Halloween Decor on the Mantel

Two posts in one day! Why the heck not?

With the exception of Christmas, I don't really decorate for holidays.

I find, and I think you'll agree, that holiday decor easily veers off into "cute" and/or "tacky" territory pretty quickly. And, if I haven't mentioned before, we live in a very small (under 800 sq ft) house, so even if I was way into decorations, I don't think we'd have the room to store much. With that said, I decided this year I was going to do some decorating for Halloween, Ceci style.

How'd I do? Too busy? Not scary enough? It's probably both, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

I didn't want to buy a bunch of new things I could only use for a few weeks per year. (Because of the aforementioned lack of storage space, but also because there are too many other things I would rather spend money on.) In the end, I think I spent 3 dollars. A buck each for the birds, and a buck for 2 little white pumpkins. Everything else was from around the house. I just picked up items that were either spooky, had interesting texture, or were fall colored. I don't use a lot of bold color, so fall colored ended up being pretty neutral.

I used:

• 2 old books
• 2 decorative balls similar to these from Pier 1 (they look a little brain or worm like, no?)
• 3 bottles from the kitchen (with free printed labels found here)
• 2 mercury votives similar to these from West Elm
• a beaver skull and a raccoon skull (what? you don't have these lyin' around in your house?)
• 2 vases turned upside down covered in cloth napkins for the skull stands
• a vase filled with seeds pods, cinnamon sticks, and wheat
• 3 candles in orange and white
• a vase wrapped in rope and filled with a bunch of corks I've hoarded collected
• a woven basket/bowl
• faux birds
• mini pumpkins
• spooky branches

And it looks pretty good at night with the candles lit too.

It was fun. And since the pumpkins won't last forever, I've only added 2 little fake birds to my stash. Not too bad. Might have to change it out for a general Autumn look soon.

 

Do you decorate for seasons? Do you have animal skulls lying around the house?

Super baby shark

It's been a while, hasn't it? Oh well, moving on...

 

 

When my friend A and I were in high school, we were a bit weird.

 

Not bullied, but not necessarily cool either. We had enough friends and social events to keep from feeling like total losers, but we also had a bit of freedom to do things really cool kids can't get away with.

 

One example of this was how we altered our P.E. uniforms. I'm not sure what other schools provide or require, but our were double sided t-shirts (essentially a navy t-shirt sewn to a white t-shirt) which allowed us to easily switch shirt colors to play team games during P.E. 

 

Anyway, it must have been around sophomore year when we realized that armed with nothing more than a pair of scissors, we could make our P.E. shirts into costumes. If you can imagine it, we took the seaming out that connected the navy shirt to the white shirt, leaving the hem intact only at the back of the neck. Then it was just a matter of flipping the navy shirt out through the neckhole and

ta-da, we had capes. Yes, capes. In high school P.E. We took is a step further making wristbands and masks out of the navy shirt sleeves.

 

I know you're thinking we must have gotten stuffed in a locker for such geekiness.

 

Or at least in trouble with the P.E. teacher?

 

But no, we just giggled our way through that class with our newly fashioned costumes. It was pretty awesome. I have lots of great memories of hanging out with A, but that's always one of my favorites.

 

Now A is days away from giving birth to her first baby and she lives on the other side of the country. She has chosen not to learn the sex ahead of time, as many women do, and has taken to calling her little one Baby Shark.

 

Since many of her friends and family are still over on the West Coast, she's asked folks to send a scrap of fabric to represent them so she can introduce Baby Shark to everyone even when they aren't present. It's a sweet idea and I was trying hard to come up with what scrap to send.

 

I wanted to send a scrap from my old P.E. shirt.

 

But, since it's long gone, I decided Baby Shark needed his/her own P.E. shirt costume.

 

Seeing as how it is just one day until Halloween, it seemed appropriate to share this little project. All it took was a onesie, an old (or new) t-shirt, and whatever else you want to put on it. I went with the shark theme, obviously.

As you can see, I included a mask made from the sleeve, although a fully realize babies probably don't like masks. Whatever. It's part of the kit. And no gift is complete without pretty packaging.

Or as pretty as I can manage. What I lack in calligraphy skills, I make up for in shiny ink.

 

Have you ever made a baby costume? Have you ever worn a cape to P.E. class? Do tell.