Halloween

Whew!  It's over.  363 days to plan the next Halloween. No matter how much I think I have it all planned out, the last day or so, sometimes the last couple of hours, I end up trying to put out more items or rearrange what I have. Anyway, here's how it all turned out.

This is the view from inside my sewing room on a truly sunny day.  I've posted the view from the outside at night, but I get to enjoy it during the day.  Now, however, I'm anxious to get it down and get my room de-spooked and ready for sewing again!

And the kitchen window, looking out:

The front door:

The hall bathroom before the party:

And the shelf :

During the week I had the tall skeletons out on lawn chairs in the yard, while the short one rode the flowerpot tricycle with pumpkins in the back.  Not scary, but fun to view.  For Halloween, I scattered the skeletons and the pumpkins about the yard as if there'd been some random carnage. Here's a daytime view before I show you the nighttime pics:

The little guy ended up in a tree with his ghost dog below:

Night views:

The "dude" responsible for the situation:

And then there was the graveyard. 

By day:

By night:

One of the witch jars hanging in the trees to the left of the graveyard:

Remember the little casket MightyMom gave me?  This is what I did with it.

 There were "jewels" all around the sides.  I put a finger inside and the kids all wanted to touch it. Since it was made of soap (found in an Etsy shop), it was slick and just a bit slimy.  On the end, I smeared red hot glue, from Hot Blood.  It was so realistically colored--even in the daylight, it looked amazingly real.

Then I painted the glass box as well, and it held the glowing heart.

These were extracted from clients who refused to pay me.   The casket cackles maniacally when opened.

This was my table inside the gypsy tent:

My "jewels"--payment for placing or removing curses:

The shelves of potions and "trophies":

You can see the glowing heart there in the middle:

I placed the carnival mirror just to the right so the kids could see themselves when they came in.  They loved it.  I really needed more light, but their flashlights and glow sticks helped.  This is the view of the shelves opposite through the carnival mirror:

Inside the tent, I burned clove-scented candles bought from Dark Candles, and every female over 12 years old commented on how good it smelled inside the tent.  In the graveyard, I burned--of course--"graveyard" scent.  The REALLY good scents I've selfishly saved for inside the house.  Later.  For me. 

In anticipation of sitting outside and toasting marshmallows at the party, I'd bought a firepit at Ace Hardware.  They had marked it down from $60.00 to $40.00, so I decided it was a good deal, and am I ever glad we bought it, even though we didn't use it Saturday night.  Halloween night was cold, so I had the firepit set up about 10 feet outside the tent, and had those duraflame logs burning.  It was nice to go out and warm my hands, and it helped the visitors know where to go, as I had blocked my driveway with my truck, and turned out the front porch lights.  Once they saw me in front of the fire (which wasn't real easy, as I was dressed all in black, except for a red scarf around my head and lots of shiny jewelry), they figured out the candy was in the tent.

 And we had just as many kids on Sunday night as we did on Saturday night, only they were all spread out over the evening, and I recognized them as more of the neighborhood kids. One of the parents stood there and looked around and asked "Where do you store all this?"  I had to answer her, "I don't know."  

But it was worth it.