it's Halloween time!

If you've followed my blog for awhile, you probably have a good idea that Halloween is my favorite and my best! I don't know why I find it so appealing, maybe the colors? I do like bright colors mixed with black and white! There's also the candy, the dressing up part, the overall excitement that goes hand in hand with the holiday.

and I also love how anxious my kids are about going trick-or-treating. Alaina's been practicing each evening at our own house. She always starts the same way too "Mom, let's pretend I'm a tricker-or-treater!" and then she goes on to ring our doorbell. :) While my kids are young, I think the holiday is just as exciting for me as it is for them.

Our front yard is already for the 31st! I'll take you on a walk through out it. First, while wandering the aisles of Target I found this amazing black foil chandelier (for only $5. score!) and while it wasn't meant for outside, it ended up being perfect for the front entry. It's shimmering in the sunlight and then reflects the twinkly orange/pink lights at night.

I turned our fountain off for the moment and filled it with strands of little twinkly lights. The glow at night is perfectly spooky, and then just for fun, I perched the crow atop of the fountain. For about the first week, I kept doing a double take every time I walked past the front window and glanced out. :) That crow looks surprisingly real!

and because it's my house, skeletons have to wear pink flowers in their..... hair? on their heads. :)

Chase and I were out thrifting 2 weeks ago in an older part of town and came across someones collection of Empire Plastic lawn ornaments. I picked up 2 small pumpkin figurines, but left behind some larger ones... that I ended up kicking myself over once I got home! Since the wiring for the pumpkins looked like it was still from the 60's I replaced the lights with new lighting kits from Home Depot. I never thought I would be one to own any of those vintage plastic lights, until now! They are really pretty at night!

a couple more photos of decor details

I have 5 pumpkins waiting to be carved on Sunday!

I had this candy garland in mind last year as something I wanted to make for Halloween. It's made from toilet paper rolls (I feel silly for even saying it), plastic cups and pom-pom or poof-balls as they are often referred to as in our house. For the longer candies, I rolled fabric around and used pinking shears to cut the end fabric off. The small round candies were made by cutting the end off of a plastic cup and gluing a paper circle into it, and finally I wrapped each one in black tulle and used sewing thread to tie off the ends.

I couldn't decide on a good place to hang the garland and decided to just be content with draping the entire 9ft. of candy on the courtyard gate. It's cute but I still think the gate needs a "Happy Halloween" sign to hang right in the center.

lastly I haven't added anything new to the inside decor except for a couple of new ornaments for one of the Halloween trees. :) I'll fill each of the little pumpkins with candy-corn this weekend. We have some extra kids coming to visit us this weekend!

thanks for touring my front courtyard!! It's now time to turn on all of the outside lights. :)