All the Rest

 All that is left of the 2011 decorations tour are all the various shelves laden with random decor.  These areas actually stay pretty similar from year to year without much deviation...so I'll just lay it all out there.  There is an overriding Witch theme since all these shelves are in the same room.

The Broom Closet

I printed out the words with an ancient-looking digital scrapbooking background, and mod-podged it to a wooden board.  Very simple, and yet it is one of my favorite decorations.

At first I felt a little sorry for the ledge above the broom closet because it was the last to be decorated, and all the good decorations had already been used up.  Until I remembered that I never got to do my apothecary/haunted bookshelf this year, and that all the items for that display were still sitting in the basement.  So up they went! (a portion of them, at least)

 So I guess this shelf is an unofficial preview of how the hutch will be decorated next year (or whenever I get around to refinishing it).

The other upper ledge (I pretty much just kept the usual decorations I had up there, but just gave it a Halloween flair).

The twin brown shelves

 These shelves are a place for me to put all my random witch nick-nacks.

The top of the entertainment center

 Again, just a bunch of random witch items I have collected.  I have plans to give out a free printable of the Wicked Witch of the East Death Certificate sometime in the next year, after I have made sure there are no copyright issues.

And last but not least...my witch shoe sign.

And that's about all folks!  I will likely take a brief hiatus during the Christmas season (yes, I do enjoy other holidays besides Halloween!).  But come January I will be going full throttle with a lot of fun new Halloween ideas for 2012.  Can't wait!

Rat Infestation

Sadly I was MIA at the end of October.  Sickness rampaged on both my family and my computer and put us out of commission for a while.  But seeing as how this is a year-round Halloween blog, I have no scruples in still posting the rest of my Halloween decorations!

I was disappointed to find when perusing through my pictures that I failed to capture my outside witch at night...bummer.  :(  We'll have to catch her next year.  But there were still plenty of pictures to be had.

One of the additions to the outside for 2011 was a derelict crate of "live rats."  

 I used the Martha Stewart idea HERE, but did live rats instead since I didn't feel like carving intricate pumpkins.  Besides, the dollar tree had rubber rats (pretty decent looking too)...and I can't pass up inexpensive decorations.  :)

Luckily we had just inherited some old wood crates from my in-laws (they had been sitting in a back shed for years, which made them nice and weathered), so we were able to put them to good use!

 Complete with spooky dead leaves!

So I took a few supplies...

And stenciled on the letters (stencils bought at a local craft store).

I also added a little paint around the edges and corners to give it more of an authentic "stamp" look.

I then surrounded the box with another smaller box (that sort of looked like a lid or something), the rats, and a few lanterns with LED candles inside.

Peek-a-boo!

I ended up putting a larger LED candle under the lettering for better night viewing.  Here is a very horrible, blurry picture of what it looked like at night (along the bottom).

I had planned on taking more another day, but then the aforementioned sickness occured.  Sadly, that is the only picture we ended up getting of our carved pumpkins (placed in large urns with moss spilling out).  We found the most amazing $4 candles at Kmart that lit them up better than anything we've ever tried before (and even flickered like flames).  You can also see the beginnings of the "Wicked Wick's Candle Shoppe" in the bay window.  I didn't have time to finish that particular project, so it will have to debut in 2012.

And there ya have it!  I hope to acquire more weathered boxes in the future so that I can expand this display to include live serpents, live spiders, etc.  The ideas are limitless!

More outside decorating ideas to come in 2012!

The Hutch

Well, I just couldn't get everything done this year.  I had hoped to have my hutch refinished so I could do my haunted bookcase/apothecary...but it just didn't happen.  So I had to quickly come up with something else instead.  (the bottom of the hutch is still there, it is the top part with the shelves that is missing...still sitting in the garage)

The witchy clothesline is something I plan on putting in the basement laundry room when it is finished, but until then I thought it would help fill in some space around the hutch.

I used the font "bleeding cowboy" (you can google it and download it for free).  I like it because it looks like it is dripping wet, but looks spooky at the same time.  :)  I'm also quite proud of my clever witchy clothesline saying.  For once I didn't copy the idea from somebody else!

I painted clothespins black and used twine for the rope.  For the "socks" I cut up two pairs of costume tights and finished the edges just like the baby tights HERE.  I suppose you could probably just leave them as is, but I liked the frilly look.

 For the bottom part of the hutch I just made a smaller version of what my apothecary will look like.  All these items were just randomly found at thrift stores and craft store clearance racks.  Super duper inexpensive stuff here.

 I also didn't get around to putting all the potion labels on the bottles.  That can be another fun thing to look forward to doing next year!

 If I get some energy I might fill up some of the jars with fun candies or something cute like that.  We shall see.

I think the hutch area turned out great, but it is fun knowing that I will have this area to decorate differently next year when the hutch is finished!

Outside - Stage 1

Sorry for the delay in the tour...even Halloween crazy people need a break sometimes.  :)

Today we'll jump outside to see the first stage of decorating.

Last year we did the bats across the door, but decided to extend it to the other side of the house too. I had them coming out of the basement windows as if it was...well...the bat cave.  :)

 I've always wanted to do Martha's witch and cat silhouettes (found here) and finally found the time to do it this summer.  If you want a great tutorial on how to make it, I used THIS one by the little blue room.  I made some design modifications to her left arm cloth and to the cats heads to help them look more natural...but beside that I pretty much followed the printed pattern.

I wish I could have found a better broom, but this $6 one from Kmart will do just fine for this year.

I got her a great lantern for super cheap at a thrift store.  It looks cool at night with the battery operated candle inside.

And speaking of lights, I've had a hard time figuring out how to light this lady up from behind at night.  At first I found these cool battery operated touch lights that looked perfect, but it drained 4 AA batteries in two hours!!!  Can you believe it!!!  Needless to say, I am looking for other light sources now.  Hopefully I'll have something figured out before Halloween is over. 

All in all I am quite satisfied with how it look so far!

See all those pretty flowers still?  I love them, but they are definitely ruining the Halloween look...and are taking up precious space.  But Fall has finally come to this area and I'm certain we can expect a freeze by the end of this week, so I will finally be able to pull up all those flowers and move on to Stage 2...which will include urns, pumpkins, creepy crates, rats, lanterns, and more.  Hopefully it will stop raining long enough for me to put everything out...and I'm praying it won't start snowing! (which wouldn't be unheard of around here...)

Tomorrow we'll go back inside!

Spooky Stairwell

The Halloween decorating tour continues!  

Hopefully there will be at least something useful someone can glean from this display.  It's not much, but I'm grateful to get to show off my hard work (we don't get many real life visitors around here!).

First up is the basement doorway framed in black cheesecloth.  I hung two battery operated candlesticks from the ceiling with fishing line so it looks like they are floating on their own.  Fun and VERY inexpensive.  Someday I will do my whole upstairs hallway with these dangling down.

 Next up are the bats.  The bat template can be found here at Country Living.  This idea has been around for many years now and is one of my favorite ways to decorate...especially since you can get black felt for so cheap!  I found that they stay up well enough if you use painter's tape, and it won't damage your walls.  I added my own idea of having some bats hanging upside down from the shelf.  Adds a nice touch, I think. 

Okay so this owl isn't technically in the stairwell, but he fits right in with the bats so I thought I'd throw it in real quick.  I created this owl and branch myself (much easier said than done) and if I have time (and if I remember) I will scan the template and give it out for people to use if they want.  

 The Haunted Mansion picture wall has been my dream for several years now...so I am grateful that it has finally become a reality! (click here for the Haunted Mansion picture story).

 Everything for this was inexpensively done.  Cobwebs, raven, moss, black spooky cloth, and gargoyles from the dollar store;  candlesticks and vase from the thrift store;  black roses ($1 each) and LED votive candles (two-pack for $3.50) from Walmart.  I already had the frame, so the most expensive item was the Haunted Mansion picture itself ($15, including shipping, after applying a LOT of promo codes online).  Not too shabby!

Some close ups:

I have these silhouettes of my kiddos hanging up year round, but I freshened them up with new black and orange damask paper for the background.  The spider came in a two-pack from the dollar store.  I just hung it up with painter's tape and attached it to a string (taken from the dollar store spooky cloth).

The finished product:

 Not too bad!  Now on to the rest of the house!

Haunted Foyer

After a week and a half the decorations are almost completely up!  Here is the front entryway in all its haunted glory...

Hooray!  The candelabra is finally finished!  All cozy in the corner with a raven for a friend.

 Next up is the captured raven (at least he is quiet about it) atop two very old books (circa 1940) found at a thrift store.  If you haven't noticed, I am loving the moss this year.  You will find it everywhere.

 I coined my own potion company (Goin G. Batty Ingredients) and made up some Witch's brew labels.  I got the idea for the label names here on etsy...there are some great ideas on there.  Must give credit where credit is due!  :)  I mod-podged the labels onto some bottles and wa-la...instant decoration.  Some day I will liven them up with a bit of twine around the top...but until then they still look pretty snazzy.

Add a yard sale candle stick and it's not a bad collection!

 Now, I couldn't very well get the Haunted Mansion look without a taper candle wall sconce.   I'd be delighted to find about 10 more of these to put up around the house!  The LED taper candles were found at Real Deals (look for one near you...they are the greatest discount home decor store ever).  They were in the half off section and only cost me a little over a dollar each.  You will also find these all over my house this year.

 You may recognize my "homely to haunted" mirror, with a fresh coating of spider webs.

 Can't forget those dang dollar store rodents skirting around the edges.

(peeking from behind my Kmart witch's broom)

And last but not least...little miss spider hangs out up above.

Now with the lights off and candles on...

Oh how I wish that this was how my front entry looked all year long.  *sigh*

I will continue the decoration tour on Monday.  Get ready for some fun stuff!