Halloween 2013

Well, another Halloween has come and gone and this year was even better than last. Our new neighbourhood is a lot more child friendly than our previous one! We had tons of kids come by, and Halle enjoyed trick or treating with a couple of her little friends. B said by the time they were visiting the last few houses she was running up to the door, knowing she was going to get more treats. At each house she would say "Teet peeze!"... we'll work more on "Trick or Treat" for next year. She came home with a loaded bucket and a big smile on her face, and she scarfed down a bag of chips before bed (her favourite treat). 

As for her costume, this year she had asked to be a bee, so I decided to make her a little costume. I used this tutorial to make her a little dress, and it worked out perfectly. Underneath it she wore a pair of black stretchy pants and long sleeved yellow t-shirt. I ended up putting a black jacket over her for trick or treating and her wings over the jacket. The wings we bought at Jo-Ann and the antenna are from a dress up costume that B's Mom brought for her. It came together great and we all loved it...

{B was still feeling pretty excited after the Sox big win on Wednesday night!}

We both love how she wraps her little arm around our necks for photos. It's totally unprovoked!

It's also hard to believe that this is her THIRD Halloween!

I hope you all had a safe and memorable Halloween this year! We sure did! I know this week was quiet, but I've been working away on some changes in Halle's room and B was away for a week (he got back on Tuesday), so I was solo parenting which kept me busy. Hoping to share Halle's bedroom updates early next week, and possibly even a look at our new dining room table! So excited!

Happy November & Happy Weekend! What do you have planned for this weekend to ring in the new month?

Cobwebs, Witches & Ghosts

We are now 9 days away from Halloween. Though it has never been one of my favourite days of the year, having B and Halle around has really changed how I prepare and celebrate.   For one, B and I started collecting Halloween decorations together after our first October 31st in Toronto. Our collection is growing slowly but we do have fun putting things together for the big day. If you want to take a peek at how we decorated the rental last Halloween, you can read about it here. Today, I want to share how we decorated our house for Halloween this year... 

This little sign (and the orange Halloween lights that border our front door) all came from Home Depot last year, but they are still selling them.

I made these bats in different sizes using this template that I found on Pinterest, and some heavy duty black construction paper that we bought at Jo-Ann. We'd seen some Martha Stewart Craft bats that were $12 - our $1.99 construction paper bats are far more economical! 

The bats are taped inside of the window, and we plan to use our strobe light from Home Depot in this window - I think it will be a fun effect to have with the bats. 

Cotton spiderwebs are kind of our go-to thing around here. B loves them, and they are so inexpensive and easy to put up. We usually reuse ours for more than one year as well.

I adore these ghost lights that we bought at Target last year! So cute, and I hope to buy more this year when Halloween stuff goes on sale, so they can border our entire garden out front!

I can't remember for certain where we got this creepy witch from, but I want to say HomeSense. I'd never really looked really closely at it until I was taking these pictures (B bought it last year after Halloween), and this thing REALLY creeps me out. I mean seriously. It's one of those things that when I was a kid I would have been very wary of when I was walking up to a house.

We picked up three pumpkins this past weekend at the way-to-busy pumpkin patch. None of us enjoyed it as much as we did last year, but I am looking forward to coming up with a design and carving them! The two smaller pumpkins in our lanterns we bought for Halle at Granville Island the other week. She was so excited when she saw them and I couldn't pass them by - I just knew they would be perfect in those lanterns by the door! 

Our skull candle holder - our very first Halloween decoration that we purchased together at HomeSense. We've had the same red candle in it since then and we may just keep it that way! It's really quite fun, and the sidelight is the perfect spot to place it. A black sparkly ghost hangs overhead, but it won't be visible until Halloween night. We plan to hang a white sheet behind behind them in the window so they stand out a little better.

So there you have it - a look at our 2013 Halloween decorations. Do you decorate for Halloween? Have you started? What are some of your favourite ideas for Halloween decorating?

A Week Later...

... I decided I would make a quick post with a few photos from Halloween. Last Wednesday was Halle's second Halloween. It was also the first time she experienced trick-or-treating.

We brought her around to about 4 houses in our neighbourhood, and the lovely couple next door was even sweet enough to get her some very special treats that were appropriate for her to eat, and let me tell you, she loved them!

I think I could dress her in that elephant costume ever single day. When she walked the little tail in the back would wag back and forth and it was seriously cuteness overload. We were lucky that B got her to leave the little hood on for trick-or-treating, and these few photos - she really hated it. Bonus that it was a nice warm Carter's costume that we snagged for $12 at Costco back in August.

Ah, she's getting so big, and I'm loving every single second of watching her grow. She makes me laugh every day, and she is just the sweetest. She seems to have endless hugs, cuddles and kisses... especially for her Mama.

I'm slowly catching up on blogs, and may reach everyone's Halloween posts by Valentine's Day. Between my Etsy shop, and all of the fun stuff Halle and I get up to these days... there isn't a whole lot of time for blog reading... I'm lucky I find time to throw some posts like this together...

Just Squeaking In

We're only a couple of days away, and I'm finally ready to share our Halloween decorating with you. We usually keep the holiday pretty simple, and this year we kept our decorating to just the outdoors. While we have had just a couple of pieces to decorate in the past, this year The Home Depot helped out and sent us some great pieces to help make Halloween a little more spooky around these parts. I'll start by sharing a look at our outdoor decor (daytime) and give you the run down on what we have...

Pretty much all of our decorating was completed yesterday, and I love this lawn stake sent to us by The Home Depot and Environics PR. It's got the right amount of spooky, with a little bit of fun thrown in as well. The best part, is if you'd like to pick one up for yourself before Wednesday, you can grab them for under $10! 

By the front door we added a bunch of our spider webs which we've had for a few years now. I love the way we were able to frame the entire doorway with them, and there is even one on the inside of the window next to the door. I told B I'm going to have a hard time distinguishing the real spiders from the fake one's hiding in our webs. 

We also added some ghost stake lights to the empty strip of garden next to our walkway. We picked those up at Target during our last visit to Seattle for $15. We figure we'll get some good use out of them in the years to come.

Our five pumpkins that we picked up over Thanksgiving weekend, are hanging out by the front door. We've had every intention to paint or carve all of them, but so much as been happening that I've only had a chance to tackle the one for Halle. I painted it with two coats of chalkboard paint, and then used a gold paint pen to create the polka dots and free handed "h". I love how it turned out, and I hope I can get paint at least one more before the big day! The wooden crate that they are sitting on also came in The Home Depot's Halloween package, and as soon as I saw it, I knew it would be the perfect way to add some height to our pumpkin collection since we don't actually have any front steps.

This scarecrow also came from The Home Depot. I wish we had, had a chance to use her longer, and we had hoped to grab a couple of bails of hay to place around her, to make it look like she was sitting on something but time just slipped away from us. For now, she's just hanging out in the empty garden bed in front of our dining room bay window. We think she's pretty cute, and to be honest, once it's dark, her six foot figure looms in the darkness making it look like someone is standing in our garden bed, which is pretty creepy.

To get the full effect of our decorating though, I headed back outside with my camera and tripod in the evening and snapped a few more photos...

{Ignore our relatively empty dining room. I'll have to remember to close the curtains on Halloween night}

Once it gets dark, it's much easier to see some of our favourite items that came from The Home Depot. In the bottom left hand of the above photo, you'll see our little orange glowing tree. These ten feet of mini lights were perfect to light up our walkway, and if you want to grab some of your own... they'll cost you under $5! Yes, there is still time to run out and grab some before Halloween!

You'll also notice a blue hue in our one dining room window, and reflecting off the garage window. In our package, we also received a fun little strobe light. I placed it in our dining room and B and I had a ton of fun playing around with how fast we can make the lights flash. Again, this is a great item to pick up - it's small and under $3! Perfect for those decorating on a budget!

For fun, a few more night shots for you...

I love the atmosphere cast over our home for Halloween. Every year decorating get's a little more fun, so I'd like to say a big, huge THANK YOU to The Home Depot and Environics, for helping make this year that much better. I know that Halle will get a kick out of each of those items in future years as well.

Are you ready for Halloween? Did you go to any costume parties this weekend? I'd love to hear what everyone else got up to this weekend - B and I had a pretty quiet one around here, so we'd love to live through your weekends!

Inquiring Minds Want to Know...

... what Halle was for Halloween. At least that's what I'm telling myself. While she didn't get "out" on Halloween, she got to wear her costume for her Grandpa's surprise party this past Saturday in Massachusetts, and again today for our final Mommy Connections class (which is where I snapped these photos of her)...

I may be a little biased, but I think she is the cutest little lady bug ever! 

I'll be back tomorrow with some non-baby related content... I promise! Hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween (yesterday)!

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all had a spook-tacular weekend! We sure did! As you read this we are on our way home from a great weekend of visiting with B's family, and celebrating his Dad's birthday.

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We were so thrilled to bring Halle back to where B grew up and went to school, and meet so many family members and friends. It was also my parents first trip to the Boston area, and overall we are all so thrilled with how the weekend went. Now we're headed home, ready to put Halle into her costume once again, and hand out some candy to whatever little kiddos knock on our door!

I hope to be around more this week with some details of our road trip, some updates on our living room refresh, and more decisions that we have made for the bathroom.

Happy Halloween friends!

Getting in the Spirit!

I'm putting it out there - I've never been much of a Halloween fan. When I was a kid it was fun to dress up and run around the neighbourhood to collect candy. Once those days were behind me, I enjoyed carving pumpkins and handing out candy to the kids, but that was where my enthusiasm ended. Notice how I left out Halloween decorations? 


Now here I am, living with a big Halloween fan (B) and a baby. Suddenly, the whole thing seems a lot more exciting (especially the excitement of Halloween's to come when Halle finally understand's it), and I'm finally ready to get into the "holiday spirit", if you will. 


Since B and I moved into our home in 2009, we've acquired a few small decorations that I deemed acceptable and not overly cheesy. So, this past weekend while I added to our fall decor, I decided to add some Halloween decorations to the mix as well. Here's how the house is looking today....

Nothing overly exciting in the front entrance. A skull candle holder that we picked up at HomeSense our first year in the home. I sat it on top of two stacked books that struck me as Halloween appropriate (idea taken from Young House Love - Thanks Sherry!). The pumpkin was given to us by B's parents when they were visiting last week. The final touch was removing the little pink candle and replacing it with this orange one. Easy and free little Halloween table! Love it!

We have some mini gravestones that B made last year, and some gauzy cobwebs to put up, but with all if the rain we've been having recently, we've had no time to get them up outside. I'll probably have to share those photos after the big day!

Our Autumn mantel also got a few small additions...

The little bunting that I made last year made it a bit more fun, and I was also finally able to add a photo into our new frame! Our prints from our photographer arrived on Friday and I l-o-v-e LOVE them! Still looking for the perfect branches to put into my pitcher that is hiding out behind the red lantern. The mantel could definitely use the height and fullness. 

As the years go by, I hope we can add some more fun Halloween decorations to our collection, that will make the season and big day that much more exciting for our little munchkin. With that in mind, I've been collecting some Halloween inspiration over on Pinterest...

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How cute are these glowing ghosts? So easy to do too! They are made from tomato cages, with Christmas lights strung inside of them and white sheets draped over top! Genius!

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Cute eyeball and feather wreath! Great fun way to decorate your front steps without going too cheesy! 

If you are looking for something a little more classy - maybe for a party, these Halloween flower arrangements from One Charming Party are absolutely perfect - don't you agree?

Are you a big Halloween fan? Do you get excited about decorating for the big day - or do you keep it low key? I'd love to hear what you do (or don't do) to decorate and celebrate for the holiday!

Our Final Pumpkins

Halloween has come and gone. We had nowhere near as many trick or treaters as we would have liked, but we also expected very few after talking to our neighbours. We seriously waited until the last minute and found ourselves carving our pumpkins yesterday morning. B with his native american art inspired piece and myself looking for something more pretty. Well, I never came up with an idea I was happy with for my larger pumpkin, so instead ended up just working on my smaller white pumpkin that I meant to do something with for Thanksgiving. My larger pumpkin was left in it's original state sitting by the bottom step of our front porch.

Overall - nothing fancy, but was happy with how our front entrance turned out. One little boy even told B "ooooh it's SCARY" when B opened the door for him. I can happily say we both enjoyed our first Halloween in our house! Hope everyone else enjoyed their Halloween as well!

My pumpkin with the candle holder B picked out from HomeSense. The red candle we just happened to have from a gift given to B by his grandmother. Worked well on our little table!

B's pumpkin. He sent me the design he liked on Friday and I resized and printed it to fit his pumpkin. I think he did a pretty great job. If we'd had more time he could've done more detail - but I think it turned out pretty great.

The Search for the Perfect Pumpkin

I'll start by saying, Halloween has never really been my holiday. I've never really had fun dressing up and I found the emptying and carving of pumpkins more work than it's worth! However, every year I get into it and have spent hours upon hours creating and sewing together costumes (never in my life have I store bought... by 13 I was sewing my own costumes!), and finding the perfect pumpkin pattern. I figure, if I'm going to do it - I might as well make it worth it!

Well, as usual, this year I've left all of it until the last minute. Alright... it's a little more extreme this year since it's two days before the big days and we have NO IDEAS for costumes OR pumpkins. So today I have spent a great deal of time hunting down the perfect pattern for the pumpkin I hope to be carving tonight.

Last year B and I decided to show our love of our sports teams and B's dog, with the designs you see below...


They may have their problems - but I'll always love my Leafs!

B is a true blue Red Sox fan. A little girl who saw it even brought her Dad back to see the pumpkin, and he knocked on the door to compliment us on it!

Yes... even the dog got a pumpkin of her own...

So, this year I recommended to B that he uses his pumpkin to showcase his love of Native America artwork and he took to the idea. I, on the other hand, have turned to my love of all things pretty. Below is some inspiration I came across online today. I'm leaning towards the idea of a lacy looking pumpkin, but it'll come down to the amount of motivation and time I have on my hands once I get to carving. The latern pumpkins are really cute too - but I don't know how well my painting would turn out! Regardless of what I end up doing, I'll be sure to share the final products with everyone...