Tag Archives: witch

Pop’s Top 10: Literary Gowns

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Remember when this dress premiered on the Eras Tour? We do! The custom Vivienne Westwood gown is filled with different handwritten versions of the phrase “I love you, it’s ruining my life,” a lyric from Track 1 of Tay’s 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department. It inspired us to seek out more artists and designers who took literary fashion to the next level. So today we present Pop’s Top 10 literary gowns!

#1 GONNA BE GOLDEN

Created by Ryan Jude Novelline, the artist stitched together the colorful illustrations from discarded Little Golden Books, and fashioned a bodice from the spines. If you’d like to read an interview about his amazing creation, please follow this link.

#2 BOOK WITCH

From Reddit

Posted on Reddit, the detailing on this dress is off the charts! Plus, the hat! The HAT.

#3 SUPER SEUSS

Created by Rebecca Humes, the Seuss-specific shredded tutu and bouncy book characters on springs is delightfully whimsical!

#4 DISNEY DANCER

Another dress by Rebecca Humes. But this one was created from Disney books and features a skirt composed of thousands of chain links. WOW!

#5 POTTER PROM

Hailey Skoch rustled her way to her Arkansas senior prom in a dress made from multiple volumes of Harry Potter books! You can read more about her process here.

#6 FANTASTIC FAIRY

Winner of cutest, most adorable wings and folded tutu is this phenomenal book fairy!

#7 VOLUMINOUS VOLUMES

This distinct dress with a colonial flare was created by White Knight Cosplay. And just look at that teacup broach!

#8 FAIRY TALE FASHIONISTA

A stack of unwanted volumes transformed into a fairy tale worthy dress by Helen Hobden, who also entered it in a contest judged by Maisie Williams! Read more about her adventure here.

#9 BOUND TO IMPRESS

French designer Silvie Facon created this flowing masterpiece from old leather spines that had separated from books. It took 250 hours! More more extensive photos, plus more dresses, please follow this link.

#10 SHORT STORY

Silvie Facon also created this sassy little folded dress, again by only using books that were beyond repair. For more details, please see this link.

Feeling inspired but also maybe a tad overwhelmed by the sheer volume of talent? No worries! You can craft this simple origami newsprint dress by following the instructions here.

Pssst! We also made a Cinderella dress out of highly unusual materials! See that here.

Delightfully Dodgy

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In the mysterious land of…Rhode Island…is a house with dark secrets. Well, the basement has some dark secrets. Unless you’re shopping for Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent. In that case, you’re totally in the right place!

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Welcome to the home of the Adams family, where Art major Corinne and her building contractor husband have recreated a fully functional Knockturn Alley. Here, witches and wizards can shop to their heart’s delight.

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A huge Potter fan, the idea for Knockturn Alley was sparked by a trip to Universal Orlando. Corinne and her husband were already doing elaborate Halloween displays, but the trip inspired the creation of Borgin and Burkes. When the set got too large to haul outdoors in October, the couple cleaned out their basement and the construction continued in earnest. Currently up to five shops (2 for browsing, 3 for display), magically-minded shoppers can see self-stirring cauldrons, Kreacher the house elf, Cornish Pixies, books, bones, potions, and cursed objects, all whilst shrouded in fog.

When is Knockturn Alley open to visitors?

Since Knockturn Alley is in my house, my basement, it is only open to the neighborhood on Halloween night. If you know me or are writing a story about the alley then I can have a private tour arranged.

What proved the biggest challenge to recreate so far?

The biggest challenge, believe it or not, was the stacked cauldrons. They are plastic Halloween cauldrons and we had to hunt for the right sizes, paint them to look rusty and then sand them to look like old iron. When it came time to stack and glue them it took a bit of engineering until we got it right. My son also designed and made the self-stirring cauldron and he had a few setbacks. But now it works perfectly…well, it’s a magical cauldron after all!

What is one of the most surprising things on your set?

The biggest surprise, if someone notices it, is the sub-basement in the bottom windows of Borgin and Burkes. (A “reflection” makes you think you’re looking down into the below ground level cellar window well-bottles, books, rats, candles etc. are all actually upside down-you’re looking into a mirror image–shhh, don’t tell!)

How many hours of construction and fabrication do you estimate you’ve put in?

The work time is 3 years of every spare minute we had and my husband and I both worked full time. Now it is an on-going project and we come up with little magical ways to tweak things and add new things for each Halloween.

Tell us about your favorite object and why!

I have been asked before “what is my favorite thing” but I love everything! However my favorite shop is Borgin and Burkes (in the movie it just looks so creepy and fascinating!) and that was the first shop constructed for our Halloween display 7 years ago. Then the project just took off until we now have an alley of 5 buildings.

What are you building next?

The next thing to be built is a surprise because we like to surprise the neighborhood kids when they visit Halloween night! Last year’s new item was the Sirius Black “moving” poster that my son came up with and my husband built the rustic sign post to hold it!

What’s one of the best visitor reactions to your set?

I had a man from London visit one Halloween and the cool night air came into our open garage doors so the alley had a brisk feel and we have antique street lights with candle light flickering and fog and the whole atmosphere was right out of an 18th century London city street. He was so excited, he couldn’t believe he was in a basement! He was “dazzled” to use his words! My husband loved that because he built the buildings to look exactly like Universals.

My own personal favorite reaction was a young girl who was an avid Potter fan. After taking the tour she said that this must be like reaching the top with a hobby one loves and she wished that someday she could have a display of a Potter destination in her home. She was quite right. I never thought I’d have this alley in my house. I love going down into this magical world and hanging out with friends or having a coffee with my husband and brainstorming about what we’ll do next! It’s really a Potter fans dream and I love sharing it with other fans.

What house would the Sorting Hat put you in?

I think you must know what Hogwarts house I would be sorted into! I love spooky stuff and I love the nefarious Knockturn Alley! Hogwarts students are not permitted to go there let alone buy anything. Dodgy place…”You don’t want to get caught down there-they might think you’re up to no good!” So–Slytherin of course!

If you’d like to see video, please follow this link to a WPRI 12 News story!

Images courtesy of Corinne Adams. Questions about anything you see here? Corinne is happy to answer them! Please email her at:  thevampirechronicles13@gmail.com

Witchy Kitchy

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witchy kitchy

From the well-stocked shelves, to the bubbling cauldron, to the secret storage space…this kitchen is ready to concoct some scintillating brews. It also folds down into a snappy little travel case, complete with your shopping list clipped to the outside!

witchy kitchy travel modeWe read One Witch, written by Laura Leuck, and illustrated by S.D. Schindler (Walker & Company, 2003). A witch visits her ten sets of (unusual) friends to gather ingredients for the ultimate brew. She cooks it up, sends out invitations via bat, and a massive party ensues – including a special bowl for you! This is a fantastic counting book, plus a real family favorite. My kids asked me to read this book to them year round!

You’ll need:

  • 1 large tissue box
  • 1 small tissue box
  • Poster board
  • A selection of construction paper
  • 1 wooden coffee stirrer
  • 1 mini cauldron (or paper cup)
  • 1 ingredient bottles template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
  • 2 plastic sample cups
  • 2 snippets of drinking straw
  • 2 buttons
  • 1 small rubber band
  • 1 spooky shopping list template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper
  • Scissors, tape, and glue for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue

We used our standard craft boxes for this project, but I’m also going to show you how to build it with large and small tissue boxes. Here’s a bird’s eye view of the project:

witchy kitchy birds eye viewAs you can see, it’s a box within a box. The left side of the kitchen is the unfolding countertop/secret storage area, the the right side is the fireplace for the cauldron (which we stoked with brown poster board logs and red paper crinkle, but construction paper works too). The front of the fireplace is a V-shaped door that folds down. Use markers to create the stones for your hearth.

If you want to make the project with tissue boxes, the key is to flip the tissue boxes upside down and cut the bottoms into lids. Here’s the large box:

witch kitchy tissue box alt step 1The issue, of course, is you have a big hole in the floor of your kitchen. No problem! Just glue or tape a piece of poster board over the hole (shown here in yellow):

witch kitchy tissue box alt step 2To make the unfolding countertop/secret storage space, flip a small tissue box, cut the bottom to make a hinged lid, cut the box down to the proper height, then attach it inside the large box. Cut the V-shaped hearth door and you’re set!

witch kitchy tissue box alt step 3The shelves along the back of the kitchen are basic poster board pockets. Cut and color the various bottles in your template to stock your kitchen:

witchy kitchy shelvesIn the secret storage are little plastic sample cups for mixing, snippets of drinking straws, plus (optional) ingredient bottles repurposed from old-school film canisters. We filled ours with fabric flowers, foam beads, and green paper crinkle. I also added little cleavers I cut from silver mirror board.

witchy kitchyBut my FAVORITE item in the kitchen is the cauldron. We used plastic mini cauldrons, but you can also fashion a cauldron from a paper cup. To hang the cauldron, cut little notches in the sides of the boxes, then slide a wooden coffee stirrer into the notches.

The outside of the box gets a poster board carrying handle, as well as a shopping list you can either tape or clip to the front:

witchy kitchy travel modeThe box does get a little heavy. In fact, our lid kept popping open. So we added extra support in the form of two buttons, which we hot glued to the lid and body of the large box. Wrap a rubber band around the buttons, and you’re set!

A week after this project, we ran into one of our story time kids. She wants you to know that “THIS IS MY FAVORITE TOY AND I PLAY WITH IT ALL THE TIME I MAKE SOUPS THAT I FEED MY BROTHER!”