Halloween

So this is practically a week late, but Happy Halloween! As I mentioned, I've gotten much more into the holiday spirit. Lucky for my credit card! Kevin made some reference to "Etsy Frenzy" the other day. Pssh.

I started decorating at the beginning of October--you know, to set the mood and all. And to prove to Kevin that all this effort was worth it.  We ended the month by having a few people over on Halloween for drinks and snacks (and by "we" I mean "I", because Kevin sadly had to go out of town, which had NO EMOTIONAL RAMIFICATIONS WHATSOEVER I assure you).

Ahem. Back to the decor. "Decor" is sure a fancy name for Halloween cheesiness, but whatever. 

The two things which I think had the biggest effect were taping up various Halloween-themed cutouts (painter's tape and I became very, very close during this whole process) and strewing fake cobwebs all over the place.

I bought a custom order of large die cuts from Scrapbooking Stuff on Etsy.

Then I started plastering them wherever I could.

The front door:

Eventually I also added a "Happy Halloween" sign glitter skull garlands like these from RubyRockwell:

...buut you don't get to see those because like the awesome blogger I am, I forgot to take pictures.

No matter, there were plenty of other things to focus on.  Like decorating our entryway:

And creating bat-tastic scenes:

 

Look, even Kevin got in on the action (ha):

 

I think he should dress up as Lurch from the Addams Family. Is that mean? I think it's clever.

Anyway, the day came for the party, and I commenced running around like banshee collecting all the doodads that I wanted to "casually" scatter here and there:

As you can see, I collected mini pumpkins at an alarming rate during the month of October.

I took some pictures, but not of everything.  I covered our dining table, coffee table, and kitchen counter with black plastic tablecloths.  On the dining table, I placed two different kinds of grilled cheese, red velvet cupcakes, and a bag of Halloween candy favors for folks to take home.

Here's the dining table:

Grilled Gruyere, Peppadew Pepper, and Spinach Sandwich bites.  I *made* the signs. From scratch.  Black glitter paper from Paper Presentation, writing in silver ink pen, and stickers thrown in as a freebie from RubyRockwell.  I know, I made folded tent cards.  I'm pretty much amazing.

Grilled Cheddar, Apple & Sage Sandwich Bites

 Da cupcakes

I bought the sugar skulls and laser cut spiderweb holders from New York Cake & Co.

The favor bag spilling over.  I bought the felt purple Halloween bag from Papyrus.

I bought these little guy from a nearby antiques store. I love him.

Almost as much as I love my skull.  The paper lanterns were from the local party store.

I also picked up these cute haunted houses from the antiques store (altho they're not antiques):

On the coffee table I placed a cheese board, olives and nuts:

Whaddya mean it's hard to see??

Our side table displayed a vase of quinces, a tower of candy, and this little ghosty whosty.

Sadly, I completely neglected to take pictures of the kitchen counter, on which I placed a rum punch bowl with a huge ice cube in the shape of a hand, and a fondue pot (which is stretching it, because it was a minor disaster) with bread cubes and veggies.

Doubly sadly, I didn't take a good pic of the pugs in their costumes.  But here are Mrs. and Mr. Lobster giving the pugs the attention that they crave.

Afterwards, we went to a neighborhood Halloween block party, where they close off a few blocks and the houses get all decked out (which is unusual in NYC, since decorations would probably get stolen in most places).

 Do you see Harry Potter (or as Mrs. Lobster says, Hairy Pawter. harhar)?

We were joined by a ladybug, gentleman bug, a flapper, and a woman-who-played-a-soccer-game-and-then-hauled-ass-to-my-apartment.

And there you have it.