Sep 30, 2013

This Year's Participants


WELCOME TO THE 2013 COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN

If you want to know which houses are giving out the good candy this year, then look no further than the list below. Remember when you stop by to say thank you by leaving them a comment for all the hard work they've put into making Halloween the greatest holiday of the year.


If you do not see yourself on the list and would like to be added, please read this post first. DO NOT leave a request in the comment box below. You will be added asap.

If you are on the list but would like to have us change/correct how you are listed, please let us know in the comments section below. Every effort has been made to make sure everyone who asked to be put on the list has been put on the list, but mistakes happen. Please don't feel slighted, or take it personally. Corrections will be made as quickly as we can.

I would like to thank everyone who responded to this year's email summons, as well as the one posted on this site and who emailed me back letting me know either way about participating this year. I can't tell you how much easier this went this year than past years, so my very sincere thanks on making that so.


If I've counted correctly, we have 192 people participating as of this year's launch, which is down quite a bit from last year,  but I anticipate more will be joining us as we go. While we've lost a few participants from Countdown's past, you'll notice quite a number of new participants joining us for the first time this year, and I hope they'll find the experience enjoyable enough to come back next year. 

Now that that's out of the way it's time to put on your masks and start trick or treating. Happy Halloween!



Acadia Einstein
AEIOU and Sometimes Why
airless chambers
All Eyes and Ears
Alpha-Sketch
American Scrapbook
and everything else too
Andrew Barr's Movie Monstars
Anime Hell
Anti-Film School
Apetoes
Armagideon Time
Astro Lounge
Bat N' Kat
Batty's Blog
Being Retro
Big Scare
Bluestocking Farm
Branded in the 80s
Caffeinated Joe
Cannibal Reviews
Caramel Apple Day
Cartoon Holidays
Castle Monster
Catalogue of Curiosities
Caution: Idiot At Play
Cavalcade of Awesome
Celluloid Terror
Celluloid Terror YouTube page
Celtic Pumpkin
Chuck Norris Ate My Baby
Church of Halloween
Cinema Crazed
Cinematic Catharsis
Cine-Miscreant!!!
CollectingCandy.com
Comatised
The Comic Treadmill
Comics Oughta Be Fun
Crafty Lady Abby
Craftypants Carol
Craftypants Carol on Tumblr
Creepy LA: The Los Angeles Halloween Blog
The Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang
Crow & Cauldron: A (Mostly) Vintage Halloween Blog
Cult of the Great Pumpkin
Culturally Significant!
Damaen Says
Dark Lord Rob's Terrortorium
Dark Minded Feminist
Dave Lowe Design
D.I. Treasures 
Diane Mac Designs
Diary of a Dorkette
Distinctly Jamaican Sounds
Do the Trick or Treat
DominoART
Doo Wacka Doodles
The Drop Dead Vince Production Blog
Dwrayger Dungeon
Earth Station One
The Epic Review
Euclid Boo Blog
Fantasy Ink
Felt With Love Designs
A Field Guide to Doomsday
Final Girl
Forgotten Films
Frankenstein Forever
Frankensteinia
From the Brain of John
From the Mind of Tatlock
GEEKTARDED
The Ghost Town
The Ghoulie Guide
Glorp Gum
The Good, the Bad, and the Magnificent
The Goods
Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks
Gravedigger's Local 16
Gray Flannel Tumblr
The Grim Gallery 
Ha-Ha! Horror
Hallow-Holics Anonymous
Hallowaltz
Halloween Hits
Halloween Night
HalloweenOverkill
Halloween Short Films
Halloween Special
Hallucination Horrors
Happy-Halloween
Haunted Design House
The Haunted Drive-In
The Haunted Drive-In (Tumblr)
Haunted Eve's Halloween Blog
The Haunted Spookshow of Channel X
Hellowe'en Horror
Higbee Horror Haunt
Highbury Cemetery
Histories of Things to Come
Holiday Film Reviews
Holiday TV
The Holidaze
Horror Blogger Alliance
Horror Writer's Association Blog
The Horrors of It All
Horrors Online
Housecat Emelie's Blog
Howlin' Wolf Records: On-Line Magazine
I-Mockery.com's Two Months of Halloween Celebration
Infinite Hollywood
Incense & Cookies
Into a Barrel and Over My Life
Into the Cauldron
It Came From the Man Cave!
Jackie's Bookbytes
Jaclyn Di Ann's Cauldron of Treats
Jazzlandscapes
Jim Fanning's Tulgey Wood
Joe's Rec Room
John Rozum
Just the Stuff Ya Know
KAB's Scribblings
Kweeny Todd
Ladydragon Bride
Lair of the Dork Horde
The Land of Cerpts and Honey
Lee's Halloween Slaylists
The Lightning Bug's Lair
LimerWrecks
Listing Toward Halloween 
Macabre Republic
A Man Called Da-Da
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit on Facebook
Maple Grove Cemetery
Mark Harvey's World
Mark's Super Blog
Massive Fantastic
Me and You and a Blog Named Boo
Michael May's Adventure Blog
Misfit Robot Daydream 
Mixed-Up Monster Club
Monique's Pretty Dark Art
Monster Crazy
Monsterfink's Midnight Monster Spookshow
The Moon is a Dead World
Moongem Comics
Movies at Dog Farm
Mr. Chicken's Yard Haunt
A MummyVision Guide to Hallowe'en on Roku
Musty TV
MyBriefs.com
My Ghoul Friday
My Rotting Brain
My Scary Blog
My Two Yen Worth
Neato Coolville
Negative Pleasure
Nerd Out With Me
The New Adventures of Desdinova
New World Food
Nostalgic Memories
Nostalgic Memories on facebook
The Ol' Sketchbook
On the Stick
One Dark Halloween Night
Orange and Black
OTIS (Odd Things I've Seen)
Pagan Culture
The Parade of Horrorables
Plaid Stallions
Plants & Trees
Plastic Pumpkins
plasticfetish
Procrastonaut
PumpkinRot
Punch & Judy Productions
R. Minerva: Tarot and Art
Radiator Heaven 
Radiator Heaven (Tumblr)
The Rain Causes Pain In My Brain
Random Acts of Geekery
Rare Halloween Videos
Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft
Retro Toy Safari
Rip Jagger's Dojo
Roger Wilkerson, The Suburban Legend
Ron's Random Stuff
Russian Nerd
Scare Me On Fridays
Secret Sanctum of Captain Video
Seditiosus
Seduction of the Innocent
ShellHawk's Nest
SheWalksSoftly
Sideshow Cinema
Silent Wierdness
6'+ (Six Foot Plus)
Slash The Zombie
Something wicKED this way comes...
Son of Celluloid
Spooky Laboratory
Spooky Moon
Spooky Scary!
Spooky Soiree
The Spooky Vegan
Step Up to the Mike
Stephanie Buscema's Blog
Strange Kids Club
Swing with Shad
Talk Like a Transylvanian Day
That Was My Foot
Things That Don't Suck
Things To Do In LA
31 Days of Halloween Mixtapes
Toyriffic
Trixie's Treats
Uncle Ernie's Creature Ink
Vault of 3-D Sculpts
Whatever Happened to the Transylvania Twist? 
Whatever I Think Of!
Whispers From the Abyss
Who is Afraid of...Mrs. Lovett?
Who Killed Orrin Grey?
The Windesphere Witch
The Witches of Muckmire Marsh
The Witches of Muckmire Marsh (Tumblr)
Wonderful, Beautiful and Strange Finds
Wonderful Wonderblog
The Year of Halloween 

Sep 13, 2013

The 2013 Badges will rot your teeth!

The new 2013 badges are here a little later than I anticipated, but still, before October! This year, after brainstorming with Jaime of Shezcrafti.com, I decided to use her suggestion of celebrating the return of some long lost Monster Cereal mascots by having the 2013 badges feature Franken Berry, Count Chocula, Boo Berry, Fruit Brute (I refuse to call him Frute), and Yummy Mummy...

**Also, real quick, I wanted to add some noise to the suggestion by Dex of AEIOU and Sometimes Why about the idea of participants grabbing these images and hosting them yourselves.  Least year there was a hiccup with my image hosting provider that caused the badge images to break based on the html I posted.  So if anyone desires, please feel free to grab these and host them yourselves.  I have addressed the image hosting issue, so as far as I know it shouldn't be an issue again.**


Badge #1 (featuring Franken Berry)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:




Badge #2 (featuring Count Chocula)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:




Badge #3 (featuring Boo Berry)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:



Badge #4 (featuring Fruit Brute)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:



Badge #5 (featuring Fruity Yummy Mummy)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:

Sep 7, 2013

The Scary Godmother Doll


I'm guessing it's a safe bet that many of you visiting this site, or participating in the Halloween Countdown are familiar with Jill Thompson's delightful creation, The Scary Godmother. The Scary Godmother's adventures have been depicted in a series of books, comics, and even two tv specials, and now Jill wants to create a doll

It's a beautiful doll, lovingly crafted, and a steal at $50.00, but in order for that to happen, she needs to take in a bit more money on her kickstarter campaign. If you want a doll, or many other special incentives, please visit her campaign here. The world can always use a little more Halloween in it, so please donate whatever you can and help make this a reality. 

I've donated this one of a kind cut paper collage of the main characters from The Scary Godmother. It measures 12" x 25." If you are interested in making it yours, please contact Jill via her kickstarter page



Sep 3, 2013

Calling All Cryptkeepers




If you plan on participating in this year's Halloween Countdown, please read this post in its entirety in order to assure your place on the list of participants. 

First of all, let me apologize for being a bit behind schedule this year. This site has more cob webs than usual, but please be assured that the 2013 Countdown is on.

Everyone that I have contact information for should have received an email from me by this time. If you've emailed me back already, you've been added to the list of cryptkeepers for this year. If you haven't, please check your email.

If you haven't heard from me, that means I don't have a current email address for you. Please email me at universalrobots@aol.com. Put Halloween Countdown in the subject line. In the content of the letter please include a link to your blog(s) and the name you would like to see it listed under (since this is often different). You will not hear back from me unless there's a question I have. Once I receive an email from you I will automatically add you to this year's list. Having an email from you also means I'll be contacting you directly next year, hopefully making the whole process even smoother.

If you are planning to participate as a cryptkeeper this year, DO NOT simply leave a message in the comments box. Please email me. There are so many participants now, that it's easy for someone to get overlooked in the comments box, especially when Shawn and I are both trying to keep everything up to speed, manage our own blogs, and our everyday lives. I know there were periods last year where neither of us were able to check the comments box for several days in a row. Neither of us want to keep anyone waiting, or put them through the stress of wondering why they haven't been added to the list yet. By emailing me directly, you can be certain that I'll get you added asap, probably within just a few hours.

Also, if you only contact us through the comment box, we have no way to reach you directly if there's an issue with your link, or any other matter.  As October proceeds, we will be posting other things at this site, and things get lost when left in the various comment boxes, especially when those boxes don't have anything to do with the participant list.

The goal here is to make everything run as smoothly as possible and for everyone to have fun.

Please use the comments box for any questions or comments you might have as to this year's countdown otherwise.

Thank you. Now go blow the dust out of your trick or treat bags and get ready to turn on your porch lights.