My Haunted House!

Although Halloween is over (nooooooooo!) I promised photos from my Halloween party, which I had after-the-fact on Saturday (best decision ever, because as soon as November hits all of the Halloween stores slash prices!!). So since I promised I guess I will just have to do one more Halloween post!! And then I promise this is it, and I will move on to the less gruesome holidays fast approaching :).

So to decorate my house (ok, apartment) for Halloween I decided on 3 themes, yes 3, because 1 is boring! First in my living room which is the first room you walk into I went with overall dark palette and what ended up to be a mash-up of Black Forest/traditional haunted house/seance room. I know that doesn't seem like it should count as a "theme" but it worked! Check it out:

Lights on

Lights off!

Another room shot. I including our animatronic spider in this one. He dropped down suddenly in response to noise so we placed him on the overhang right in front of our front door for a quick scare right when guests walked in. And we did get a couple people! 

Seance table!! The Crystal ball is a large glass dome shade I bought for a dollar at Goodwill. It is illuminated by a simple push on light from the dollar store! The tea lights are led and also from the dollar store. I placed these is 4 glass jars from goodwill. And the cards are from a deck I got as a souvenir at Harry Potter world in Universal Studios.

I had this vintage bird cage which looked creepy on its own, so I hang it from our overhang and added some dollar store crows for extra creepiness!

I utilized our fireplace by putting a large fuzzy spider in the fireplace and lighting it with a white strobe (the effect was ally cool with the low light we had for the party. Then for the tile in front of the fireplace I laid some tattered green mesh from the Halloween store and some plastic rats and snakes!

This was one of my favorite areas! I got the frames from goodwill, and printed the creepy old photos offline from thegraphicsfairy.com. Then I added two led candlesticks placed inside a couple of my vintage baby cups. Some black roses and spiderwebs finished the look!

Here is another vignette I created by simply opening a couple of reference books I already had to creepy diagrams and then added cobwebs and spiders!

This was supposed to be our big scare but unfortunately it decided to stop working the night of the party (it totally works again now!) I got this animatronic snake that strikes, hisses, and rattles its tail when someone passes by too close from the Halloween store half off!!

Creepy filter!

The second area I decked out for our party was the kitchen. For the kitchen it seemed only natural to go with a mad scientist theme!:

the Laboratory! 

Again with the filters!

View to the living room.

I made a number of "specimen" jars with some of my old canning jars I have picked up at thrift stores. Simply add water, mix in some food coloring to the desired color, and add some plastic props like creepy bugs!

The laboratory was also a candy bar! Because what is more Halloween than candy?! I used different containers, some new and some thrifted to serve different kinds of candy. I only used thrifted items like the metal stand and tray for wrapped candy, and placed unwrapped candy like twizzlers and of course candy corn in some new (but still inexpensive) glass jars and containers.

Plastic eyeballs filled another jar, and the large faux mercury glass urn from homegoods held fun size kit kat and crunch bars left over from tricker-or-treaters!

This was definitely the creepiest jar! I got the fake fingers from the Halloween store half-off!

I found this rounded bottom jar at Goodwill and immediately thought dome. I used an embroidery needle stuck into a piece of foam as a mount for my plastic fly. Then I placed that on a glass saucer with the dome over it. 

The last area I decorated was the patio. This was definitely my favorite:

Blacklight!! I got at blacklight bulb that I used in one of our floor lamps and a long light that could be mounted to the wall. Then it was glow-in-the-dark craziness! I pretty much bought everything I saw that said glow-in-the-dark, from the two faces (I actually made these!), to g-i-t-d plastic spiders and bats, and even g-i-t-d duck tape! 

I also got black-light paint from the Halloween store that I used to make creepy signs on foam core with sayings like "Help Me" and "Your Next". I even got a little artistic with it like the dripping painting on the top right. 

I made the faces with felt cut-outs from the dollar store by glueing them onto foam core that I had sprayed with glow-in-the-dark spray paint!. 

Well, I guess that is all for Halloween this year! Now it's time to start planning for next year! Muahhahaha! 

Thanks for stopping by, 

-Liz :)

Halloween Eyeball Wreath!

It's that wonderful time of year again, when you can make wreaths out of eyeballs and it's totally appropriate!! So that is exactly what I did to adorn my fireplace for Halloween!

First I had to make a bunch of eyeballs:

Eyeball Supplies:

1. 2 packages of styrofoam balls (12/pack) from Michaels
2. Rustoleum brand spray paint (I used 4 colors: Black, Navy, Olive green, Lagoon) If you are not a big fan of spray paint you could also try sponging on acrylics.
3. Cardboard templates (see below)
4. White paint pen
5. Skewers

So here's what I did:

I used two pieces of cardstock to make templates for the color of the eye and the black pupil:

I used a quarter for the large circle and I dime for the small :)

I skewered my styrofoam ball and stuck the other end of the skewer into a scrap piece of foam to hold it upright while I painted. Then I held my larger template up to the ball and sprayed with my eye color (gloves are a good idea if you don't want your hands to be covered in spray paint).

Here's my eyeball with the first circle painted.

Then I used the smaller template and placed it in the middle of the colored circle and sprayed with black spray paint to make the pupil.

Last using a white paint pen I added in a highlight dot on the edge of the pupil. This really brings the eye to life! 

Here are my first four completed. Keep repeating until all of your eyeballs are made! 

To make the wreath: I used a green styrofoam wreath from the dollar store that I spray painted black. First I attached a Halloween black and white bow (4$) onto the wreath. Then I began attaching eyeballs using toothpicks (I love using foam for projects, no glue needed!) Once all the eyeballs were in place, I hung my wreath on a command hook:

Eyeballs galore!

Wide angle :)

Close-up!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Liz :)

YaYYY for HALLOWEEN!

Let me start by saying... I LOVE HALLOWEEN!! I know I have already shared a halloween post, BUT now it's about to get serious! My blog is about to be totally Halloween-o-fied! So consider this a fair warning, if you don't enjoy Halloween as much as I do (which is a lot!!) then BEWARE!!

My first halloween post featured a display of revamped dollar store pumpkins, and guess what?! So does this one!! However, for this post I have created 10 different designs using Dollar Tree carve-able pumpkins! I love these, they are the perfect size and 1$!

Here's what they looked like before:

The one thing I wasn't crazy about with these pumpkins was the color :(, BUT that is easily fixed! I used three different kinds of spray paint for my pumpkins: Rustoleum Glossy Black, Rustoleum Flat Heirloom White and Rustoleum Chalkboard Spray! 

So without further delay, Check out the 10 different ways I decked out my dollar pumpkins:

1. Silhouette

First I sprayed this pumpkin with chalkboard paint. Then using a cut-out of a bat (I got a package of bat silhouettes from the dollar store!) I traced around the cut-out in pencil. Then went back over the outline in chalk and filled it in to create my silhouette. You could also Mod Podge a silhouette on, or use paint or a sharpie to create the same effect.

2. Glitter

I wanted to give this pumpkin a traditional jack-o-lantern face, but rather than carving it in I used glitter!  Simply draw on your face (or free-hand like me) and fill in your shapes with glue. Then sprinkle on some glitter and let dry. 

3. Decoupage

This one is pretty self-explanatory! I cut-out "BOO!" from some black/white damask wrapping paper I had on hand, and then Mod-Podged my letters on.

4. Bugs!

For this creepy-crawly pumpkin, I started by spraying my pumpkin glossy black. Then I used pins to attach some black plastic creepy crawlies (also from the dollar store) all around my pumpkin. Yea, it's kind of gross, BUT I kind of love it! 

5. Seed Beads

I used silver seed beads to create this "classy" looking pumpkin :). I randomly spread glue over the top of my pumpkin to make an organic design then loaded on the seed beads. (It kind of looks like a cupcake, BUT i think it works!) 

6. Chalk

This is another pumpkin I sprayed with chalkboard paint (I just love the look!) But for this one I went a little crazier with the chalk! First I drew lines the outline the sections of the pumpkin. Then in each section I wrote a Halloween word like "Haunt", "Spooky", "Ghost", etc. And finished off the top with some leaves and curly-q's. 

7. Googly Eyes!

This is another fun one! I bought a package of googly eyes (again dollar store!!), and glued these onto a glossy black pumpkin to spell out the date of All Hallows Eve!

8. Ribbon 

This is one of my favs! And so easy! I used two kinds of Halloween-themed ribbon (from Michaels) and cut pieces ling enough to span the height of my pumpkin. Then I secured them on the top and bottom with some dollar-store thumbtacks!

9. Duct Tape 

This pumpkin is decorated with Duck Brand houndstooth duct tape! Just keep taping until your pumpkin is covered!

10. Spider Transfers

Last but not least is my awesome spider pumpkin! Ok, I have to admit this is not totally a DIY because I got a little help from Martha Stewart on this one! For this pumpkin I used Pumpkin Transfers by Martha Stewart, which work essential like water-slide decals or temporary tattoos. I forgot to take a picture of the package :( but you can find these online or at most craft stores. I got these at Joann's 1/2 off! Only $2.99 for the package! 

Stay tuned to see how I used my $ DIY pumpkins to create an awesome display in front of my fireplace!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Liz :)