Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween storytime at the bookstore

And this is what happens when the human finally lets us loose in the book-and-candy store.

There's storytime an cookies.

And coloring on the floor.

Or just catching up with friends about the latest books.

Candy and afternoon tea in the sweet shop

There's a place for tea for two.

Or just filling up the candy box

At the end of the night, it's time to see what's in the final haul

The owl is here to supervise.

Someone did in fact hand out apples to go with all that sugar.

But there is more than enough candy to go around.

Even if there's a furry candy thief lurking and waiting to pounce.

Countdown to Halloween: the Candy and Book Store

And we are back for the remainder of 2018 after our usual summer break.  It's almost (10 days left) to Halloween, and we spent some time setting up Halloween decorations in our book store.  We'll be doing a bunch of posts leading up the big day, showing off all our seasonal decorations

But first, our store:

New books on the mantel, with Halloween paper sculptures

It's a bookstore with a rather fancy cafe/candy store attached.  The bookstore has a quite a few new decorations in the form of paper sculptures, and even more new books.  On the mantle are two fall-themed Tasha Tudor books:  Pumpkin Moonshine and Corgiville Fair.

The bulk of the books, vintage textbooks and modern YA fantasy

We also have a new collection of modern young adult fantasy books by Tamora Pierce, some steampunk books by Gail Carriger, and assorted other novels.  Have you lost track of what books we have?  So have we...

Another fancy paper sculpture, next to an antique globe from a yard sale

We've been collecting all sorts of cute things from going to garage sales this last year in Vermont.  The globe was a find from last fall.  But that's enough about the books.  We'll cover our new books in detail later.  Now for the glorious glorious candy store.

The owl is back to guarding the candy cart

Just having chocolate frogs isn't enough anymore.  We went all out in our candy collection this year.

We have the traditional candy, penny candy, chocolate bars, and all.  And then we have the Honeydukes cart (with owl) and display case.  For all of the candy.  Ever.

Pies, pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, madelines, and more...

Exploding bon bons, Bertie Botts Jelly beans, and butterfly wings

Some fancy premium chocolates with envelope wrappers

The final tally of Honeydukes cart and display is:  24 chocolate frogs (all with frogs inside), 12 boxes of sugared butterfly wings (6 with pretend candy, the rest stuffed with beads for weight), 4 boxes of cauldron cakes (each with a cake inside), 12 bags of peppermint toads (weighted with glass beads), 12 bags of fudge flies (more beads), 8 boxes of salt water taffy, 8 boxes of Drobble's bubble gum, 8 boxes of exploding bon-bons, 12 boxes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and 6 boxes of black pepper imps (all weighed with glass beads, but otherwise the packaging is sealed).  Oh, and 8 bars of Honeydukes branded chocolate (aluminum foil over craft foam, with a paper wrapper)

Want to guess how many individual pieces of candy are in this setup?

And that's just the Honeydukes portion of the shop.  We also have an old-fashioned candy store worth of penny candy, chocolate, and candy bars...  Pretty sure we're ready for all the trick-or-treaters that might stop by.

And if you managed to stick around this long, we have a treat for you: the Halloween banner we're using to decorate our concession stand.

The original banner can be found HERE.  (Yes, it's another papercraft from Canon Creative.  The human loves their designs, and they always shrink down well.)

The resized version for doll is HERE.

Stay tuned over the next week for all of our Halloween goodies!

Weekend Baking

Kana here.  Trying out some new furniture in our lovely apartment.  Instead of the craft/study, we've set up a nice little living room and parlor instead.  We'll need to hold a garage sale soon for all the little things we keep accumulating.  The cat is back, along with its friend, the lynx hiding under the windowseat.  It's also been here for nearly forever.

Doing homework

Nothing like a windowseat for reading

A new stash of Jane Austen novels

The human went on a book-making binge a little bit ago in between making tons of stuff for the Harry Potter craft show in December, and as usual, the photography fell behind the crafting.  We now have 5 Jane Austen novels in our collection (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey).  No, the human hasn't read all of them.  They're on her list.

Get off the table, cat.

Time to try out the new cookbook.

Meanwhile, someone let Lily in the kitchen again.  And Cauthrien and Anora are helping.  This does not bode well.  Namely because Lily thinks cooking is just like potions-making (and sadly, she's not too far off) and doesn't quite care about the difference between potion ingredients and baking ingredients.

Berries, eggs, and what else do we need?

I'll get the milk and butter.

Maybe we made too many cupcakes?

The cookies are not for you, cat.

Halloween Alchemy

Kana here.  It's time for more hilarity with me and Lily!

So the human's be frantically prepping for a Harry Potter themed craft fair in December (which means the human sized bookshelves now have doll-sized chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties and wands everywhere.  And potions.  And potion ingredients.  Enough that we finally set up a little alchemy and potions show of our own.  We've got a workstation, a desk for doing all the paperwork that comes with running a shop, and lots and lots of shelves for potions.

Total number of individual little bottles in our shop:  about 300

It all started with this little shelf the human found on the side of the street for free.  It's supposed to be a wall display cabinet, and it has nice iron scrollwork on the door and sides.  And it's perfect for the massive number of potion ingredients.

Lily, being Lily, did not label anything.  So only she knows what everything is, and what goes with anything else without being a hazard.  Thank you, Lily.

We also got a new rather large mortar and pestle set (it's the Outlander Megamini kit from Amazon).  Pretty sure the human thought it was going to be smaller than it is.  We us it anyways.

More potions.  And bottles of sparkly fairy dust.  And racks of ingredients.  All the potions can be worn as charms.  We should make more.  Or rather, Lily and the human should.  I'm just going to watch the hilarity.  The last time they made potions, they stripped the finish off the new kitchen counters.  Oops.

The cabinet of completed potions.  Also unlabeled.  Just...uh...don't touch anything?  Some of the ones on the bottom might be poisonous.  (No, I don't know which book Lily is using to brew these.  Neither does anyone else.)

We also got new portraits taken in the shop, and I think these are our favorites so far.  We'll start our potions business after I make Lily label everything.  I swear.

The Science Library

A science classroom/laboratory

Kana here.  By now you must be wondering what we did with all those science books.

Lily generally behaved like a normal person and used the books for her research projects.  Even if she does complain on a daily basis that there's not enough magical theory in science books.

Shep and I, on the other hand, only have so much patience.  There's the obligatory science fair projects, to be sure.  And making fancy models...

But we have so many of these books...

Lily:  Guys, whatever you're planning, stop it.

And that is what we do with 101 science books.  Dominos.

As an aside, the human's husband walked in while this was being set up.  He stared at us and walked back out without saying anything.

You have to admit, it's pretty impressive.

Utter chaos

Not even caused by the furry menace this time.