An Antique Halloween Atmosphere

I've been so looking forward to sharing these photos from a local antique store! The store is called Farm Girl Antiques and you can always count on them to have cool stuff for the holidays. They did not disappoint with their Halloween displays.

This packaging for "Cat's Paw" rubber heels was one of my favorite items there. Do you guys know about the Cat's Paw brand? I wanted to see the actual heels, so I looked it up. I have a feeling you'll learn something too! An informative site:

A Brief History of Cat's Paw Heels.

Before we get going with this blog post, here's some mood music for you to listen to while paging through my photos:

A link to it:

13 Vintage Halloween Songs from the 1910's, 20's, & 30's

You can imagine why I chose this playlist! There's something about that older Halloween music. It's eerie in part because it's old.

OK, So here we are at the building. It's looking pretty haunted, right? This used to be a men's and boy's clothing store back in the day. It's the darker building in this photo: Brady's Clothing Store That photo was taken in the 1950s, but the building is much older. You see those two circles over the arched doorway. Well, one of them has an 18 in it and the other has a 99. So, this building was built in 1899. I love how with buildings this old, it's nearly guaranteed that you can find the date they were made somewhere on the surface.

Taking a peek in the windows...

I actually like the reflection of the other old buildings in these pics.

This character was by the front door:

You can already see the Halloween goodies beckoning you in.

Look at that ceiling! Can you imagine what it used to look like over a century ago?

This was one of the many cool Bethany Lowe objects:

I wonder how old this doll is. Any ideas?

This was the poison bottle section. So here we have Belladonna, Hemlock, and Obsession Poison. The Obsession label says "Warning, May be habit forming" at the bottom. 😉

I took this photo inside, but there's still quite a reflection. My guess is this is an antique clock that someone added that orange wood part to.

You can walk out into the display window area, right under those bats.

These two photos were taken from inside of that front window.

This was in one of the many booths. That's a cool painted face, isn't it? It's very exotic. I must have been paying more attention to her, because I just now noticed that flowery witch hat.

A cute owl

And a less cute owl. This looks a little too real!

This was my favorite item, in part because it gave me a genuine scare.

I think this hand was made of wood. It felt pretty smooth. It's reaching through part of this old Victrola. The hand spooked me, because I didn't know it was there until I was about eye level with it. The fingers are perfect for that space, aren't they?

Back round to the front door display. There's a pretty wild chair in the background of this photo. I just noticed that chicken too. It's funny how you can pass the same section of a store like this and see something new each time. Or in my case now, just notice things when you study the photo you took.

A close-up of that beaded spider top:

I saved the scariest item for last...

This is listed as a "Ghost Girls Vintage Planter" but I'm not sure what it is. This was pretty small, so I'm not sure what you could plant in it. Anyway, it creeps me out just looking at this now. It's like something from a spooky carnival, or the type of vintage item someone buys right before their house becomes haunted.

Down the street from the antique store is a Mexican restaurant called Botanas. They had the cutest display out front:

Another old building had its front windows filled with these characters:

I learned from the sign in the window that this building is now occupied by:

Looking up from the doorway, you can see this is another cool building with lots of old architectural features.

You can also see it was built in 1883. So it's even older than the antique shop's building! It's been well taken care of.

I took this one under the awning. If you guys know a better word for this overhang, let me know. I don't think I'd ever stood under one with this pattern before.

And here's a neat old theater that has been reopened and revitalized in recent years. This was several minutes away from where we just were. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but I hear it's really cool in there. I've heard they have a ceiling with little lights that looks like a night sky with stars. I don't have any ghost stories about this place, but I feel like there must be some. I mean, it's an old theater and old theaters always come with some ghosts!

Speaking of old haunted places, have any of you read or watched Burnt Offerings? I just watched the movie a few days ago and would like to discuss it! I haven't read the book, but now I'm wondering if I should. Maybe I should at least read the ending of the book. I hear the book ends in a much different way from how the movie ends. That would actually be fine with me!

So, please share any thoughts you have on Burnt Offerings. I'd also be curious to know if any of you have a favorite antique of those pictured here.

Milwaukee's Day of the Dead Parade 2016

The Day of the Dead parade was held in Milwaukee today. It's something we look forward to every year. This year's celebration was especially nice because we had, unbelievably enough, nearly 70 degree weather! So it was a comfortable day to be walking around. We started in a park, waiting for the parade to begin. There was lots of good people watching, as you can imagine! That photo above, which is one of my favorites, is of one of the belly dancers.

Check out her earring:

I'm starting with pics of just the belly dancers.

I haven't seen such pretty, flower-filled hairstyles since Ren Faire!

There was a male gypsy type dude with the ladies.

He had a gold embroidered vest on. Someone with a cool tote walked into this pic, and I like the patterns together. I realized that he had an elephant on his vest, but I just noticed there's an elephant on the tote too.

At the front of the parade were these two:

One is what I interpreted as a ghost bride.

So pretty! I like the sequins in her veil.

The other? I'm not sure, but she looked cool. I think I had the same flowers on my witch hat this year as she had on her headdress and staff!

There were so many colorful skeletons out for the parade, many of them were cute child skeletons.

I didn't even notice this guy in the background at the time. It's fun to get photos home and look at the details, and there are plenty of details in these!

The skeleton mask in the front is a design I haven't seen before. It looks like maybe cut paper or lace? I like how delicate it is. At first I thought the face was painted on.

Love this kid's expression:

A couple of those cool floral up do's:

Some Aztec dancers were performing when we arrived at the park, but there was such a big crowd around them that we couldn't see what was going on. This little dancer is the only one I saw after the show. Cute little skeleton leggings.

These are pics I took while we were standing around waiting for the parade to begin.

There were some tents with artists selling their work.

I think I might be seeing more of the same flowers as the ones on my witch hat here.

There were a few decorated frames you could take your picture with. A man walked up and nicely offered to take one of us.

This guy was walking around saging the area. A few people were. There were so many smells and different sources of smoke going. I think I still smell faintly of it. It smells good as smoke goes.

On the way back to the car, we ran into the parade coming back to the park.

A signaling skeleton bicyclist.

Passing a house near where we were parked, we saw some hanging Halloween decorations.

I haven't seen these before.

Back in the car, we passed this Halloween costume inspiration on a billboard:

For some reason, it took me a while to get the joke. Some time later I blurted out "Oh, like a cheese wedge!" OK. Haha. Think this will be the hot costume for 2016? Probably not in our climate, unless this guy plans to wear a coat over that. Although, we are having that unseasonably warm weather...

I'm going to end this post by sharing a cute animation I found, "Night of the Day of the Dead"

Pretty good animation! It reminds me of some skeleton puppets I've seen.