Franken-party & introducing Bmo!

I am still recovering from our Halloween party which we dubbed, Franken Party. It was a lot of work but also lots of fun. I got so caught up in party preparations I forgot to take pictures of everything all decorated. However a lot of stuff that I used to decorate the place have been featured in the tutorials that have posted throughout the month. Here are some epic pictures from the party!

And these were the winners of our costume contest: Tag team wrestlers!!!!

Earlier in the week we broke out our pumpkins and did some carving! This is always a super gross messy affair, but this time around we wore latex gloves and used a linoleum cutter. Here is how they came out.

I also made some vampire pumpkins! They vant to suck your pumpkin juice!

This past week at work I helped the kids get in the holiday 'spirit' in a program focused on the Day of the Dead. We talked about the holiday and some of its traditions and we made our own sugar skull masks.

I've also been doing non-halloween crafts. I found a bunch of wooden planks in the garage and decided to put them to good use. After some sanding and staining I made a stencil and spray painted. I thought these little signs came out so good that I put them up on Etsy and made them available as custom orders featuring a family name. To my surprise I received multiple orders in one day. I still have plenty of planks to make more so get 'em while they are hot!

They day after our party we welcomed a new addition into our household, B-mo! Last week I went into the pet store to get dog food when I fell in love with this little guy. I was a little surprised that I did because I'm not a cat person at all. I've mostly had dogs growing up. My mom did have a few cats and they were jerks. But this guy wasn't like any cat that I've ever met before. He has such a great personality and is quite the mush. We named him B-mo (after the computer from adventure time) He is adjusting quite nicely, very cuddly and loves to perch.

The past couple o- weeks

Hey yo. I'm hearing up for the Halloween. Party and I have been up to some other things...

Earlier in the week Michelle came over. I haven't seen much if her so I was excited to hang with her. We scoured the garage and found a bunch of scrap wood. I thought we could use them for some Halloween decor. I made a zombie crossing sign. The best part: it glows in the dark! 

Keeping up with my Halloween crafts, I made this cool ghost mirror. Check out the tutorial here.

Keeping up with Halloween decorations I did this to our window! I love how it came out.. it looks like theres a horde of zombies in our guest room! 

On Saturday we trekked into the city to see comedy bang bang. This was a part of Tim's birthday celebration. We had a lot of fun and ate delicious food. It was a late night and lesson learned: don't drive into the manhattan. It sucks! 

This past Monday was another craft night! This time around it was coasters with a Halloween twist! It was some fun times and we made some spooky coasters. My mom even came, and I am quite proud of her crafting capabilities.

Friday was Michelle and Anthony's annual Halloween party. Tim and I went as Jake the Dog and Fin the Human. There were some good costumes there. My favorite was Ingrid. She always goes all out at the Ruby-Halloween party this year was no different as she was part of the elusive duo, Walter White and Jessie Pickman. Then Matt walked in.... he was wearing a ridiculous slimer costume. It was pretty amazing.

I have a week ahead of my of Halloween party preparations!!!! 

Spooky Ghost Mirror

Here we are again with another Halloween tutorial. While on a regular visit to the dollar store (one of my favorite spots for craft supplies) I spotted a small mirror by the picture frames. I thought I could do something fun with it so I grabbed it. I thought of making a spectral being or writing a spooky warning on it! So I set out on my mirror adventure!

I used my old friends, frosted glass spray and contact paper. I created a design and made a stencil out of contact paper and cut it out. After placing it on the mirror I sprayed it with a coat of frosted glass. After it tried I took up the contact paper to reveal my ghost! Here is a step by step tutorial so you can make your own scary ghost!

Materials & Tools

• Mirror (I found mine at the Dollar Tree) 
• Contactpaper 
• Pen
• Exacto Knife
• Frosted Glass Spray 

Instructions 

• First come up with a design! I went with a Halloween theme, however you can use the same technique to make just about anything. Once you have a design you like, draw it on the back of your contact paper. Be aware that the image must be flipped, otherwise you'll end up with it not looking like you planned. 
• Once your desk is done, you can use an Exacto knife to cut it out.
• Clean your mirror before the contact paper is applied.
• Peel the contact paper pieces and place them on the mirror. Make sure all the air bubbles are pushed out
• If their are any inside bits place them in the right places. Inside bits are things like the ghosts eyes and his mouth. 
• Take your mirror outside or in a well ventilated area. Spray it with the frosted glass spray and allow to dry
• TIP: don't spray too close. The contact paper will crinkle. Also you don't need to spray a lot. It might not seem like  you didn't spray enough, but the frost effect takes a few minutes before you can see it. So be patient! 
• You must give it a good amount of time to dry other wise the frost will come up! 
• After it is dry you can peel the contact paper off to reveal your ghost- BOO! 

If you like this one, then check out some of my other Halloween tutorials!

Monsters Display - Library Life

Since October is upon us it was time to update my display! I was trying to think of a good idea for this one. I didn't want anything too scary or too cheesey. I didn't want to put 'Read BOOOOOks'. I like a good pun but I wanted something clever! When I came across the quote 'A Book a Day Keeps the Monsters Away'  I knew what to do!

I had my quote, now I needed some monsters! I thought I would use some literary monsters including: Leonardo (the terrible monster), Ed Emberly's Big Green Monster, Grover and Mike Wiskowski. I enlisted the help of our resident artists, Morgan and Annmarie. They constructed these guys and they came out awesome! The used some cool spooky fonts on picmonkey and cut the letters out on my silhouette machine.

Candy Corn bottles

With October in full swing I have been doing more and more decorating each day. I added some flair to our front yard complete with cornstalks! I'm quite proud of myself and how it is coming together.

I've also been doing a lot of indoor stuff and one such project is turning old wine bottles into something spooky. Here is how I've made some candy corn bottles!

Materials & Tools

• Recycled glass bottles 
• Spray Paint in these colors: 
• white
• Orange
• Yellow
• Painters tape  

Instructions

• Remove the labels from the wine bottles. You can check out in detail how I did that for my potion bottle tutorial
• Once the label has been removed and the bottle is dry, you are ready to spray paint! Make sure you are either outside or in a well ventilated area. I use a dust mask while painting. 
• For the first coat, paint the entire bottle white. Then allow to dry and remove the tape.
• 1/3 of the way down tape up the bottle and get ready for your second coat. To prevent your next color from bleeding over take a piece of newspaper and wrap it around the bottle. Spray paint yellow and allow to dry and remove tape.

Painter's tape fail

• I've learned that my painters tape is super duper strong and ripped up the paint. So for the last coat I wrapped some newspaper around it while I spray painted. 
• Now you are ready for some 'corny' halloween fun! 

If you like this craft then check out some of my other Halloween Tutorials! 

October and Salem Haunts..

We are in October! Which means I can officially allow myself to decorate full on Halloween! I've already started with some Halloween jams (like Ghostbusters) 

I've also gotten into the spooky spirit at work. My latest bulletin board display features some literary monsters. Can you name them all? 

This past Friday was also birthday...woooo! To celebrate we decided to take a trip up to Salem. Its something we have always wanted to do in October. It was quite a magical place. 

If you aren't too familiar, Salem is a historic town in Massachusetts famous for accusing several of its citizens of witchcraft. It really comes alive during October because of Halloween. There were a ton of fun spooky things going on around town. We did a haunted ghost tour and saw this really creepy ass house and heard some stories of spectral encounters. 

I loved just walking around the town. It was a neat place to explore. A lot of the shops were fun to explore. There was even a Harry Potter store! It was amazing! I got a butter beer candle from them. 

We also went to one of the many museums there. This one was kinda cheesy but we had fun goofing on it. While exploring the town we came across this house in all its Halloween decorating glory. I was quite impressed so I put it on instagram. In a weird small world type twist, the owner of the house found my post and liked it. 

All in all I had a great birthday and Salem is a fun town. We will definitely be going back again soon.