This year my kids wanted to do a witch’s apothecary/spell prep mantel.

Here is Broom Hilda’s “Little Book of Big Spells”, the candelabra she uses for her conjuring, and some of her ingredients namely Skull of Dwarf and Shadow Spiders.

Here are some more of her ingredients.

Eye of Newt, Blood of Troll, Bile of Dragon, and Gall of Griffin.

The kids had a blast coming up with all the different ingredients and helping me put everything together.  Most of the time this blog is my thing and I like it that way (I need it that way, for my sanity) but sometimes it is this wonderous tool that brings my kids and me together and journals our escapades.  I am grateful and blessed to live in an age that will allow my great-great grandchildren to have such a good record of our lives.

Decoupage Pumpkins

Halloween Mantel 

Halloween Tablescape

Eyeball Soup 

I’m in the middle of several projects, none of wich are finished and ready for posting.  So, since I am starting to think about Halloween decorating, I thought I’d share some posts from Halloween’s past.  Hope I’ve help put you in s “spooktacular” mood!

     As we are getting ready for trick or treating I was feeling reminiscent for Halloweens past.  I dug up some pictures from the last few years.  Above is a picture for two years ago.

     This picture was taken last year.  My older kids were trick or treating with their dad  so I didn’t get a pre-trick or treating picture of them.

     This picture was taken a few minutes ago.  My older kids are with us this year but (sniffle, sniffle, sob) they say they are too old to trick or treat this year.  Guess I can’t keep them little forever, I have to enjoy them while I can.   So on that note, I’m going to go make some memories with my kids now.  Happy Halloween!  Hope you all have a spooktacular evening!

     Of course I had to make a Halloween mood board.  If you want to see any of the items closer or get shopping information click here, I promise Olioboard is all treats with no tricks.  Happy Halloween!

     It took me most of October to decorate the outside of my home for Halloween (even with the kids helping).  I kept having to stop decorating because of bad weather or to work on ceiling repairs and painting in my family room.  But it’s done and it came in on budget ($15).

     I have had the haunted house for years.  The spiders and webs were leftover from last year, I was given the pumpkin and we made the ghost.  I used cheesecloth and starch to make the ghost.  There are tons of tutorials out there on how to make these ghosts so I am not going to do one here but I do want to say I’ve tried a lot of the different methods of stiffening the cheesecloth and have found that the starch works best. 

     Making this web was a much bigger project than I first thought.  I decided to do it on a whim and started putting it up and it didn’t look right.  I had to take everything down and turn to the internet for help.  I checked out several sites and then tried again.  I’m still not wild about the way it turned out but it’ll do. 

     I made this wreath.  I bought the wreath at Hobby Lobby for my Fall porch but didn’t like it much and didn’t end up using it.  I thought it might have to go into my donation pile but one day I was in Target and saw a wreath that inspired me to make this.  All I had to do is spray paint the wreath black and hot glue these little bats on.  Easy peasy and half the price as the one in Target.

     I reused the hay bale from my Fall porchscape.  Most of the money in this Halloween porchscape was to buy these pumpkins.  We had more black spray painted pumpkins but there were rotting and got tossed in the trash.  I think that the kids dropped them when we were spray painting them. 

 Bones here is an old friend who likes to hang out with us this time of year.

     This wreath was one of the first decorations I bought after I married Handy Hubby so it has a lot of sentimental value.

     One last picture at twilight to show the lights.  That’s about it.  We will carve our pumpkins Sunday and light them and add them to the front porch on Halloween.   Happy Halloween!