Martha Stewart crafts are the real evil of Halloween - a trauma re-visited.

I swore off Halloween crafting after last year's tragic Martha Stewart Halloween Handbook "EASY Jar O' Lantern" craft deception and ensuing trauma. I have not and WILL NOT purchase the 2011 version of that handbook from hell, so I thought I'd just re-post last year's blog detailing the horror I encountered.

AS A WARNING FOR OTHERS...

Living as I do in California, where seasonal changes are non existent, I must rely on the local CVS and Walgreens to tell me when it's Fall. This generally happens around mid September, when I begin to see the following items appear on store shelves:

* Convenient economy size bottles of cough syrup and Nyquil

* Fake leaf type garland things

* Bats, Rats, Pumpkins and Mice

* Fake cobwebs covering up the real ones

* Apple Spice and Pumpkin scented Candles that smell suspiciously like deodorant

Each year, while perusing the "Fall" aisle, I tend to fall (no pun intended) for the same joke:

The Martha Stewart Halloween Craft Magazine.

The first mistake:

I purchase the damn thing. The SMART shopper would simply browse through it while awaiting checkout, have a good chuckle at some of her ideas, then move on.

Not me.

No.

I am "inspired".

Once home, I devour the magazine in one sitting. Of course, I realize there are some craft activities my feeble mind could never grasp:

The above image is Martha's costume idea for any elderly relative in your life that you hate: a Deep Sea Jellyfish. I'll say no more.

Ravenously, I read through the magazine - settling on an article about pumpkin carving ideas that must simply be walked away from. This must be done for the sake of my sanity, the cat's sanity, and any neighbors living in a one mile radius that could potentially be hit with an angrily flung half carved mess of a pumpkin:

cool idea, but really...that's a lot of work:

Seriously, there are limits to what one should do to a pumpkin. I notice she even has a page devoted to the "proper tools" one should have laid out when carving a pumpkin.

Note to Martha Stewart: If all of the following tools are required to carve that "one night only" pumpkin...you need to re-think why you are spending so much time and effort on a damn pumpkin:

The following is all you need to carve a perfectly acceptable jack o' lantern:

But I digress...

I continue reading in my search for the easiest Halloween craft. The one craft project that won't land me in anger management classes. The one craft project that will give me the greatest satisfaction for the least amount of effort. There are very few Martha Stewart craft projects that fit these parameters, so my search is very quick:

Wow! How easy is this?? Orange paint on a used pickle/mustard jar! A dab of black on the outside for a face!! The wire hanger part will be immediately deleted as "too hard" however.

I head to the craft store to purchase "oil based enamel paint" and come home raring to go. Carefully I apply the first, second and third coats of orange paint to the jars, awaiting the proper drying time in-between. Hours later, I see this:

Every time I touch the jar, the paint slides off. It NEVER dries. Two days later..IT'S NOT DRY. Slowly I feel the old yearly rage building up again. A couple of things cross my mind:

* Did I purchase the correct paint?

* Is Martha Stewart a sadist?

* Is it because I used a "bread and butter" pickle jar, and not a "dill" pickle jar?

* Why do I torture myself like this?

And then I head out, magazine in hand, back to the craft store. I purchase a different brand of the same kind of paint (oil based enamel - I was using the right kind!) and head back to the dungeon...I mean house.

Gee, it was very easy to get the first paint off the jars....TOO EASY:

and I start over with the new paint, same jars and some valium thrown in for good measure:
Interesting, same streaks and same inability for the paint to stick to the jar!
After three days of "touching up" the bastards...the paint is at least dry:

But the jars are ugly - really ugly. The paint is chunky, the streaks obvious, and the thought of lighting a tea light inside of a jar containing that much oil based paint kinda scares me.

Martha's jars are PERFECT, of course - no streaks, no chunks and perfect shades of orange are represented. Bitch. I bet she didn't even paint these. I bet some sad ass assistant had to go search for orange jars all over creation. Then I bet she laid him/her off at the end of the project.

Please note you do not see any final images of my chunky ass ugly jars with faces painted on.

Oh No.

Not this time.

Not again.

This year, I put it all aside. I put down the glass jars (highly breakable when angrily tossed about), the paintbrushes and ruined towels BEFORE freaking out. This year I decide to take the Martha Stewart Halloween Craft Magazine to work with me the next day, and craftily (no pun intended) I leave it innocently lying about a file cabinet counter top. Free for the taking.

It doesn't take long.

Maybe 10 minutes go by.

...and it's GONE!

Picked up by some poor, excited sap thinking "Hey! look what I found! For free! I bet there are easy crafts in here I can do with the kids!"

My work is done.

The evils of Halloween Crafting...Martha Stewart style, that is.

Living as I do in California, where seasonal changes are non existent, I must rely on the local CVS and Walgreens to tell me when it's Fall. This generally happens around mid September, when I begin to see the following items appear on store shelves:

* Convenient economy size bottles of cough syrup and Nyquil

* Fake leaf type garland things

* Bats, Rats, Pumpkins and Mice

* Fake cobwebs covering up the real ones

* Apple Spice and Pumpkin scented Candles that smell suspiciously like deodorant

Each year, while perusing the "Fall" aisle, I tend to fall (no pun intended) for the same joke:

The Martha Stewart Halloween Craft Magazine.

The first mistake:

I purchase the damn thing. The SMART shopper would simply browse through it while awaiting checkout, have a good chuckle at some of her ideas, then move on.

Not me.

No.

I am "inspired".

Once home, I devour the magazine in one sitting. Of course, I realize there are some craft activities my feeble mind could never grasp:

The above image is Martha's costume idea for any elderly relative in your life that you hate: a Deep Sea Jellyfish. I'll say no more.

Ravenously, I read through the magazine - settling on an article about pumpkin carving ideas that must simply be walked away from. This must be done for the sake of my sanity, the cat's sanity, and any neighbors living in a one mile radius that could potentially be hit with an angrily flung half carved mess of a pumpkin:

cool idea, but really...that's a lot of work:

Seriously, there are limits to what one should do to a pumpkin. I notice she even has a page devoted to the "proper tools" one should have laid out when carving a pumpkin.

Note to Martha Stewart: If all of the following tools are required to carve that "one night only" pumpkin...you need to re-think why you are spending so much time and effort on a damn pumpkin:

The following is all you need to carve a perfectly acceptable jack o' lantern:

But I digress...

I continue reading in my search for the easiest Halloween craft. The one craft project that won't land me in anger management classes. The one craft project that will give me the greatest satisfaction for the least amount of effort. There are very few Martha Stewart craft projects that fit these parameters, so my search is very quick:

Wow! How easy is this?? Orange paint on a used pickle/mustard jar! A dab of black on the outside for a face!! The wire hanger part will be immediately deleted as "too hard" however.

I head to the craft store to purchase "oil based enamel paint" and come home raring to go. Carefully I apply the first, second and third coats of orange paint to the jars, awaiting the proper drying time in-between. Hours later, I see this:

Every time I touch the jar, the paint slides off. It NEVER dries. Two days later..IT'S NOT DRY. Slowly I feel the old yearly rage building up again. A couple of things cross my mind:

* Did I purchase the correct paint?

* Is Martha Stewart a sadist?

* Is it because I used a "bread and butter" pickle jar, and not a "dill" pickle jar?

* Why do I torture myself like this?

And then I head out, magazine in hand, back to the craft store. I purchase a different brand of the same kind of paint (oil based enamel - I was using the right kind!) and head back to the dungeon...I mean house.

Gee, it was very easy to get the first paint off the jars....TOO EASY:

and I start over with the new paint, same jars and some valium thrown in for good measure:
Interesting, same streaks and same inability for the paint to stick to the jar!
After three days of "touching up" the bastards...the paint is at least dry:

But the jars are ugly - really ugly. The paint is chunky, the streaks obvious, and the thought of lighting a tea light inside of a jar containing that much oil based paint kinda scares me.

Martha's jars are PERFECT, of course - no streaks, no chunks and perfect shades of orange are represented. Bitch. I bet she didn't even paint these. I bet some sad ass assistant had to go search for orange jars all over creation. Then I bet she laid him/her off at the end of the project.

Please note you do not see any final images of my chunky ass ugly jars with faces painted on.

Oh No.

Not this time.

Not again.

This year, I put it all aside. I put down the glass jars (highly breakable when angrily tossed about), the paintbrushes and ruined towels BEFORE freaking out. This year I decide to take the Martha Stewart Halloween Craft Magazine to work with me the next day, and craftily (no pun intended) I leave it innocently lying about a file cabinet counter top. Free for the taking.

It doesn't take long.

Maybe 10 minutes go by.

...and it's GONE!

Picked up by some poor, excited sap thinking "Hey! look what I found! For free! I bet there are easy crafts in here I can do with the kids!"

My work is done.

Martha and Me...a slight case of comparison

Martha Stewart and I do not get along. It's a well known fact and I am not afraid of it. There are reasons, one of which is her oh so charming Martha's Calendar that graces every edition of her "Living" magazine. The Calendar is an adorable peek into what Martha is doing every damn day of the month. Things like "Bergh Ball" and "plant onions and shallots".

So I give you tonight...selections from Martha's April Calendar and a comparison to MY calendar:

April 6th - Martha is ordering new garden gloves and turning on her outdoor faucets. She is also hooking up her hoses that day. Martha's gloves:

My April 6th - While wandering CVS during lunch, I may happen to see some cheap ass garden gloves in the "Spring has arrived!" aisle. I may actually buy a pair, since the last pair of cheap ass garden gloves I bought there are already torn and useless. My faucets ALWAYS work, so no need for me to traipse around in some "turning on faucets" event fashion. I may have to turn some leaky one off, actually. I give you...my gloves:

April 11th - Martha is horseback riding to brunch at Bedford Post. She will also bake some no-knead bread.

My April 11th - Seriously? I am not getting on a horse to get some damn brunch sandwich and Dr Pepper. I may, if weather permits, start eating my sandwich on the way back to the car. I will NOT be baking any kind of bread. I have discovered that supermarkets tend to do this for me. I will PURCHASE, then EAT some bread. Maybe. Here is God's gift to all bread lovers:

April 17th - Martha will be picking some asparagus (from her garden) for a dinner party that night. She'll also be making a Meyer lemon crepe cake.

My April 17th - I am all for asparagus, but really, again I must point out that supermarkets tend to have these supplies. If I am giving a dinner party, it will be for my friend who likes Pepsi and Papa John's pizza. Asparagus would be nice, but how to work it into the pizza menu?? Too much work. Now, this "Meyer lemon" snobbery is pissing me off. All the "Martha-ites" having their panties in a bunch for these damn lemons. It's not enough to have a lemon now...it must be a MEYER lemon, or that crepe cake is gonna suck. Well, I have a tree full of lemons and I will most likely be using one to scrub some copper pots. I am sure the MEYER lemon would cringe at the thought of such lowly work.

April 21st - Martha is planting onions and shallots. She will also be inserting supports in her peony garden.

My April 21st - I will be PULLING onions from the yard, as they grow wild here and every crack and open space seem to burst with them. I may send some to Martha. And if my peonies can't support themselves, that is just too damn bad. Martha is creating dependant flowers...a breed I cannot tolerate. Grow some leaves and buck up, I say! To my flowers. Every time I see them. Tough love.

April 24th - Martha works out and then spends a lovely day watching for migrating and nesting birds. Like these:

My April 24th - Hmm, it's a Saturday, so the closest thing to a work out in my house will be me working to get from the bed to the couch before 10am. While Martha searches the skies for her "migrating birds", I'll most likely be washing a car that suffers from the effects of those same "migrating birds". I may watch Ingrate Bastard migrate from the floor back to his cage, just for kicks.

April 28th - Martha will be appearing on the NBC Today show AND organizing her medicine cabinet (discarding old lotions and cosmetics).

My April 28th - It's a work day, so the only appearance I will be making will be at the cafe for a Dr Pepper and my desk for a paycheck. No doubt Martha will be singing the praises of Meyer Lemons and Migrating Birds on the Today show. I will be venting about that damn Gosselin woman and her stunning ability to remain in the spotlight despite her own personality. No one will care. Now, I don't understand why Martha would have to organize her medicine cabinet. A good home organizer (such as she claims to be) should already have everything in place. Maybe this is a note to remind her to tell her servants that THEY should clean out THEIR medicine cabinets. I am sure it is. I, of course, in all my obsessive glory, already have a clean medicine cabinet, so I will be done for the day!

I should have time to read the entire issue of Martha Stewart's "Living".