A Long Overdue Halloween Post!

Here we are, halfway through the month of October, and I have posted next to nothing about Halloween! What a travesty!

Being in school all week and having to re-do the majority of our condo has really put a dampener on my normal Halloween activities. I don't have the time or space to do many crafty things or decorating.

I did decorate the door of my dorm room.

Cute, right? The eyes are construction paper and the "wrappings" are white streamers. I've gotten lots of compliments from the people on my floor.

I do have a couple of new additions to my Halloween collection. I had a brief quilting lesson from the mother of a friend of mine. She is a very talented quilter and seamstress. She makes tons of quits for her family for holidays and I was lucky enough to be included because my friend, Veronica, mentioned that I love Halloween. So here is the absolutely beautiful (and comfy) quilt that she made:

The front side.

The back reminds me of candy corn. And it's super soft!

I am absolutely IN LOVE with it! I really need to learn to quilt!

If you follow me on Tumblr, Instagram, and especially Pinterest, you will see several Halloween and autumn posts. Feel free to peruse any of these.

On Tumblr, I found this and fell in love: Heather Franzen: a Halloween comic.

Feel free to look back on my past Halloween posts. I have party ideas, some costume-making, Halloween songs, movies, and TV show episodes, some crafts and more. Here is a good one of activities to do in Colorado around Halloween: Haunted Houses, Corn Mazes, and Pumpkin Patches, Oh My!

I hope everyone is enjoying getting geared up for Halloween! What are your favorite Halloween-y activities?

Tim Burton Halloween Party

Themed parties are always good fun, I think. This year, ours was Tim Burton. (And sorry for the delay, we are in the middle of moving, again...).

We put together some hangings that alternated black and white streamers to put up on the walls. Tim Burton essential colors, you know. Black and white, grey, red, and sometimes blue. Gold and bright colors can be applied for certain moods like memories and fantasies. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you need to watch more of his movies... (the color schemes are essentially the same for every movie he's ever made, and on that note, please watch this hysterical video: Tim Burton's Secret Formula "Something original?" "No!"; "Get my wife and Johnny Depp on the phone!")

We had some carved pumpkins. I carved one that looked like this:

My friend, Katja, carved a couple of white pumpkins to look like Jack Skellington and one was wearing a Santa hat. Some people brought simple white Xmas lights. All of the paper plates were black and white as were the napkins. The plastic-ware and the cups were red.

I made a couple of posters (I was in charge of Sleepy Hollow decor) to hang up. One was the cardinal from Ichabod's optical illusion. I sketched it out on red poster board and outlined it faintly in black glitter glue. The second was a horse like the headless horseman had. I sketched that one on black poster board and also outlined it in black glitter glue. For fun I added a glittering red eye.

We put up some fake cobwebs and candles. A few vases of black roses were left on tables.

Food was roughly Tim Burton themed. Katja and I made tea sandwiches and Krissy made cookies that said things like "Eat me." The "Drink me" bottles were delicious shots that David made. Willy Wonka brand candy was a must. Katja and I made a red velvet cake and Cat decorated it like so:

The tree is made from sugar paper. It is hard to see but the designs are in glittery black and red frosting and there are some pearly blue sprinkles on it. It was tasty!

I also made a punch that was a nice shade of red. It was called Dragon Blood Punch. The recipe I found here: Adult Halloween Punch Recipes. There are all sorts of good punch recipes out there. I used this one because I didn't use a punch bowl, but a container with a spigot. Cat and Drew carved out a pumpkin and inserted a spigot and cider was provided for that. Awesome.

Katja, with the help of Cat and Drew, made shepherds pies (in place of meat pies from Sweeny Todd).

On top of all that, we dressed in Tim Burton themed costumes. Here are some cool pictures of my friends all dressed up:

Katja as Mrs. Lovett. Love this pic.

Drew and Cat as Jack and Sally. :)

Mrs. Lovett and Krissy as Sweeny Todd.

David as Adam from Beetlejuice.

Some of our guests did not dress to the theme, which was totally fine. Some did not dress up at all, which was fine, if a little lame.

I dressed as Katrina Van Tassel from Sleepy Hollow. She has a few outfits, but I wanted her riding outfit which looks like this:

I know it is difficult with this picture to tell the colors. The dress itself is a sort of grey-blue patterned material. It looks like a corset and skirt. The lace at the top would probably be part of a dress worn under the outside clothing. The jacket is grey with the bustle at the back. The large buttons in the front are ornamental. It also has buttons on the cuffs and the cuffs are very nice if you can find a good pic. You can't tell in this picture, but the collar of the jacket and the trim are dark red.

I made this costume on the cheap and on the fly. I only had about 12 hours to work on it, total, so I took a lot of short cuts. I did not use a pattern. I left the back of the dress mostly open (because I wore a poofy dance skirt underneath to give more volume and the long jacket would cover it). I did not make a corset, just a sort of tank top with trim sewn down the front. The lace from her under-dress translated to lace sewn at the top of the tank-top.I sewed that to the skirt and put a zipper in the back (badly). The jacket was interesting. I just kind of made it up as I went along. I didn't have dark red fabric so I used plain red scraps for a make-shift and poorly made collar. All the buttons I sewed on were ornamental. I did add a little lace at the cuffs. The bustle I just pinned up and tacked in a (hopefully) aesthetic manner. Here is how it all turned out:

Sorry for the picture quality. It was taken with a phone and it was pretty dark. You get the idea, right?

A little rough around the edges, I know. If I had had more time, this costume would have been so cool. Maybe one day.

Next year, I believe the party theme will be Disney villains! Woo!

Halloween Stores: Where to Shop?

Halloween shopping! How exciting!

There are always the common stores that pop up around Halloween-time. Spirit and Halloween City for instance. If you are looking for gore and creepy, you have hit the jackpot.

Of course your local Target and Walmart will sell a variety of things. I have found good stuff at these places, especially Target. I have even found some great stuff at King Soopers. The stuff I usually go for is more in the way of decorations. Target usually has things like pillows and tableware that are all themed, which I like.

Had to share this Halloween-y picture of Romulus and Remus! And the pillow I got at Target and the blanket on the back of the couch was from Walmart. See? Good stuff.

Another good resource- Party City (or Party America, but I don't know if we have any of these nearby any more). They have a huge selection of costumes and accessories as well as anything you would need for a party. And if you live on my side of town, all costume-junkies (myself included) know about Disguises where you can rent or purchase costumes and accessories from a rather extensive selection. There is another place that I just learned about this year but have not visited (because I hate Cherry Creek...) called The Wizard's Chest. I have heard good things about it. Costume superstore and toy shop, I gather.

The beautiful mask I got at Disguises

For those of you who are crafty, JoAnn has things you can buy and supplies to make things on your own (plus SOOO much fabric and lots of patterns if you feel inclined to make your own costumes). My go-to for other crafty things (other than costumes, I mean) is Michaels. I LOVE this store and always spend waaay too much money here. I will be posting a bit about Halloween crafts and you will see that I have gotten almost everything I use at Michaels (thank heavens they started a reward program!). For those who don't like JoAnn as much (and there are some, that's OK), you can go to Hancock Fabrics.

While not always my favorite store, Hobby Lobby has some really cute decorations! For me, this is a goldmine! Most decorations you find at the popular shops, and even at Party City are rather gruesome. At Hobby Lobby they have some really adorable and fun decorations, perfect for people like me! And of course, they do have crafty stuff you can put together.

IF you can find them (and there aren't many these days), Hallmark stores are great for cute and fun decorations. However, I think the Gold Crown stores do not have the liberty to buy the same stuff, so their selection is much smaller. Hallmark. Since each Hallmark is different, however, the online selection is not very good, either. The best way is to actually go to a store and see what they have.

My mom love Annalee stuff, for Halloween and Christmas. We used to find it at Connie's Hallmark before it closed (38th and Wadsworth). Sometimes you can find them in little shops--I found some in a little shop on Washington Ave in downtown Golden, for instance. Here is the website for those who don't want to search: Annalee: Seasonal Decorations.

Thrift stores can be great places to find some decorations, tableware, and clothing/costumes for cheap. There are so many around, it is silly not to go look. And remember, if you are looking for costumes, you can often get pieces at thrift stores and do some alterations to them. I needed a Kagome costume from InuYasha shown here:

I happened to stumble upon a floor-length, pleated green skirt. So I cut it short and used the remaining fabric to make the cuffs of her shirt and her scarf thing. It turned out great.

If anyone else knows of some Halloween store gems, please share!

Our Family Holiday: Halloween

This is just the beginning. All October posts from here one will have one major theme: Halloween!

As several of you already know, Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. (I know, I even like it better than Christmas/Hanukkah). If any of you know my family, you know that I come by it honestly.

My mom is into holidays in general, but she loves Halloween. It definitely suits her eccentric style. She likes horror movies and visiting haunted houses (not the ones the local kids put on, but actual rumored haunted places). She gets into the ghost stories and dressing up. Her particular tastes we define as "mysterious." Witches, black cats, lanterns, ghostly figures. Nothing particularly frightening, but things that are potentially frightening. Grave yards, cauldrons, bats, and such.

My sister is a bit of a mix. She watches lots of horror movies and reads much scarier books and stories than I do. For decorations and everything, she is kind of like my mom. Maybe with a little cute thrown in. And I think she gets a kick out of zombies. I am not positive, but I think Halloween is still her favorite holiday, too.

My brother is a horse of a different color. He likes the gruesome and spooky. Gore galore. Moving headstones, tormented souls, restless dead. He works at a local haunted house (one that the local kids put on, not one that is actually haunted) called Field of Corpses. I visited once for him and do not feel inclined to return. Ever. Anyway, he gets into the dressing up and he's an actor so he can do the creepy scary stuff.

My Halloween style is more cute and classy, I would say. Many of my decorations are black and silver with accents of orange. I have a lot of stuff that glitters. And I love jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins. I include general autumn decor- fall colors, pumpkin patches. That is my type of Halloween. And, as many of you know, I also love to dress up. And never as anything scary.

Here are some of my decorations that I made myself (the ornaments I assembled). If you keep an eye on my blog, I will have lots of Halloween posts and I may include some crafts and other neat ideas.

Stay tuned for more Halloween!