Halloween Recap

Halloween was a full 10 days ago and for a Halloween obsessed person I am embarrased to say I'm only now posting our Halloween photos!  I'm also only now reluctantly taking down the Halloween decorations... I'm planning to hold out a few skeletons and popping santa hats on them... ha. 

So this year the Lee family had a coordinating costume for this first time ever!  (As alluded to in this post....Costume Mission Accomplished)  We became the Zom-lee family!

Ella as Miss Zombie Queen (with her King)

Jacob as the star football player/brain eater

And their proud parents

Getting Crafty with punches

I dug out one of my oldy but goody craft ideas after seeing some fun Halloween paper and a pumpkin punch on clearance at Michaels.  I did this same thing last Halloween with a skull punch and I've done it with snowflake punches and butterfly punches as well.  It's really simple but I love the look. It's also a great project to do with the kids because there is no wrong way to do it, though in art there really never is!

1.  Gather some fun papers, scrapbook papers, ephemera, photos, anything you can punch out.  You can stick with a certain color, theme or just completely mix it up. 

  2.  Purchase a fun shaped paper punch....there are countless shapes and cost between $5-$10...I bought mine at Michaels.  I rarely ever buy anything at Michaels without a 40% off coupon--save 'em up and use 'em!

3.  Purchase a frame....I reuse the same shadowbox frame throughout the year and just swap out the art for the season.  Any size frame will work, I prefer shadowbox frames for this project.

4.  Punch out your shapes and glue them down however you like.  For the pumpkin one in the shadowbox, I   also used pop-dots, which are raised pieces of foam sticker that gives a little dimension to the punch outs.  For the skeleton, the kids chose to just glue all the punch outs down randomly and then use one pop-dot for the black glitter skull.  Ella did the pumpkin one on the left and made a pattern, using alternating using pop-dots.  Anything goes here...it all looks fun!

5.  Hang on the wall or give as a gift! 

Fright Night

Friday night was our very own adult fright night.  (Hey, does anyone remember that movie? Fright Night starring Chris Sarandon, Roddy McDowall and Amanda Bearse from Married with Children fame?  C-L-A-S-S-I-C! Loved it...it's currently on Netflix Watch Instantly-I totally recommend it.  That's the kind of horror movie I love...the horror movies of today?  Ick!  We watched the first 10 minutes of Saw VI the other day, also on Netflix Watch Instantly and O-M-G disgusting.  Horrifically disgusting.)  OK back to the story at hand....

So anyhow we had a date night Friday and after some yummy Thai food and a DQ peanut buster parfait, I have a weakness problem, we went to a local haunted house Friday night.  From many suggestions we hit up Nash Ranch-The Dreams of Darkness...why waste time/money?  Just hit up the best!  And boy was it...seriously rivalled a Disneyland attraction.  From the entertainment and decor of the waiting area to the professionalism of the creepy people employees to the details and layout of the entire attraction.  It was just so great! 

 

We were a little worried going in, as witnessed in the following video....

 

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/16159868 w=400&h=300]

But we managed to make it out alive! 

We weren't ready for fright night to end so we decided to hit up a scary movie next.  Gore is not our thing so we chose Paranormal Activity 2 instead.  The first one was entertaining, though I was hoping for more from it, and I guess that's how I would describe Part 2 as well.  I liked watching it in a packed theater as opposed to how we watched the first one, at home-alone...a scary movie in a packed theater adds just another level of fun.  Collectively screaming and gasping with a crowd, pure fun!

Costume Mission Accomplished

I'm not going to say what we are going to be this year, but I will give a sneak preview.  I will also say for the first time ever we are 'matching' as a family.  Best thing about our costumes this year?  We found them for a whopping $20 total...for 4 costumes that 'match'.  Any guesses?

Halloween Decor

I have added new pieces to our Halloween decorations almost daily since Oct 1..here's a quick peek.  I'm noticing skulls and skeletons are an obvious theme for our home! 

Getting Crafty with skulls

As I said in my last post I love Halloween and I LOVE HALLOWEEN CRAFTS!  Each year I like to come up with a few new ones to do with the kids (or without).  Here's a simple one we just finished with the coolest paper mache skulls I found at Michaels.  I dug out a bunch of random magazines along with some Halloween catalogs (Grandin Road is my favorite!) and we went to town cutting out images we were drawn too. 

For mine I stuck to Halloween themed photos and words (threw in a couple of flowers and sweet butterflies for contrast!) but love what the kids did...Ella put pop tarts around hers and Jacob filled in the mouth with a huge hot dog.  So funny! 

We then used Mod Podge and a paint brush to randomly stick the images to the skulls.  I covered mine completely and then sealed the whole thing up with an acrylic spray.  The kids wanted to add glitter to theirs...Ella got creative in her placement of glitter, Jacob used glitter to cover up the blank spots where he didn't add images. 

Up next:  Views of our Halloween decor....