31 Days of Halloween

Well, I had this bright idea of having my own "31 Days of Halloween" and my husband didn't even disagree with it! A different Halloween show/movie every night. I want to do some Halloween/fall things to, but not necessarily every night. So on the first night, we had homemade vegetable soup in the crock pot and caramel apples. I made hot chocolate to drink while we watched Hocus Pocus....my husband fell asleep before the movie was halfway over! The second night we watched The 'Burbs and we both fell asleep...it took us 4 nights to get that movie watched! I watched Monster House with my nephew on the way to a reunion on Saturday. Sunday I spent the day taking pics and visiting with my sister and my new niece. I have a new movie coming tonight and thinking I'll do a Pumpkin Pie. Here are a few of my favorite Halloween movies. I subscribed to Netflix and I have way more than 31 on the list:

1. The Great Pumpkin/Charlie Brown

2. Monster House

3. Hocus Pocus

4. Frankenweenie (the old one--can't wait to see the new one!)

5. Nightmare before Christmas

6. Young Frankenstein

7. Ghostbusters

8. Edward Scissorhands

9. Beetlejuice

I will watch some scary ones, but I really prefer the fun ones, especially Tim Burton stuff!

Some fun ideas for Halloween/fall:

*Hayride

*Haunted House

*Caramel Apples

*Pick out/plan Halloween Costumes

*Sunday Drive to look at and/or photograph fall foliage

*Visit a Pumpkin Patch

*Bake a Pumpkin Pie

*Roast Hot dogs

*Roast Marshmallows & make smores

*Make Popcorn balls

*Make popcorn & watch an old scary movie (The Blob, anyone?)

*Tell Scary stories around a bonfire

*Decorate your porch or yard for Fall or Halloween

*Visit a store and try on masks

*Make your favorite soup in the crock pot (ours is potato soup) when it starts to get cool

*Paint each other's faces

*Melt caramel in crock pot and have apples ready to dip with extras to dip them in after the carmel (mini chocolate chips, nuts, crushed candy corn, pistachios would be soooo good)

Baby shower tables

Here are some ideas for baby shower tables (or for any party, wedding reception, etc):

*Cover used, clean tin cans with scrapbooking paper (or fabric, newspaper, etc)

*Save glass jars for candles

*Put flowers from your garden in cans and/or jars

*Use scraps of fabric, burlap, etc. as runners on table to add color

*Print old photos to scatter on table

*Use brightly colored, old school candies in old glasses (I used lollipops and pixie sticks)

And this was my favorite idea....actually didn't even need pinterest for this one. haha! I picked out the perfect branch and carried it around in my truck for 2 weeks just so it would be dry!! I hung photos from twine and hung some fabric owls I made. I hung the whole branch from the ceiling with twine. The banner is made from scrapbook paper and decorative tape.

To make these, stick a paper straw in a marshmallow (wish I had gotten the huge ones) and stick in the freezer for a few minutes. Dip in melted white chocolate, then in sprinkles, colored sugar or toasted coconut.

Wishes for Baby

This table was so much fun to do! I brought all kinds of stuff from my house to decorate with...I used an antique table cloth (over one that was already there), an old doll chair, an antique folding chair I painted, some of my cloth owls, a painting of owls, paper covered cans, jars of candy, old photos, etc. I made some "wishes for baby" papers for people to fill out and put into the bucket in the back and had a place for everyone to sign in. I REALLY wanted to read all the wishes for baby, but I didn't! My sister said she read them and they made her cry.

I designed those wishes for baby notepads on the computer and ordered them online. 

And these are my sister's first "babies". They are in a cradle our cousin's husband made for her waaaaay back when with an owl I made from her nursery fabrics and a blanket knitted by a friend of mine.

Baby shower decorating ideas

I found this CUTE  idea on pinterest too! I hung a piece of twine as a "clothesline" and hung some onesies with clothespins I painted pink & teal. Wish I had taken a close up of the clothespins. They were easy to make and so cute! The ones that I didn't use I put in an old gallon jar for decorations. Little Oakley really liked this clothesline. I can't count how many times he pulled it down, along with the "It's a Girl" sign below. I made the letters on the computer, printed and cut them all out, then strung them on some twine.

Fancy Water bottles

This is another idea I found on pinterest...we bought pretty duck tape (found in the craft department) and wrapped around some water bottles. We filled a galvanized tub with ice and put them in it along with a tub full of juice boxes beside it for the little ones. You can't see it in the picture, but we filled a punch bowl with some crushed ice, Milos tea and some orange slices.

Sissy's bath time

I caught Sissy cleaning her paws and couldn't resist some photos of her....I think she had no clue I was even there. haha!!

Cupcakes

These are our cupcakes for the baby shower. So cute!! We did 2 different kinds--the owl ones are chocolate with pink cream cheese icing. For the face, we put 2 oreo cookies, brown reeses pieces for centers of the eyes and an orange one turned on its side for the beak. We bought cute little brown and white polka dot liners for them and I just now noticed we didn't use them!!

For the Key lime cupcakes, I kind of cheated....I bought a lemon cake mix and added food color to it. No one knew, even my sister said she liked the key lime cupcakes! The icing on those is tinted cream cheese icing and we added a lime slice to some for some color.

The display is something my sister's brother-in-law made. It kind of looked like a set of steps. He made it rustic for his son's first birthday, so we laid some pretty tissue paper over it. Both kinds of cupcakes were a big hit! If you have a little boy party or shower, I think the owls would be cute with teal icing. I would love to hear if any of you try these!