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Misty Monster

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OFFICIAL MORBIDLY ADORABLE: MISTY MONSTER
Vegan & Lover of Animals, Skeletons, Tarot, Halloween, & Fairy Tales.
Emotional Support Witch for Octopuses

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😈😍Fiends and friends…Sometimes I fall off the face of the earth, and I don’t know how to climb back. I don’t know how to break the ice. To say hello. My introversion took over, and I thought I was still part of the conversation, but I realize now I have spent the last few weeks talking to myself.🤪

0⃣🔮In an effort to break the ice, to reintroduce myself to society, let’s go back to the beginning. Sometimes we are so far from where we began that we forget where it even started. The Dreamer, that tiny fool, is one of those moments for me. Card 0. The first little soul to crawl out of my skull and onto the canvas for the Morbidly Adorable Tarot. At the time, I didn’t understand the weight of that. I was young in a way I can’t replicate now. Excited, unjaded, blissfully unaware of how long a 78 card tarot deck actually takes to paint when you’re feeding an art business and working a full-time job.

The Dreamer wasn’t just the first card. It turns out, it was my origin story. I painted like someone who didn’t yet know she was about to build a world. Someone who didn’t know it was the first stone in a seventy-eight-step pilgrimage. He was the version of me who didn’t yet know how much this project would demand, or how much it would give back. He was the candle I carried before I understood how dark and beautiful the path would get.🖤🕯

🎨Painting is never effortless for me, but the Dreamer came easily, because it was painted by the part of me that already knew the tarot like a second language. The part that didn’t have to think about symbolism, because it lives in my bones. The part that loves art so deeply, it doesn’t remember a life before it. That version of me didn’t question the journey. She didn’t worry about timelines or burnout or the sheer mountain she was about to climb. She just picked up her brush and stepped forward, like the tiny fool himself.✨

Continued in the comments... by @morbidlyadorable

💀🐠The first time Saint Skelly appeared in a painting, he arrived carrying a lesson delivered by a dead angelfish and the Little Shop of Horrors dentist. This piece is called "Listen to the Fish", which is a much friendlier way of saying, for the love of all things spooky, listen to your gut!

Years ago, I was getting ready for a trip to South Africa with a broken tooth I had ignored for far too long. My regular dentist, the Rolls Royce of dentists, couldn't fit me in before I left. So, I did what many of us do when we're stressed, on a deadline, and trying to solve a problem quickly.
I compromised.🗑🔥

I found a low-cost dentist who could get me in right away. The second I walked through the door, I knew something was off. The receptionists looked deeply unhappy and were glued to their phones. In the waiting room was a beautiful tank full of angelfish. One of them was floating upside down.

I remember staring at that fish thinking, ‘Leave! This is a sign. If they haven’t noticed a dead fish, what else won’t they notice?’ I stayed because I needed my tooth fixed. And I thought I was just being a silly girl.

Even during the procedure, little warning bells kept ringing. Everything felt rushed, improvised, and held together with dental floss and bad decisions.

When I got home, I told my boyfriend at the time that I thought the dead fish was a sign and that I should have walked out. He told me that was ridiculous. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the fish was right.

When I came back from South Africa, I was in terrible pain. After going to my endodontist, he discovered that Little Shop had left packing material inside the temporary crown that he had placed. It had been festering and creating bacteria the entire trip.🦷😬

When I confronted Little Shop, he didn't apologize. He prescribed some antibiotics and tried to send me packing. He told me it was a difficult area to reach and that his hands didn't fit back there. (Why are you a dentist then?! 🤬) I was especially angry after learning that there could have been air trapped in the temporary crown, and that could have been a real problem during my airplane flight... Continued below... by @morbidlyadorable

👻There are a few moments in life that sit on a shelf in your mind like a haunted little figurine. You dust them off every now and then, turn them over in your hands, and wonder what timeline escaped through the crack in the floorboards when you weren't looking.

🎨Years ago, a huge company approached me about turning my artwork into figurines. At first, it felt like one of those moments you're supposed to want. The sort of thing that arrives wrapped in glitter and legitimacy. The sort of thing that makes a younger version of yourself sit up straight and think, ‘Oh! This is it! This is how careers happen!!’

I had seen artists I admired in all the big catalogs. Their work was everywhere. Their names seemed to float through the art world on permanent little clouds of success. So, when the offer came, I wanted to believe.😍

The problem was that every part of the deal felt wrong. The money was terrible. The terms felt lopsided. The whole thing had that strange, unsettling energy of someone asking you to be grateful for a seat at the table while making eye contact and eating your fries.😡🍟

And then there was the conversation itself. I had been recruited by someone enthusiastic enough to make me think they genuinely loved my work. But when I was handed off to the person actually brokering the deal, it felt like talking to someone who had just been awakened from an afternoon nap and was deeply annoyed about it. Maybe they were having a bad day. I'll never know. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to explain away my discomfort.

‘Maybe the volume will make up for the terrible terms.’

‘Maybe this is just how the industry works.’

‘Maybe I'm too inexperienced to understand the opportunity.’

It's funny how often we become defense attorneys for situations that make us miserable. Eventually, I walked away. And for years afterward, I wondered. 'What if that was the door? What if that was the thing that would have launched my career? What if I had just been too cautious?' (...continued below) by @morbidlyadorable

⌛Lately it feels like time has its hand on my back, nudging me faster than I can walk. It seems to have sped up the last few years like someone has widened the hole in the hourglass.😭 I’ve been catching myself doing double‑takes at my own life. That quiet shock of realizing it’s been two months since I checked in on someone I adore, or four years since I’ve seen a family member I still think about when I when I see a certain classic car on the road. It’s alarming, honestly. Like watching the calendar breathe.🗓

🕰Sometimes I swear I can see time moving, like a shadow shifting across the room. Last week, I blinked and suddenly a week had folded itself up and wandered off without telling me where it went. I’m trying to be better about noticing people, about reaching out before the guilt kicks in, about remembering that connection doesn’t have to be perfect to be real. I’m learning that showing up is less about timing and more about intention.❤️

If time has been sprinting past you too, you’re not alone. Tell me how you’re navigating it.🙈 by @morbidlyadorable

When my friend goes to the vape store, he digs through a dish of stickers they keep at the counter and presents the treasures to me (because I'm a five-year-old princess like that!!👸👑) At first, he gave me a lot of cute things like surfing pandas and skateboarding dogs, but lately... Am I putting off a vibe?! 🗑🔥🫠🤣 by @morbidlyadorable

🔮Some conversations open like small, shimmering doorways, and this one about tarot and art felt like a portal remembering it was a portal. She mentioned mediumship so casually, like she was commenting on the weather, and suddenly that old memory stirred, the one where a tarot reader told me my dream‑paintings lived in two worlds at once. They had different meanings in each world. It felt like someone brushing dust off a locked door I’d forgotten I built.

And now I can’t stop thinking about it...the way a reading might nudge a painting into existence, not as an answer but as an opening. The idea feels warm in my chest, like touching the handle of a door that’s been waiting for me. Can I kick off a commission with a tarot reading for the client and have it usher in new ideas? Am I creating a portal for them? This is something to consider. The cards remind me that every creature I make, every bright‑eyed skeleton or soft little spirit, is already halfway between here and whatever comes after. A portal is still a portal, even before you step through.🚪🗝 by @morbidlyadorable

🎅🏼🦩Last weekend felt like stepping into a holiday fever dream, the kind that happens when you run out of witchy spell candles and grab a wintry seasonal candle in a pinch. There may be side effects!☃️

🌴I found myself in the middle of a Christmas in July celebration. There’s something oddly comforting about celebrating winter when the pavement is hot enough to fry your patience. I didn’t plan on taking pictures with Surfin’ Santa and his flamboyance of flamingos, but life has a sense of humor. The portal to the North Pole was straight out of a childhood storybook, a gingerbread scene was pumping out music like a sugary pub, and the snow room looked like it had been air-dropped straight from a confused North Pole intern.☃️❄️

🎧🔮And somehow, in all that chaos, I was lured in by the siren song of the Silent (Night) Disco. There was something oddly soothing about slipping on headphones and listening to "Holiday Road" while the world spun around me in its own glittery orbit. It felt like stepping into a private little snowstorm, just me, the music, and the soft absurdity of celebrating Christmas when the sun was trying to melt off my eyebrows.☀️🔥

❄️I went with my friend @chio9139, who drifted in like a cool snowflake unbothered by the sun. We had only seen each other once since high school and ended up mainlining 30 years of stories in six hours, comparing notes on who we’ve become and realizing we’re somehow more alike now than we ever were back then. It felt like rediscovering a person I’d accidentally set down years ago and finding they’d grown into someone I genuinely adore. There’s a strange magic in that, the kind that doesn’t need tinsel or twinkle lights to feel bright.✨

🎁Here’s the part that stuck with me once I got home and the quiet settled into my bones: I spend so much of my life living in Halloween…the sweetly spooky, the shadowy and weird, the creepy crawlies and their haunted houses, but I’m glad I gave Christmas a chance... by @morbidlyadorable

🥰💀I didn’t mean to fall in love with these bony beloveds, but somewhere along the way, I did. I built this Skelly couple tiny rib by tiny rib, tiny finger by tiny finger…the kind of slow, careful work that feels almost devotional. These dreamy little pairs usually end up perched on wedding cakes, presiding over someone else’s moment of pure joy like soft-hearted guardians made of bone and hope. 👰💍🤵

🦋This was only the third I ever made. The first two were custom: a groom in red Converse with a bride wearing a little red wreath, and another couple adorned with turquoise butterflies like blessings landing on the pair. Those two stayed with me. Something about them tugged at my ribs, and I realized I was falling in love with the idea of love made visible. Love that blushes, love that kicks up its heel, love that holds hands especially when the world feels too big.🥹

⛈️By the time I finished this couple, my own relationship was wobbling. I was in that strange, hollow chapter where you’re still hoping, still trying, still believing in tenderness even when your real life feels like it’s losing its color. And maybe that’s why these two came out the way they did: their hands cradled together, her heel kicked up in a moment of pure delight, their eyes shaped like hearts, blush blooming across pale bone. She’s delicate like a doily, all lace and softness; he’s tougher, crowned, and steampunk-eared, a little warrior of devotion.

Seeing my Skellies in 3D, in real life, standing there like tiny reminders of what I still believe, feels like proof that even in the rough spots, I haven’t lost my softness. I haven’t lost my hope. I haven’t lost that strange little faith in connection.

If you ever want me to tell the story behind another piece, just whisper which one. 💖 by @morbidlyadorable

🎁🌧“Box of Rain” is a song that has long haunted the halls of my mind, and it wandered into my studio with a rainbow stuck to the bottom of its heel. Before I knew it, Arcobaleno's Workshop was following behind it.💖

It started with a peddler sitting in the town square of a picturesque village, surrounded by crooked cobblestone streets and old buildings softened by time. He carried a literal box of rain. On bright, sunny days, tiny rainbows would spill out into the square, landing on passersby. It has always felt bittersweet to me, that song. Tender. Melancholic. The kind of thing that settles into your bones and quietly refuses to leave. I wanted the painting to have the weight of a halcyon dream...🥹

When I started working on the Eight of Talismans, I realized I already knew the feeling I wanted. If there was rain, all it would take is a little sun to make a rainbow. I knew there would be work and wonder woven together. But there was one small problem: I had absolutely no idea who Arcobaleno actually was. Every sketch felt like I was interviewing a suspect who refused to answer questions. Was he old? Was he young? Was he elegant? Eccentric? A wise craftsman? A cheerful menace? I kept nudging the idea around the page, waiting for him to introduce himself.

After all that wondering, the answer arrived with delightful discovery. I was in love with the glitter beard look. The moment that detail appeared, the whole thing clicked into place giving Arcobaleno the pink sparkle he needed. Sometimes inspiration arrives like a lightning bolt from the heavens. Sometimes it shows up looking like a glitter accident at a haunted craft store. Either way, you say thank you and keep painting!🎨

One of my favorite parts of the piece is a detail most people will probably never notice. Beside Arcobaleno is the little Tiramisu Robot. He isn't just standing there to look adorable. Though he most certainly is! 😍 He's Arcobaleno's apprentice, learning the craft, one rainbow at a time. And if you look closely, you can see that the work has already begun to leave its mark. The rainbow colors have started staining his tiny fingers...🌈 by @morbidlyadorable

✨Some days it feels like the gears inside my life have finally decided to cooperate. Everything that used to grind and sputter is suddenly clicking into place with a small, satisfying sound. I’ve been showing up more, staying present in ways I never knew existed, learning how to make this strange, bright art‑life into something that doesn’t just flicker but actually sustains me.

This is the beginning of a new chapter. It snuck in as silent as cat's paws. There were no trumpets or confetti to mark this shift. It's that point where you catch yourself choosing the thing you want instead of the thing that feels safer. Where you look at your life and think, 'Oh. I’m really doing this.'💖

I want to help you commemorate a new chapter in your life. Whether it's a birthday, a milestone, a loss or a healing, a death or a birth, getting a new job or leaving an old one, any new chapter. Maybe it snuck up on you too, or maybe it was announced loud and proud by the town crier. Tell me about a new chapter into which you’re stepping. I’d love to hear what’s shifting for you. Let me know in the comments or message me if it's too personal.🥹 by @morbidlyadorable

🕯✨I still remember the strange, candlelit disbelief of learning that someone wanted to take the Priestess home.🔮

The Priestess from the Morbidly Adorable Tarot will always hold a special place in my creaky little artist heart. Long before she belonged to anyone else, she belonged entirely to a mystery.
She arrived dressed in silvery Rococo splendor, perched on her pomegranate-colored couch, patiently divining truths she had no intention of giving away too easily. Around her, symbols gathered like old friends. The rich pomegranate hue of her loveseat carried the echo of Persephone and her journey between worlds…the living and dead, sunlight and shadow, the known and the unknowable.

🐈‍⬛🌙Beside her sat her two cats, guardians of the threshold. One, a skelly cat resting atop a book of knowledge. The other, a black cat bathed in the glow of a crescent moon. Together they became her pillars: light and dark, life and afterlife, certainty and mystery. The kind of companions every good priestess deserves and every haunted cottage should probably come equipped with.

Her gaze was never meant to give answers. It was meant to ask better questions. Each story is our own, after all.

When I painted her, I loved every strange little detail. But loving a piece and believing it will resonate with someone else are two very different beasts. Artists spend a lot of time sending tiny pieces of their souls into the world and pretending not to stare anxiously out the window waiting for a response. It's a very dignified process. Absolutely no goblin energy involved.👺👀

Then she sold, and I was shocked. She was the very first tarot painting I had ever sold, and for a moment everything felt surreal. This character, this story, this dreamy priestess who had lived in my imagination, had reached across the distance and spoken clearly to someone else.

That feeling is difficult to describe. It was a little joy, a little disbelief, and a little fear... by @morbidlyadorable

🎄☃Dashing off to a Christmas in July event with my friend Chio this weekend, some memories get shaken up like tiny snow globes. Mine starts with Santa.🎅

🦩🏄Somewhere between visions of flamingos in Santa hats and gingerbread men with surf boards, I found myself thinking about the first man who ever broke my heart. And yes, he wore a red suit.

🎁I was about seven years old when I met mall-Santa, older than I was in these pictures with my baby brother and Great Aunt Hildi-Claus scaring the children. (And if you’re wondering why I still believed in Santa at that age, please remember who you’re talking to. I believed in jackalopes until nineteen. I’m loyal to the bit.) I told mall‑Santa I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid, and he looked me dead in the eye and said, “Why do you want one of those? They're ugly.”👶

I wasn’t the mouthy spitfire you know today. I just stared at him, horrified, mumbling something about liking them. It was a formative moment. The way someone can take a thing you love and try to make you feel foolish for loving it. A tiny heartbreak wrapped in tinsel.💔

I keep circling back to the moment Santa tried to dim my sparkle. And it kind of bums me out how often I still see people do it. “Why do you like that band?” “Eeeewwww. You like that flavor?” “Why would you want to visit that place?” As if joy needs someone else’s permission.✨

I learned a valuable lesson from the heartbreaker in red: don’t yuck someone else’s yum. If something makes a person light up, let them glow. Be curious. The world is dim enough without us snuffing out each other’s tiny, candy cane scented candles.🕯 by @morbidlyadorable