I think I've been in the mood for Halloween all Summer. Well, actually, I believe I stay in a Halloween frame of mind all year round. It is my favorite time of year, next to Christmas. You can just feel the magic in the air. The much anticipated change from Summer to Fall. Waiting for all the decorations and costumes to arrive on the shelves.
Well, this year I decided to do something really fun for the season. My shop usually has "Halloween'ish" items all year round, but I wanted to do something special. I had just completed a collaborative project with a new friend that I met on Etsy. We worked together on an Alice in Wonderland themed Collection (which I need to post about here to show you all the fun stuff we did for that), and we had such a good time that I approached her about collaborating on another project for Halloween. Her name, by the way, is Amy Wonderland, and she is a HUGELY talented Hatter and Bow Maker. (You're probably already getting a hint as to how our first Wonderland Collection sprung into existence.) But I digress...
The theme we decided on for this year's Halloween Collection was a unanimous Yes! for Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. We both love the movie, the characters, and the whole style in general, so we were both rarin' to go!
First step -- re-watch the movie! Everyone should have such pain-staking homework to do. It was really fun to revisit Jack Skellington and all his pals -- Sally, with her lovely patchwork and her Nightshade Potion, Oogie Boogie is a particular favorite of ours, oh, and Zero, he's too cute! We each took our notes, Amy sketched away feverishly, and we were ready to begin!
We both have a lot of fun bouncing ideas off each other, and also keeping some things quiet and surprising each other with what we've come up with.
I knew immediately that I wanted to do something "Nightshade" perfume wise. That was a no brainer, so to speak. So that was my first quest, to come up with an aroma that encompassed the night -- something very pretty and with a surprising twist. Which, upon watching NBC, I was particularly intrigued by Jack's formulations on the chalkboard, and the equation with Sugar Plum Spice caught my eye. "That's it!" "It has to have Sugar Plum Spice to give it that Halloween plus Christmas Magic edge." I did run this idea past Amy, and she agreed, this was the way to go with the Nightshade Perfume. Then of course the bottle had to be perfect as well. So I set upon my next quest for finding the little flower beads -- I knew I wanted a purple flower on the bottle as well as a label saying Nightshade to give it the right appeal.
Amy, in the meantime, told me that she wanted to do something Oogie Boogie related. She wasn't quite sure how to work his overall image into a hat, but she knew that was a task that she wanted to undertake, and she did! Talk about the surprise element! When I got my first glance at her Oogie Boogie hats -- yes, she made 2 of them! I was thrilled beyond belief! She really captured his image and made them have a 3D look. She did all this by hand -- no patterns or anything. Just her and her talent.
Each and every item in our collections has it's own story just like those. And our collections ended up being larger than the one before. We hope you'll enjoy our NBC inspired offerings. We have each posted our items in our individual Etsy Shops and we've set up a "Nightmare Collection" Section where you can find these particular treats.
Amy's Shop is http://www.amywonderland.etsy.com
And you can find me at http://www.studio3b.etsy.com
We have set up special discount coupon codes for customers who shop in either of our stores, they will receive a coupon code for the other store upon purchase.
We'll be looking forward to seeing you!
Happy Halloween!
I'll be posting individual items from the Collection here in the blog as well as our Wonderland Collection. Stay tuned!
Jfay
xoxo
