Halloweeny Flags!

How are you? Happy Monday! Hopefully not a mundane one for you! I've been playing catch up with the house and just thought I'd share a little festive decor from the front yard. 

This is a garden flag I found at a local store and I thought it was cute. 

Here's the house flag I put up for the month. The kids love it!

Do you decorate your yard for Halloween? What all do you do? Hope you have a great day! 

Garbage Bag Ghost Covering A Bird Feeder

Today was an awesome day! Our little ones did a basketball clinic at our alma mater and got to slam dunk with the team players. Then they got to run through the smoke from the locker rooms and slap all the players hands on the court. What an awesome experience for little kids. It's all about seeing smiles on their faces!

This kitchen tall Hefty made their eyes light up once we got home. It's so simple, anyone can do it! I folded up a garbage bag and cut the whole top end off, to remove the red drawstring. Then I cut up one of the sides to split the bag. I covered the bird feeder and used about 4 pieces of duck tape on the back side to close up the bag. Once I had the bag up, I used a permanent marker to color in the eyes and mouth. My neighbors were probably wondering what I was doing on my step ladder!

On Halloween night, I'll drop a battery operated candle inside the bird feeder to light it up! The kids were so excited to see the ghost go up! Do you have any ghosts in your yard?

Fall Into Autumn and Avoid the Flu!

Yeah my right arm is sore but not as bad as it has been after the flu shot in years past. Do you get the flu shot? A couple of years ago a nurse administering the shots advised us at work to get the shot in your dominant arm. You use it more therefore you'll work it out and it won't be as sore as it would if you got it in the other arm. Works like a charm. However I find it ironic to get the flu shot today and come home to a bunch of sickies at home. What a fun weekend I have to look forward to.

Are you getting your game on with Halloween decorating? My closest girl friends are all decked up but our neighborhood is really lacking. I feel like our house is lonesome with the ghost milk jugs from last year and the ghost lights and bat hanging on our front porch. What happened to the Halloween spirit?  There is just something so magical about it that I couldn't NOT decorate.

I don't like to overdo but here is a little fall decor to get us in the spirit. Ceramic pumpkins from the dollar store and mums from Michaels. Nothing fancy or too nick nacky but a little fall color adds warmth to the house.

What are you doing to decorate for the Fall?

Post Halloween

Hopefully everyone had a great night of trick or treating last week. We had a nice night and here are my kids' costumes so you can see. The little one rode in his paddy wagon and

they had a ball together!

Towards the end of the week I came down with walking pneumonia and I'm trying to take it easy. I'm so used to being on autopilot during the week that I don't know how to slow down and rest when I need to. Just not feeling quite right still. Hopefully I'll be on the upswing soon. 

In the meantime I am beginning to plan for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

My to do list includes:

-pack up the Halloween decorations

-start addressing Christmas cards

-compare prices on a pre-lit artificial Christmas tree but measure from floor to ceiling first!

-work on a Thanksgiving craft project I thought of

-reorganize medications in the house so I'll share that with you too sometime soon.

On that note I am hitting the hay! Hope everyone is doing well and has a lovely week! What were your kids for Halloween? What are you doing to start prepping for the holidays? Talk soon!

Final Touches for Halloween

Trick or Treat! Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! I wanted to post some last minute decorating ideas. 

Below is a recycled Ikea candle holder - I sprayed candy corn with Krylon Preserve spray and put a tea light in the middle.

Mummy pumpkin - I wrapped in gauze and taped googly eyes. Toilet paper works well too!

Here I cut strips of scrap book paper and glued them to the pumpkin using a paint brush.

I recycled milk jugs and made ghosts. All you do is paint faces and cut a hole in back (puncture with sharp knife and twist in a circular motion until it begins cutting and make about a quarter sized hole). Push clear lights through backs. I put marbles inside to help weigh the jugs down. They are super cute when it's dark! Kids will love them!

I picked up paper cutouts and punched two holes in each, and threaded wire ribbon through to make staircase garland.

Here's another idea for a pumpkin. I didn't make this one. We had a pumpkin decorating contest at work and someone else made this one but I thought is was pretty wicked. 

This is a recycled Glade glass candle holder - I used acrylic paint and casually painted each color and let dry before applying next color.

Same method of gluing strips of scrap book paper as above but this pumpkin is made of Styrofoam.

Taped wire spider web to a mirror

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Knock! Knock! $1.00 Skeleton Wreath

Hope you're having a great weekend! I had a really nice day today and am excited to have finally completed the kids' Halloween costumes. My mother-in-law actually found the perfect solution for my youngster's costume today. Can't wait to go trick or treating!

Thought I'd share the front door wreath I came up with for $1.00! The actual wreath was freeeeeeee. My mom gave it to me last time I visited so I figured I could do something with it. 

 

I was in Dollar Tree one day and found a strand of little skeletons on twine. I pulled the skeletons off the twine and hot glued them to the wreath and there you have it. That is how I made this spooky wreath for a buck!

Chunky Candy Corn Wreath

Everybody has probably tried this wreath already and I may be the last to find this one but it was so fun to make. I still don't like the taste of candy corn though!

All you need is:

A wreath of some sort

Black duck tape

Three bags of candy corn

Glue gun

Ribbon

Krylon Preserve spray which can be bought 

at a craft store

Wrap your wreath in the black duck tape.

Use the glue gun and cover your wreath!

I went with a pattern and simply covered the entire wreath.

I used the Krylon Preserve spray and sprayed the wreath down to reuse and avoid bugs!

I used ribbon from Dollar Tree to hang it.

I think it's super cute!

Up To Eyeballs In Whimsical Halloween!

It's a week until Halloween and we're counting down! I think Halloween is my favorite holiday. Dressing up in costumes, decking the house in pumpkins and ghosts galore is so much fun. Really I don't have many Halloween decorations so this year I have been making a lot of my own to add some color and fun to the house! Here is one silly centerpiece I did. 

I collected sticks in the back yard and painted them black! I used craft paint and applied it using one of those craft sponges on a stick. Then I found some silly eyeball foam stickers and I scattered the eyeballs all over my wooden vase for fun.

 

It has transformed the dining room into silly Halloween! We can't be too scary because of the kids so this is fun, colorful and whimsical! 

http://swankybaby.net/2011/10/holidays-made-by-you-halloween.html

Decorating With Candy Corn

BOO! Did I scare you? So how was your weekend? Hopefully good! I did my yard sale on Saturday and I said this once and I'm going to say it again - NEVER AGAIN! ha ha. I'll probably eat my words again but it was a total bust and so much work for not much payoff! I made three signs to advertise, and after the whole thing was said and done, someone had removed my most important sign that pointed in the direction to our street. Boo Hoo! Don't make me cry!

So here's a quick Halloween decoration that is super cheap!

I bought a bag of candy corn at CVS for 88 or 81 cents, well under a dollar. I had some baby food jars leftover from months ago that I spray painted the lids with a "pewter" spray paint.I decided to pull out the CRICUT and cut out the word B-O-O. So I did. I used black self adhesive vinyl and used the BIRTHDAY BASH cartridge and cut out the letters in about a 1" font.

I stuck those puppies on and here you have it. You can line up your cute little jars or stack 'em up! Have fun with it! My son had a ball filling the jars! 

I'll be sharing my Halloween mantel as soon as I get the chance. Can't wait to show you how it turned out! Have a great Monday!

Candy Corn Time

I like CANDY and I like CORN but I'm not a big fan of candy corn. It's almost October though and I thought this would be fun to try. Here's how I saved this "fail" project! ;)

My "save" below which I think turned out nicely. 

My sad attempt of candy corns below.
I used Styrofoam cones and plaster of Paris. I used small cones and cut them down with a knife to give them a flatter shape. I mixed up the plaster and from the get go I had trouble with the consistency. I followed the directions but it was too soupy. I still spread the cones with the plaster and let it set for 24 hours. I wet sanded them and it was hard, REALLY HARD so I quit and one cone looks like that one character on Yo Gabba Gabba with all its lumps. The poor thing.

I had the most success with this one below. I used acrylic paints and probably should have made the orange stripes a little wider. Oops.

I wasn't completely thrilled with the result and I found this adorable idea of using yarn by Thrifty Decor Chick and thought I'd give it a whirl! I picked up yarn that was on sale and got more muted shades of the orange and yellow but I think it works. It gives it a more rustic look. All I did was wrap the Styrofoam cones until they were covered. If you want a workout for your arms, try this craft. 


What are you doing to get in the Fall spirit?

Skulls And Bones, Well Sorta!

WHAZZUP?!?! How's everybody doing? Is anybody else getting excited about Halloween this year? I can't wait. I'm working on the kid's costumes and yikes, I have to find the pieces I purchased after Halloween last year. They are prolly buried in a bin somewhere in the attic. That is one room that I don't want to step foot in but really need to clean out. I plan to clean out the attic once it starts cooling off. You should see our attic. Well, no. You shouldn't! Talk about SCARY! Ok no more tangents I promise. On to the scary Halloween Decor!

Sooooo - Say Bye Bye to Cool Blue Sea Shells and HELLO Ugly, Gruesome Ones!

On our vacation at the beach we saw a lot of gross looking shells. I was very excited to find part of a sand dollar but these things below were scattered all along the shore. As I walked studying them I thought they resembled bones. They looked like creepy skeletal parts. I did some research to try and figure out what they are called and couldn't find them. They may be crustaceans for all I know. If you do happen to know, please do tell!

Usually my son and I are on the hunt for the prettiest shells at the beach but this time we thought it would be fun to look for the ugliest, creepiest looking ones to use for Halloween decorations. 

We cleaned all the shells and placed them in this jar and gently placed a Styrofoam glitter skull ($1.00 at Dollar Tree) on top. It's always great to use what you have to decorate and this project was budget friendly and fun! How appropriate for Halloween! EWWW! Can't wait to see what other people are doing for Halloween this year!