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Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.

October Eves

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Fall is my favorite season of the year! Largely in part because it includes Halloween. I’ve often wondered why I look so forward to Halloween each year, and I’ve decided it’s because Halloween allows for everyone to be as creative and playful as they want. Understand that I don’t enjoy the scary and gory costumes or even the 10lbs of sugar that my children gather and try to consume over the course of one weekend, I enjoy the lighthearted, imaginative merry-making of the evening.

In light of one of my favorite holidays, I’ve rounded up some art that is both alluring and mysterious. These pieces were not created specifically for Halloween, making them a perfect addition to your walls year round.

artwork from Little Red Fox

There is a beautiful haunting quality to all of the pieces at Little Red Fox. The sketches are well balanced between intentional simplicity and complex emotions. I’ve been a fan of this art for years because of the consistency in the quality of work. You will find originals and prints as well as stickers, dolls, and cards.

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The apocalypse and the end of times

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Baggelboy: Artist and illustrator. At the moment I live in Cambridge a small medieval city on the edge of the world. Originally from London I came here to study illustration and found the medieval life suited me.

The linocut pictures I make come from a mixture of the fun side of our darker life and the fairy tales that Grandma used to tell us. They are firmly rooted in the tradition of Medieval woodcuts and early book printing but with a little twist in the tail. Some of these pictures will become book illustrations and others are workings for larger prints and posters.

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Daily frights

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You already know I love zombies, but I also have a soft spot for monsters. If you feel the same, now you can discover a new monster every day!

bio: “365 Monsters” is my yearlong quest for monsters that started Halloween 2008. I’m just a regular guy who poses as an artist and who also happens to love monsters. I’ve always created monster-related artwork for fun and wanted to share that (every day) at my blog.

Kristin Parsons Illustrations

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Creatures and beasties from another world is how you might describe Kristin Parsons‘ whimsical creations. Whether the creatures are fish-like, frog-like or totally unlike anything you’ve seen, kids seem to love these illustrations. Kristin worked as an inker at an animated cartoon studio in Barcelona in the mid 60’s and has continued to create work inspired by the little ones in her life over the last 60 years.

Over the years she’s had gallery shows, both group and solo, in the United States and Europe and has illustrated a couple of books. You could certainly imagine a picture book full of these critters. Each creature starts as hand drawings and then are scanned in and digitally manipulated to achieve the colorful finished product.

My favorite item from my Etsy shop is “Flower Inspection,” because it reminds me of my grandson, who’s four and always busy figuring out how things are put together.

An artist at heart, Kristin has been creating since she was 2 years old. While she has been selling her work offline for some time now, she’s just recently started selling online after discovering it as a way to share her work with potentially thousands of people every day.

A recent Florida transplant, she is currently only selling online. Kristin comes from a long line of artists – both her grandfathers and an aunt were artists, and, like them, she started drawing from a very early age. Growing up, she lived in three countries in Europe and stayed for art school.

She has one daughter with her husband, and a grandson who is a constant source of inspiration (and I gather from her conversation with me, pride). Her shop is truly Freshly Made, she’s only been listing for a few days and is working on adding more creative creatures. If you know of a kiddo who would love these funny fellows, make sure to check out her shop.