Detours off Britta Blvd

My annual Mardi Gras party is 4 days away! I'm not quite as enthused this year since it's the perfect storm of Presidents Day holiday weekend, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year AND Mardi Gras all the same weekend, so most likely only about 15 people are coming, but I'm sure we'll still have plenty of fun. I've decided to do an easy costume this time, using tricolor costume bits I've gathered over the years to be a sparkly Mardi Gras Girl. I decorated my mask Sunday evening with some giant plastic jewels to go with the sparkly necklace I had. Most of the decorations are in place, but beads still need to be draped everywhere plus food tables set up, and the housecleaners are scheduled for Friday so everything will be nice & clean. Friends have volunteered to make the King Cake this time, so that's a long project for Friday evening off my plate!

I think we'll have plenty to eat...here's what's already done:

double-batch crab puffs in freezer
10 dozen spinach balls in freezer
5 dozen tricolor scrolls in freezer
2.5 dozen creole chicken skewers prebaked in freezer
40 life-size edible mask cookies baked, ready for decorating

Add those to the shrimp mold, pastry brie, sliced cheese & crackers, fruit & veggies, plus the King Cake coming, and we have a decent spread! Since there's always so much punch leftover even for the larger parties, I've decided to forgo the punch this year & only have hurricanes plus the full bar. There is one more edible experiment I'm hoping to figure out, but that will remain a surprise. :)

Decorate your own edible mask was such a hit last year that I'm only going to decorate 10 as examples, leaving the rest with white basecoat icing, and more table space so more people can decorate at once. I bought reusable plastic candy/icing mini-squeeze bottles with tip covers so no one will have to wait for icing, I have extra decorating sprays in hopes we won't run out, and I'll get out my fun confetti sprinkles this time too. I can't wait to see everyone's creativity this year!


Bejeweled & Bling

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

It's that time again! New year, new projects! Last year was the most intense project year at my house...whew! I got a LOT done! I love my new kitchen, and I really like all the charming brick pathways, especially with my new little flowerbeds...but if I never bash any more tile floors or haul or pound any more brick for the next 5 years, that will be perfectly fine with me! ;)


Dec 2005 to Aug 2009 - what a difference!

Since it's good to keep track, here is my project list for last year...

( Brittahytta home & garden improvements in 2009: )


Since my parents are coming again in late February for Stitches Project Weekend, I've been organizing my thoughts for what I will do by myself & what might be good projects for Dad & me, whether just for transport using their van or actual work those couple days they'll be here. Since I'm so late in posting this, several projects have already been completed in January!

( Brittahytta home & garden improvements for 2010: )


2009 ended up being the Year of the Kitchen...now it's looking like 2010 is perhaps the Year of the Patio?

To usher in the new decade I finally went hi-def, including a 60" plasma Pioneer Kuro HDTV, new HDMI 7.1 surround sound receiver, new HD service with DirecTV DVR (horrible UI, just until the new DirecTivo sometime later this year!), and a PS3 Slim as not only my Blu-ray player but to play Beatles Rock Band! Yes, I splurged on Rock Band 2 for game & instruments, plus the Beatles game to do triple fab harmonies! This was mainly an idea for the summer as pre-movie night entertainment in the backyard, but I have a feeling it will be used plenty even before then! ;)

New TV install just before Christmas with first Beatles Rock Band!

I bought the TV from bestbuy.com online when it finally went on sale for Black Friday, but due to my own party & crazy caroling weekend schedule, it made the most sense to be delivered Dec 21st on my first day of vacation. I invited people over that night to help setup & play the first Beatles Rock Band, since even though I installed the articulating wall mount to the wall studs myself in advance, the delivery guys refused to help me put it on the mount when they finally showed up at 5:30pm. Thankfully Glen & John R were already on their way over so they did the main mount setup on the TV as others trickled in just in time for the TV to get up into place around 7:30pm. Then it took a village to setup the TV & accessories! Glen, John R, Kevin C, Ben, Jen & John all helped set up various items according to their expertise, so I'm very glad they all came! Jen has Beatles Rock Band on XBox so she knows her way around the game & brought her 2nd microphone, and it worked great, so Ben & I nailed all sorts of Beatles harmonies, while others played guitar or drums, for at least an hour! It was a LOT of fun, so fun that it wasn't until most people left I thought about getting a photo of me playing in front of my new TV!




Beatles Rock Band at Christmas...even got my DAD to sing! :D

Since my whole family loves the Beatles and it was just us for Christmas this year, I figured we could trying playing all together so I brought my PS3 & all the stuff with me. I did get everyone to play at one point, just no more than 3 at once...but not only did my non-musical dad try guitar a couple times, but he started singing Twist & Shout, so I quickly gave him a mic! Awesome! The only drawback was that I totally forgot the entire drum set at my parents' house when I left...argh! I'll get it the end of January when I visit again...but I did get a pretty aqua Fender bass controller for Christmas from Grandma. I keep laughing because I own a real Fender Strat guitar AND a real Fender Precision bass, but I have to have fake ones to play the game!

New Year's Rockin' Eve 2009!

Cyd had to work early New Years Day so I promised her we would toast at East Coast midnight (9pm local) so she could get home early. Just in case other friends didn't have plans, late on the 29th I sent an evite for a low-key casual Rock Band New Years...and ended up with 13 guests! I put all the Christmas decorations away & went with teal to usher in the new decade. :)

I had gotten back from Christmas with my family to an email from Kevin C, already so addicted to Beatles Rock Band from his one evening playing at my house that he was quizzing me what to buy where! He bought everything that day on Amazon, so he had it by the 30th, and already had played more than me by New Years Eve! Since my guitar had a flaky strum key & I had forgotten my drums at my parents' house, Kevin brought his guitar, drums & mic, so we had THREE mics for all 3 harmony parts! We got TONS of "Triple Fabs" which is when all 3 mics hit 100% the whole phrase!



Of course with that large a group, not everyone could play at the same time, so that gave the others some time to nibble & chat. When West Coast midnight was approaching, we had to stop them from starting another song so we could toast...I couldn't get the TV to switch to channels quickly enough, so we just used our iPhones for the countdown, toasted, then it was "GET ROCK BAND BACK ON THE SCREEN!" haha...Our early girl Cyd didn't leave until around 2am, only getting a 90 minute nap before working all day, but she said it was totally worth it! Others started trickling out around then, but a core group of Jeff, Audene, Kevin, Ken & Rob stayed with me, moving to normal Rock Band around 4am, then I think around 5:30 we stopped playing...I finally got to bed after 7am...that's the latest I've stayed up for New Years in 5 years! :)



Early on in the evening, before about half the others even arrived, I climbed carefully behind the new TV to take this video with my little camera, but it was the only video I took since we were all having way too much fun. Forgive the quality since this was just my little point & shoot camera, not a real camcorder or anything, but it's still funny. :)



Thanks to Rob for grabbing my camera every so often to help me document the fun evening! The whole album is in Gallery here for anyone who'd like to see more of the crazy fun. The replacement guitar arrived this past week, and I'm shopping for best pricing on 2 extra mics so I don't have to borrow anymore for Triple Fabs, and I'll get my drum set back by February 1st. Now people are saying either they must stay away from my house or they'll be sucked in to the Brittahytta Beatles Rock Band vortex, or they are already vying for "playstation-sitting" responsibilities during my next big trip!

Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year so far!

All of us at Brittahytta posing with the new fireplace mantel! :)

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season & a fantastic 2010!

Well, my best laid plans were thwarted a bit last Thursday...on my drive home the Briata freaked out with the check engine light coming on, then after atrociously long lines at the grocery store, I came home to a dripping leak in my bathroom skylight! No time for any food prep Thursday night after all that chaos, just enough picking up & final decorating so the housecleaners could clean for me on Friday, as I was face painting at my company party that afternoon, then going straight to Margarita Friday, even though traffic was so awful I didn't get there until everyone else was already finished with dinner...oh well!

Even though I had checked all the other skylights Thursday night, when I got home Friday night there was a new leak in the hall bathroom skylight, after I had already been up on the roof with plastic sheeting & bricks for the other leak...so Saturday morning during another quick break in the rain I got up again with more plastic & bricks. Thank goodness my temporary measures are working well, then when everything dries out at least a week or more, I have exterior roofing caulk I just bought to seal those leaks from the roof side. I guess my house heard me & is coming up with a project list on its own!

The only changes to the party menu were my own version of sugarplums in place of the pepperkakor I didn't make, and the snowflake cookies ended up as "decorate your own" activity since I ran out of time to decorate those. That was actually pretty fun, with several people decorating snowflakes, so I think I will plan for that better next year. :) Yet another year there was plenty of food so I didn't even bother heating up the crab puffs. They used to be ubiquitous, but now I think it's been a couple years since I've had any at any of my parties...amazing!

( The actual party menu  )


Partying people at festive Brittahytta

All my Christmas season photos so far are here in Gallery if you'd like to see more, especially decorations.

The first guests arrived about 5:30pm, the majority left around 9 or 10, then the last group finally left around midnight...and here I thought people might leave earlier because it was Sunday night! I think I've counted about 42 people throughout the evening, not including babes in arms. Everyone liked my decorations, loved the new kitchen & flooring, loved the food, and I heard "We know it's a real party now, since we have something broken, something spilled, and someone asleep on the couch"...haha!

This weekend is annual caroling with Cibo Cantabimus, then I'm on 2 weeks vacation from work with only a drive to my parents on the schedule, no major trips up north this year...and my new 60" plasma HDTV gets delivered on Monday...woohoo!

As of yesterday, it has officially been 4 years since I owned my house...wow! Time flies, and I've done a lot of improvements in just 4 years, but that will be a separate post in January when I plan for next year's projects... :)

This Sunday December 13th will be the 4th anniversary of walking into Brittahytta as owner for the first time, so why not celebrate with a Holiday Happy Hour? I'm expecting around 50 people anytime after 5pm, so hopefully we'll all have a lot of festive fun!

I'm sure I'll be running around crazily at the last minute as usual for any of my parties, but I'm in a fairly decent prep position at the moment:

outside decorations done except for front door wreath
inside decorations almost done - just final touches left
4 dozen sandbakkels are made, a little more dough left to make maybe 1 dozen more
14 dozen intricate sugar cookie snowflakes baked, need to decorate
chocolate covered toffee made
double-batch of fudge made to cut into squares
10 dozen krumkake made - took 6 hrs standing at the stove - ugh!
pepperkakor (gingerbread) dough chilled in fridge - should make 5 dozen tonight I hope

( The party menu (subject to change) )

This is the first holiday party I've hosted that has NOT been after performing in a concert...what a concept! ;)

Another over-the-top edible creation was a huge success! This was the 11th cake I have made for my friend's daughter's birthday, and this year the theme was pirates but for tween girls, so my concept was "pirate bling" spilling out of an open treasure chest on a sandy beach, with as much completely edible as possible. I keep calling it a "cake" but the quotes are because there was no actual cake used in this project! :)

This year was extra challenging since we had extra relatives for Thanksgiving, so I wasn't staying at my parents' house with the use of my mom's kitchen with all her supplies and tools. Since the birthday family had already said they preferred the rice cereal treats to actual cake, I took them at their word since I could complete the cereal treat island base before I left home for my long Thanksgiving weekend. All the other parts had to be made well ahead anyway, since they all had various sculpting, drying then painting times, taking close to 20 hours of work including final assembly. This is the first "cake" where I haven't even done a complete assembly dry-run, since too much of the jewelry would suffer from takedown and repacking, so after an hour of assembly onsite, those were the only photos of the finished "cake"!


The birthday pirate and Buccaneer Britta with the Pirate Treasure Chest "Cake"


( Making of the Pirate Treasure Chest 'Cake' )


Here it is...the finished Pirate Treasure Chest "Cake"! Even more photos are in my gallery of course, from all angles, including "sea level"... ;)

This past weekend was Trek Weekend! The Blu-ray of the new Star Trek movie was released on Tuesday, and the Tech Museum in San Jose has the only Northern California stop of the traveling Star Trek exhibit, so we decided to make a weekend of it! Glen hosted the Blu-ray viewing in his fancy home theatre Friday night, then Saturday 12 of us got a group discount to go together to the Tech. I offered costumes from my seemingly-endless supply, and several took me up on my offer! Only one uniform shirt in our group was NOT made by me...haha! I even made Commbadge Chocolates that I remembered on Friday but totally forgot to bring Saturday...doh! They were 60% dark Ghirardelli with smoked paprika in custom molds I made for the Trek Mystery party back in 2002, then handpainted with silver & gold luster dust.


Custom Commbadge Chocolates and Blu-ray fancy home theatre!

The Trek exhibit itself was very cool, but several items were from the now-closed Vegas exhibit at Star Trek Experience that I'd seen 3 times over the years, and all the verbage I pretty much already knew just because I've been that big a fan for so long. For those who never were able to get to Vegas it was even better! It was very cool to walk through the Enterprise-D hallway with the original Engineering cutaway with the hidden duck & Porsche that I pointed out to everyone. :) One especially noteworthy item was Uhura's original red miniskirt uniform, which was NOT in Vegas. I know because I fought hard with that asymmetrical pattern, but the Vegas one was a much simpler design with a waist seam, so I was sorely disappointed! This time I finally saw the original up close, WHILE I was wearing the same...boy I wish I could have gotten a photo standing next to it! Ah well...

They would not let us take our own photos inside the exhibit, but they did have cameras set up to sell you photos. Argh! Well, it was worth it after all, even to the tune of $69, since the photos made me laugh so hard! I scanned them for everyone & put them all in Gallery, but these below are my favorites! The bridge was first, and since we were early enough there weren't large crowds, so we hogged the bridge for quite awhile getting everyone in the captain's chair , then moved through the exhibit to the NextGen transporter pad. There they had a TV monitor so you could see your pose, so we had fun trying to be transported in action...and we even collected a crowd watching us pose! haha...

More exhibits of costumes, props & models, including the actual model of the Enterprise-D used for filming from seasons 4-7, one of the most photographed models ever, and insured for $1 million! Then the next large room had the life-size GUARDIAN OF FOREVER giant stone donut time portal...how awesome! But no photographer in there...what?!? The display just said "no high heels" so obviously was meant to be interactive. I went back & asked the transporter photographer if we could get any photos at the Guardian of Forever, and he said the bridge photographer could if he wasn't busy. I went upstream again through a lot more people this time, but luckily the bridge photographer was free so he came with me...as the crowds parted for me...I laughed & said "Yes, official Starfleet business, move aside!" ;) We got a couple great shots there, one that looks like it could have come out of an episode...haha!



The last large room had a reworked history timeline mostly from the Vegas exhibit but with changes, including the new movie, and there were even costumes from the new movie. There were two simulator rides each at separate cost ($5 & $6), one for 2 people that went upside-down several times but an hour wait in line, and a 15-person "shuttlecraft" with almost no line. Ruth had the guts to do the "higher-G" 2-person simulator with me, so she was nice enough to stand in line while I played hostess trying to give status & say goodbye to everyone, since some people just wanted to leave. The shuttlecraft broke just as we were going to get on, so that gave us time to look at our photos. It was hilarious, since we turned around & when no one was in line for purchasing photos, all the screens had different photos of US! hahaha...nice to be screensavers! By the time the shuttlecraft was working, we got on, then right when I got off that one, Ruth was next in line for the other one! Glad it was that order, since the shuttlecraft was pretty gentle...and the totally enclosed pod that went upside-down with higher-Gs was a blast! Ruth was Dr Crusher & she lost her wig from flying around upside-down! We were laughing so hard our friends standing 10 feet away outside said they could hear us! Hey, might as well enjoy it!

I browsed the gift shop but didn't buy anything for myself - with the Internet now, gone are the old days when you could only buy Trek stuff at conventions or specialty stores! Others were already waiting in the cafeteria, where we found a fun Bones who had to take photos with us, so I let her use my other communicator...hilarious!



Oh, and one last photo from the little gift shop...not that my crush on Spock has ever really waned, but I think it has definitely been re-energized with Zach Quinto! heehee... ;)



I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

I do really like having Halloween week to enjoy after my party is over, especially when I did NOT get sick this year! Unfortunately I still got too busy with other fun social events, including Margarita Friday in costume, and the Gourmet Chocolate Walk in San Francisco as "grownup trick or treating" on Saturday afternoon, so I still didn't get the chance to carve a pumpkin after all...darn! Maybe next year...except that since Halloween will be on a Sunday, I'll probably barely have party stuff cleaned up enough for the photo shoot while I get trick or treaters at my door... :)

So, on with the Halloween 2009 Party Post-Mortem! Another fantastic big bash for Halloween at Castle Brittahytta! Numbers were back up this year to 54 including 6 kids ranging from newborns to teens, and I still absolutely LOVE the enthusiasm of my guests! That makes all the lack of sleep and hard work & pitfalls in party prep totally worth it! :)

( The Final Push of Party Prep )

( The Party )

Here are the contest results! *drum roll please...*

Scariest Costume: Sean the Executioner
Most Original Costume: Ruth & Gail the Groovy Girl Britta Dolls (really there is a Britta doll!)
Ultimate Costume: The Barbieri Pirates

Creepy Cuisine:
Skones with Blood Raspberry Jam by Tracia
"Dead" Cow Teriyaki Flank Steak by Kevin C
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake & Candy Corn Cookies by Maureen & Robert
Decapitare Pumpkinus Experimenti Exhibits A-J by Lyle & Galt (pumpkin yogurt with fruit & nuts in real hollowed-out mini-pumpkins)
Jack O Lantern Cheese Ball by Glen
Chocolate Chai Coffin Cake by Cyndee
"Demented Owls" Chocolate Covered Bacon by Ruth (sorry no photo but it was tasty!)

Since I had so much surprise house-elf help this year, I decide to publicly give House-Elf Honors too! Thanks SO much for all the help! :)

House-Elf Honors: Kael, Melanie, Rubby (Ruth), Glenny, Hoppy (Gail), Lori, Ashlyn, Tracia


As is always the case, I kept focusing on how much of my crazy, overachieving list did NOT get done, but I did have a lot of new stuff this year! :)

( New Projects )


Halloween 2009 - Miss Hermione G. Wells in her laboratory at Castle Brittahytta


This year was interesting since there were so many different groups of people who all had fun together! My elementary school friend Debi drove over from Sacramento with her husband for a full Bay Area weekend away from their kids, more Margarita Friday people came, others brought friends I'd never met, and even a couple co-workers stopped by! There were way too many all at once for me to make introductions, so I'm glad everyone was comfortable enough to introduce themselves. I've seen a lot of new friending happening on Facebook this past week or so, with my party as the epicenter...haha!

Full photos are in Gallery as always...HUUUUGE thanks to Tracia & Kevin C. for getting great photos during the party! I am in the market for a new "prosumer" camera, since my current camera was frustrating me SO much, I actually charged up my ancient Nikon Coolpix 995 from 2001 to take better low-light photos of my decor, especially outside. Suggestions & recommendations are welcome, and a couple front-runners are the Canon G11 and the Canon S90...G11 might win since even though it's larger to carry around, I can get an attachment to add filters...a polarizing filter for my next international trip would be VERY nice!

Now to clean up, put Halloween away properly, and get out Christmas decorations! I already have chosen the date for my holiday party in December... :)

I'm still working on the party post-mortem, which will now be combined with Halloween day plans, but before I might forget, here is the press coverage I know about this season:

In the About.com Pool & Patio section:
Eerie Elegance Author Shares Secrets for Outdoor Halloween Decorations & Parties:
An Interview with Britta Peterson, Webmistress of the Dark
(keep reading past the ads in the middle)

Eerie Elegance radio interview with Shannon Medaglia on Edmonton, Alberta, Canada's 104.9 Easy Rock - October 31st, 2009

Thanks to Lisa & Shannon for such nice interviews!


From googling, I found myself and/or book mentioned on a few other blogs & such...

Host a wicked Halloween party
Sunday, April 26th, 2009

All Hallows Eve Menu & Digital Freebie
Sunday, September 27, 2009

Foodie Halloween
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Halloween Party Ideas
Friday, October 30th, 2009


I hope everyone had a horribly haunted Happy Halloween! :)

For the last episode for the 2009 Halloween season, learn how to make one of the very first spooky recipes in the Eerie Elegance repertoire - the Haunted Human Heart that bleeds tasty raspberry syrup! That's it for 2009, and I only realized while editing that brings me up to lucky spooky number THIRTEEN podcasts total since I started! How perfect is that? ;)

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, it's split into part 1 & part 2 on YouTube, and on iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my over 220 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Book sales are still going strong...still no day since August with zero sales!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Human Heart


My party this past weekend was a grand success with over 50 guests who had a blast, and I'm still writing up my party post-mortem & organizing photos, so that will come later this week...but tonight is my first chance at a relaxing evening, so I'm going to take advantage to rest in my eerily elegant decor & maybe convince a kitty or two to cuddle, since I haven't really sat down much all weekend!

I hope everyone has a fabulous Halloween!

Current Location: Castle Brittahytta

Eerie Elegance 2009 Episode 8 is out today, showing how to mix your own experimental Spontaneous Sentience as one of the many possible Laboratory Libations! You even get a sneak peek of my new Steampunk Study in process. Only one more episode on the schedule for 2009!

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my almost 200 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Book sales are still going strong...no day since August with zero sales!

Eerie Elegance - Spontaneous Sentience


This weekend was a frantic push to make up for lost time from Star Wars in Concert, but thankfully I got a lot done! It was several weeks behind my intended schedule, but at least I got the cardboard mockup made for the gingerbread haunted mansion yesterday! The back is all open like a dollhouse except for the top tower, so you'll be able to see through the windows from the front, but I can turn on lights & set up figures inside from the back, plus people can see even more details by turning it. It's on a leftover chunk of EcoTop counter from the kitchen remodel sitting on my large wooden lazy susan like the Hogwarts castle was. Since there's no way it'll move from the table without a lot of help, so it's on the skull lace tablecloth with plastic protection over it for now...glad I thought of that before I started actually building anything! I like the design, loosely inspired by Addams family & a couple other mansard roof Edwardian/Victorian houses. It should be relatively easy to bake & assemble, less pieces in number but larger pieces than the Hogwarts castle, and then the decoration is what will make it cool. I have to make all the quiz characters & accessories the next couple evenings, then bake the gingerbread Wednesday night or Thursday day. Since it rained again on Monday, I'm not putting any gravestones out or paper decor on the patio until the day before the party so they won't get ruined.

I steampunked a LOT of random lab stuff on Saturday...even my straw dispenser since it was lime green plastic I didn't like anyway! LOL! I wasn't going to use the oscilloscope since it was too modern but then I thought it would look great with woodgrain contact paper & some "brass" accents...I really like it this way! I assembled the spare water heater parts with my chunk of ductwork leftover from cutting my kitchen vent hood into a contraption I really like. My costume is in great shape & is presentable even if I run out of time for any more. I would like to add the jewelry I planned & a holster or two for my ray guns, but we'll see how much time I have. Thank goodness I'm done with the sewing machine this early!

Aside from cleaning up the project mess that can be stashed last minute on the garage floor with Miata parked in the driveway, most of the house & patio is decorated at least so that feels much better than how I started the weekend. I'm still still choosing the last tracks for the music quiz, which I'm listening to on my iPhone on my long commute to & from work, and no food is made yet except the bone cookies, but food is better made closer to the party anyway, and I'm not doing as many cookies this year since I'm doing the gingerbread mansion. Thank goodness I'm taking both Thursday and Friday as vacation days from work this year, since I'm gonna need the extra day!

Now back to party prep, since way too much still to do! :)

Less than two weeks until my party and only two episodes left before Halloween Day! Eerie Elegance 2009 Episode 7 is out today, showing how easy & effective it is to make the Simple Spooky Spectres I first made back in the last millenium! You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my 183 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Book sales are still going strong...no day since August with zero sales!

Eerie Elegance - Simple Spooky Spectres


Only a little Halloween party progress since last week because of the Star Wars in Concert chaos from Friday through Sunday. Singing for 30,000 screaming fans total in 4 stadium gigs with fabulous orchestra, giant LED screen of film footage, smoke & flame effects, & even lasers, with singer friends from across the past 20 years of my life...now that was an experience of a lifetime! Definitely worth sacrificing some Halloween prep time for that! :)

I was barely able to film & edit my podcast for this week between Star Wars gigs, and last Wednesday was singing rehearsal, but Thursday & Monday I did get quite a lot done really. My ruffly costume blouse is all sewn except for bottom hem & buttons (I HATE sewing buttonholes!) and it looks great! The portrait gallery is now inside in the hallway in place of my normal travel artwork, all the spiderweb lace & tapestry curtains are up in the living room with just enough matching purple spiderweb lace for a piano scarf, the pillow covers are changed & silly seasonal pillows are out, the bathroom towels & rug are set up, the skull door knocker wreath & spiderweb doormat at the front door, the fringe is pinned on the new spiderweb lampshade, and my brown velvet spats are underway.

I am extremely thankful I hadn't set out gravestones or hung the bookcase paper yet since there is a HUGE storm today, windy & pouring rain, so that would have ruined the paper through the screened patio! Whew! But that must go up this weekend, since it's the last weekend I have before my party...ack! The to-do list for this weekend is truly scary, with not only food to make, but lots of major projects including the gingerbread haunted mansion & my leather costume bodice, plus I want the Steampunk Study set up as much as possible, especially the lab equipment, so I can film the next podcast with that backdrop...wish me luck!

It's already October, which means Halloween is even closer now! Eerie Elegance 2009 Episode 6 is out today, the Britta Blvd Halloween classic Brittle Bones! Extra bonus for me is that my first party food is all set to go plenty ahead of time. :) You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can join my 169 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans if you like, and the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com is open for business. Sometime last week I passed the 500 books sold mark & more are selling every day...woohoo! :)

Eerie Elegance - Brittle Bones


The fireplace mantel is finally ready to test hanging on the brick fireplace, then staining can begin. All the foam stone walls & gargoyle entrance columns are cleaned up & set up, but there are bits of touchup & repair to do. Storing painted foam outside doesn't last very long, these are on their 4th year now, so I think new foam structures are in my future next season. Time for something new by then anyway! I have the flagstone gossamer & the lab chalkboard hanging in the Steampunk Study, so next will be the library bookcases on the walls over the flagstone. I painted the pipe organ with a black wash to give it spookier atmosphere, and I've tested my iPod & battery speaker with my pipe organ playlist - two items on my list last year that escaped me from lack of time. I ran new extension cords around to the back & to the windowbox since my new brick pathway foiled my previous setup. The skirt is sewn, my costume blouse is cut & pinned hopefully to sew tonight, and a purple spiderweb lampshade matching the curtains is underway for the living room, plus another curtain panel for the piano window...which means the giant cat eyes will move to staring out the office window to the backyard instead of the front...heehee! Way too much still to do as always, plus I don't have much time this weekend since instead of staying at home doing Halloween projects, I will be PAID to sing Star Wars in Concert at Arco Arena in Sacramento & HP Pavilion in San Jose...does that mean I should have watched the prequels by now? oops! ;)

Episode 5 is out today, completing the Tombstone Trilogy! Hope you enjoy them, since the entire 3-part series is about 30 minutes & chock full of tips I've learned while making 23 gravestones by now. Bonus points if you can read the epitaphs on the example gravestones & name the characters & what they're from. :)

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. I've got 152 Eerie Elegance Facebook fans now, and I've set up the Eerie Elegance Agonizing Accessories store on Zazzle.com and already earned $7 royalties there!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Headstones - Part 3: Painting & Aging


The official party invitation has been sent, one month to party day, and I'm still testing Mojitoe moldmaking techniques down to the wire since that's on the schedule to film this week! My fireplace mantel is under construction probably halfway done, but I keep running down both batteries from so much drilling & screws, so that will be continued next weekend. My local thriftstore seems to have caught on since I've last needed costume leather, since all their leather jackets are now $30 or more, so I found a pair of leather pants (!) for $10 that aren't the perfect color, but I think I can make it work for my bodice. I did find a pair of shoes for $5 to scavenge for 8 matching small buckles, plus a few other steampunk props. Speaking of steampunk, the serendipitous result of my 29-year-old water heater dying last Thursday night is that I scored on leftover copper pipe & mechanical bits for my lab display! After hearing & seeing how much I did myself on the kitchen remodel, the repair tech even showed me how & actually let me solder the copper overflow pipe myself with his blowtorch...cool! That might have to be my next tool for my growing collection! ;)

Do you like the Beware the Brocade design? You can now buy all sorts of silly things like shirts, bags & more at the Eerie Elegance Store on Zazzle.com! You can scroll through this nifty display below, or you can always find it on the Eerie Elegance website.


create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Note that if you select a shirt with the design you like, you can change the shirt style to whatever you like, long sleeves, ladies vs. mens or kids, whatever. Hope you like them! I'm going to get my dad a silly tie for Christmas...haha!

Episode 4 is out today! Little did I know how much I had to say about gravestone carving & layout...I had 30 minutes of good content my first editing pass, then it took 4 more hours to chip more & more content away down to under 10 minutes! Guess I should have made Carving its own full segment, but I did get it down to the essentials, and the 'director's cut' is probably too long anyway. Pardon the plane overhead...I didn't hear that one while filming or I would have done another take. The wind was the precursor to the freak thunderstorm we had that night, so I'm glad I got the filming done in the nick of time!

You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can also become a fan of Eerie Elegance on Facebook. I've got 131 Facebook fans in just one week, the majority of them people I've never met...wow!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Headstones - Part 2: Decorating & Carving


I am testing various Mojitoe moldmaking techniques in hopes I can come up with one I can reproduce for a decent cost so I can sell the mold along with my recipe. So far I have a gorgeous 6-toe free-standing food-grade silicone mold with spectacular detail, but it used $25 of liquid silicone supplies! The cornstarch press mold technique didn't work, so next is trying to make a closer-fitting mold form for the silicone, since that might bring the cost down enough.

Halloween shopping weekend was as fun as ever, and I still came back with a fairly full trunk, but we were a bit disappointed in the selection, especially at the cheaper stores who usually have good Halloween basics we can make into other things. It looks like they're stocking less inventory overall due to the economy. Honestly, the past 5 years or so I had been disappointed in how MUCH Halloween stuff was available, removing the fun challenge of making your own, so I don't mind. I totally scored at the Goodwill store for lots of steampunky goodness for the study! No leather jackets there like I need though, so I still need to scavenge locally for those so I can make my costume bodice. Now that I'm back in town, it's full "steam" ahead for the study and my costume! :)

Grandma last saw my house in June 2006, when nothing yet had been done except some minor repairs, some paint & some decorating. She's been seeing photos all spring of the kitchen remodel & other projects, so on her way to a wedding in Santa Rosa, she asked to come stay with me...hooray! This is the first time Grandma has visited me without other family around, so it was fun to have time to ourselves, like the Alaska cruise last year. :)

She stayed with my cousin in Menlo Park the first couple days, so my cousin brought her to my house the day after Labor Day so she could see my house too. My cousin was impressed, and she's difficult to impress, with much more expensive tastes than me! :) After she left, we finally got dinner started, with fresh sourdough bread, caprese-inspired heirloom tomato, feta & balsamic vinegar salad from my garden, and a new recipe I'd found for Bermuda Onion Marmalade, saying it went well with chicken or pork, so I had chicken breasts for us. Grandma was excited to see my experiment, so she was very interested in the recipe, and she helped stir while I got out other ingredients. Since it was an experiment & only a recipe for the marmalade, next time I would add the raw chicken in earlier, since some of the onions got extra carmelized, but it was so tasty Grandma requested the recipe! She's complaining about slowing down, but I want to be that healthy & active when I'm 95! That's Johnnie Walker Red Label scotch with water on the rocks as her favorite evening cocktail... ;)


Grandma eating chicken with bermuda onion marmalade and fresh sourdough bread, all made in my new kitchen! :)


The next morning we both slept in - hey, I was on vacation myself! - had a late & leisurely waffle brunch, then met Cyd at the Savannah-Chanelle winery in the Saratoga hills for free wine tasting since Cyd is a member. All 3 of us bought the 4-pack special of the 2006 Pinot Noir & the Pinot Noir Rose we tasted, so combined together we got the case discount too! I had thought we'd just go back down through Saratoga, but it was such a beautiful day & Grandma was enjoying the breeze in her hair in the Briata, so we decided to continue over the Santa Cruz Mountains to see the ocean! Grandma lives on the Pacific herself so it's not that exotic, but Puget Sound is a lot different than the California coast. ;)


In the Santa Cruz Mountains in the Briata after wine tasting at Savannah-Chanelle, heading for the ocean!


It was nearing 4pm when we drove through Santa Cruz, with a ton of rush hour traffic already starting, so we took Hwy 1 up just far enough to see some coast with some crops growing right up to the cliffs & pretty clear blue ocean. I knew there were some cool cliffs with craggy trees at Davenport, so we parked there, walked about 10 ft for the best view, then it was so windy we got back in the car & headed back. I used my GPS on my new iPhone to find a route to cut through the mountains back to Hwy 9, which took us down Big Basin canyon & up again, but was a very nice drive, and much better than just sitting in Santa Cruz traffic!


At Davenport on Hwy 1...gorgeous day!

We took it easy before dinner, Grandma enjoyed the sunny patio with her Johnnie Walker Red, then we went to Left Bank in Santana Row since I'd never been there & wanted to try it. We each had a different savory tart & shared the cheese plate, which was perfect portions for both of us. We had just enough time after dinner to check out Z Gallerie & Sur La Table before they closed, then I hooked up my laptop to my backyard projector & showed Grandma all the Eerie Elegance podcasts from last year up through current...she was impressed! It was funny to see them so huge...8 ft wide! Talk about extreme zoom for the eyeball painting! haha...


After-dinner entertainment...showing Grandma my Eerie Elegance podcasts at Cinema Brittahytta

Thursday morning I set Grandma's hair after leftover waffles, then we got on the road for Santa Rosa by around 1pm & got to the hotel just before 3pm. No top-down this time since freeway driving would have messed up her freshly-done hair! ;) We checked in & got in contact with her friends, then it was a big party on the deck outside Jonelle's & Grandma's room at first with Savannah-Chanelle wine, scotch, some of my sourdough bread, my homegrown grapes, smoked salmon from Alaska & other munchies from others, but then the bride's parents had bought BBQ & wanted the whole Dontos clan to come over, and their house was about 5 minutes from the hotel. Since there was no point in even trying to get through Bay Area rush hour traffic by leaving Santa Rosa that early, I went with them too, driving Grandma with me, close enough & slow enough we had the top-down for those few minutes, and that was a hit with everyone to see us with the top down...haha! We all went back to the hotel by about 9pm, when Grandma said "It's too early to go to sleep!" so it was back on the deck awhile longer chatting again. They were strongly twisting my arm to stay the whole weekend with them for the wedding & everything, and they are a fun bunch, but I declined & got home with no traffic around 11:15pm...whew!

Incidentally, all these photos were taken with my iPhone 3GS, which sadly has no flash, but has a camera with almost as high megapixels as my trusty Nikon Coolpix 995 from 2002! The top-down photo was when we were on the side of the road when we had to take a cellphone call, NOT while I was driving of course! ;)

Grandma said she had a really great time & I told her I did too! Maybe we can make this an annual event? :)

Episode 3 is out today! There is an entire Haunted Headstones chapter in Eerie Elegance for making my realistic carved foam gravestones, so I decided to split up the episodes as a trilogy to get everything in. Part 1 is Designing & Cutting which is just under 10 minutes, so it'll be a good half hour total watching the entire set when it's finished! The gravestones are messy enough they are best done outside, and I have new neighbors with active little kids and a dog, so pardon some of the background noise. A lot is filmed in the dark since that was after the noise finally went to bed! ;) You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com, YouTube and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series. You can also become a fan of Eerie Elegance on Facebook!

By having filmed these, that means I have 4 new gravestones already well underway for my own decor! The most intricate two are completely carved ready for a base coat of paint (which also means the filming is already DONE for part 2 - hooray!), but I have to finish carving the other two before I'm ready to paint. My biggest splurge for this year's decorating arrived from New Jersey last week = 2 wallpaper murals of a fancy library so I can make my patio bar into "walls" of bookcases as I've wanted to do since 2006. My own costume I've only spent $20 so far (well those are shoes & tights I will wear normally, so maybe those count as normal wardrobe, not costume expense?) since I'm using closet finds & fabric I've had in my stash, but I still need to find old leather jackets to sew my buckley bodice. This weekend is our annual Halloween shopping trip with my friend Tash, so I'll be on the lookout for fun accessories!

Eerie Elegance - Haunted Headstones - Part 1: Designing & Cutting



After the Cinema Brittahytta Season Finale tonight (last movie night of the summer), the patio will start transforming into the Steampunk Study!

Whew! Technical difficulties almost prevented it, but here is this week's Eerie Elegance episode...everything you ever wanted to know about the infamous Eerie Eyeballs! Seriously, it's about 18 minutes long, and I think I answered every single question I've ever gotten in email about making my eyeballs, so it's chock full of good info & especially closeups of the painting technique. Again it's split for YouTube into part 1 & part 2. You can watch the entire episode from EerieElegance.com and iTunes by searching for "Eerie Elegance" or by subscribing to the series.

For my own Halloween planning, I have completed the herculean task of clearing the way in my garage chaos to get at the Halloween boxes & shelves, and in the process finding other good supplies for the Steampunk Study and/or my costume that goes with it. Always nice to finally find a reason for something I saved from long ago! I have decided on the 13 favorite spooky characters for the gingerbread haunted mansion quiz (I'm not telling or the party guests reading will be spoiled for the quiz!), and I've decided on epitaphs for 4 new gravestones to make...which is good since I plan to film the making of my new gravestones for the next 3 podcasts!

Eerie Elegance - The Infamous Eerie Eyeballs


However the next couple days will be Halloween hiatus since I get to be hostess for my grandmother, cooking for her in my new kitchen & driving her around California in my convertible! :)

Current Location: Brittahytta