Friday, October 28, 2011

Short Hauntings


House across from Victoria Cemetery

Marshallberg, North Carolina

In this house, the lonely wife of a fisherman began having an affair. Soon, she gave birth to her lover's baby. As she heard her the fisherman approaching, she killed the baby and buried it under the porch. Eventually, the woman went insane because she kept hearing the baby's cries. It is said that if one stands on the porch, the baby's cries may still be heard.

Chester Av.

Bremerton, Washington

This apartment complex was used as a hospital during the early 1900s. Today, there are reports of ghostly nurses and patients wandering the halls.

Morpheus Bridge

Wendell, North Carolina

A family of three was driving along this bridge, when they crashed into the side, being ejected from the car and falling to the murky depths below. As a result of this tragic incident, the woman and child died, leaving only the father. It is said that if one parks his car on the bridge on Halloween, it car will shut off, and the woman will appear, searching for her lost child.

Shine Your Lantern Three Times

Anson, Texas

Local legend says that one December night more than a hundred years ago, a mother sent her son into the woods to retrieve a Christmas tree for the family. Reportedly, the mother told her son to flash his lantern three times if he got into any trouble. When the boy did not return, his mother searched for him until she herself died. Near the woman's burial site, there is a crossroads. It is said that if one parks his car and flashes the headlights three times, a mysterious light will rise and traverse�

Irwin Dr.

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

This residential building, now owned by the government, was once an orphanage. In order to escape alive when a fire struck, the manager of the house abandoned all of the children inside; no children survived the inferno. To this day, sounds of children playing on the stairs, and then screams announcing "Fire! Fire," have been heard.




Tuesday, October 25, 2011

A New Camera

I have struggled with taking pictures for the last three years. I first had a Elixm then I got a Luminx and now I have a Sony Cyber-Shot 16 pixel, HD Digital Camera. This camera is a movie camera too. You can also crop, rotate and blur the background of your photos right on the camera.
I am not a photographer and it has been hard to get my photos to look good for my Etsy Shop.

My friend got a camera for her birthday and she showed it to me and OMG! it takes photos and the color is actually correct with no problems. I just set it on Auto and I get the best shots ever !

I am a happy camper.

These are a few of the first photos taken with my new camera.

Last night I cooked chicken thighs with carrots, celery, salt, pepper and a little garlic powder and chicken bullion
in the crock pot over night


and then at dinner time tonight I boiled egg noodles and made a home made chicken noodle dish.


I served it with garlic cheese bread.
It has started to get cold here we actually had frost last night so this was a good cold weather dish.


As you can see we ate it all !! Not a morsel left. Look how clear this photo is.


Look at the color on this photo.
My old faithful fruit bowl. My youngest son teases me about this fruit bowl. He says every Grandmother must have one and wants to know what is up with that? !


After dinner we retired into the living room where Sampson, one of our dogs promptly got on my husbands lap. He only weighs 121 lbs ! He doesn't know it though because he thinks he is a lap dog. My husband loves it when he does this :)

Anyway, I wanted to share with you how happy I am to have a camera that is small enough to put in my purse and takes great pictures with no hassle . Some of you may be chuckling with my excitement. Especially if you are experienced with photography and maybe I have been in the dark about what has been out there to make it easier but for now I am pretty happy with what I have...finally!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

More Hauntings

This is my latest collage.
Dracula's Women



Braemar Golf Course

Edina, Minnesota

It is said that this golf course is haunted by an apparition named Jim. It is said that when the land was cleared to build the course, a homeless black man was discovered. Soon the man died. Since that time, it has been said that balls go into holes and come back out. It is also said that sometimes balls will roll in a straight line and suddenly veer off suddenly to the right or left.

Glensheen Mansion

Duluth, Minnesota

In this house, an elderly woman and her nurse were brutally murdered by the woman's crazed lover. Now, it is said that the two haunt the house. It is said that eerie black, shadowy figures walking about the basement. Lights turning on and off have also been reported. There has even been one report of a piece of candy rolling back and forth across the dresser.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

A wonderful and helpful idea !



My friend Janette and her twin sister Janice from Jantastic Creations created this little card holder complete with cello sleeve to put my ATC's in when I send them out to my swap partners. Very convenient thing to have. I don't have to search for a note card small enough to put the ATC in to mail and I don't have to buy the cello sleeves because the card holder has a cello sleeve attached.

Best part is I don't have to write a note on each one sent out. It is already printed. They can print anything on them that you want.

Go take a look at their unique shop Jantastic Creations by clicking on their link on the top left side oft his page.

This one is a custom order for me. I use this size to put a 10% discount card in each of my Etsy orders. It is so convenient !


You can also put your business card in this cello sleeve, sign you name, fold it up and put it in a small envelope (provided) to mail to your customer.

Love it!!

This would also make a great way to send a photo to someone or a birth announcement with a photo of you new born. The possibilities are endless and I am so happy to be the first to have some.

What a unique idea and they are affordable too !
Thanks Jan and Jan!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Good Things Are Happening

I have been a little discouraged about sales in my Etsy Shop. I decided to make some new tins and post them before the holiday rush. I got one sale last week. It was nice to see that email saying I had a PayPal transaction.

Then I started thinking about how I could market my tins to draw more people in. I prayed about it and the next morning I had a custom order from a lady in United Kingdom.

She wanted a masculine looking tin to send with her boyfriend who is going to Afghanistan next month. She wanted him to have something that would remind him of her while he is over there. She called it her "Super Hero Travel Kit". Cute huh?
He is a Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force so she sent me a photo of the model plane he fly's and ask that I put his name some where on the tin. I put it on the plane! I also added lyrics from a song by Jo Stafford from the 40's. This song was really popular during WWII but fits any soldier who is serving and away from their loved one. The name of the song is You Belong To Me. The lyrics inside the tin say ..

Fly the ocean in a silver plane
See the jungle when it's wet with rain
But remember til you're home again
You belong to me

My Mother played this song a lot when I was a child. I loved it then and I love it now.

To Listen click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmjfhOPuAOM

She wanted the photo to have an antique tint so I took the photo into Photoshop and gave it a Sepia tint and tore the edges to make it look more antique like. I put the metal clock face, gears and chain on the special order deco paper and and sealed all sides.

She loved it and it is on it's way to United Kingdom.

Her idea was so special that I ask her if I could use her special request to make this tin on my shop profile and she graciously gave me permission. This just might be a good tag to use on my masculine looking tins.

I was still wishing that I could sell at least one tin a week. When I look at all the tins I have made I am proud of the quality of my work but I just don't know how to market my work.

Today I met with my Etsy Team as I always do on Thursday, at a new place in the Mall where we have been meeting now for a month. The people there seem to love our team and they are so nice to us.

I took the 6 tins I had made over the weekend with me to show the girls. We meet in the Mall at a place called Cone 9 which is a kitchen accessory store and cafe.

The owner saw my tins displayed on the table and she said to me "Now why don't I have these here in my store?" I said "Well give me a shelf and you will" She said okay !! So my tins will soon be for sale in the Mall. Not only that but she offered to set me up free of charge for the Art Walk in November and December. I will have a table and will be able to display my tins for sale in the Mall!

Is that an answer to my prayers or what? THANK YOU JESUS !

I tins in my shop will be posted as Special Order so that if I sell any in the mall I can make duplicates. Wouldn't that be great?

Saturday, October 15, 2011

SPIDERS ARE ARTISTS TOO !

It is that scary time of year when the Halloween Goblins come out and it is also the season for spiders.

Either that or it is the time of year when early morning mist collects on spider webs and makes them more visible but which ever, this is what I saw this morning.

Webs on my arbor vita and apple trees



And the rooster that stands between them


This spider must have worked all night to make this highway of webs


Ending with a perfect place to catch her food.

I hate spiders but it has always amazed me the way they create such a perfect web . They are artists too! If I ever get a chance I will photograph the spider that makes perfect squares in her web. We have them all over our place.

Compliments to my least favorite creature. Now stay out there and not in my house !! Eeeeek!

Jenning's Place Barn


Located amid pasture lands just off Highway 42 at Remote, this well known barn sits on property known as the Jennings Place. It was build in the early 1930's by L.V. Jennings, father of Esther Lancaster who now lives near Bridge. She grew up there and was the Remote postmistress for several years before going back to school to get a teaching degree and eventually teaching at Bridge School with her husband who was the principal there.

This is one of my FAVORITE barns here in my area.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Greenbrier Ghost

Greenbrier, West Virginia
By Shannon Reinbold-Gee

Usually when people think of ghosts, they imagine a disturbing presence that harasses ad nakjes the lives of the living more diffcult. But, in the case of the Greenbrier Chost of the late 1800's, the ghost helped solve a West Virgina murder - the very murder that created the ghost.


Born in the early 1870s, Elva Zona Heaster married Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue on October 26, 1896. Erasmus (sometimes called Edward) was from out of town, coming to Greenbrier to start a new life as the blacksmith. Zona (as she was called) married the near stranger very quickly in her mother’s opinion, and so the marriage was opposed but not halted.

On January 23, 1897 Erasmus sent Andy Jones (an 11-year-old African American) to the house, supposedly to ask Zona if she needed anything from the store. Jones found her body and ran home to tell his mother. The local doctor, and coroner, arrived within an hour to find the body had been carried upstairs by the apparently grief-stricken husband, Erasmus. Erasmus had already dressed Zona in her “Sunday best”—a dress with a conveniently high and stiff collar tied with a large bow. A veil covered her face and throughout the rudimentary examination Erasmus cradled his wife’s head and upper body and sobbed.

Convinced of the husband’s grief, the coroner announced the death was related to childbirth (as he had been treating Zona for symptoms we can only now presume were related to such a state a few weeks earlier).

At Zona’s wake, people observed Erasmus acting oddly. He was nearly frantic with trying to keep her “comfortable”—wedging her head between a pillow and fabric and maintaining that the large scarf now tied around her neck was her favorite. He kept people back from the body.

Zona’s mother removed the sheet from inside the coffin and tried to return it to Erasmus, but he wanted none of it. Thinking it smelled oddly, Heaster washed it. Oddly, the water turned red then clear. The sheet developed a pink stain. Heaster took it as proof that her daughter had met a foul end. A God-fearing woman, Heaster prayed Zona would return from the grave long enough to tell the truth of what happened to her so that she could find eternal rest.

Zona did cross back over, haunting her mother’s dreams for four nights as she explained the abuse she’d suffered at her husband’s hands and how—in a sudden fit over not having dinner ready for him—Erasmus had broken her neck. In the dream Zona’s ghost turned her head all the way around to illustrate.

Heaster approached the prosecuting attorney and in short order Erasmus was arrested. Her ghostly story was not the only thing to prod him to action, as the rumors had continued to fly about Erasmus’ odd actions.

In jail, Erasmus kept his spirits high, even proclaiming that he would like to have seven wives, and since Zona had been number three and he was only 35, he felt it was still an achievable goal. But then the truth began to come spilling out. Zona’s body had been exhumed and they discovered she had a crushed windpipe and broken neck. The cause of death became “strangulation.” Erasmus’ life before coming to Greenbriar was looked into. His first wife was abused and finally forced into divorcing him. His second wife died under mysterious circumstances.

Erasmus seemed puzzled that he was being charged with murder—hadn’t anyone wondered about young Andy Jones? Was he not suspect?

Although the case against Erasmus was mainly circumstantial, he was convicted and nearly lynched before being moved to the state penitentiary where he died. The ghost story Heaster was prepared to tell in court was ruled inadmissible, but revisited multiple times by the defense in a hope she would be viewed as unstable and a worthless character witness. Zona’s spirit seems to be at peace, never having been spotted since the arrest of her husband.

The house where Zona died still stands and is a private home.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

NEW IN MY SHOP TODAY, FOR HALLOWEEN

Halloween Trick or Treat Shrine

Close up of the inside
Here you can see the candy....reach in a take a piece my dear...if you dare!

The box top makes a roof for the shrine.

This is the box with the lid on it.


It's that time of year when the ghosts and goblins are out.
Trick or Treat if you dare! This haunted house shrine holds candy for all the trick or treaters. Reach in and help yourself to a piece of Nips chocolate parfait candy.....If You Dare!

This shoe size box has been altered with a haunted house image, ghosts, witches, bats, scarecrows,owls and pumpkins. It stands as a shrine with the roof being the top of the box which is embellished with a tiny bead scarecrow holding the key to the haunted house, amber plastic jewels and green polk a dot trim. The box has been painted with acrylic paint inside and out.

Use it for the Halloween Trick or Treaters or as Halloween decor in your home, school or office.

Individual wrapped Nips Candy is included.


Happy Halloween !

To see more altered boxes in my shop click here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/AlteredStateofTin

With your purchase you will receive a 10% discount card to use on your next purchase. Please mention this on your second order

Sunday, October 9, 2011

More Hauntings

Haunted

Main St.

Salem, Virginia

During the rush to buy Christmas presents, the mother of the house dashed out, and forgot her son. When she realized what she had done, she quickly turned around and headed back to the house. She expected that her son would be in tears, for he was claustrophobic, but instead, he was in the kitchen drinking a glass of chocolate milk. When asked about how he got the milk, the son explained that a nice old lady said that his mommy would be home soon, and she prepared a glass of milk for him. He also told the police that he could see through the lady, and she looked exactly like a woman on a picture in the attic–a woman who lived in the home during the 1920s.


The Kraft House

Pocatello, Idaho

In 1984, after being drugged at a party by a crazed man, a young woman was taken to this warehouse. She was raped while on a chair in the middle of the warehouse, and in the process, the depraved’s gun went off, instantly killing the woman. The bullet was never found. Exactly ten years later, the manager of the warehouse had to stay late to complete an assignment. At 3:59 AM, 15 calls were made to 911 from the 15 phone lines in the warehouse. All the operators reported hearing a woman cry, “Please help me,” then a dial tone. When police arrived on the scene, they found a chair in the middle of the warehouse, and a bullet nearby.


Saint Mary’s College: Heffron Hall

Winona, Minnesota

Two priests were once feuding over who would be the head of the local church, and one of the men ended up being killed by the other in one of the halls on campus. There have been many reports from students that moaning is heard in this hall from the deceased priest, and one side of the hall is cold while the other is hot, when there is no heating and air conditioning in the building. Another report came from a girl who claimed that while brushing her teeth, blood came out of the faucet in place of water. Yet one more story tells of footsteps being heard leading to the bathroom, and when the chaser caught up with the footsteps in the bathroom, he was shocked to see blood appear in the toilet.


Saturday, October 8, 2011

THE MOLES ARE GONE FOR NOW

Here are pictures of just a few of the mole hills in my yard before last week. This week the traps are still set with no hills around them or anywhere in my yard at present time.

The actual trap sticking out of the mole hole

Well after the entire summer of fighting the moles in my yard, I think they are gone.
Not sure if they left because it started raining so they went back into the forest to find worms or if my gardener, bless his heart finally caught the little critter.

He was here last week and set another set of traps. No moles were caught in the traps the week before. It was as if they just went around them.

Gutsy things even dug right next to the trap!

This was a long hard fight but looks like they are gone. Can't say who won because like I said, our rainy season has started and they may have just gone back into the forest where they belong !

I will not be watering my yard next summer at all. I would rather have brown grass than mole hills all over.
Also my friend gave me what she calls "Mole Plant" seeds and swears that they keep the moles away so I will be planting them in early spring. Whew !!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

More Hauntings

The Old Bermuda Inn

Staten Island, New York

This period restaurant is located in house that dates back to 1814. Allegedly, the house is haunted by a young female apparition. It is said that woman is occasionally seen walking through the dining air and ascending the main staircase. Diners have reported getting a momentary chill or feeling a hand stroking their arm or hair.

Real Haunted House

Roundhead, Ohio

This property was owned by Robert Hemp and it is said that he is buried beneath the front porch. Every person that has lived in the house has reported many strange noises and figures of a man in a top hat. One family said that while they always kept the heater on eighty, one room in the basement would be freezing cold. Another family kept a Bible open in the living room to a certain verse. Allegedly, each time they left home and returned, they would find the Bible on another verse–the verse which was read at Hemp’s funeral.

Tulsa University

Tulsa, Oklahoma

After completing a team-building ropes course, a resident advisor induced her death by overdosing on medication; she left the phone off the hook. Residents of this dorm allege that their telephones are taken off the hook during the middle of the night; the noise wakes them.

The White Eagle Cafe

Portland, Oregon

This former brothel, hotel, and boarding house has many mysterious legends in its history. In one instance, it is alleged that a waitress was going to the basement and felt someone push her-twice. Falling down the stairs, she got the attention of the bartender and bouncer. When the two reached the bottom of the stairs, they discovered a mop and bucket had been thrown down after then. In another, one of the former owners reported hearing someone upstairs crying. When he went upstairs to see what was going on, the crying was so strong, the hairs on his back were raised. The man ran across the street and saw a glowing figure in the window from whence the crying came. No one has been near that room in thirteen years. Presently, there are reports of flushing toilets, whispering voices, moving furniture, and loose change with mint dates over forty years old.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

HAUNTED HOUSE IN MOSS BEACH

Moss Beach Distillery

Moss Beach, California

During the Prohibition era of the 1920s, a young woman was murdered after her lover found her cheating with another man who was employed at the site. Today, “The Lady in Blue,” lurks around the cliffs surrounding the building; she warns children not to play too close to the edge. In the area, there have also numerous reports of poltergeist activity. Such activities include: incessant telephone ringing, cases of wine being stacked behind the door leading to a windowless storage room, objects randomly being thrown about, and doors mysteriously slamming.

Monday, October 3, 2011

ICHABOD CRANE

This was my all time favorite story during Halloween .
My Mother would get out the Icabod Crane and the Headless Horseman and read it to my brother and I.

As described in the story, Ichabod Crane is a timid schoolteacher who travels to Sleepy Hollow to teach the children of the area. This, in company with his ability to ingratiate himself, persuades many of the townspeople to successively lodge him at their homes for a week at a time, which serves as his sole source of shelter. He follows strict morals in the schoolroom, including the proverbial "Spare the rod and spoil the child"; outside the schoolroom, he is shown to have few morals and no motive but his own gratification. Despite being thin, he is capable of eating astonishingly large amounts of food and is constantly seeking to do so. In addition to this, he is excessively superstitious, often to the extent of believing every myth, legend, tall tale, etc. to be literally true. As a result, he is perpetually frightened by anything that reminds him of ghosts or demons.

A turning point in the story occurs when Ichabod becomes enamored of one Katrina Van Tassel, the ravishing daughter and only child of a wealthy farmer named Baltus Van Tassel, who pays little attention to his daughter other than to be proud of her merits when they are praised. On accounts both of her beauty and her father's wealth, which he is eager to inherit, Ichabod begins to court Katrina, who responds in kind. This attracts the attention of the town rowdy, Abraham "Brom Bones" van Brunt, who also wants to marry Katrina and is challenged in this only by Ichabod. Despite Brom's efforts to humiliate or punish the schoolmaster, Ichabod remains steadfast, and neither contestant seems able to gain any advantage throughout this rivalry.

Later, both men are invited to a harvest festival party at Van Tassel's where Ichabod's social skills far outshine Brom's. After the party breaks up, Ichabod remains behind for "a tête-à-tête with the heiress", where it is supposed that he makes a proposal of marriage to Katrina but, according to the narrator, "Something, however ... must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapfallen", meaning that his proposal is refused, allegedly because her sole purpose in courting him was either to test or to increase Brom's desire for her. Therefore Ichabod leaves the house "with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair lady's heart."

During his journey home, Ichabod encounters another traveler, who is eventually revealed to be the legendary Headless Horseman; the ghost of a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball during the American Revolutionary War. Ichabod flees, eventually crossing a bridge near the Dutch burial ground. Because the ghost is incapable of crossing this bridge, Ichabod assumes that he is safe. However, the Hessian throws his own severed head at Ichabod, knocking him from the back of his own horse and onto the road. The next morning, Ichabod's hat is found abandoned, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. Ichabod is never seen in Sleepy Hollow again, and is therefore presumed to have been spirited away by the Headless Horseman. Later, "an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received" suggests that Ichabod had been frightened, both of the Horseman and of the anger of his (Ichabod's) current landlord, into leaving the town forever, later to become "a justice of the ten pound court" in "a distant part of the country." Katrina marries Brom, who is said "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always laughed heartily at the mention of the pumpkin", which events "led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell"; therefore, that he himself was the Horseman, of whose legend he took advantage so as to dispose of his rival.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

HAUNTED HOUSES

independence-hauntings


I find haunted houses interesting.
I don't believe in ghosts but this tine of year it is fun to read about them.
I found the following information online. This one is the first of several I will be posting until Halloween !

LOCATION:

Address: 219 North Delaware Street, Independence, Missouri.

Truman Visitor Center: 223 North Main Street, Independence, Missouri - Buy memorabilia, see the video and buy tour tickets.

Hours: 8:30 am 5:00 pm daily; called the "Summer White House."

DESCRIPTION / HISTORY

This Victorian style house is a two story, 14-room home, which is now a museum, run by the National Parks Service:U.S. Department of the Interior, located at 219 North Delaware Street. After first watching the video about Harry Truman's life at the Truman Visitor Center, located at 223 North Main Street, Tom and I bought tickets at the center and took the tour (first floor only), at the actual home which is about 3 blocks away in a older residential neighborhood.

As we walked through the first floor, it was like going back in time, because the decorum, the furnishings and the family's special artifacts / treasures are just the same as when Harry died in 1972. Bess didn't change much, and lived in the home until her death in 1982. The interior reflects the lives of 4 generations of one family.

We saw all the places which were near and dear to Harry and Bess on the first floor. We got to see their spacious back porch, their study, their library, their living room, family room and a kitchen which reflected the bells and whistles found in the 1950's, which suited the Trumans just fine. It is just like the Trumans stepped out for a moment on an errand.

The President Truman Home was called the "Summer White House." This Victorian home was originally built and extensively remodeled in 1883-85 by Bess Wallace Truman's maternal grandfather George Porterfield. This is the home where Bess Wallace grew up. She wound up marrying the boy across the street, Harry Truman who often visited his Aunt and Uncle who lived at 216 N. Delaware, a home directly across from the Wallace / Porterfield home.

After a nine year courtship, Harry and Bess Truman were married and they moved into the Wallace / Porterfield home and stayed there, making the mansion their main home, from 1919 to the time of their deaths. As much as Harry loved this oasis, he found himself more and more tied to Washington D.C., though he tried to get home when he could. After he finished his 2nd term as President in 1957, he retired from politics and headed home to Independence, where he spent the last 15 years of his life.

MANIFESTATIONS:

The entity of President Truman has been seen by staff visiting his beloved home. It makes sense that his spirit may be tempted to visit his old oasis on occasion, especially since everything was kept the same!

On occasion, his apparition has been seen relaxing in his living room, by the staff of his museum.

The smell of his favorite brandy sometimes waifs through the house.

On occasion, he has been seen walking around the sidewalks near his home.

STILL HAUNTED?

Occasionally, Yes.

The entity of Harry Truman likes to drop in and sit in his favorite chair, once in awhile, keeping tabs on his home.

truman-hauntings