For anyone who doesn’t want to wait until October to go Goth, check out the crafts and trinkets at Frankenstein Medical School. From coffin jewelry boxes to creepy magnets to chilling kids T-shirts, this small shop does not fall short of scary.

Jerry Stiles, a retired technology education teacher, started making these crafts in 2005 in his shop at Tantasqua Junior High School in Sturbridge. He noticed “a couple of Goth kids at school, and I didn’t really know what it was at the time. I went to Barnes & Noble and asked if they had anything on the Goth subcultures. They gave me a couple, and I read those, and from there, it just sort of grew.”

Stiles said, “I thought it was interesting. Goth grew out of the punk rock music scene in England in the late ’70s and early ’80s. And the more I learned about it, I thought, ‘How did I miss this? Where was I?’”

At Barnes & Noble, he found “The Goth Bible, by Nancy Kirkpatrick, and that was a book about the subculture – where it came from, what it is, and what it isn’t. Then, there was a great book by Jillian Venters called Gothic Charm School, and that was written for kids. And I recommended that to a lot of kids and a lot of parents. It was an excellent book. It should be in every school library because it explains what it is and what it isn’t; there are so many misconceptions.” Stiles also began to watch Goth movies. His favorite is “an old black-and-white film called The Addiction; it’s a vampire film.”

Stiles’ rising interest in the Goth subculture and dedication to his students led him to start an after-school activity for students to make Goth crafts and listen to music. “Being a tech teacher, I had a shop with all of the tools,” so conducting the program was easy and fun. Stiles bought all of the supplies, and the students made crafts, which were primarily leather bracelets and choker collars. For a while, Stiles was not sure what he wanted to do with these crafts. He recalled thinking, “I don’t really know where I’m going to go with this. I’m just making it up as I go along,” but mainly, “the kids helped with ideas.”

Stiles eventually moved this shop from his school to the basement of the Joshua Hyde Public Library in Sturbridge. Stiles said, “We ended up with kids from three different schools. We had Southbridge, Spencer and Sturbridge kids. Parents came to the meetings and got involved. It was great; I had a ball.”

After some time, Stiles decided to sell these crafts at local craft fairs and coffee shops. Stiles said he was unsure if his trinkets would be popular, but he decided to “just take a chance.” For the past two years, Frankenstein Medical School has sold the crafts on Etsy. Since then, he has sent his work all over the country and even shipped a coffin jewelry box to a customer in London. However, he said, “It isn’t really a business; it’s a hobby. I mean, I’m retired and I just do it for fun.”

His creations include Gothic Nantucket, which is a small glass bottle filled with white sand, mini seashells and a little skull. Another design is the Three Finger Hook, a hanging decoration with three hooks that mimic a woman’s fingers with black nails and dripping blood.

“People think Goth is over, but it’s not over,” Stiles said.

These creepy crafts, and many more, can be found on Etsy.com, at various local craft fairs such as Worcester’s StART on the Street or at local coffee shops, such as the Sturbridge Coffee House.

By Tricia Wise