Day 96 & A Moon-Up From The Basement-Pt 2

Oh my, Oh my! There should be anger management classes for irate witches because let me tell you, they really over-react!

Mdm K+T was fuming even more as she would be flying to WHC with a huge plaster on her face. I thought it gave her character and when I told her so, she added 2 weeks to my misery.

Yes, I was the one who was punished because lying head first inside the cauldron, she didn't see all the flying around or knew what hit her . She only heard me screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOO".

But, but it was the Tabla! I insisted and pointed to Mdm Golden Messy Hair, hoping she would back me up. She shrugged and looked away.

When I turned to Mdm Red Pink and Awful, she just shook her stick at me, daring me to say anything about them flying away.

And so it was with some mumbo jumbo about toil and tumble that they laid a curse on me.

No more mini making
until our broth is brewing
For YOU with the evil scream,
to the basement, damp and dim
No light, no day, no muse, no play
No blogging, no friends
till our journey to Canada ends!
oh
+ 2 weeks for that plaster comment!

And so my misery began. 1st thing they did was to dump the cauldron on me. "Cinder it", she commanded. Huh? What in the world is "cinder it?" I felt like Cinderella with the evil Sisters. I even broke into a song and birds and mice started scrambling down to the basement to help me.

After much scrambling, these were the ingredients found and properly laid out for the "cinder it":

Firstly, a plastic translucent ball removed from a spent deodorant bottle. This is the part which you used against the armpits. It is very easy to remove. Just a pen knife and a few jiggle and its off. Word of caution: Resist the temptation to smell it for it is pungent.

Then a small plate of bony hands which you will need to colour brown with acrylic paint.

The 3rd ingredient is a bit unusual. They were from the preserve pack that comes with raw fish bought from super market. The packet says "DO NOT CONSUME" and then give some instructions on what to do if you consume it anyway.

Last but not least, a handful of Grade C snakes since Grade A has escaped. Pick 2 with the best colour and worst grimaces.

The steps are fairly straightforward. Paint the cauldron brown. I "dirtied" it using dried tea leaves and coffee powder (glued on cauldron). I then placed the ball inside the cauldron so that all the other ingredients can "float" on the surface. Quite by chance, I found out that the inedible "peas" can be smeared and so with more glue I did that on the side of the cauldron to simulate the bubbling over of a yukky brew. This is my 1st "cinder it" attempt:
I think I would have been able to live with that if I am a boy. I was sharing with Helene on how there is such a thing as "too realistic" and how that is NOT a good thing.

Anyway, I squeezed 2 snakes into the pot, painted the hands and then placed them on the ball and smeared more peas . I also added glue onto the snake to make it seem as if it was dripping in goo broth. Not sure if you can see the hands but there were 3 in the pot, one of them quite smeared.
I then took the pot down to my favourite electric man because I wanted to "build a fire". This was to be the "killer ap" of my piece, the fire effect. Regretfully, Ithe electrical system in Canada was so different that there was no point sending the lights over . This is how you can do it, Karin , with LED lights.

I am proud to say that I have "designed" the light with Mr. Electric because he had never done one before. I told him it must have a "burning" look and the lights must flicker (like Christmas lights) but at slower rate. He told me we would need a controller (see the box with the masking tape?). The "timer" for the flicker was set to dim slow but brighten fast to make it seem more like fire burning. It would have been more realistic if you have more than 1 set of controller (which is very expensive) so that the lights do not go completely off. Nonetheless, this one is quite close. You can see from the picture that there are 5 LED bulbs. The 4 outer ones are orange and the centre one is red. This is the combination that gives you the colour of amber fire.

It was such a coincidence. I saw Mr Electric right in the smack of The Hungry Ghost Month. I remembered how the lady at the shop actually shrunk back when I held out the cauldron to her. She asked me if I was making this for the Hungry Ghosts. That was when I knew I had to modify the cauldron.

Took me weeks before I was satisfied at last . I added dried moss over the peas, and created a smoke effect over the pot with cotton wool. I also scattered transparent beads for vapour, peppered some glitter and the broth actually looked more palatable after that. Logs were glued to the bottom of the pot and I hope they will glow again someday.

The smoke must have gone to my head because I actually gave the girls farewell presents. I fixed their hats with vintage flowers I kept in my stash. They were from some old lady's estate. Helene said they sweetened the ladies up.

Something Old

Something New, Something Borrowed
She had some pink roses at her neck too. Mdm Red Pink & Awful also held in her arms a bouquet of herbs and dried moss and another snake similar to the ingredients in the pot.
Something Blue

These are the last pictures I have of the sisters hovering under the basement of the Emperor's Emporium stewing the perfect poison.

And then just as suddenly as they flew in, the HalloWitches left. And it was almost as if the incident never happened.

Was it a dream? I wondered as I stared at the Emperor's Emporium on Halloween. And as the clock struck 12 and Halloween's finally over, I heaved a sigh of relief. My blogger beeped. Hey! The witches are now safely away in Canada and cursing poor Karin, phew! Sorry Karin but....haha, they are off my back!

Time for bed and as I leaned over to switch off the lights at the tent, I saw a flash of red at its basement.

IT AIN'T OVER, MY FRIEND! IT'S STILL HALLOWEEN IN AMERICA! SO MINIKAT SENDS HER LOVE!

I screamed. For the 2nd time in a moon.