Tombstone Cupcakes

It is no secret that I am totally into The Walking Dead.

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you are probably aware of this.

So it should come as no surprise that I was compelled to make a little something for the season finale. (And what a finale it was! I have so many questions!)

I considered waiting until October to share this since it's unlikely anyone will be throwing parties which require tombstone cupcakes before then, but hey, you know know. I won't judge.

For the tombstones, I frosted Milano cookies with gray frosting. My store didn't have black food coloring, and I was doubtful that red, yellow, blue, and green could make gray. But it did! I tried out a few recommended mixes that I found on the interwebs, and this was the winning combo for me:

I frosted the top 2/3 of each cookie, front and back, before I stuck it back into the cupcake. I used a knife to gently pushed down on the top of the cookie without messing up the frosting.

The wrote the names of the dearly departed Walking Dead characters on each cookie, and finally added "lawn" around the bottom of the tombstones using Coconut Pecan frosting mixed with green food coloring.

I think they turned out pretty cute! I'll be working on applying smooth frosting while I wait for season 5 to begin...

Last minute costume: Dinosaurs

I don't have children (or even someone else's children) to make costumes for, so I didn't intend to create a costume tutorial. I have to admit that I'm only sharing this because it required B to dress up and pose for me.

I giggled the whole time I was taking photos.

It was so worth it.

Of course, if you'd prefer to hear about how I made these for cute kids to wear trick-or-treating, we can go with that. What I will say is that no matter who they were intended for, they were really simple to make in just a few hours, with just a single trip to the store.

I know this is probably not the first DIY dinosaur costume you've ever seen, but this one will not make you resemble a lamprey like some other dino-costumes might. Just sayin'.

For T-rex, all you really need is a green hoodie, felt, stuffing, cardboard and paint. That's it! And you might even have some of those items on hand. Lucky you, craft hoarder!

You can enlist your talented friend to help with sewing (thanks, Melissa!) if you wish, but I wouldn't hesitate to whip out my trusty glue gun for this either. How fun are the claws? Rahhhr!

Next up, pterodactyl! 

 

For the pterodactyl, add a green umbrella to the mix. This was the hardest thing to find. And by hard, I mean not that hard since I already told you we bought everything at one store. Those dangling feet on the front are just the best thing ever.

 

 

Is B a good sport or what?!

The best part of these costumes is that they are self-contained and easy to move in. That is helpful for trick-or-treating children and partying adults alike.

So there ya go. You can procrastinate and still knock out a fun costume in one day.

What's the best last minute costume you've come up with? My husband gets a million bonus points for rocking these costumes for me, right?

Printable Halloween Mantel

I'm quickly learning that a blogger must live slightly in the future at all times.

For a born procrastinator like myself, that is a little baffling. I feel like in the past walking into stores with Halloween décor made me roll my eyes and think "ugh, it's too early! It's still September!"

But I suddenly find myself preparing to decorate for Halloween.

In September.

Me, the procrastinator.

And if I'm being perfectly honest, I even started planning three weeks ago. In August.

So without further ado (because by the time you read this I'll probably be pinning Christmas inspiration), here is my Halloween mantel.

I started with the idea of adding a collection of "spooky" prints. I basically searched The Graphic Fairy and the New York Public Library Digital Gallery for anything that included the following:

Skeletons
Skulls
Brains
Rats
Snakes
Spiders
Rats
Bats

I printed my favorites either as-is or after layering them on a parchment paper background which I found here.

I framed them using a bunch of old clip frames from Ikea I had leftover from a project. I was tempted to purchase new black frames, but I decided to work with what I had.

Next, I spray painted some sconces I had on hand a glossy black and then made bleeding candles to go in them. (You've probably seen tutorials using red candles. I used crayons!)

 

I reused some items on the display from last year and purchased a few new pieces for under $10 bucks from the dollar store and a little more for some small white pumpkins and kobucha squash at the grocery store.

Here it is at night.

So, is it spoooky? Have you started decorating for Halloween yet? Too early?

Linking up to the It's Fall, Y'all party with Thrifty Décor Chick and Remodelaholics Anonymous with Remodelaholic.

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?

Moonrise Kingdom

Have you seen the new Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom? So fun!

 Is your head swirling with all the halloween costume possibilities yet? I know, it's a tad early for such thoughts. But every character in the cast would be a gem! I'm clearly not the only one to think this. Over on polyvore, I found this:

Suzy Bishop by peachmilk

Obviously, Suzy Bishop is the new Margot Tenenbaum. Adorable. There were quite a few cute little Sam Shakusky collages too, but mostly for young boys. But what if I want to be Sam? I didn't see much for that. So I made one:

Sam Shakusky - Moonrise Kingdom by cecibeanblog

And then I had so much fun with that, I made one for the narrator (Although I briefly considered just appropriating someone else's garden gnome outfit, but those were too... we'll say whimsical.)

Moonrise Kingdom- Narrator by cecibeanblog

And then I did one for Mr. Bishop, Bill Murray's character, for good measure. I'm not sure I could, um, pull this off in public. I'm pretty sure I have inadvertently sported this costume around the house though. Is that weird? Maybe don't answer that.

Moonrise Kingdom - Suzy Bishop's father by cecibeanblog 

Here's an interesting little article about how the costume designer created the looks with Wes Anderson.

So, will you and a dozen of your closest friends be dressing as a Moonrise Kingdom character come October?