trick-or-treat

Halloween this year was off to a great start! We collectively decided on the theme 'witches' this year, and so I set out creating a theme for the decor. The colors would be rich glittery black, deep purple, silver and a little orange. Spell books would be made, I needed bottles of potions, brooms would be rested against tables and chairs, black witches hats would be placed on top of vintage plastic pumpkins and black cats would hang out by the front door. But then the inevitable happened: the kids had about 12 other costume ideas, and they abandoned the witch idea in favor of Day of the Dead, leaving me and the house, well a bit witchy. That's ok though! The house is decorated, we all have completed costumes and I think we'll ready for the big night!  

Alaina really wanted to go as a Monster High doll, Skelita, a Day of the Dead monster, but the costume at the store was truly atrocious, both in how it was constructed and the price. I convinced her to let me make her costume this year, I'm glad she trusts me enough to agree to go along with my ideas. We went to Savers, a large thrift store in the area, purchased 2 skirts, 1 black tulle skirt and one crinkle skirt, a black shawl, wooden beaded necklaces and bright gold and pink bangles. Since I knew I would have to re-sew and alter both skirts I wasn't worried about them fitting, just threw them into the wash and then got to work cutting and sewing!  

I found this great veil headband and just clipped a few of Alaina's hair clip flowers to it. The only flower that had to be hot-glued was the teal scrapbook flower. I wanted to tie in the teal of her eye makeup to the headband. 

Chase's costume, (or costumes rather, as he's had about 10 since we started talking about Halloween last month) started as a black cat, but then after seeing his sister's makeup decided he also wanted to have a Day of the Dead skull, but to still be a cat. It was an easy adjustment, just some extra makeup. 

  

I wish I had known the kids wanted to do Day of the Dead, I could have easily worked that theme into home decor! (I imagined colorful Mexican blankets, guitars, sugar skulls, beaded garlands, banners, big tissue flowers all in traditional Halloween colors. I'll save those ideas for later!) 

Instead, our decor will only match my witch costume. (Not really a costume so much, just an Ann Taylor black dress, boots and a big witch hat with a bit of black tulle and a large black feather flower.) A quick search of chalkboard ideas lead to this one but since I don't have an entire wall, it had to be scaled down to fit my chalk board (which was a painting from Z gallery that I couldn't give away, so I covered it with chalkboard spray paint).

 The best part of the table, I think, is this flaming cauldron. The kids love that we have a 'fire' inside the house, it's very realistic once the lights are out and we plug it in. 

I took a few older books, painted them black and then scuffed up the edges with a fine sand paper. It lets the original book color come through, and makes them appear to be well used. A package of gold foil stickers were used to spell out 'potions' and 'spells.' I even found a purple moth to use, with the help of a glue dot, it's now resting on the edge of the book. I love how random scrapbook embellishments are can useful when decorating! 

I carried our witch theme out to the front yard as well! Come Thursday evening, our porch will glow with warm candle light and flickering lighted pumpkins! 

Thanks so much for stopping by today and Happy Monday to you!

xo ~ Tara