Haunted Mansion Inspired Room

This blog post features the details I put into making my Haunted Mansion inspired room. In this case it happens to be my kitchen since that is where most people hang out when you throw a Halloween party. The pictures below are broken down into sections and I'll share some tips with you. Throughout I'll reference the links to some print outs I found that helped me create the room.

The above picture showcases how easy it is to use things around you to keep costs low. The branches I took from my back yard were already dried out and dying. The roses you see in bottom right picture I already had dried out a while ago. All the frames you see in the picture were on that cut out ledge already I just swapped out the pictures with things I printed out from Pinterest. I chose the original Disneyland entrance sign, the ghost at the organ, and a Madam Leota in the seance scene. I like how the pictures almost look like they are glowing.

Moving on to the other side of the pictures I put some print outs I found on the blog Sugar and Soirees. You should check them out as the pictures don't do justice to how beautifully detailed they are. I happened to have the candelabras from a party I hosted before and then I just added some fake spiderweb to dirty them up. I like how in the dark the spiderweb looks almost like a fog, something hard to capture in pictures.

I have another cut out in between my kitchen and my living room. I bought a bunch of odds and ends at some picker stores that were covered in dirt, which was a plus :) I decided that this ledge was more of a witches theme and added the Double, Double Toil and Trouble print out from Ella Claire Inspired to a frame.

As you can see this ledge was a work in progress. I added creepy cloth to break up the open space between the rooms and then put some fake spiders in the net. I put darker flowers and branches I bought at Michael's in the vase and the wine bottle. Lastly I put spiderweb up on everything trying again to give it the look of fog, which I especially like coming off of the small cauldrons.

I really wanted there to be a strong tie in to the Haunted Mansion so I printed off the transcript and picked some of the seance phrases to write up and put up on the walls. Of course I couldn't leave out the Grim Grinning Ghosts line from the song!

This seance table is my favorite. I found the lamp at a thrift store for $10 and put creepy cloth over it. Next I framed a nicely done art piece of Madame Leota (check pinterest as I lost the original link) and an 8x10 of the "When Hinges Creak" line. I also wanted to honor the Haunted Mansion library by having a few Spell Books and luckily I found a fun printable from The Idea Room. 

Holiday Magnet Name Cards

This was a craft I made to enhance favors for our Holiday Party at work. The only thing I had to purchase was the magnets for the back. I figured if I was going to spend 4 hours making 30 place card name tags I could at least make them a reusable item :)

You will need:

• Scrapbooking Paper
• Decorative Scissors
• Crafting Glue or Double Sided Tape
• Regular Scissors or Paper Slicer
• Snowflake Punch Out
• Snowflake Brads (if you want)

All of the name cards I made had slight differences. I am just going to show you an example of two different ones. For all of them I used my paper slicer to cut the base paper out, and used the backs of scrap paper for the center piece, which I wrote the names on. The one above I punched out 4 snowflakes and used the scraps as well. I glued all the pieces together using crafting glue that dries clear. 

For this one I used 3 pieces of paper that I layered on top of each other. Again I used the crafting glue. I also used the decorative scissors to create a fun edge. For an added touch I put 2 snowflake brads on the corners.

The final touch was to add an adhesive magnet to the back. I bought a 25ft roll and have plenty left over for other projects. Although this is a simple craft I do have a few tips:

• I found it easiest to stick with the 3 layered look. I just switched up which papers I was putting together. It was fun to play around with different patterns.
• I liked the common theme of them all having paper snowflakes. I only used the brads on my example.
• The decorative scissors really gave them a nice finish. You can even cut it to make decorative edges. (Which you can see in the right corner of the picture above)
• BIGGEST TIP:  I found it was much easier to use double sided scrapbooking adhesive. I use the permanent kind and it sticks together really well. Plus it saves you from waiting for the glue to dry.

Creepy Science Lab - Halloween Party

I know Halloween is over, but i just HAD to share this blog with you even if it is late. I did promise you in my last blog post about the DIY Fake Blood - Tablecloth Decoration that I would follow up with other Halloween decor I was working on. The friend who offered their home up for the Halloween party really wanted to have a Creepy Science Lab theme.

The first part of this blog I will talk about some of the DIY stuff I put together to match her theme. The second part of the blog will show how the overall theme turned out when everything was put in place. (Please note that the lab stuff was borrowed and so i can only share with you the cost of things I helped to make.)

This first one was really easy and cheap. You will need mason jars, yellow food coloring, and rubber bats, rodents, spiders or whatever other creepy realistic rodents/pests you can find. Rubber rodents are $1 a piece, Mason jars $1 to $2, food coloring is around $3 and so it should cost about $10 to make 3 "mad scientist jars".

We left the rat alone in one jar. His beady red eyes looked awesome in the yellow water. The other jars we cut off the bats wings and put each wing and the body in separate jars. You just drop in around 10 drops of yellow food coloring and fill the jar with water.

Tip: A lot of sauces you buy at the store come in mason jars. Peel off the labels and reuse them for these kinds of projects.

Ripped up black curtains help set the mood for the room, which of course is always "dark and creepy" when it comes to Halloween. We took old curtains and shredded them using scissors. (If you don't have any black curtains lying around I suggest checking out your local thrift store.) In the above picture I'm showing you how to create realistic wear and tear on "50 years left behind" curtains. 

One method is to twist a piece of the curtain with your fingers, then cut a chunk of that off and that will make a jagged hole in the curtain. Another way is to get a pair of scissors (preferably dull blades) and instead of cutting straight, pull down tight on the curtain and rip up with scissors. This makes it so that your tears and cuts aren't all in a straight line.

We really scored when we found these mirrored wall candle holders at the thrift store. I believe we paid $1 a piece for these and $.20 a candle. We took black Plasti Dip ($10 a can) and sprayed that over it to get our desired look. The bonus on Plasti Dip is it peels off if you want your item to go back to the way it originally looked. We taped the mirrors before we sprayed them to get a clean look.

Well that about sums up the DIY projects I worked on for this party. I will point out things in the pictures below that we were able to find at a cheap price. Again the lab stuff is real and was on loan :)

Thrift store items: gold tray $1, candle holders $1 each, gray metal box $2, gray yarn $1 (and seriously what a cool "dust" effect that made)

Loved the use of the electronic tea candles. You can get a 12 pack of these on Amazon for around $10. Great thing is you can use them for many other events too.

There are some real brains and some fake brains in this picture above :)

Bought those pop up paper wall spiders you see above for $2 at Michaels. It was on clearance right before Halloween and was Martha Steward brand. The sconce was $2 at the thrift store.

Gold candle holder was $1 thrift store find. The light and cabinet above are covered in "creepy cloth" and bought at the Dollar Tree. Hard to tell from the picture but the purple light bulb was a cool effect in person.

Our guests even made "creepy" snacks and bought wines that had Halloween fitting names. It was a great night out and we had a lot of fun with this party.

DIY Fake Blood - Tablecloth Decoration

I'm helping a few friends decorate for a Halloween party and I couldn't wait to share the results of this project!! Let's call it a "sneak preview" because we have plenty of other great things we made I will blog about shortly. I've personally never tried to make fake blood and wasn't sure how this would turn out. I will happily admit it worked better than expected (with a little trial and error) and that I had SO much fun unleashing my inner Dexter! ( lol )

Now I will admit that there are plenty of "fake blood recipes" out there if you just Google them, but I decided to wing it with what I already had in the house. If you are a by the book type of person you might want to do a little research to see what recipe works best for you.

I started off with 2 cups of water and added some corn starch for thickening. My lesson here is that it didn't really do much. (So honestly you can probably skip the corn starch.) Also, when I put about 40 drops of red food coloring it only really turned the water a dark pinkish color. I didn't want to use up all my food coloring so I started adding chocolate syrup and cocoa powder until I got the color I wanted. It wasn't really that much, maybe 2 tablespoons of each.

My BIG TIP here from trial and error is to start off with less water! That way you don't have to mix in as much of the other ingredients. I will say that having 2 cups was helpful to me though since i decided to decorate the tablecloth with my hand. More on that below...

I considered using gloves and realized it wouldn't get me the desired effect I wanted. I just had to see what my hand print was going to look like because I was dying of curiosity. I also knew that it would reveal to me if the mixture i created was dark enough in color to truly show on the material. As you can see above it worked out well. (Note: I call this a tablecloth because that is what I'm using it for to decorate. It is actually a long white window sheer curtain.)

Now my next technique idea was discovered because of the fact that when i pulled my hand off the material my finger tips dripped the excess onto the tablecloth. I immediately thought, wow that looks like pretty authentic blood spatter, and no that doesn't make me crazy it just proves I've watched every episode of Dexter (some twice)!

So then I decided to take a page right out of the Dexter book and flick my fingertips outward. (If you haven't seen the show, he often recreates the blood spatter of crime scenes by throwing fake blood to see the velocity and trajectory.) The result was really awesome and seriously fun! See for yourself below...

A few other things I decided to do was write "help me" and take my hand and drag it across the material to make a smeared pattern. I let it dry for 15 minutes and then threw it in the dryer for another 15 minutes. The material seems to be holding the color. I do wonder though if it wouldn't just wash right out if I sent it through on a soak cycle. However, I advise that whatever you decided to decorate with fake blood that it not be something important in case the staining is permanent.

Halloween and Fall Decor: Philadelphia and South Jersey

I went home to visit my family in Philadelphia and South Jersey this past week. I couldn't help but be impressed by all of the decorating that happens for the Halloween and Fall season. I don't tend to see as many people decorating their homes in West Virginia, which is a bummer. I took a bunch of pictures to share all the cool stuff I saw and hopefully it will give you some ideas for your own home decor. 

The pics below are from storefronts in Haddonfield, NJ. Also, my friend happened to have a very accurate fake skull for schooling purposes and I found it very festive!

Halloween Window Decorating - 2014

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I have so many fond memories surrounding the 31st day of October. When I was a kid we would visit my Grandma Mac (mom's mom) every year dressed up in our costumes, and with me having younger sisters I did it well beyond the appropriate tricker-treating age. (My last year out I was 21 and dressed as Paul Stanley from Kiss.)

Grandma Mac used to decorate her house in grand fashion, give us extra treats for stopping by, and every year she answered the door dressed as a witch. She tried to convince us she was a witch every day of the year, and that she only showed us the hat and broom on Halloween. (I honestly thought if I waited up long enough if I'd see her fly past the moon. Probably until I was at least 12.)

My mom continued Grandma Mac's tradition and decorated my childhood house for every holiday, including usually forgotten ones like Thanksgiving and Easter. Although, in my opinion, her showmanship was best at Christmas and Halloween. So as soon as I bought my own house I couldn't wait to carry on the tradition of decorating for Halloween. Especially seeing Grandma Mac's health doesn't allow for crazy decorating or witch playing, and my Mom has found less time to do it herself as us kids have gotten older.

This project contains items bought at the local Family Dollar. I'm showing you what you can do to the outside front of your house for under $30. *(see note below)

Here are a few of the things I bought. Note they all say a dollar on them :) 

Tip: Car window clings seem to stick better and the colors are more vibrant.

If using windowing clings make sure you have access to the outside of your window. Most new windows fold down so you can clean the outside. The window clings only have one sticky side so in order for the image to show correctly you have to put it on the outside of the window. This also prevents any animals you have from being able to eat the decorations.

If you can't access the outsides of your windows then you can use a more traditional paper cutout like the ones above. These are ones I saved from last year. I like to save what I can each year in order to build up my collection and keep things cost effective.

When building the windows I like to have a theme in mind for each one. That helps me decide what decorations to pick and keeps it from looking cluttered. This is my Grandma Mac window :)

Here is my spider theme that you'll see I later added a skeleton grim reaper to below.

I like to decorate the top windows as well, and since those don't fold out, I used the paper cutouts.

I always have a door cover and this year I really liked the "Do Not Enter" as it matched nicely with my wooden signs and the caution tape I like putting on my garage door.

*Please note that I bought my wooden signs last year. They were around $10 each at my local CVS and I didn't include them in my cost of decorating this year.

AND NOW ONTO THE BIG REVEAL OF THE WHOLE HOUSE....

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Ta-da! 

Hope you enjoyed my Halloween decorating tips. 

Have yourself a Spooky day on October 31st!