Halloween week

 

 

So last week was an eventful one at work. We had a pumpkin contest going on, which involved most of the office in designing a pumpkin using one of our coworkers as a muse. We drew names at the beginning of October, and I happened to draw Ward, who was the creator of the contest, and a serious Disney enthusiast. He and I are pictured above for my 2nd place win with the Mickey Vinylmation pumpkin I designed for him (much easier to think up than actually make, I have to say).

 

So everyone brought in their pumpkins on Wednesday, we had voting on Halloween with the 1st-3rd place winners announced during our potluck. Then we had a costume contest, which I won. (First time in my life I've ever won a costume contest. I think I'm starting to like contests.) Other costumes included a scarecrow, a panda, a cat, two pirates, a karate instructor, Clark Kent, a fisherman, and a Raider. And here were the 1st and 3rd place winners for the pumpkin contest:

 

3rd place 

1st place

 

 

P.S. As a side note, I was hoping to have the next part of my short story at the end of last month, but Halloween threw me off, so look for it in the next few days!

Halloween party Martha style

I'd totally want to go to this Halloween party! Wouldn't you?

Party in a Box

I literally just heard about this 15 minutes ago on Access Hollywood: Party in a Box from Social Couture. How cool is that?! You purchase a box of party favors for $150 (to see the full list of what the package includes go here) and you have an instant party already set up for you! The site also has party ideas and favors for parties of all kinds as well as a very cool blog for amazing party ideas! Makes me want to throw my very own chic Halloween party!

It's almost that time!

I went looking for Halloween themed wallpapers online the other day and this is one of my favorites. It's getting me in the mood! I'll be moving the weekend of Halloween so I'll be enjoying as much of my second favorite holiday as I can during the week with AMC's fright fest and ABC Family's 13 nights of Halloween and hopefully some pumpkin shopping! How are you celebrating Halloween this year?

Pumpkin Carving Party

I finally got to carve a pumpkin last night even though that really wasn't the plan. I kind of got dragged into it actually. Such is life when you live next door to three crazy boys (and that is NOT me complaining!). I like how it turned out, although the mouth is really quite funny. It looks an awful lot like a bat, which wasn't my intention lol. To be fair I was intoxicated while this little carving party was going on and I'd had a rather emotionally incapacitating day, or week, I should say. Needless to say, I screwed up the bottom teeth lol. But let me back up a bit....


I'd been complaining all week about not being able to carve a pumpkin and I didn't want to just sit at home and do it by myself (and being lonely is a whole other subject I've been depressed about lately), so I'd pretty much given up by last night; not to mention what a terrible mess I was in emotionally last night. I just wasn't in the right mind to try and get in the festive mood. And then one if my neighbors, Mark, tells us he's going to his girlfriend's house where they're having a pumpkin carving party. Shannon - the one that basically dragged me into all this (and gave me that little pumpkin last weekend) - insists that I come, trying to get me out of my gloomy mood anyway he can. He and I didn't have pumpkins so we had to go to Vons to get some, which is a story in and of itself. We get to the store on our bikes (we've decided bikes are best considering there's never any parking in Santa Monica). Shannon has a big crate on the back of his bike attached with bungee cords and I have a basket on the front of mine so we figured we could somehow fit the pumpkins in said baskets....yeah, you can already see the humor in this right? There are huge boxes of pumpkins in front of the store so I start looking while Shannon goes inside to purchase beer. Apparently, there are more pumpkins inside that I don't know about until Shannon comes out with one and says he's paid for it. So I go in, pick out at pumpkin and get in line thinking I need to pay for it when Shannon has already paid for two....yeah, wait for it! It just keeps getting better lol:

Me: In line at the cash register. My phone rings. It's Shannon.

Me: "What?"

Him: "Where did you go?"

Me: "I'm paying for my pumpkin."

Him: "I already paid for it, so get out here."

Me: Exasperated. Get out of line. Put pumpkin back. Leave store.

Him: "Where's your pumpkin?"

Me: "You said you got one."

Him: "No, I paid for two. You have to pick yours out."

Me: "I just put it back. They're going to think I didn't pay for it and now I'm stealing it!"

Him: "No they won't. Just get the pumpkin!"

Me: Go back in store. Get pumpkin. Leave store.

I didn't find it as funny last night considering my mood, but it's pretty freakin funny now! And this is not necessarily an abnormal situation for the two of us. Apparently, we both need to learn a whole new language to communicate with each other.

It takes a good 5 minutes to get this massive pumpkin Shannon must have and the 18-pack of beer situated in his crate without the crate falling off. And then we have to ride about 3 or 4 blocks over to our friend's house with these huge pumpkins making us feel a bit topsy turvy, which I wish I could have gotten a photo of, but I didn't bring my camera....:-(

But we make it and the pumpkin carving begins. It ends up just being Mark, Liz (Mark's girlfriend), Shannon and I that do the carving. All of Liz's roommates are BBQing and don't seem interested in carving pumpkins, which suits us just fine seeing as there are only 3 cutting tools and 4 of us. I didn't get a picture of Liz's pumpkin, which she described as "Just stupid" lol. It had buck teeth and silly eyes. It turned out cute. Here are the boy's pumpkins, which I got pictures of once we go home:

Shannon's massive and rather spooky jack o lantern

Mark's totally awesome jack o lantern. This picture sucks, but it was really cool. Just take my word for it.

3 pumpkins in a row...

So that was my night of pumpkin carving. The only sad part is none of us felt like picking out the seeds to bake them, so we had to miss out. I love pumpkin seeds. Oh, and once we were all done the three of us rode home on our bikes with our pumpkins in tow haha! Never a dull moment.

Cutest Costumes

 (Image via Marth Stewart. See more cute costumes here)

All Decked out for Halloween

 

 

I drive by this house everyday on my way home from work and it is always decorated for every major holiday, even Easter and Valentine's Day. It's incredible. I have thoroughly enjoyed driving by it every night especially for the last few weeks. There is no other way to describe it: it's just totally decked out! lol Love it. This is what my house will look like on Halloween. I just need a house first. 

It looks spectacular at night, but my camera really isn't all that great...

And speaking of awesome Halloween decorations, I was up in Hollywood today driving down Sunset Blvd. and there are some sweet decorations on those huge houses! Just imagine being a kid and trick or treating in those neighborhoods...Sweetness :)

Past Halloween Costumes

I thought it would be fun to go through my photos and find my Halloween costumes over the years. Here's what I found:

 

I think I was about 2 in this one (I know I was Little Red Riding Hood in between this one and the next but my mom couldn't find the picture.)

Probably 5 years old

Again, I can only guess because none of these are labeled, but 6 I think

Haha, I borrowed this cheerleading uniform from someone. Probably 7 or 8 years old

Haha, seeing a pattern here?! This was 96 so I was 12

 

This one still makes me laugh! I was 13 here.

This is the last one I have from my sophmore year in high school. I was a vampire, but I didn't have any teeth lol!

 

Jack o Lanterns

I was pretty bummed this weekend to not be able to do any pumpkin carving so I've set out to find creepy jack o lanterns online. I stumbled across a site called All things Halloween in my search that gave a history of the jack o lantern that I really like:

Jack O'Lanterns come from Irish folklore. As the story goes, there was once a trickster named Jack. One day he tricked the Devil into climbing up a tree to pick some fruit. While the Devil was in the tree, Jack carved a symbol of the cross into the bark, and the Devil could not come down. Jack made the Devil promise to not temp him or take his soul when he died before he would let the Devil down (because the Devil always keeps his promises).
Eventually, Jack died, but God wouldn't allow the soul of such a bad man into heaven, and the Devil couldn't let him into hell. Instead, the Devil gave him a burning ember which Jack put into a hallowed out turnip to guide his way in the darkness. This gave him the name Jack of the Lantern, and later just Jack O'Lantern.
Irish people would put scary faces into hallowed turnips to try to frighten away the spirit of Jack and any other lost souls during Halloween. When Irish settlers came to America they found that Pumpkins made for even better jack o'lanterns and used them instead.

The site also has a jack o lantern gallery where I found the photo above among many other creative pumpkin carving projects like these:

And, as I have turned to her site for all other things Halloween, I went to Martha Stewart for her jack o lantern ideas.

 

There were some like these two so intricately carved! They're absolutely amazing!

And this one just reminds me of Jack the Pumpkin King!

Papercraft

So I missed my 7th day of Halloween yesterday so I think I'll just post twice today. Over the weekend I started making this little Halloween paper model from Canon's Halloween printables site, which I found via Jessica over at How About Orange. I printed out the set from the Canon website and put together the skeleton on Friday and the cat yesterday, which I'll have pictures of later.

My little skeleton is now being displayed in my apartment with the other few Halloween decorations I own :)

Oh, and just a little side story: that little mini pumpkin (the real one, not the candle lol) was waiting for me along with chocolate on my doorstep when I came home Saturday afternoon. Just about the sweetest thing that's ever been left on my doorstep from a guy :) And I don't even think this guy even knows that I would usually go and buy those little mini pumpkins myself on Halloween because I adore them so much. That definetely made my week! (well, and the chocolate did too, of course lol!)

Halloween Party Decorating

Here's some sweet party ideas from Martha Stewart:

(How awesome is the effect of the black light?!)

Yes, I'd love to have a coffin table at my Halloween Party thank you!

Halloween Music

I almost missed my 11th day of Halloween! Today was rather horrendous and I'm very greatful it's over. I'll be sure to be playing these songs on Halloween. What about you?

My 10 favorite Halloween songs:
10. Don't Fear the Reaper by The Blue Oyster Cult
9. Cry Little Sister from The Lost Boys (Gerard Mcmann)
8. I Put a Spell on You from Hocus Pocus
7. Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr.
6. Wherewolves of London by Warren Zevon
5. The "Halloween" Theme
4. This is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas (Danny Elfman)
3. Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett
2. Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo
1. Thriller by Michael Jackson

And the best Halloween music video goes to....

Halloween Items for the Home

There was a cool post today on Apartment Therapy about the $100 million Damien Hirst Skull and it's knock off from Z Gallerie for $24.95. Pretty awesome Halloween decoration, in my opinion, and one that can be cool any time of year for that matter.

And if you're really into skull-related items there's a blog called Skull-a-Day where you can find all things skull. Right now he's giving away a pair of skull cufflinks. Fun stuff.

The other day I received an email from Design Within Reach about a fundraiser for DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids) featuring the DWR trashcan. Leading artists, architects and designers have basically put costumes on these trashcans! They'll be auctioned off with all the proceeds going to DIFFA. Very creative idea. I think some of them, like the eye, are hilarious! But my favorite is the graffiti can. Find out more here.

13 Days of Halloween

After seeing commercial after commercial for ABC Family's 13 nights of halloween starting today I got the idea to do the same on my blog. So starting today, I will only be blogging about Halloween until the big day in two weeks :)

I personally love Halloween. After Christmas, it's my favorite holiday. One of my favorites things to do for Halloween is watch scary movies. Well, to be honest, I won't watch any that are that scary. I think the scariest movie I own is Scream and that is quite enough to get me in the spirit lol. Here are some of my favorites:

This one's a must! I have to watch it every year on Halloween!

I love this movie! No idea why I don't own it! A few Halloweens ago my roommates and I went to see this one at the El Capitan theater on Hollywood Blvd.

Classic! Haha, I own the whole trilogy!

Well, this is more of a classic than Scream lol. I love this movie :)

P.S. The following are the movies the ABC Family Channel is showing for their 13 nights of Halloween:

1. The Goonies

2. Beetlejuice

3. The Addams Family

4. The Addams Family Values

5. The Mask

6. Hocus Pocus

7. Casper meets Wendy

8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

9. Corpse Bride

10. Edward Scissorhands

11. The Haunted Mansion

12. Scooby Doo 1 & 2

13. Batman

14. Batman Returns

15. Batman Forever

(I never would have thought of the Batman series, but I guess it is pretty fitting)