Eerie Elegance

09/03/2026

Thanks to guests bringing their own creative creations, we had several kinds of Yummy Mummies for our Mummy movie night menu, including inside sourdough sarcophagus-shaped Pharaoh Pizzas!
One of my summer movie night traditions for fifteen years now is custom-shaped sourdough personal size pizza crusts. If you are handmaking crusts anyway, why not try special shapes? Some of my more unique shapes have been Elsa snowflakes, Trek chevron Starfleetzas, Lego bricks, and even the Ghostbusters logo! Since we are finishing these pizzas on the grill, I parbake the shaped crusts in a 350F oven just enough so they hold their shape, keep them refrigerated between parchment paper or wax paper inside zip bags, and they even freeze very well if you have leftovers. These are always a hit with all ages, especially when cheese strips and sliced olive eyes are available to make your own mummy pizza!
My other Yummy Mummies were spiced apple cider cake baked in small skull silicone molds, then I hand-piped spiced buttercream wrappings with a ribbon tip just before serving. Royal icing would have crusted better so they wouldn’t stick together on the platter, but this spiced buttercream was leftover from my previous cake pop Frankenstein Faces, so I was glad to clear more space in my BakerSpace fridge for Halloween goodies coming soon!

09/02/2026

We enjoyed sands both sweet & savory for our Mummy movie night menu!
Using a quickly-made cardboard mold and some powdered Parmesan cheese over the top, the Simon Family cheese ball became our Parmesan Pyramid! I lined the cardboard with plastic wrap, balanced it in a bowl, froze the cheese mixture solid overnight, then the pyramid had to thaw before the Parmesan would stick, let alone serve with boney knives!
I updated the movie poster image & tagline for our vanilla soft serve with “sandy” toppings into “Eye Scream: The sands will rise. The caramel will flow. The flavor will be unleashed. “ 😆 Glen found blonde apple pie Oreos to crumble, we had coconut flakes, graham cracker crumbs, toffee bits, some pretzel crunch toppings, mixed nuts, and salted caramel sauce to serve your own sundae…yum!

09/02/2026

My custom cocktails for our Mummy movie menu were basic beverages with movie-specific signs, but I do love the plastic skeleton hands holding my “mummified” limes!
MummyRita: Rim your glass with natron salt from the mummification rituals, pour yourself a margarita, and add a mummified lime garnish in a skeletal hand. (I sliced fresh limes thin and dried them in a low-temperature oven to get the right desiccated look.)
Water Turns to Blood: Pour sparkling water of your choice into a glass, adding clear spirits as desired. Add raspberry syrup and watch your “water” turn to blood like the plagues of Ancient Egypt. (In the Mummy movie, everyone in the bar spits out his drink as they taste blood as one of the plagues hits.)

09/01/2026

Our summer season finale of Magnolia Marquee was The Mummy with Brendan Fraser, still a fun flick 27 years later, and no shame to Karloff, but much more entertaining than the 1932 original movie! 28 of us enjoyed my Mummy menu surrounded by newly-painted 3D-printed Egyptian treasures and my original carved-foam sarcophagus from Halloween 2017 with our Karloff Mummy inside. I had fun making specific signs for this movie, like MummyRita and Water Turns to Blood cocktails at the bar, the Simon Family cheese ball became our Parmesan Pyramid, cheese slices were Golden Treasures, we triumphed with the Fruit of Amun-Ra platter, we made our own Pharaoh Pizzas with sourdough sarcophagus-shaped crusts, we had guests bring their own Yummy Mummies plus my own with my shining Scrumptious Scarabs, and I updated the movie poster image & tagline for our vanilla soft serve with “sandy” toppings into “Eye Scream: The sands will rise. The caramel will flow. The flavor will be unleashed. “ 😆 Several guests dressed for the occasion, and I even wore my 26-year-old handmade Cleopatra jewelry with elaborate Egyptian makeup! Stay tuned for more edible art details coming soon…

08/28/2026

More Team Eerie Elegance Haunted Hollywood Halloween Helper workday progress, with Kong looking even better, moving our tree trunk into werewolf position, starting setup for Dracula’s crypt, making a mummy, molding teeth for biting blossoms, aging corpsed skulls to putrid perfection, and growing our collection of Egyptian treasures!

08/26/2026

Code Orange at our local Home Depot stores in Campbell & Lafayette! We had already bought an embarrassing amount of animatronics at the July online launch (how did they know we needed a giant wiggling spider this year?), but I was tempted by the giant owl jack o’lantern, the black owl pumpkin, and an angel gravestone, along with our traditional cinnamon broom for Glen. I am still sad they only have the dark-edged pumpkins again this year though!

08/21/2026

More Team Eerie Elegance Haunted Hollywood Halloween Helper workday progress, with Kong looking good, more driveway setup, corpsed skulls looking creepier, some biting blossoms plant progress, and Egyptian treasures starting to shine! Huge thanks to Cathy, Raquel & Sheila for unpeeling foam panels, possibly the most tedious task each haunt season!

08/19/2026

Always lovely to chat Halloween with kindred spooky spirits! Listen to this week’s episode of By Pumpkin's Light and you might learn something about how I developed into Eerie Elegance…

Britta Peterson, the creative force behind Eerie Elegance, joins us to discuss her decades-long passion for Halloween entertaining. We explore her earliest Halloween memories, how iconic spooky intellectual property inspired her theatrical approach to displays, and why she deliberately chooses creative spectacle over shock and gore.

Britta walks us through her creative journey, from sharing party concepts and recipes online since 1996 to publishing three books and building elaborate yard displays at her stunning 1890 Queen Anne Victorian. We dive into her creative process, how she balances hosting parties with massive yard displays, and her work raising awareness and funds for Give Kids the World Village. Plus, she shares her best advice for anyone inspired to start their own Halloween entertaining journey.

LISTEN: https://www.bypumpkinslight.com/90-britta-peterson-eerie-elegance/

08/17/2026

More Eerie Elegance Estate remodeling! Significant siding repairs and fresh paint are finally finished professionally, plus yours truly cutting a perfect notch & painting details up high before the scary scaffolding came down! 😳
We had previously suspected that the intermittent tiki room ceiling leak was due to lack of waterproofing behind the siding under the gallery windows above the sunroom, plus above our barbecue counter some siding was completely curling. Our retractable awning had also seen better days, so we ordered a new awning that is still on its way from Germany, and found a contractor team for the siding project. They pointed out that around the corner above the kitchen also had some failing siding, and the sunroom bathroom vent opening was never covered properly, so we tackled the entire back corner that bakes in the sunshine every afternoon, including replacing the cracked bathroom window.
We expected some change orders once the siding was off, with old termite damage needing sistering support, and the entire wall needing extra blocking plus new support for the new awning, but the section of old honeycomb was a surprise! My sewing room wall is now insulated too. These were all later additions to the house, since of course the original old-growth redwood construction including siding is still fine 136 years later, but we still need to rebuild all the Victorian windows as a future project…

08/14/2026

Team Eerie Elegance Halloween Helper weekend workdays are underway for our Haunted Hollywood Halloween, so far sanding 3D-printed Egyptian treasures, corpsing skulls for Frankenstein’s Laboratory, sketching & painting King Kong, and starting construction of our Mummy’s Tomb!