Oh, Halloween!

It's here!! Halloween Season has arrived!!

I'm as excited as a kid at Christmas!

Given our upcoming nuptuals occuring smack dab in the middle of Halloweentime, I had no choice but to put up decorations this weekend.  We are busy for the rest of this month and then the wedding/honeymoon cuts into the first half of October.  So today was THE day :)

I have all of my Halloween decorations (and Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day, and all other holidays) stored in old trunks.  There's also the occasional plastic bin stashed in the crawlspace upstairs.  Every year when I open them up, it's like Christmas morning - mainly because I have SO much that I forget what I put up last year!

So I started with the mantel.  The focal point of our tiny little living room....

Yea, so there's a lot going on...

Let's focus in on....

Wine bottles that I filled with paint (and then poured out) after affixing cool stickers to each one.  Believe or not, I bought the "liquid poison" labels at the dollar store a couple of years ago.

Zombie Virus, anyone??

Little bottles I picked up here and there and decorated with Heebie Jeebies, Hooky Spookies, etc.

I collected random food jars (salsa, pickles, pizza sauce, etc) and painted them with funny pumpkin faces.

I love this shot of a pumpkin jingle bell :)

My next spot is the picture shelf above our TV.  Usually holding a collection of random artwork, I took that down and filled it with Hallow-goodness...

One side of the shelf holds our newly framed wedding invitation (thought it was fitting for the season) as well as a wooden witch my mom made.

This cute little wooden witch is one I made a couple years ago...

Next is the awesome orange door decor...

Wreath works perfect, right??

My homemade advent calendar.  I painstakingly made all 31 of the dates.  But I like it so much, I hate to only put one up a day.  So I keep all of them up all month :)  They are all magents stuck to a cookie sheet.

Haha, saw this in a magazine once, so I made one for myself!

Saw this at a craft show and came home and made one.  The legs are modeling clay that I molded, baked, then painted.

Little spot on the endtable

On the entertainment stand....Dan's ceramic pumpkin from when he was a kid :)

I even found a spot on the glass shelf in the bathroom.  Every room needs a little Hallow-love.

So there ya have it!

The house is Halloween-ified and feeling pretty awesome!

So who's with me....do you have your stuff up yet??

Please Respond By.....

I'm keeping (or trying to keep) the majority of my wedding plans/decorations/ideas a secret.  Except for my maid and matron of honor, my mom, and a few others, I wanted everyone to be surprised when they walked into the reception.  Afterall, I put a ton of work and heart and brainpower into all of it.  But I figured, since the invitations are already out, I would share with you what they looked like.

Let me start by saying, my future-brother-in-law is the awesome graphic designer behind them.  Not to sell myself short, I did give him a rendition/pencil drawing of what I wanted and he went from there.  There were several mini-redos I had him fix, but overall, the original design remained.  Mainly, I was just being a pain-in-the-butt about wording and spacing and crap.

 

He perfected it to my exact specifications.  I didn't want it all mushy and traditional and formal.  I wanted it to be us.  And it was.  

 The reception card was just a snippet of the original design only in smaller form.  The wording was lighthearted and fun....just like the overall feel our wedding is going to be.

 Nothing says "informal" quite like our RSVP cards.

Overall, we had really nice responses from everyone about how great they turned out.  I'm pretty proud of them and confident they won't be forgotten for awhile.

Mantel Up

Who doesn't LOVE Halloween?? No really, is there anyone?? I dare you to admit it if you don't.  You would think that after the past 11 months of planning a Halloween inspired wedding, I would be downright sick of looking at anything regarding the hallowed (haha pun intended) holiday.  

Wrong.

I live for this time of year.  The chilly air, the cute fall jackets and scarves and boots (not winter ones yet - let's not get carried away).  And the decorations.

As I was perusing the internet for ideas to decorate my store window for the festive occasion, I ran across these awesome ideas to decorate a fireplace mantel.

 Like this one from Good Housekeeping

 

 Loving these freakishly adorable skeleton pumpkins

 

The chain is a bit much, but love the black and white

 The orange lights are my favorite here....I happen to have an electrical outlet on my mantle = perfect!

 Is that spiderweb lace???

How simple and sweet is this?

I know this isn't the mantel, but great idea anyways!  Especially for a nonworking fireplace that just sits useless.

Everything pumpkin.

These guys are so cute it hurts!

Well, there ya have it.  My gears are turning to decorate my own mantel/house for the upcoming holiday.  I just need to dig out the box(s) that house all of my Halloween decorations and get to work.  I think it's early enough, right??

Holy Shutters!

Yea, I said it.  Prepare yourself....sunglasses anyone??

Before

After

Ok, so I may be exaggerating a wee little.  Maybe it's just such a drastic change that I need to get used to it.  Or maybe I'm just insecure about the fact that my obsession with color is now displayed on the exterior of my home rather than on the inside where every room is a different color and only visible to the people I choose to invite inside.

Either way....

Here's the door...see what I mean about the screen door blocking the view??  Pretty tempted to just paint the flashing and screen door orange as well.  Go big, or go home right?

I think they were just waaay too intimidating on the garage floor, lying there all Home Depot orange-y and all.

My kickass new house numbers that I made in pottery.  Slightly lopsided, crooked, mishaped, etc....but totally original and actually compliment the orange.

Well,  any thoughts on the color?? 

P.S.  the new neighbor across the street is a painter by profession - he said he could totally paint the house in the spring!!

Knock, Knock....Who's There?....Crazy Color, that's who!

So I painted the front door...orange.  Yes, Orange.  Supposed to be "burnt orange" in my defense, but orange nonetheless.  I'm pretty crazy about it, too.  Not crazy enough to post a pic yet (those are coming soon enough), or maybe just crazy.  The only downside is that the screen storm door in front of it is kinda hiding the whole overall orange-y effect.  Maybe paint the screen door casing too?? Decisions, decisions.

Anyways, there's the shutters.  Two windows in the front, two windows in the back, eight shutters total.  Orange.  Yep, the same orange as the door that is somewhat hidden behind the screen door.  Well guess what people....these shutters aren't hidden...at all.  They are out there, in the open, for the entire 8th Street to see. 

People driving by are gonna think I'm nuts.

Yea, I get that alot.  Dan likes them though --- pause for *gasps* heard round the world --- but he is looking at them from the garage floor as they wait to dry  (he painted them, by the way...little shout out to his mad brush skills!).

When we visited family in beautiful Marblehead, Massachusetts last summer, every door on his aunt and uncle's street was painted a different color.  Theirs was purple! Purple, I say!  And it worked.

I'm convincing myself that we (Dan & I) can be as upandcoming as those Marbleheadians are.  So what if our house is light blue with an orange door and shutters??  We are stylish people...we deserve to welcome people (or blind them with brightness) with stylish curb appeal.

Help me out here....these look great right???

 

yepp, that's the orange :)