Thursday, September 15, 2011

Halloween on the Brain

I can't walk into any store without seeing the Halloween decor set up and ready to eerily invite me into it's hauntings. I LOVE Halloween. Decorating for this holiday has always been one of my favorite parts of the year.

I love that summer is ending (the longest season, here in the desert) and that cooler weather is going to set in. I love the cute clothes that the cooler weather allows me to wear. I love that holidays go into full swing, one after the other after the other (and still ANOTHER). Seriously, I can't think of anything BAD about the beginnings of Fall, and the amazingness that Halloween brings (I will note that the winters here are amazing, so I don't have to deal with snow or huge storms - if you do, you may feel differently).

I can't get my mind off of decorating for Halloween. If you follow me on Facebook, you'll have already seen me talk about this. It may still seem a little too early, but with all of the decor in the stores... HOW CAN I WAIT?!

Here are some photos of my set-up last year. Keep in mind that this is the first time that I've had the opportunity to ever decorate, so I haven't bought a ton of stuff. Most of what's out there was made by me... with a jig saw.




Here's a coffin that I made... 

The graves. Mr. Goats and I couldn't think of anything witty to put on them, so we graved mythical creatures (and a random "Nemo" - per orders of the big kid).





This crate was originally built to be a wall shelf, but I never got around to building a matching one. So I put a lid on it and threw Mr. Bones inside.


The silhouettes were printed off of Martha Stewart's site.


We carved the pumpkins the day before Halloween because it's so hot here, they'd start withering if done sooner.

 

Now that you can see what I'm going for... let me admit something to you. It was stupid, and I'm not proud of it... but my husband and I burned that fence in our fire pit.

Slap me now.

We had our neighbors over, and we were all plastered and we were out of wood. So my poor picket fence... that I worked SO HARD ON (imagine... it was done by prying pallets apart and I cut the pieces with a JIG SAW)... burned.

Luckily, the crate and coffin remain. And.. I built a cedar raised garden bed that was never put to use... so there's plenty of wood left. And tools that will make my life so much easier. So this year, I won't have any excuse to out-do last years set up..

So.. To-Do:

* Build (ANOTHER) graveyard fence
* Add more lighting
* Fog machine?
* Figure out a way to incorporate the back wall into the scene
* Extend the graveyard by bringing the fence up to the sidewalk (?)
* Build a much larger coffin to go near the walk-way
* Hay bales? I've always liked the look of those!

Are any of you thinking about Halloween? What have you done that's set a good tone in decorating? Do you decorate inside? Have any ideas on how I can handle my yard?

7 comments:

  1. So if it were me I would try to make the back wall black, maybe some inexpensive outdoor fabric, smoke machine and a strobe light would he sick. And maybe some eerie Halloween sound effects through some speakers. The key is to scare the children so bad that they run away and hopefully drop there candy. Free candy for you!

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  2. I totally LOVE the idea of doing it black. What would be REALLY cool is if it were black with holes cut in for holiday lights... Or maybe a light behind a creepy silhouette. OOOOOOOOHHH!! We can't do the sound effects (not sure the neighbor would really like that), but a strobe might be possible... Anyhow, I stock up on candy, so I wouldn't need the kids'! LOL! I've ALWAYS got candy in the house.

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  3. Halloween is my favorite holiday to decorate for! I like what you did and love the crate with Mr. Bones. Hanging things from trees is always fun. I think the fog machine idea is neat. If you do a coffin close to the door, someone can always pop out of it to hand out candy.

    Also, what I always do with our car sitting out front is put the bloody gel window clings from the dollar store inside the windows and put a strobe light inside with crime scene tape across the doors.

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  4. @StacieI would have NEVER thought to decorate a car. EVER. I love that idea!

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  5. @Stacie do you use a battery operated strobe light?

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  6. Yea, they take just a couple of AA's. I think they came from either Walgreens or Big Lots. About $5 or $10 each I think.

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  7. @Stacie Wow! That got me all giddy (all over again!) :-) I never think to go to big lots for decorations, until someone tells me to. That should be one of the first places I go. They're so CHEAP!

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