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!

Housewarming Party!

I forgot to post about our Housewarming Party!! It was so much fun and the turnout was great!! Most of our friends from Provo were able to come, including Daniel and Natalie! We didn't even know Daniel was back in town so that was a pretty great surprise. We missed Lindsay and Preston though, who were out of town that weekend. Some of my really good girlfriends Jessie and Miranda were also able to come up for the party (with their husbands), and it was really great to see them. We missed Lauren though, who's now in Ecuador! And I even got to catch up with some old Connecticut friends--so we definitely had a mix of friends and it was so much fun to see everyone.

Here's the invitation that I made up and sent out to everyone:

And once everyone got here, we served Orange Chicken Shisk Kabobs and then cake and ice-cream. The Skisk Kabobs were good but what I was really excited for was the cakes! It took me all day to make them, since I made them entirely from scratch, but it was definitely worth it! The first one was a chocolate cake with strawberry filling, chocolate sour cream frosting, and strawberries on top. The second was a yellow cake with custard filling, vanilla frosting, and topped white chocolate chips. We served both cakes with vanilla ice-cream and I've got to say, they were delicious!

 

Why do I need so many pictures of the same two cakes? I don' know...I just couldn't choose which to put up! And below are the only two candid pictures I snapped of the night.

 And since it was going to be one of the last times we saw Daniel, Natalie, and Finn I wanted to get some photos with them and those who were left of the party.

Everyone is so tan! Ahhh I need to start laying out again. But anyways, the party was fantastic! It was so nice to be able to fit so many people into our home comfortably and all just chat and catch up. I can't wait to have another party soon :)

G R A D U A T I O N

Somehow I finished all my papers, tests, projects, portfolios, and performances and now I'm completely done!! All I have to do is turn in one more portfolio and then walk at Graduation! Which, by the way, I'm so excited for. I can't believe that after 16 years of being in school nonstop I am finally done. I think I'm really going to enjoy this summer :)

Here's the Graduation Announcements I designed and sent out to all our family. I'm really hoping for good weather on Friday so we can do our Grad Party at a park, instead of having to use the clubhouse. I think having a cookout at a park would be so much more fun.

 And a side note -- today is my Father in Law's birthday -- and not just any birthday, but his big 60th!  Happy Birthday Larry and thanks for all you do for us!!

Jessie's Bridal Shower

I think I've mentioned before how Miranda and I threw our really good friend Jessie a bridal shower last Saturday morning. Well it turned out great and of course I want to post all about it and share the pictures.

So first of all, we thought it would be more fun to have a theme, especially one where we'd all dress up. And my friend Nicole told me about a bridal shower she threw once where the theme was "Good Housewives" so I quickly adopted that theme and Jessie's bridal shower became a "1950's Housewives Bridal Shower." To get the girls excited for the party, I wanted to design the invitations to incorporate the theme, but not be so blatant and say "wear aprons and wear pearls, etc." So here's what I came up with:

I also wanted the theme to really focus on the 1950's Good Housewives Rules that were published in Good Housekeeping in 1955. Needless to say the rules are completely absurd and talk all about how women should do everything in their power to make their husbands comfortable, and never complain, and never let the children act rowdy in front of the husband, etc. A little outdated? I think so. But that was the fun part about the bridal shower--to be able to dress up and play a part. So in order to incorporate these rules into the party, my mom suggested setting up little vignettes all over the room to symbolize the typical 1950's Housewife. And that's exactly what I did--I had each vignette represent one of the five duties of the 1950's Housewife: Cooking, Cleaning, Raising the Children, Keeping up her Appearance, and doing Chores. For each vignette I also designed a little plaque to go along with it that gave the rule and showed a picture of a 1950's Housewife. Here's how they turned out:
Cooking Plaque:

Cleaning Plaque:

Raising the Children Plaque:

 Keeping up her Appearance Plaque:

Chores Plaque:

 In fact, all the decorations turned out great. For the Cooking Vignette we used three of my vintage cookbooks, and about 6 or 7 of my kitchen utensils. For the Cleaning Vignette we used an old bottle of Comet, a scrubbing brush, and rubber gloves. For the Raising the Children Vignette we used my picture of a silhouette of a mother and child, some books, and a vintage game of Pick up Sticks and Tic-Tac-Toe. For the Appearance Vignette we used an apron, tons of pearls, red lipstick, curlers, and some Dippity Doo Hair Gel (which was a staple back in the 50's). And lastly, for the Chores Vignette we set up an ironing board in the front entrance way with an iron on it and a wicker laundry basket of clothes underneath. We had all the guests put Jessie's presents on the ironing board, which made for a really cool effect.

We also set up a photobooth area! We had the party at Miranda's in-laws in Orem and it was perfect! They have a library off to the side of the living room, which is where we set up the photobooth area. We hang a backdrop and brought in some stools, and then collected lots of props that the girls could choose from. We also put out some umbrellas and boxing gloves that were also an option (but didn't fit in the suitcase).
The backdrop with stools set up (the whiteboard for people to write messages to Jessie):

Miranda trying it out:

A look at the props (in the prop suitcase of course):

A closer look at the props (including mustache sticks, hats, scarves, Luna Lovegood sunglasses, black ski mask, light up sunglasses, lace gloves, and lots and lots of pearls):

And not to mention the set up of our table looked so good! I was really happy with how it turned out. My Aunt Debbie was so so nice and let us borrow a ton of platters and other food displays which helped to make the table so pretty! My Granny also donated to the table: she let us use her lace tablecloth for the food table, her card table for the drinks, and her white lace table runner for the drinks table. And then we used big and small scrabble tiles to spell out and label each food. For the drinks we used my Aunt Debbie's punch bowl and matching glasses plus my Granny's tea cups and saucers.

Once the girls all arrived we ate brunch and then played some games. Of course we played the classic "How well do you know ___?" Game and it was pretty funny. I had previously emailed Jacob (Jessie's fiance) a list of questions to answer about himself. I then read the same questions to Jessie at the party to see how well she knew Jacob and to see how many she could answer correctly. For each one she answered incorrectly, she had to stuff a gigantic marshmallow in her mouth and not chew it. She did really good -- but still ended up with a mouthful of marshmallows!

After games everyone played with the photo booth and chatted.

And finally it was time for presents and rainbow cake!!

Everything went perfectly and I really think the girls had fun. And I'm especially glad that Miranda and I planned everything out in advance so we had time to gather everything we needed to borrow (and I had time to practice making the rainbow cake because the second time was soooo much better!) So now it's over and it's time to return everything to the rightful owners! And to everyone who let me borrow something for the party: Thank You!!