Halloween 2011: Droid Love, Ghosts and Other Characters, Laughter, and Decorations

I hope everyone has had a fabulous Halloween. 

As you can see, we did! Above you will find one of my reasons for not posting this past week: 

Miss Lovie as C3PO(all made by me, minus the glasses, leggings, and shoes), Mr. Lovie as R2D2(all made by me AND Mr. Lovie!!), and Nix as Darth Vador (altered by me because apparently medium sized dogs have legs that are 2 feet long). These costumes (and school and everything else) have robbed me of all possible free time. So worth it, though. 

Droid Love 2011.

And, of course, Nix was evil all night.

"There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you."

"You don't know the power of the dark side!"

"I find your lack of faith disturbing"

(Side note: Since I got a new camera, I have amazingly been able to take pictures of our sweet, I mean evil, doggie Nix because she doesn't know it's a camera. Usually she is so scared of cameras that she runs out of the room, tucking her tail. And that means little cameras, big cameras, camera phones, etc. You could point a remote at her and act like you're taking a picture and she'd be outta there. But for some reason now that I have a huge, ominous, black, real-looking camera, she's cool with it. Weird. )

As I'm sure you have figured out by now, 

I love Halloween.

 Every year, I gather my bestest friends for a Halloween party and it just gets better every year. We've been doing this for 3 or so years now and I have accumulated 2 or 3 large tubs' worth of decorations (which, of course, don't include the pumpkins I usually glitter and carve). I always enjoy adding to the ridiculous collection of decor every year, but this year was a different kind of year because I made our costumes.  

This took up the majority of my Halloween crafting time so not much time was able to be spent on new decorations, but it was so worth it. Don't you think? (Stay tuned for a brief how-to on both the C3PO and R2D2 costumes)

And of course, our costumes were great, but there were so many other amazing characters at our party. I love my friends and their creative abilities. :) I couldn't help but share a few pictures. 

An Amish "Father and Son"

A mime who refused to perform...

A sweet jack-o-lantern who was kind enough to host the party (oh yeah, and be a great best friend).

The Ringmaster, his Lead Performer and their Elephant...

Of course, The Great Barrier Reef! Their shirts and pants look tie dyed. :)

And many more not caught on film.

And these two were spookier than words. Somehow they were everywhere at once. 

The lady ghost cursed this conversation of the circus performer and Mrs. Peacock (who was undoubtedly planning the circus performer's murder...it was Mrs. Peacock in the foyer with the knife....)

She snuck up on a football game...

She sometimes posed for photos with her best friends, but only spookily.

Then her other ghostly half of a husband snuck into pictures as well. Oh and there's the Riddler!

But he's best known as the ghost from up above. The Ringmaster could not believe his eyes.

"I'll get you."

The lady ghost loved dancing with the mime.

And he got caught ghost planking. 

Needless to say, fun was had by all.

Know what the coolest part is? Hardly any of us live in the same place anymore and lots of us travelled to get to where we all know each other from, Lexington, Kentucky. We traveled from Georgetown, Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky, Paducah, Kentucky, Atlanta, Georgia, Dayton, Ohio, etc. Travelling 2-6 hours for Halloween is dedication. I'm thankful that this crazy holiday is able to bring us all together. 

Here's a couple shots of our decor.

BATS! (idea taken from Dana at Made). My bats are also seen in this post.

pumpkins seen earlier in this post

Glittered skulls and bones (idea taken from Martha Stewart)

Poe-inspired book wreath! (Wreath made by Dara of Teach. Craft. Love., raven purchased on sale at Michaels.)

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Batty Table Runner seen here, a mummy, some fun printables and pictures from previous Halloweens

Glittered candlesticks, skulls, and black lace votives decorating the bathroom (I simply cut a rectangle of black lace and sewed it together to slip it around the votive. Idea take from somewhere?)

Glittered pumpkin votives (Idea taken from Martha Stewart). 

The R2D2 and C3PO Costume tutorial is now up. Go see it here! Not that you need the tutorials for this year, but I just want to put them out there in case you need them sometime! ha.

Happy Happy Halloween.

Thanks for reading.

Great Halloween Finds

So the last couple weeks for me have been nutso. Really, really nutso. 

Too much on my plate. You know- those days where you have every hour planned out until bedtime and you still don't get everything done? Whew. And to be honest, I have been super sad mostly because all I've been wanting to do is make Hallween party decorations and finalize my costume. It is just way too unfair that one of the busiest times of the year is the few weeks before Halloween when I have more important, Halloween-y things to do! So with that said, I'm sorry for my absence! 

Even though I haven't been crafting, I've definitely been looking for Halloween ideas! What better place to look than Pinterest...here are my favorite Halloween pins!

 pinned  from Finding Time to Create

How Spooky is this invitation? I LOVE it!!!

    pinned from A Little Glass Box
I don't even love cupcakes that much (I know, I know, Gasp!), but these are so awesome. 

pinned via Sara Romney Nelson from Good Housekeeping
I do pumpkin votives every year and usually add a little glitter to them too, but these pumpkin spiders are so spooky and fun? What if you got those sparkly pipe cleaners? Do those come in black? And then glitter the pumpkin, too? And in different colors like orange, green, and black? Oooohhhhh....

pinned viaHayley Vandergaast from Good Housekeeping
This is just perfect. I love the pumpkin tree. It might have to be added to my "Make for Halloween Party 2011" list...

pinned from Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart is, of course, a Halloween queen. This way to make cobwebs (with a glue gun!) is way better than that stuff you buy in the bag. It would take more effort, for sure, but the end result is so believable.

pinned via Suzette Mizell (source unknown)
Spider ice cubes. YES.

pinned via Kimberly Chapman (source unknown)
I love easy and cute treats. How much fun are these candy corn, hugs kisses, and pretzel treats?!

pinned from Kitchen Daily
These are also easy and fun.

pinned from Make and Takes
If you go visit Make and Takes they'll tell ya how to make that wreath hanger, but how awesome is that wreath?! I love it!! The lace is so fun at the bottom. I think I need to go buy some ravens, too.

 pinned via Colleen Harris from Holiday Snob
Awesome. I love the glitter red heals.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my favorite Halloween finds!
You can follow my Halloween Board here. And you can follow all my Pinterest boards here.

Want more ideas? Be sure to check out all the post from my Creepy Crafty Halloween Event here! 

 You have no idea how much it pains me that I have not been able to craft my own spooky creations this year. I'll have to remember to start crafting for Halloween in August next year in order to have everything done since October is apparently excruciatingly busy with other not-as-fun stuff.

Thanks for reading!
10 days 'til Halloween!! 

Have You Heard About This?!!!

Have you heard about this?!

Project Accessory premiers October 27 at 10:30 on Lifetime with Molly Sims as host.

Lifetime's blurb about it reads,  

The multi-billion dollar accessories business is brought into the spotlight with Lifetime’s new competition series, "Project Accessory," hosted by actress and model Molly Sims. With the help of lifestyle expert Eva Lorenzotti as their mentor, 12 enterprising artists will be put to the test to create the newest and hottest trends in accessories as they compete to dazzle Sims and judges designer Kenneth Cole and InStyle Editor, Ariel Foxman. Emmy® Award-winning actress Debra Messing and fashion critic and television personality Kelly Osborne will appear as guest judges this season, among other fashion luminaries.

I'm seriously pumped. It should be so fun. 

Thanks for reading. :) 

A Bright and Happy Wreath for the Classroom

At school we play Secret Pal between teachers where we send each other little gifts and encouraging notes throughout the quarter anonymously. So I took a tiny break from entering grades for report cards and writing papers for my grad class to make this wreath to give to my teacher friend as her "Reveal Gift" to hang on her classroom door.

I got my inspiration for my wreath from these beauties:

this one from Nest of Posies 

How gorgeous is that wreath in a frame?! I've got to put a wreath in a frame soon. I just love it. 

and this one at Kiki Creates which I've loved forever.

I used embroidery thread to put centers in the flowers and also to outline and add veins to the leaves.

I'd also never made those fun loopy flowers before and used the techniques seen in this tutorial, but I made my loops bigger. 

 I really had to restrain from using those warm fall colors that I love so much since my friend's favorite colors are pink and blue, but I did manage to sneak that mustard yellow in there. I love when I create things for others and use colors that I wouldn't normally use and end up loving it! 

 I took these pictures during a 5 minute break at a professional development day at school before I gave it to my friend. That must be why I did not see that blue nail or whatever that is on the wall in the center of the wreath! Ha! 

I hope you like it. Thanks for reading! 

Linking to the parties on my sidebar.