Google+ LISTENING TO THE SQUEAK INSIDE art by Kirstin McCulloch of LilliBean Designs: ☆ Trick or Treat [inspiration avenue]

Friday, October 26, 2012

☆ Trick or Treat [inspiration avenue]

TRICK OR TREAT
ORIGINAL AVAILABLE 
Growing up in country town Australia, I was never really exposed to halloween or treating, unless I watched disney movies - or the Halloween movie franchise!

I loved Halloween when we  lived in Scotland. Mr Mac used to carve some awesome pumpkins + the village kids would go from house to house in one large gang. 

They would have a song, or a dance, or a joke to earn a 'treats' and it was all over by about half seven at night.

There was nearly always a halloween disco with bobbing apples, treacle scones on a string, and monster music.

It made me wish I grew up on Raasay.

And although we didn't celebrate when I was little, I have no doubt that I would have chosen to be a Indian Brave

I was obsessed with cowboy + indian games,  I was always the indian, and I wished on everything you could wish on (from evening stars to dandelions) for my very own set of bow + arrows. So I think I would have chosen to be that.... or maybe a dog.

So I would love to hear what was your favourite costume, or if you grew up in a place where halloween wasn't celebrated (like me) what you would have dressed up as.

43 comments :

  1. Love her mask and expression, beautifully executed!
    Halloween was not celebrated in Finland when I was a kid, but my kids have had some costume parties where they have worn some vey cute witch costumes, that I would have loved... or a vampire - or a cat m^._.^m

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    1. Thanks Anne - maybe a vampire cat? My girls dress up all the time now, I think its great its not reserved for special days.

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  2. Another adorable creation ~ you make marvelous eyes and lovely work ~ ( A Creative Harbor) ^_^

    As a child dressed as a witch, dancer, princess, hobo and on and on ~ loved to 'trick or treat' ~

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    1. Thank you so much for popping in. They all sound like fun things to dress up as x

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  3. your ladies are so incredibly adorable - those eyes! I love how she has her cute mask on top of her head. Halloween is becoming much more commercialised here in the UK than it was when I was little although I do remember bobbing for apples and going trick or treating when I was about 7 or 8. I was also fascinated with American Indians when I was younger - I always wanted them to win when I watched cowboy films with my dad on TV and I did get to dress up as Pocahontas for a heros and villains party my sister threw once! Have you ever read She who Remembers by Linda Lay Shuler - it's a great epic tale of an Pueblo Indian in the American Southwest, in case you fancy resurrecting your Indian interest!

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    1. My friend in Scotland told me that when she was growing up halloween was totally different that it is now. I also wanted them to win - always! I have never read that book - thank you for telling me about it. I have read some of Dee Browns books and they are amazing (and totally heart wrenching!) I will look this one up! x

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  4. Oh, another piece of yours that I love! She is gorgeous!! I live in The States so I have loved and celebrated Halloween every year of my existence. My parents were not big on taking pictures so I do not remember very many of my Halloween costumes. My favorite was probably Raggedy Ann. My mother was a seamstress and made all of our costumes from scratch, we were very lucky kids! It really is a shame there are not photos of all of her work.

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    1. Thank you so much Dawn. I can't imagine the excitement that you would have felt every year when Halloween rolled around. (I would imagine it would be a bit like christmas!) Oh Raggedy Ann - would have been adorable! (I bet my sister would have chosen her had we had halloween) x

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  5. Another beautiful painting. For Halloween my sister and I always dressed as witches with broomsticks and my brother was the devil as he liked scaring people..........
    Happy PPF, Annette x

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    1. Thanks Annette - lol I love that your brother liked scaring people - is that not the point of dressing up? I bet you were adorable witches x

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  6. Her eyes are so beautiful as always your work is charming. I was a clown one year, creepy right! But I was sort of cute anyway, with pigtails. :) :) I'm so excited to see what everyone is up to this week. I love all the inspiration....feeds my soul. Lucky to have you guys!

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    1. Thank you so much Tam. You know I have a real problem with clowns - although I bet you were adorable. But ever since Stephen Kings IT clowns scare the shit out of me!

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  7. Gorgeous. I love her mask. Halloween is fun kid memories for me. Loved dressing up and being in disguise. Great post. Happy PPF

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    1. Thanks Marji - Dressing up and being in disguise sounds wonderful!

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  8. Wonderfully festive Halloween portrait!
    Glad you didn't cover up her gorgeous huge violet eyes with the mask! :)
    ♥♥♥
    Happy PPF!!
    Mary
    Mixed-Media Map Art

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  9. wow- she has THE most expressive and beautiful eyes!! I used to dress up and go to parties mostly in my twenties and I'd also dress up on the day wherever I worked-what fun! I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, a French maid, a young girl with pigtails and a big lollipop, a witch, and a monster with my face so changed and painted up no one could guess who I was...aaah the memories...happy PPF!

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    1. Thank you so much Linda - I love that you went to work dressed up - that is so awesome! It sounds like you had such fun choosing which character you were going to be each year!

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  10. Halloween isn't celebrated really here in Queensland so no great costumes to share... love your painting though...xx

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    1. Thanks Tracey - we were the same in NSW. No great costumes, but its been fun to hear about everyone's memories! x

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  11. adorable drawing! my favorite costume was when i dressed up like a trash can. stapled garbage all over myself. I was almost 15 and really had no business trick or treating with the little ones, but i was short, so I decided to to try to get one more year out of the deal before I retired my candy bag!

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    1. LOL!! I love your trash can costume. So inventive. (I can imagine in my hard core environmental phase at 15 choosing to dress as something like that!)

      I would have gone treating for as long as possible too I think!

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  12. I tended toward the usual costumes...such as princess. Back then it was from scratch costumes, not Disney princess store-bought costumes. My sister, though, had the creative costumes (and my mom wins the creativity prize for coming up with how to make the costumes my sister thought of)--she was things like a violin, a brown bag filled with groceries, and "thumb-body" (a huge THUMB!!)

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    1. Bean would choose to be a princess every day! (What am I talking about - she does!) Costumes seems so easy these days, but I imaging your sister gave your mum a few headaches with her unusual (+ brilliant!) costumes choices - a thumb body!!!

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  13. Love your Halloween girl, she looks like someone has jumped out and scared her.

    We lived out in the weeds for most of my childhood. We had to drive down our long nearly empty road to trick or treat, and only hit about 4 houses, but that didn't stop us from dressing up. My sister always wanted to be something pretty like a princess, and I was always something awful looking like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Nosferatu.

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    1. The village kids in scotland had a few more house (but not many) + there candy bags were over flowing! I love that you chose unusual characters to dress up as. Thanks for popping in Carla Rey x

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  14. Your girl is adorable! I love Halloween it was always my favorite celebrations since childhood!! Dressing up was fun....I even played a screamer in a haunted house one. My favorite costume was a sun....I cut a panel of a large cardboard box into points with a circle in the middle. Sprayed it gold....sprayed my hair and face with gold hair spray and draped my body in gold material to match...it was so fun....no on knew who I was!!

    Sad if you missed Halloween...it's just way too much fun! This year we won't celebrate though...everyone is busy!

    Hugs Giggles

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    1. Thanks Giggles - your sun sounds really fun! x

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  15. She's gorgeous. Very expressive eyes! I grew up in Belgium, so no Halloween. We had Carnaval though, and I loved dressing up like a gypsy-woman, with long flowing skirts and lots of make-up on my face .....

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    1. Thank you so much - carnaval sound like so much fun - as does dressing as a gypsy woman!

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  16. I enjoyed your story about Halloween as you were growing up. I think sometimes, as an American, I forget that things are different in other parts of the world. Your portrait is lovely. I would love to see your dog costume.

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    1. Thanks Lou Anne - I actually did dress as a dog for a book fair parade once. I will have to dig out a photo of it! x

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  17. Beautiful painting! I grew up with halloween...but avoid it now!

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  18. She has very haunting eyes! I grew up with Halloween and have continued it in my own family - we usually bring branches in and decorate them with lights and cobwebs, this year my arm is out of action so we will be scaling things down. My favourite costume is of course dressing as a witch.

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    1. You Halloweens sound lovely - thanks for popping in x

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  19. Absolutely an awesome painting...I feel like looking at her on and on...love it totally :)

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  20. I love the expression on your unmasked brunette. As to costume, my favorite was a batman costume I had as a child. Blessings!

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    1. Thanks Arnoldo - Batman would have been my second choice! I loved running around with a cape on pretending to save the world (my sister was always Robin!!) x

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  21. your halloween girl is beautiful! My favorite costume was a cowgirl suit - but I didn't wear it for Halloween - just the rest of the year - LOL

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    1. LOL! Gina that sound like my girls - always dressed up (no special holidays required!!). Thanks for popping in x

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  22. Witch of course! I grew up in different cities, in some they would do it and in some they didn't celebrate it, so I didn't go out every year... and now as a mom, we went out with the kids when they were little, and open the door 300 times that night for other kids. Here in this part of California, a lot of older kids are still out at 10 pm getting candy, so it can be tiresome heheheh
    I used to decorate all the way, outside, but not much now that the kids are older.

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    1. Ayala - that sounds so lovely! I can't imagine having kids ringing the doorbell at 10pm for candy! I think if we celebrated here, I would be sad when the kids grew too old to trick or treat! Thanks for popping in x

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