Halloween!

*Note: this entry has been written in multiple sessions all through the month of October. If things are not cohesive and different dates and times are referenced in the future or past, that is why.

It's Fall and it's always really exciting for me when the weather starts changing (which is funny, because I don't like being too cold, but I LOVE holidays!). So, I've been getting really excited for Halloween. Michael and I have some festive activities we want to do this month:

• Halloween crafting with Ashley and her new sewing machine
• decorating my apartment with fun Halloween things
• go to a Halloween party my sister, Ashley, is hosting
• Halloween crafting with my two best friends, Cam and Emily
• go to a Murder Mystery my cousin is hosting
• I'm going to a costume party my friend is hosting, but Michael can't come, because he will be at work

Halloween Crafting with Ashley

Ashley just bought a sewing machine and I thought it would be fun to make a festive tablecloth. I talked to Ashley about it and we got so excited, we ended up going shopping for fabric the next day and making them! I thought it'd be "efficient" to make them reversible: one side Halloween, the other side Thanksgiving. There wasn't a ton of cute Halloween/Thanksgiving fabric to choose from, so Ashley and I ended up using the same fabric, which made me happy - now we're tablecloth twinners. There was a HUGE selection of really great Christmas fabric, though, so we both ended up getting materials for a reversible Christmas tablecloth. This time, we broke off. Ashley went with two very cute modern style prints, and I got two old-timey style prints. I'm REALLY excited to make those. We are probably going to do that tomorrow night. Here is a close up of the pattern on the Halloween side.



And even though this page is labeled "Halloween Crafting!", I'll just stick in a picture of the Thanksgiving side while I'm at it.



Update: Last Sunday, we made our Christmas tablecloths, which went a lot faster now that we know what we are doing. So, here are both sides of mine. I chose green on both sides, since I have a lot of red dishes and plates.

While I love both sides, I have to admit, this old fashioned, Christmas pattern is my favorite. I especially love the Christmas tree picture.

Decorating the Apartment

Last year, Michael and I found a cool stick and painted it black and called it our "Halloween Tree." This year, I decided to make decorations for it. My mom (who is the decoration queen) sent me up some cut outs of rats and bats, because she just bought those two punches and I glued them onto these cute round discs (my mom again - so cute!). It make me happy. I just realized I don't have a picture of it and I just packed it away for the year, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was really cute.

Other Halloween decorations I put up that I don't have a picture of. I covered my windows in that spiderweb stuff and fake spiders. I also covered the wreath on the door with the spiderweb material and it looked pretty awesome. We also carved a pretty cool pumpkin at Ashley's party that I'm waiting to get pictures from, but since Ashley had her baby two weeks ago, she's been a little busy (totally understandable). :) We also took some funny photos with some awesome Halloween props, which I'll add when I get them.

Halloween Crafting with Cam and Emily

My two best friends, Cam and Emily, wanted to do a Halloween craft, and I suggested we decopage some frames. We went to the Dollar Store and bought some frames and bought some orange and black tissue paper. I didn't have any decopage glue, so we just used Elmer's Glue and it worked great! I had some polka dot rat cutouts already, so I ended up jazzing up my frame by having rats troop around the border. I think maybe I should put a picture of Norman in it.


Close up of the rat border. I love rats!

As you can see from the crazy pictures, it was a fun girl's night in.


My friend, Cam.

My friend, Emily.

Murder Mystery

The murder mystery we attended was called "Twisted at the Transylvanian" and it was pretty funny. I'll let some of the pictures speak for themselves (as was expected, things got a little racy...).

Michael was supposed to be a buff fireman and I was a vampiress stockbroker named Carrie Bloodsworth.

My cousin, Carrie and my brother, Vincent. She was supposed to be a disco diva and he was supposed to be a werewolf DJ.


My cousin, Michael and his girlfriend. She was a big game hunter and he was a Frankenstein-like character.

Our friend Megan and her friend, Randy. She was a gothic movie star with an awesome mullet and he was a plastic surgeon. :)


The hosts of the party, my cousin, Andrea and her husband, Jon. He was a paranormal scientist (love the wig!) and she was an uppity socialite.


My sister, Ashley and her husband, Karl. He was a mummy bouncer and she was a zombie barmaid. Her being nine months pregnant just added to the character. :)

Group photo.

All in all, pretty hilarious and festive party.

Costume Party

My best friend, Cam, threw a costume party that was awesome! I just wish Michael could have come. But it was still great. I decided to go as a coal miner, since I'd already looked like it once the week before just working in the lab. People in my class that day saw me and told me I should just do that for Halloween and so I did.

Cam lent me her caving helmet with a headlamp. Awesome. I must say for myself, I'm working that jumpsuit. :)

Group photo. We had an assassin, David & Bathsheba, a coal miner, a ninja, a flapper, Medusa, a robot that is "trained to smash your camera", and The Phantom & Christine. A pretty eclectic mix.
The main activity of the party was making a movie that incorporated everyone with their costumes. It was really fun and kind of challenging. It involved Medusa taking a picture of the Phantom to prove he was uglier than her, the phantom building a robot to smash the camera and destroy the evidence, a coal miner videotaping the whole thing in a "Blair Witch" way after coming upon this after accidentally mining into the Phantom's lair, Medusa bringing David & Bathsheba to life from stone to fight the robot, Medusa hiring an assassin to stop the robot after David & Bathsheba fail, the robot finding it can love and falling for Christine, the robot destroying Christine when he sees her with the camera and self destructing in remorse and MORE. We had one constraint: that everyone must die (it was Halloween, after all). All in all, it was pretty awesome, and I will post a link to the final edited version when it is done.