then. i've been envisioning lace, cap sleeves for a while and so, when i came across this gorgeous lace trim on etsy, i promptly purchased two yards of it. 

i placed some across my shoulder to see what a cap sleeve made from this will look like and i love it!

more of the trim:

i'll have to start thinking about the dress i'll make to go with this and maybe head back to that shop to see about other lace trims, in light colours!

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Wardrobe Challenge Update: Fabric Store Mini-Haul

thanks to my holiday gift guide, my current hunt for employment, the process of redecorating three rooms in my flat and a side-project i'm working on, i'm a little behind on my wardrobe challenge. i'll probably end up with four dresses, 3 skirts, 4 pairs of pants and few blouses and tops. hrm. well, that's not so bad, given that i started when it was already autumn... right, then!

i'm not really into the madness that is black friday and i already look forward to no longer having to hear about it for about eleven months so, instead of going to fabricville today, waiting in line for hours, having to be crowded by the woman who wants to get a hold of my fabric roll next, etc., i went out to the one in lasalle yesterday evening, when they were offering up great discounts, anyway. all vogue patterns were $5.99, burda were 25% off and, as usual, i found some fabric in the discount section, this time for only $3/meter. 

i already have all the skirt patterns i need and i can draft my own patterns if i want anymore so, as far as bottoms go, i've moved on to pants. i keep finding the same, matronly, wide-legged polyester pant in thrift stores and so i'm going to make my own. do i think making pants is a huge pain? yes! but it'll be worth it. check out the patterns i scored for this purpose:

i can't wait to rock the shorter version this spring, with a nice pair of loafers or ballet flats. they'll also look great with my chucks. in the meantime, style b will be perfect. i have two tuxedo jackets that need partners in crime, anyway. 

and, speaking of tuxedo jackets needing matching bottoms, i love these pants! they will look great with so many things i already own and i can wear them to an office, for sure. i won't make the jacket, seeing as three tuxedo jackets is a bit overkill for me and, unless i find a designer one on sale, my ben sherman one is perfect. 

the third and last pants pattern i purchased was the vogie 8859. i have a pair that is similar to these now and i know that i love the fit. 

it's so important for women to wear pants that fit and that compliment our bodies. the wide-legged trouser mom wears is not okay, especially if you're short and curvy, like i am. wide-legged only really works when they're high-waisted and have a 1940's or 1950's design to them. 

i have to admit that flipping through the vogue pattern catalog left me feeling a tad disappointed and the feeling only lifted one i started searching through burda's selection. this has never happened before but, for some reason, i feel like most of vogue's new collection is dated and drab and features over-rouched, ill-fitting garments. a look at the vintage section is always nice but, seeing as i already own most of the ones in this season's catalog, i decided to go with on of the few dress patterns i like from their newer ones, the vogue 8825:

this sleeve always draws attention away from the upper arm and accentuates small wrists, a great combination for my shape. the waistline is also flattering and, although it can easily be changed, i love this length because it hugs my curves but shows off my calves. thanks to this image, i want to make it in green, too!

and here is the houndstooth fabric i found for $3.00 CAD per meter. i bought four meters so i can make a pencil skirt and some pants like the ones in the first pattern. if i don't make the pants, i will use it to line a warm, winter coat. 

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25 Days of Etsy Christmas Gifts. Day Two: The Horror Movie Fanatic

there are so many things out there for the horror fanatic, from hammer horror box sets to framed movie posters to figurines but, my goal here is to suggest gifts that can be bought on etsy so that we are supporting artisans and small businesses. yesterday we looked at gifts for the beer lover and today i will post ten gift ideas for, as mentioned above, *SHRIEEEEEEEK*  the horror movie fanatic.

1. vintage galeria, a shop based in los angeles, has many great items up for grabs but the one that caught my eye for this list is the retro horror movie hollywood monsters inspired apron. at $28.00 USD, it's an absolute steal (hell, i sew almost every day and i'm thinking of buying myself one!). the lady horror fanatic in your life will love this! ...just make sure that she actually likes to cook and/or bake or this could backfire on you. ;-)).

2. i have been checking out spooky shades, a shop in lyon, france, for a couple of years now and i'm thrilled to share her work with you, today! i love everything in her shop but, in keeping with the tone i've set, i'll share this one horror lamp shade with you. you can grab this one or a red one just like it for 45 EUR.

3. let's head over to raleigh, north carolina, where elizabeth a. breakey is creating stunning, italian marble coaster sets and adorable jewelry for her shop, breakable designs. i'm in love with almost all of the coasters on this site and will actually admit to being a wee bit sad if someone buys these because of this but there is no way i couldn't include these alfred hitchcock movie poster coasters in this list. they are $25.00 USD and perfect. 

4. if your horror fanatic is someone who likes to integrate their love for all things spooky into their wardrobe, this belt buckle is a great idea. grab it for $24 USD at whiskey darling.

5. or how about this wicked vampira tie for $30 USD? i'm almost willing to bet that, if you like ties, you'll find something for yourself at tie story, given how varied and original their stock is!

6. at $40 USD, this monster movie cushion cover set is perfect for anyone who loves classic horror but likes to incorporate pretty and simple elements into their deco. the kitschy cupcake is loaded with gift ideas and most of them are horror-related so taking the time to browse through angela k's shop is worth it!

7. how about an edgar allan poe flask from the flask shop for $17.50 USD. i bought a dia de los muertos wood block print from this shop a little over a year ago and the service was great!

8. i thought this a was a pretty interesting find for the zombie lover. if you read the description, you'll see that moral mustache can change the label on the record for you so that it reads "zombies love me for my brains." $42.50 USD. oh and look for another version, in which the artists combines two records so that the zombies are approaching from an orange background. 

9. i am in love with this gorgeous, one of a kind, sculpted and hand-painted nosferatu figurine. given the obvious craftsmanship, this piece is really well priced, at ft30, 000 HUF or approximately $138 USD. suzanne wolf is definitely an artist i'll be checking in on again. 

10. i've been checking in on mad madame mim's shop for months now and it's no wonder at all that shanna meadows came to mind when i thought of this theme! i like many items on her page but i must share this vintage horror movie purse with you. at $40 USD, i say you'd better get your paws on one of them quick!

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