Ghoulish Gothic Halloween

I just had to share this Halloween party mash up from Better Homes and Gardens. I love how it mixes up the usual black and orange, into a strangely eerie black and sickly neon greens. It's halloween all right, but a nice change if you're looking for something a little different or a little less pumpkin-y for your ghoulish feast.












Get more over on Better Homes and Gardens.

Deadly DIY - Faux Mercury Glass Pumpkins

Fall is really and truly here, and I celebrated today by doing one of my favorite fall activities: apple picking! We went out to an orchard and picked crisp fall apples, ate too much wild rice soup, drank too much apple cider (as if there is such a thing) and picked out some pumpkins.

We got a truly glorious pumpkin specimen from a local grower that would have cost us at least an arm, maybe a leg and a half, at our local grocery store. It made me appreciate how nice real pumpkins are and how crappy some of the local ones can be. Most of the time I go for fake punkins, just because they're shaped so much nicer. Still, faux orange plastic pumpkin doesn't exactly instill the chills of Halloween proper, does it? So here's a way to take your plastic pumpkins and make them shine... literally!



Get the full tute over on the DIY showoff (scroll down a bit), and give your pumpkins and elegant, spooky shine.

The Invitations...

Today is officially the first day of fall, and you know what that means... it's time to send out invitations! I've been working on mine a little bit each night. I designed the front and inside, printed it out on colored paper, and tore each out. I'm hand stamping the envelopes and sealing them with some fun Halloween metal stickers. They're not done of course, but what do you think?


If you want to make one of your own, just download this image and print it on some spooky colored paper. Enjoy!

A Nevermore Halloween...

Check out this cute "adults" party, an Edgar Allen Poe themed Halloween party! I love the bookish theme throughout, something about old books is just too perfect for Halloween. Combine it with Poe and a few ravens... magnifique!

Get more details and images over on Midwest Living.

Lovin' me some Love Manor

Just found this on flickr today...
Check out the amazing Halloween gallery that Love Manor cooked up for last year's Halloween...







Love Manor has a website, which is down right now, but promises more goodies for the 2009 year. To keep you busy until it's up, check out their gallery on goodies, or printable labels. Great stuff!

Semi Nutritious Ghoulish Goodies

As well as ponderings over the perfect decorations, I'm also starting to give some serious thought onto goodies for my ghoul guests. Sure, anyone can go with candy, but how many of us have seriously regretted dining on a Halloween buffet made entirely of sugar?
Candy is of course required, but how about what we dare call... some "real food". Well, the Food Network has us covered with some yummy goodies that might actually have some real nutrients in them too. Click on each pic to get the recipe...

MMmm... vampire blood tomato soup with Munster sammies. Omnomnom.

Cheddar and Hard Cider Fondue... served with real veggies! A hot treat is great for casting off the nightly chills...

Sweet and Spicy Screaming Hot peanuts... for the little Devil in ya..

Day of the Dead Tamales... vegetarian, for the zombie that cares...

Ghostly Pumpkin Pudding, for a little spooky sweet...

I have no doubts I'll still get my sugar rush Halloween night, but there will come a point in the evening I'll be looking for something that didn't come out of a bag, and these recipes are there to the rescue. Your ghoulish guests will appreciate it!

A Country Halloween

It's September, and in my eyes officially fall! I pranced over to Michael's store and bought some apothecary jars and lots of mallow pumpkins to liven up my buffet table, and am now happily watching Sleepy Hollow and ogling over Johnny Depp. Let the season begin!


Very much like my refusal to admit in public I'm a deep fan of Martha Stewart (but only when Halloween is involved) I am also as unlikely to admit that I'm quite fond of Country Living. They did a fabulous lineup of vintage images I featured before, but that's not all they have up their sleeves. They have a whole host of delectable images and ideas that make me think maybe country bumpkins know something I don't. These images just make me want to run away to a house in the woods as soon as the fall air arrives...












They have a variety of tutorials and templates you can try out to achieve some of these darling effects. Get all the ghoulish details over on the webpage.

Halloween Houskeeping

Good Housekeeping has a pretty nice gallery of Halloween decor ideas over on their site. Simple, classic and always in style. There's some pretty good stuff over there. Check out some of their great ideas...






See the full gallery of Halloween Magic over at Good Housekeeping.

Martha Stewart Halloween Edition

I may try my darndest to resist the mindless sheep following, but I admit I am a total sucker for Martha Stewart Halloween stuff. I spend ages at the Halloween section on their page, and get all googly eyed at the special Halloween editions. My supervisor, also a Halloween nut, was awesome enough to pick me up a copy of this when he saw it in stores...


Lookit! New shiny edition of Halloweeny-ness!

Among Halloweeny craftiness, there are also a number of large full page ads for grandin road, the carrier of this years Martha Stewart's halloween line. If you've ever flipped through previous Martha Halloween editions, there is a disappointingly high number of familiar projects, but they're still pretty and there's enough new stuff sprinkled about to make it worth while. I particularly love the victorian-esque nature of a lot of this years costume ideas. You'll have to get the mag to see all the pretty pics, but here's a peek at some of the goodies featured over at grandin road...











there are other Halloween goodies over there, you'll just have to head on over to check it out.