Macabre artist and crafter, Christine McConnell, has a new YouTube series, From The Mind Of Christine McConnell. I felt robbed when her Netflix series, The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell, was given the axe after only one six-episode season. I loved this quirky, bizarre genre-buster which mixed equal parts The Addam's Family, Martha Stewart, and The Muppets, with a little Dita von Teese mixed in. Literally. Dita, a friend of Christine's, appeared as a ghost living in Christine's bedroom mirror who dispensed fashion advice.

I have always had a special fondness for offbeat, weird, and tongue-in-cheek crafting shows, like Brini Maxwell, At Home with Amy Sedaris, and Making It with Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman. McConnell's work is a goth-y twist on such offerings and "From The Mind Of Christine McConnell" is no different.

She has posted two episodes to YouTube so far, one where she converts a musty old pull-out couch into an ornate Edwardian sofa-bed, and one where she constructs a jaw-dropping ginger bread replica of the Winchester Mystery House using a quarter-ton of ginger bread.

Christine has also created a Patreon page to help support her channel. I, for one, will be signing on. Read the rest

In the 1990s, student filmmaker Christopher Seufert talked his way into Edward Gorey's life and convinced him to record a series of memoirs and tales from his life; the project blossomed into a documentary, only to be derailed when Gorey died. Read the rest

If you're the sort of person for whom Halloween is an all-year affair, this highly reviewed, $25 poncho may be your jam: it features a slimming and flattering skeleton (with both front- and back-views) and is hemmed with "lace" styled to look like cobwebs -- all that's missing is for it to be waterproof for stylish rainy days, but alas, it's purely about fashion, not dryness. (via Canopy) Read the rest