Halloween Mask

Just a quick post today to share a digital piece of art I just finished. I'm super happy with it and am so glad that I got some art done in time for Halloween.

This is actually a real photo I took of myself wearing a mask that I painted on my face for the fall festival at my children's school.  I then used my computer to digitally paint on the photo and enhanced it with filters as well.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :)

Halloween 2014

It's my favorite time of year again!  The leaves are turning, the air is crisp, and the scarves are getting aired out.  It's also time for our annual Bunco Halloween Party.

I have had the pleasure of hosting two years in a row now, and I love decorating the house so it's nice and spooky for our guests.  If you missed last years decorations you can see them here.  This year, I went for spooky chic with lots of spider webs, spooky art, flying bats, twinkly lights, and Halloween colored tulle swags separating the rooms.

I learned from last year that lighting is super important when throwing a Bunco Halloween party.  Last year, the overhead lights were on, and it distracted from the spooky decor.  This year, I turned off the overhead lighting and only used fake candles, jack-o-lanterns, and lamps.  The effect was much better and it made a huge difference.

This year's art was super easy too.  I covered my normal prints with tea stained newspaper and then cut out a spooky vulture (courtesy of the Graphics Fairy) and cat silhouette for each frame out of black wrapping paper.  I then used the left over paper to cut out some bats for the drapes and wall.  I think my favorite part of the living room decor was the witches hat above the paintings.  Next year I think it might be cool to do a whole wall of different witches hats.  What do you think?

I also loved the dining area decorations. I left my travel plates up, but I covered the art with black poster board and topped it with a skull swag.  

I used up two silver metallic sharpie pens to make this print.  I don't claim to have the greatest penmanship, but I love this Halloween poem and wanted to include it in the decor.

The Moon has awoken

With the sleep of the Sun

The light has been broken

The spell has begun

I don't know who wrote it, but if anyone else does let me know so that I can give them proper credit.

Some of the other decorations that we had up are bare branches covered in bats and twinkling lights and a ripped and torn window covering.

 

tulle swags with skull corners

trash bag spider webs

and jack-o-lanterns made by the little helpers :)

We had a great night of Bunco.  I hope this post helps you to haunt your house or party too! 

Happy Halloween!

Last Minute Halloween

This years Halloween was a bit more last minute than usual.  If I'm honest, many of my projects are done in a hurry between taking care of the kids, the house, and my own school work.  This year was a bit more last minute than in years past because my husband has been gone these last few months and I'm trying to do everything myself.  But, I still managed to crank out some costumes for the kiddos and a last minute Halloween Wreath.

I was actually going to skip the Halloween wreath this year, but my oldest son was not pleased with this idea.  So, I whipped this wreath up using the cheese cloth that I used to cover the couches at my Halloween Bunco Party, and added a spider that I found laying around the house.  Fast, easy, and my son was happy.  All good things.

I was also running a bit behind with costumes, but between reworking old clothes, thrift store finds, and some new accessories I managed to outfit the whole Boo Crew with their desired costumes.



This year, they all wanted to be monsters or witches.  I can't believe that I actually got these all done in time!  I really loved doing the witch costume with my little girl.  She just adored the tulle tutu and the feather witch hat, but I have to admit that I really really love my little son's skeleton costume.  My oldest was the easiest.  He decided that he wanted to be a zombie, and thank goodness his idea of a zombie resembles the old black and white movie versions and not some of the newer zombie movies from today.  I'm not ready for any kind of gory costumes yet.



I love how the costumes turned out and I love that the kids were the ones who told me what they wanted this year.  I'm putting this Halloween in the win pile and looking forward to the next holiday.

Halloween Bunco Party 2013

Once a month, my girlfriends all get together and have a Bunco party at someone's home.  Bunco is a fun and easy dice game (go ahead, Google it, I know you want to :).  We play, we eat, we drink, and we talk. It's all very informal and fun.

This month, I had the pleasure of hosting Bunco at my home.  October is an important month to be the Bunco hostess because we always dress up and have a costume contest.  While normal hosting involves buying enough wine and making sure the pretty towels are hung in guest bathroom, Halloween Bunco involves a bit more thought and prep.  I really wanted to do some fun and spooky Halloween decorating without going overboard on cost and prep time. So, just for fun, I want to share some of my Halloween party decorating and Bunco ideas with everyone.

Click on the image to download all six cards.

The first thing I made for the party was the Bunco score cards.  I drew out a spiderweb border, thought of some spooky sayings for the mini buncos, and played with some creepy fonts until I had a Halloween worthy Bunco score card.  I made six slightly different versions of this score card which you can download here for use at your own Halloween Bunco Party. Make sure to download the original for the best quality, and please feel free to leave me a comment if you use these for your Bunco gathering.

Before you read any further, I want to say that I didn't go all out and do a full haunt.  This is the easy, accessible version of a Halloween party.  I did some art, some funny accents, and some themed food just to get everyone in the mood.  Second, I was running behind during set-up so you're getting party aftermath pictures (sorry).



Anyone who knows me, knows that I love doing art for my parties.  When my daughter had her puppy birthday, we covered some of the art around the house with puppy themed designs.  So, this time, I made a series of three paintings to help get the room in the Halloween spirit.

The original idea was to take black poster board and make white chalkboard styled paintings.  Of course, that only works if the store has black poster board.

That's okay, because some of my best ideas come from having to think outside the box in search of a plan B. Plan B ended up being totally cooler than plan A anyways.  Any idea that starts with "pour half cup of wet paint onto canvas" has got to be good :)

As some of you may have guessed, these are finger paintings.  I didn't really plan anything in advance.  I didn't draw it out on the canvas or make practice sketches.  I knew that I wanted to do a skull, a witch, and a spider, and I had an idea of how I wanted them to look, but time was short and I just poured a handful of paynes grey onto the canvas, added a few handfuls of water, smeared it everywhere, and then used my fingers to wipe off the paint.  My kids, and my guests loved  the paintings so I was pleased.

I also made these day of the dead pens for my guests to use for keeping score and for favors that they could take home with them.

This project was also very paint reliant.  I painted plain mini skulls to be day of the dead sugar skulls, covered the pens in black ribbon, and then added some fake flowers around the head to cover the joined areas.

My last really crafty project for the party was making these black dripped glasses.  What's better than sangria served out of a cauldron with eye balls floating in your beverage; getting to drink the sangria out of a spooky black dripped plastic champagne flute.

My other decorative accents were pretty easy to do.  Sometimes simple is more effective.  People got a real kick out of my party crashing witch, and she was made using paper towel rolls, a pair of my socks and shoes, and plastic bags for stuffing.

The mini graveyard was easy and cheap, and it looked great surrounded by all the food.

Madam Leota was also easy and fun.  I just cut out a picture of her from a downloadable Halloween party invitation, put the picture in a glass globe, and put a flashing colored pumpkin light behind the cutout.  The effect was great for the price and she made a wonderful accent to the grape tray :)

And lastly, I had to put something funny in the bathroom.

I hope that some of these ideas or printables can help you haunt your house or party.  I have a few more Halloween and October themed crafts in the works that I I'll hopefully also post soon.

I'd also love to know what everyone else is doing for Halloween.  What's your favorite tradition?