Halloween Decorations

I love decorating our place for Halloween, but this year I had a very tiny budget! So instead of buying the usual decorations that are only good for one use anyway before you have to throw them away, I decided to make my own decorations to save us money (and have some fun).

First I made the invitations to our Halloween Party! I had a lot of fun cutting them out and playing with them before sending them off. And the best thing was it didn't cost me anything!

I also designed envelopes to go along with the invitations. The cost? Absolutely nothing :)

I blacked out the addresses for privacy reasons, but you can still see the overall design

Next I made a "HAPPY HALLOWEEN" banner. It was so fun to design and incredible easy to print off and hang! If you'd like to use it too, you can download the pdf here: DOWNLOAD FILE. I decided to print it off at home so it wouldn't cost us anything, but you could also bring the pdf file to Kinkos and have them do it.

I knew I wanted a sign or plaque to sit on the food table at our party, but the ones I kept finding in stores were $10-15, which I thought was just silly. So instead I made my own! I got wood letters from a craft store and glued it all together using glue and a spare piece of wood I already had. Then I just painted the whole thing (also using paint I already had). The whole project was only $3.

 

I've always liked streamers because they're an easy and quick way to make any room festive.  The downside is they usually get really messy and I just end up throwing them away after I've only used them once. Like I said before, I really wanted to make decorations that I could reuse in the future. So I followed this easy tutorial and turned my orange and black streamers into something that looked impressive and I can use year after year. It was so easy (and cheap) to do and I really loved how they turned out!

While looking on Pinterest for ideas for our Halloween party, I stumbled across this picture and I knew I had to do it!

All the great Halloween food tables I had seen up to this point showcased some amazing cake sitting on top of a black cake plate. I loved the effect it had on the table but I just kept thinking, "Where do you find a black cake plate?" And even if I did manage to find out, I knew it would be way out of my price range. So thank you Pinterest! I just went to the dollar store and picked up a serving platter and a candlestick, glued them together, and spray painted the whole thing. Total cost: $2.

Another thing I love to see around the holidays is luminaries! Maybe this is just a New England thing, but every family makes or buys luminaries to set outside on their driveway during Christmas. I've always loved the way they look at night when they are all lit up. So this year I decided to do my own twist on them and make Halloween luminaries. They were so easy to do--I just bought 20 orange bags, drew Jack-O-Lantern faces on them, filled them up with beans (so they wouldn't blow away) and lit a candle inside each bag. They added so much to the outside of our place and they looked very spooky at night! I think the total amount I spent was $5.

I really took advantage of all the free printables online this year too. I found this great blog post and made myself a ghost garland! I initially thought I would sew the ghosts together, but ended up using tiny clothespins that I found in my craft box to attach the ghosts to white thread. I love the outcome because it almost seems as if the ghosts are floating! Spooooky :)

Another easy and completely free decoration I made was black branches for my food table. All I did was go out to the backyard and pick up some fallen branches, spray paint them black, and then stick them in a vase on the table. I got the idea from this blog post, but decided to make them for my table instead of hanging them on a wall. Very, very simple, but it looked great! I planned to make paper bats or crows to put on the branches but once I put them out amongst the other dishes I decided it looked best left alone.

And lastly, the ultimate DIY project I did for this Halloween...(drumroll please)...our Halloween costumes!!

Human Tetris Blocks! We worked really hard on them and we were so happy with how they turned out! There were a few hold ups along the way but we figured everything out and managed to make them for only $15!

I'm so glad I decided to make all our decorations this year. It was really rewarding to see all the final outcomes. Plus it was so much fun for me and because I spaced out each project, I got to enjoy Halloween crafts all month long!

And the Festivities Continue

Our weekend was jam-packed, which is exactly how I like it. We are making sure to get the most out of this beautiful Autumn weather we're finally having! And pretty soon Halloween will come and go, meaning I won't be able to convince Grant to do as many festive things. So I've got to use every last minute!

Friday we started the weekend off by going out to dinner at Boston's Pizza with Nick & Briana. We strolled through downtown Grapevine afterward and stopped for ice cream (of course). Then we made our way over to Hall's Pumpkin Patch!

 (I snapped this while we were driving away so not the best picture)

We didn't have the highest expectations since we were all used to such places as Cornbelly's and Hee Haw Farms, but we were all very impressed! There was a cornmaze, tractor rides, friendly farm animals, pumpkins of every size, the best tasting apple cider, smoked B-B-Q, caramel popcorn, festive decorations to buy, and so many great displays for picture-taking!

 Entering the Corn Maze

 Walking straight towards a dead end--the maze was very challenging!

 Nick loves pictures, can you tell?

 I think I'm a midget and Briana is an old lady

 Everything was so cute!

 

 All of us on the Hayride

 They had lots of animals!

 This guy was very friendly, and surprisingly soft

 Ugliest rabbit I've ever seen

She was craving this all night

When we finally had done and seen everything we went back to our place and finished the night with a couple rounds of cards. We had the intention of getting to bed early, since we knew the following day was going to be a long one, but of course that didn't happen. We stayed up way too late talking with them, but we didn't regret it at all. We had such a blast!

The next morning Nick & Briana came back over to our place and we loaded up the car for Six Flags! Since Grant and Nick work at Fidelity, we got a great discount on our tickets for the park--instead of paying $60 each we got our tickets for $20! So we'll probably be going more often :) Even if we had paid the full amount it would have been worth it! Six Flags during this time of year is so great! We had so much fun riding all the roller coasters, watching the zombies around the park scare random people, being completely caught off guard and scared by one of them ourselves, going to the haunted shows, playing games, and being utterly exhausted but so happy all at once.

 Waiting in line for the Texas Giant

 He's threatening me with a screw driver

This guy was creepy. He put a screwdriver and a roofing nail through his nose. It was awesome!

 This was my favorite ride--the whole roller coaster was in the dark!

 These decorations were all around the park

 Sitting in our seats for the show

 Blurry pictures, but you can tell it was fun!

Love Potion # 9

Ballroom Blitz!

All four of us after the show

On Sunday Grant and I got called into the Nursery! We know it's serious because when we went to find out what we're supposed to do, we were handed keys and bubbles. Apparently that's what you need to stay alive in there. Wish us luck!

We also spent the night working on our Halloween costumes, which I'm very excited for! We've had some pretty good ones in the past but I think these are going to be our best yet! I can't wait to show them off at our party.

We had a great weekend and now I'm just looking forward to the one coming up. Only a couple of more days until our Halloween party! Which means I only have a couple of days to finish our costumes, finish all the decorations, and go shopping for and make the food for it. Some might think it's work, but I just get excited about everything. I hope it turns out great!