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.

Juxtaposition

I ducked into one of the pop-up Halloween stores the other day to see if there was yet more useless things I could buy to get myself in the spirit of the holiday.  The store was full of mostly creepy crap, like zombie babies with one eye and green goo spurting out the top of their heads, and a display of gross, scary figures...oh never mind this isn't very descriptive.

Then I hit this section in the store with kids' stuff.

Awww, isn't that cute. You can stuff candy into Elmo's head.  I turned to the right, expecting more happy kid stuff, and saw this instead:

It just kinda struck me as funny.  Elmo on one side, and Mr. Crazy Thing on the other.

Eh he. Hehe...he...I actually find that pretty scary.

Speaking of juxtapositions, we are now moving on to something completely unrelated...

The lovely Terri at Try Anything Once tagged me.  I do not usually participate in chain-mail sorts of stuff because I'm horrible at these things, but Terri is so awesome that there's no way I could resist.  Plus, I get to talk about myself.  So. Seven things you may not know about me.

1.  I am two-faced when it comes to tidiness.  I try to keep the apartment clean and tidy. I don't like junk laying around.  I vacuum several times a week.  I do the dishes at least twice a day.  Overall, it stays pretty organized, even if not spotless and perfect.  

My office, on the other hand, is fucking disaster area.  There is a multitude of crap spilling all over my desk, boxes stacked all against the walls, etc. And I've had to purchase a dustbuster to vacuum hair (mine) and fur (pugs') off my office chair.

2.  I want a pit bull. So much so that I was daydreaming about this other life I had with a pit bull who was loving and protective, who died while protecting me, and I cried for 15 minutes. It was awful.

3.  I eat packaged ramen once a week.  It's my weekend treat.  Sapporo brand, beef flavor.  I have a particular way about preparing it.  I heat some water in a tea kettle until scalding.  In a separate pot, I heat water until boiling and cook the noodles for exactly 3 minutes.  Then I drain the noodles and rinse them (I have gotten it into my head that this method gets rid of a lot of fat, but really I could just be fooling myself).  I put the drained noodles into a bowl with plenty of kimchee, pour in the kettle water, and put some of the seasoning packet in.  I loves it.  It's very comforting to me.

4.  In the past couple of months, I've purchased about $2000 worth of shoes. Yes, I know.  Those of you one step ahead will have already guessed that I returned most of said shoes.  I usually wear flats or low heels.  I went into a flurry of shoe searching because I needed heels for work, but was having a bitch of a time because I always seemed to be in between sizes.  Hence the multiple purchases and returns.  Then a saleswoman took one look at my foot and said I have narrow heels.  I think I heard the archangel (not being really sure what that is).  So I have to buy narrow shoes, which are usually only available online.  How much of the $2000 did I actually keep? Two pairs.  Black heels and brown boots. Sooo boring.

5.  You know how they say it's good to eat a lot of fiber because it helps keep you full? I think that's bullshit.

6.  I'm sad thinking that, by the time any children we have will be old enough to remember, my pugs will have already passed away.  I kind of assumed my pugs would be around with our children as they grew up, and then I did the math and realized that my beloved pugs will likely not play a big party in my children's memories.  I think I'm going to cry again. 

7.  I once shaved my forearms in middle school. That was a mistake.  I haven't really told anyone because: (1) I feel really silly about the whole thing and (2) it's inconsequential.  Then on a Bridezillas episode, I saw a bride hurriedly shaving her forearms as she was getting ready for the wedding.  It somehow made me feel better that someone else was doing this, on national television no less, but then I felt worse because I figured that considering myself on par with a Bridezilla was probably not the standard I should be going for.


I know many folks have already been tagged and I'm trying to avoid double-tagging.  I'm tagging the following, although please know you have no obligation to take me up on this:


MintedLife
SashaCleo
Read Write Love
Mrs. In Training 

Non Exciting to Exciting

I made a tofu stir fry some time ago that was fantastically boring and decidedly meh.  I get so annoyed when that happens. Like, really annoyed.  Here's the pictorial rundown, simply because I went through the effort of taking the pictures. I'm sorry, you will have to suffer through them.

It was so...so-so. Looks pretty good, but was not.


However, the next day I got an exciting delivery from Etsy.


First, the packaging (although not truly *first* in sequence, as it's clear I opened the box and then remembered to take pictures).

Isn't it cute? The seller turned a USPS priority mail box inside out, and decorated the outside.


When I opened the box, I saw this (okay not really because there were some styro peanuts in there, but I wasn't about to grab them out of the trash and reinsert them into the box when I remembered to take pictures):

Ooh look it's a blue paper package, tied up with string! This is definitely turning out to be one of my favorite things!

Cute little tag. I should have had these at my wedding.

I carefully peel back the tissue, to reveal...

Ta-Da! I lovey me this Day of the Dead skull.

oops, forgot to rotate. lazy am i.

Isn't it beautiful? I just love it so much. Lupe Flores has many other hand-painted skulls, prints and goth dolls that make you grin. I'm refraining from buying another one. At least at this time.  

I'm very happy to have this skull as part of our Halloween decorations.  Can't wait to show you how everything else plays out!