Well, fall was here for at least a week, and now it's suddenly left again! I've been itchin' to break out my fall decorations for several weeks now. But how can one justify decorating when it's 85 degrees out?!?! We had one week where the temp. dropped into the 60's, and the boys were asking about decorations, so I busted out the boxes and got to work.
In the past I've basically decorated for "fall", hoping to cover both Halloween and Thanksgiving. But after seeing some cute ideas online for Halloween, I decided to mix things up a little bit.
A cute idea I found for our entry was to use past photos of the kids in their Halloween costumes.
The kids got a kick out of seeing themselves from past years!
In the kitchen, I decided to put my ghosts this year. A couple years ago I found a set of mega size blocks at Hallmark that said "Trick or Treat", but they wanted $80 for them! I figured I could do it for less than $10. So I cut the wood out, routed the edge, and then got too busy so I stashed them in the closet. Well, they sat there for two years....This year I decided it was either time to finish the project or trash the blocks. It just happened to be that I was crafting the next day with a friend so I get out my painting supplies and got to work. I love how they turned out....
Why it's taken me so long to get them done was I couldn't decide how to do the letters. I didn't want to do vinyl because I wanted a slightly off white letter that wasn't "perfect". So I broke out my trusty Cricut and cut the letters out of my transparency sheets, and made myself a stencil to paint with. Worked great!! Added some splatter painting to finish out the blocks-easy!!
As for above the ghosts, well, I didn't want to leave that area blank. I had two sticks that I had left after cutting the branches for my mantel (see below). Figured, why waste?!? So I suspended them from the ceiling using fishing line and tape. Added some of the batting spider web stuff, and some bats. I saw the bat idea online too, and it was super easy and cheap!! Got out the Cricut, downloaded the bat file online-had my program quickly trace the bats and then I let the Cricut cut the bats out of black cardstock I had laying around. In less than 5 minutes, I had bats galore-more of them are flying in the other room! Next year, I think I'm going to make the bigger bat pattern that I have, but for this year, this will work...
If you know my fireplace mantel in the family room, you know it's huge! I think over 6 feet to be exact, with a large flatscreen smack dad in the middle. Normally I slap up a garland, and call it good. This year, though, I really wanted to do a Halloween themed mantel. Here's what I ended up with...on the right side I took one of my vases and filled with black branches (the tops of the other ones in the kitchen). Found some cute tin boxes at HL, and added some black crows. Finished it off with some black organza and spider webbing (and a little mouse at the base of the vase-you'll see them later)
On the left side I have two black candlesticks and some dead roses. I think the candles need some black vinyl letters on them, but I couldn't decide what I wanted it to say. It happens that my anniversary was in late September so I had roses sitting around. I filled a round vase with some of the black organza, and then put the dried roses in it. If you can see on the top of the shorter candlestick, I have a mouse....
Well, I was surfing the Martha Stewart site and found this picture of a staircase decorated with mice sillouhettes...
I love the idea of having them on the stairs, but I thought it might be a little scary for my kids. And my husband had been TDY all week and I figured he probaby wouldn't like coming home late to find "mice" running up our stairs. So I settled for the fireplace...they are running all over the bookcases, floor, fireplace, wood, etc. The Cricut came to the rescue again-downloaded the pattern from Martha Stewart, and cut them out with the Cricut-again out of black cardstock.
I really thought the boys would have a fit when they came home from school to find crows and mice all over the family room. The boys got off the bus, and as always, headed straight for the tv! They didn't say a word about the decorations at first! Then, about 30 minutes later, Kaden was standing right next to one of the mice, while he was playing with Legos on the bookcases. Kaden asked, "Mom, why is there a mouse here?!?" He wasn't scared, just inquisitive...I said, he wanted to come join his friends and play. Kaden gave me that look like, "What are you talking about mom?!" I said, "Don't you see his friends?" It was like the "lightbulb" came on, and Kaden scanned the area where he had been playing and suddenly "saw" all the mice. I just busted up laughing. The boys had been so into watching tv that they had completely tuned out all the decorations. Kaden finally exclaimed, "Mom, that's so awesome!" Guess I have gotten his seal of approval.
Another new addition to our Halloween decorations are these wooden cutouts from Total Class Creations. Real simple, clean looking decorations. The boys helped me make the little ornaments for the tree-everything comes cut out, and painted. The little ornaments even have adhesive on them to add the glitter. So the boys had fun dipping them in glitter. I decided that I didn't want glitter all over my decorations when I put them away for the year, so I got out the modge podge and tested one, MP over the glitter. Nope, doesn't work-the glitter lost all it's sparkle...so we'll see how these hold up in storage!
A couple other ideas I found while surfing the web:
I love this look with the candy jars. Didn't do it this year, for two reasons: first, if you know me, I can't resist sweets. As I'm trying to lose the weight, I didn't want to sabotage myself my setting out jars of sweets, in plain sight. Also, I went to HL to look at jars and they are expensive, even at 50% off! Decided that I needed to watch "Goodwill" this year to pick up some when you can get them for a couple bucks each...but I love the idea!
Thought this setup was cute for a children's party. I love the whole setup-balloons and all.
Love the lanterns as decorations here.
Candy corn wreath! My friend Karen worked on this for our craft day. She ran out of candy corns so she couldn't hang it up-took it home and had it sitting on the table. Her little boy came home from school and said, "Oh, chocolate cake" and gave it a big lick!!!
Here are the instructions if you want to make it:
http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Family-Lifestyle/Holidays/Halloween-Craft-Candy-Corn-Wreath.html
One warning: Karen's wreath is now in pieces!!! Guess this is suppose to be an indoor wreath, and you're suppose to let the candy corn harden a couple days before making-I believe. I'm sure you can google and find out more info. She also MP her foam first, let dry, and then spray painted black instead of using the duct tape.
I made the lima bean wreath-which is still sitting in my craft room because I keep forgetting to buy the ribbon to hang it. But here's a picture of them:
You can find the instructions on www.allthingsthrifty.com. I only had a green wreath so I MP it first, and then glued on the beans, and spray painted. One thing I learned was that you really need to pick away all those awful glue strands from the glue gun. For some reason I was thinking the paint would hide them, but it actually accentuated them. ARGH! So much time spent on this, and you see my glue-stand back if admiring my wreath-if I ever get it hung!!!!
And last but not least, a friend sent me this idea:
Chalkboard rocks-idea is from Pottery Barn but they are way expensive. Buy a little chalkboard paint, find some rocks, and you have some fun decorations the kids can help with. I'll be doing this one next year!!
Have you made any cute decorations or found some links online?!?! Please share-I'm already making a file for next year!!
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