After Kevin and I closed on our house, we came to the realization that we should probably plan some kind of housewarming party so our friends and family could come and check out our new digs. Conveniently the year prior I had made a promise to my sister the night of Halloween since her big costume party plans had fallen through and she was understandably bummed: if Kevin and I had a house by the next Halloween, we'd throw our own Halloween party to make up for her previously bashed plans.
So that settled it; almost a month after we moved in we'd host a Haunted Housewarming to break the place in. Unsurprisingly the party was a huge success, and I'd like to think part of it was because of the awesome decorations I made! Check out some of the things I put together to deck out our house for our first holiday. All credit can go to the creative people of Pinterest.
My most ambitious project: window monsters. The original inspiration for these can be found here. I hand-sketched them on black construction paper, cut 'em out, taped them to the windows and backed them with orange tissue paper. (Lesson learned: buy more than one pack of orange tissue paper! Otherwise you might run out and have to go to three different stores trying to find more, only to discover that the only orange tissue paper you can find is in a variety pack that doesn't exactly match the color of the first stuff you bought.) I should also add that red tissue paper was put behind two of the monsters eyes to add a little contrast.
Lucky for us we have a giant hanging pendant light in our living room that was bright enough to illuminate the tissue paper from behind. If you're not as lucky as us in the giant-hanging-light department, I'd suggest buying a couple rope lights and wrapping them around the inside sill of your windows to get a similar effect.
Since Kevin and I didn't really have the funds to add any other Halloween decor to the exterior of our house, we decided to just buy an orange light bulb from Party City to signal the trick-or-treaters and call it a day.
The inside of our house was a bit more festive:
I drew this chalkboard design out by hand onto a scrap piece of black foam core that fit inside of a gold frame I had originally bought for our wedding (found at Goodwill). I probably should have added something to the bottom but ran out of time! Eh...something to work on for next year.
I made a ton of food for the party which isn't really worth mentioning, but there's one thing I do think I should make note of: the shrunken heads I made for our hot apple cider. These turned out SO much better than I ever could have anticipated, and they were so easy to make! The tutorial can be found here. It might be worth mentioning that I didn't bother soaking the apples in the lemon juice/salt mixture....I just cut the apple in half, carved out the faces, and baked them.
 |
| Despite them having to look creepy, I think they're actually kinda cute. |
I also can't help but brag about Kevin and I's last minute "costumes". Originally we were going to dress up as an Ebola patient and containment nurse, but I wasn't super fond of the idea of spending the entire night clothed in stuffy scrubs and having my face obstructed by a medical mask. I saw this skull makeup tutorial on Pinterest two days before our party and couldn't resist trying it out just to see if it would work. Despite Kevin being a little doubtful of my non-existent makeup skills, I think we looked pretty impressive.
And now that November is officially upon us I can start thinking of how to decorate for Christmas....
No comments