LA Ink

My son and daughter-in-law go LA ink for Halloween leather pants and all. Pretty great right?
So glad those tats weren't permanent!
Or, that Eli didn't kill anyone to earn that teardrop tat.
Happy Halloween.

Harry Potter Halloween Invitation

Here is this years Halloween invitation. I wasn't inspired by this. Someone should give them a few better designs. I think they would have sold more of these because I thought it was a great item for an impressive invitation with just a little work.
Here I begin the painting process.
It started out with a plane box like this.


I painted them solid black.
Then I dry brushed with gray paint.
I printed out invitations, with the help of Stephanie's talents, and stuck them inside the box.
I purchased a few other items from Michaels as well as these tombstones that were on sale for half off.
I used the glitter glue to paint the bats and added the mouse inside. I glued the moss to the front of the door and on top of the lid making sure it could still open.

The finished project! The party was a blast.
We had so much fun! Unfortunately, I was so busy being the hostess that I didn't have time to take many pictures. We did take our traditional couple pictures so I'll steal those from my husband when he is done working his magic.

Round Top 2010

I arrived in San Antonio with my mother-in-law a week ago Thursday. Friday we were off to the junky fields of Round Top. It was a come as you are party. It's a 3 hour drive from San Antonio so we were off and out very early. We didn't want to miss anything.
It was so humid and hot that I had a hard time taking pictures. My camera lens kept fogging up. Not a good thing for pictures or my camera. (This is a picture taken with a fogged up lens. I didn't have anything in my camera bag to clean the lens with.)
(This is what a picture looks like when your camera has acclimated to the weather conditions.) Candice's friend, Michelle, came with us and is checking out one of our favorite booths.
I'm not sure what kind of spider this is, but it looks dangerous. Creeeeeppyyyy! This spider was probably 3 1/2 inches long. We had a problem with fire ants too.
See that bookcase back there? It is from an old general store. I'm now the proud owner of that beauty. I'm hoping to see it in the near future but I haven't heard from my shipper guy yet. It is always a scary thing. He did deliver my last shipment though (after several months had passed) so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I think I'll paint the shelves a medium gray instead of that mustard color. I would have loved to take home that industrial light too but for $750, I had to pass on that big boy.
Those cupboard doors are at least an inch thick. Very hefty. We emailed my husband a picture from Candice's phone and got his approval before purchase. It was a steal. I couldn't believe the price.
What do you think? There might be one little glitch...this cupboard is the exact height of my ceiling. I might have to do a little sanding. It is in two pieces so I'm hoping it will fit just like a built in. My fingers are crossed.
We had lunch at a little restaurant in Round Top called Royers. It was interesting. Every wall and even the ceiling was covered with something.
But my salad was delicious.

Cute Michele with her eyes closed. It's the only picture I got of her. I didn't get any of my MIL.
Candice eating her sandwich. We had a great day and lots of fun even with all the heat. Candice was disappointed that she didn't find a desk and some side tables, but we had better luck when we went back again on Tuesday for the opening of Marburger. It is always an experience. The best part is watching all the people. It is very entertaining. (Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of everyone's purchases or the entertaining people. Sorry.)

Candice's Halloween Mantel

I was in Texas last week working on Candice's master bedroom this time. Here is her family room that we decorated a year ago. It is mostly back together after suffering a lot of damage due to a tornado that hit last June. (That's an original bus sign from England. Isn't it great.) She still has a few frames to fill.
Here is her mantel.
This is an example of using things that can be changed up to look totally different next year or even used for a different season. We purchased candle sticks, candles, apothecary jars, a small cake stand, and little pumpkins. Most of these were 40% off at Hobby Lobby. (I wish I had one of those close to my house.)
To add height, I put one of the candle sticks on a pile of books. I turned them with the pages out because they were blue and didn't fit my orange and black theme. Candice already had the spiders, garland (her original design), moss, apothecary bowl, and black garland .






A cloche on a short stack of books with small pumpkin gourd and rubber mice.
Two Halloween masked that Candice had from an old photo shoot.
Crows on tickets rolls. We use these a lot too. They are very inexpensive from Zurchers...a party store. Happy Decorating! I would love to see yours. Send me a link please.

Halloween 2010

This year it was fun to decorate because of the new addition...more room to be creative. I've decided that I can't buy/make any more Halloween decorations because I have too many. I don't even have it all out this year because I couldn't get to two of the boxes. That just means I'll be able to change it up next year. :)
Here are my Lori Mitchell figurines. I tried to buy a new one for each of my kids but the Gatehouse didn't carry them this year. I guess the kids will just have to inherit mine. (The candle sticks aren't part of the centerpiece on my dining room table but will be part of the centerpiece for my kitchen table. )
I took lots of pictures because I was practicing my depth of field and shooting in aperture priority for an assignment in Candice's "Oh, Shoot" class. (It's a great class to take if you want to learn more about your digital camera. This is my second time through. She's changed all the videos and Pdf's so it's like taking a new class. She filmed parts of it in our new addition so I really wanted to see the new videos.)









The mantel scape.






The left over favors from one of my parties.












I hope you enjoyed the tour. I decorated Candice's mantel last week in Texas. I took pictures that I will share tomorrow. I've decided that it is a lot more fun to use what you have to decorate with. Buy a few crows, pumpkins and few basic Halloween things and then use moss, cut branches, books, dishes and other things you already have, to set the scene. I'm challenging myself to do this on my kitchen table. Please send me a link of what you have created. I would love to see it.

I'm linked to Do It Yourself Showoffs
and Celebrating Autumn Festival at My Blessed Life