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.

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.

Halloween Wall Art

Hello Girls and ghouls! I'm happy that it is finally October! Its the month of birthdays (Tim and mine have birthdays two weeks apart) and its also the month of spooktacular fun! Last year I posted a few different Halloween themed tutorials including Halloween potion bottles and burlap bunting.  This year is no different! I'll have a different tutorial each week to help get you in the spooky spirit.

We're starting off with an easy one! Halloween Wall Art! They are easy and fun. I had a lot of fun looking up funky old timey clip art! Here is what I did to make my wall art here is how you can to:

Materials and Supplies:

• Picture Frame (I went with 8 x 11 from the Dollar Tree) 
• Sand paper 
• Spray paint 
• Halloween clip art

Instructions

• Open up the picture frame and carefully remove the glass and put it in a safe place. 
• Use your sand paper and rough it around the edges of the picture frame. (this will help the spray paint adhere to the frame) When you are done make sure to wipe away any saw dust. 
• Use some white paint and do a base coat. Allow to dry.
• Pick out some holloween-ish colors and start spraying it down. Allow to dry 
• Now the fun part, find your art work! The Graphics Fairy lives up to her name and is quite amazing. 
• Once your frame has dried, put together the frame and insert glass and your pictures. Now you are read to decorate your house! 

It's Halloween! (and hurricane aftermath)

Happy Halloween!

Its been quite an interesting last couple of days. The party was a roaring success and we have survived the hurricane. Like a lot of people I underestimated the impact of this storm. Every couple of years Long Island goes crazy with the threat of impending doom from a hurricane and it usually comes through with a whimper. In fact there was a big hurricane warning the weekend of my wedding! There ended up being beautiful weather. Last year durring Irene I felt the same way, even though we lost power for a few days. This time around I was a bit more freaked out, maybe its because this is my first storm as a homeowner! We were prepared and we found a super awesome emergency radio charger thing in the basement (thanks previous homeowners!). We also had plenty of electric tea lights that were part of our Halloween decorations. Tim also brought up pretty much every board game we have to keep us busy if the power went out. The library was also closed Monday and Tuesday. Tim's Mom lost power pretty early on so she came over and has been staying with us. So we weren't going anywhere. We just hunkered down and waited for Sandy to pass us.

That night was pretty freaky and all we did was jump from news station to news station and it was all about the hurricane. The lights kept flickering but the power never went out (we were so lucky!). It was also apparent that if we did loose power because we were all screwed because we were glued to our devices! The next morning we woke up to no power! So we sat around for a bit figuring out what we were going to do, then it came back on. We made breakfast and sat around saying how lucky we are that the power came back on, yeah we jinxed it because the power went off again, but hey we got to cook our breakfast first! We all wanted some coffee and we needed to get out because of cabin fever! So we took a walk then eventually drove around. It was a bit freaky seeing torn off signs and trees all over the place. However, the dinner looked like it was packed out. We drove around to see if we can buy a radio because that super awesome emergency radio did not hold a charge, FAIL!

We went back home and Tim said he was going to wait in the car to listen to the radio. I figured I could charge my phone in the car. I asked him to open the garage door and Tim looked at me and said "It's not going to work because we don't have power" so he was mockingly pressing the button. To our surprise the garage started to open up, the power was back on! I still can't believe how unbelievable lucky we are to still have power and survive this ordeal with no damage to the house. They only thing was a gutter piece. So many people lost so much and my thoughts are with them.

I am trying to look on the bright side of things, after all today is Halloween! Tim and I plan on putting the Halloween decorations back up and we are hoping to get some trick or treaters. The schools are closed again and I am sure (since our area wasn't hit that bad) that some parents and kids will want to get out of the house and have a bit of fun.

Halloween Party recap!

This weekend has been a crazy! Its one for the record books! Right now Tim and I are held up in the house as we are waiting out the storm. I had not one but TWO days off! I hope my library is ok! I have been putting the unexpected free time to good use and its given us time to clean up after our epic Halloween shindig! 

We were checking out the full moon! 

I know I have been going on and on about the party on here and it all led up to Saturday night. It was a lot of hard work and pretty stressful but we had a great time! Here are some pics of the festive decor! 

Tim and I worked pretty hard on the menu and it consisted of some spooky horror-derves from 'Spider Eggs' (meatballs) to mummy dogs (cocktail wieners). I also had some delicious drinks including ecto-cooler and butter beer. 

Another big part of the party were the costumes! It was a great year for costumes this year and I made side by side comparisons of some of the great costumes of the party! I went as Link from one of the all time best video games every, Zelda.  I made the costume myself! 

Tim went as Max Fischer. He saved latin, what did you ever do?

Here are some of the other great ones of the night, enjoy! 

And for no real reason (other than it is hilarious) is my friend Tyler rocking out in a Cher wig.