My Halloween Decor 2015 [Pic Heavy]

Yes, my kawaii zombies it's finally here!! I swear this must be my most anticipated post ever because of the amount of messages regarding it and purely because I know people want to see how I decorate for Halloween. I had hoped to post it sooner but I needed to wait until a DIY project was finished and I actually picked up a few more things this weekend. If I had an unlimited budget I swear my entire yard would look like a haunted house (but that's not to say that it isn't already).

Now my outdoor decor this year is far from grand. It is minuscule compared to last year. Sadly at least half of my lights died on me this year ;______;. I not only decorate outside but I decorate inside of my house as well. Every year I try to out do myself and make my house look like a Halloween land. This year I think I went crazier than usual. I absolutely love it though! Every single thing in this post was put up by me. I've spent many hours climbing up and down ladders, even falling from one. Some of my decor I have even made myself. 

So what would my home look like if you were to come to my door? I would like, if I may to take you on a strange journey (Hehe I couldn't resist quoting Rocky Horror). Without further ado, here we go on a blog tour of my Halloween decorations.


Starting with my outdoor decor. I have a rather large front yard, so I have a lot of room to decorate. We have some small bushes lining the walkway, I always put my lights on them.

One of the light strands I have are these really old, cute pumpkin lanterns. Here is a close up of one of the lanterns:

Along a gap between the bushes, I like to have this string of large spider lights dangle. Here they are in the daylight:

I have a few severed hands sticking out of the ground in places. They're just plastic hands from the dollar store that I stuck a chopstick into the bottom to use as a stake. 

Closeup of the spider light. 

In our entryway area/pantry before the front door that goes inside to my house, I put up red string lights as well as a red light bulb. This effect was inspired by my favorite Poe story, the Masque of Red Death. In the story, there's a party where all of the rooms are illuminated with different colored lights. Everyone in the story is horrified by the red lighted room. It isn't as visible in pictures, but it is a really cool, creepy effect. 

The lights from inside the entryway.

Big ass spider! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

Inside the entryway, I have this huge ass spider and this skeleton/grim reaper looking dude. I hung the spider up a little weird this year but I was afraid of falling from the ladder I had to use >__<.

In my kitchen window, which is highly visible in the front yard I put up an orange, green, and purple light strand. I also put up these ghost and bat lights. I love them so much *^*.

In the daylight. I also have a "Graveyard entrance" sign hanging in the window. It may be a bit hard to see due to the glare. 

As I was decorating, my cat sat in the kitchen window and watched me the entire time. Here is my mom pointing at her butt. She thought it was funny because my cat kept rubbing her butt on the window. 

Here is myself with mommy dearest. We look absolutely nothing alike and I look like a ghost next to her XD. I inherited most of my features from my dad, save for my hair color. 

As for the rest of my yard, I have this graveyard. The Freddy Krueger, RIP Poe and Michael Myers ones I made myself. It is SUPER easy to make tombstones. I just used some foam board insulation we had lying around (you can easily find it at Home Depot), added some tape to it to use as a stencil and sprayed black spray paint all over it. You can use a wire hanger, chopsticks or kabob skewers as stakes. 

I also have some foam skulls surrounding the tombstones and faux barbed wire.

Hand close up. Can someone give me a hand? Hehe.

On one of the bushes across from the ones lining the path, I randomly hung this fishnet-like fabric

On the side, I tied a foam skull into the bush

On this tree, next to the bush I put this inflated bat. I had to half climb the tree to put this on there! 

Pretty fall leaves *^* my neighborhood is absolutely stunning in the fall.

In front of my house, I have these wonderful skeleton flamingos. I found them on Amazon last year and absolutely had to have them.

On one side of the door, I have a small plastic skeleton. On the other, I have signs reading "Haunted House" and "Not Every Witch Lives In Salem". The latter, I made myself in a way similar to the tombstones. I also have this skeleton window thingy.

Sorry guys, had to censor a bit for privacy reasons.

Skeleton window thing from the inside

This spider web resides on the window of my front door. 

And now, onto the indoor decor. Step inside! 

In my kitchen, I have this garland that I made. There will be a post detailing exactly how you can make this.

I had a few leftover ornaments that wouldn't fit onto the garlands so I hung them over my tea shelves. 

Above the entryway to the kitchen, I put this hanging skeleton garland. 

On these shelves in my living room (formerly used to display my dad's car models), I did a sort of "mad scientist"/witch thing. I took some old "potion" bottles I made using various bottles and colored water and placed them on the shelf. I also put these candy specimen jars I never opened and used purely for decoration. I hung a blood bag and placed my small plasma ball in the middle. 

On the shelf above that, I put one of my small tombstones and two of my skelanimals; My Diego bat dressed as a vampire plush and my Dax the dog mummy costume plush. 

The adjacent wall. This wall used to house more of my dad's car cases, hence the studs all over the wall. Here includes decorations I forgot to take down from last year (hahahaha); the bat specimen I made and this holographic picture frame where the man changes to a skeleton. I also have my skeleton bride and groom. The rope on the wall is a rope light that I keep up year round because it's a bitch to hang up. 

Above this is a cheesecloth ghost I made last year that deflated in storage. What else can you do with a deflated ghost other than hang it? 

The rope light turned on. It alternates between orange and purple.

On this shelf, I have two mini pumpkin pails hanging. In front of the window I have this faux broom that says "Broom parking" on it. 

Further to the left of the wall, behind our armchair is this Jack Skellington mask I made in ceramics class in high school. 

These are on the next wall, a plaque I made with a faux raven head that reads "Nevermore" and this other sort of sign I made that says "If you are reading this then you are unaware of what is creeping up behind you". 

Around my dad's old car case, I put this string of bat lights that I got last weekend. They're so cute! 

Then above my Daenerys poster is another one of the garlands I made and a sign reading "Not every witch lives in Salem" that I made.

Next, is the decor of our picture shelves. On the very top shelf are these jar luminaries I made and a little cheesecloth ghost. 

Later on I added this cute ghost beanie baby I found.

On the next shelf, I put these other cheesecloth ghosts, a "torture" candle as I like to call it and some cute itty bitty (actual) pumpkins. My grocery store had them 4 for $3. The torture candle is a candle I made - a white pillar candle with red wax dripped on it and nails sticking out. I also wrapped faux barbed wire on the shelf below.  For some reason I don't have a picture of it, but there is a strand of orange lights above this shelf. 

On the next shelf, I put this witch luminary and small tombstones on both sides of it. This isn't any old luminary. It has a motion sensor and when turned on, if someone walks by it a witch cackles and says "Happy Halloween."

On the final shelf, I put a bunch of my horror movies and horror/Halloween related anime. 

Lastly we have the top of the tv area.

I have this strand of spider lights. These are the lights I fell off of a ladder trying to hang up.

On top of my tv, I have this faux gothic candle I made with toilet paper/paper towel tubes, hot glue, spray paint, battery powered tea lights and a dollar store plastic platter. I also wrapped a skull and bones necklace around the bottom. I put my skull runner underneath everything. A Halloween skull plate. A skull candle holder upon which I put my mini witch hat (the headband it was on broke ;_; ). A light up skull, a skeleton champagne flute and two of the kawaii mini pumpkins. In the dish in the back, I have my leaf candles (which I posted a picture of in a previous post). 

And that's it!! I hope you all enjoyed seeing my Halloween decorations as well as this post. I've been working on this post for three hours. Yes, I shit you not 3 hours!!! I have some more Halloween posts in progress, I'm hoping to queue a few before I go away for my mini vacation this weekend.

Xoxo

Stay creepy 

Halloween Food

Picture of a pumpkin I carved as a teen.

No Halloween party is complete without food fitting the theme!  Whenever I have a party, I go a little overboard with the themed snacks. It's just so fun! Or you can just be a Halloween freak/horror nerd like me and love making spooky themed food all year long. Today's post I'll be discussing some of my favorite Halloween treats that I've made. You can find many, many more on my Halloween food pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/lipstickzombie/halloween-food/

(You should all totally follow me there by the way. If you follow me on Pinterest comment here or tweet me and I'll follow back!).

Without further ado, here we go! Forgive any sloppiness, my food always tastes wonderful...but can look a bit sloppy at times. Some of these pictures are quite old as well. 

Blood splatter ice cream

This is actually a Halloween food of my own recipe! My mom made home made strawberry syrup. I don't know what her recipe is, just that she used a package of strawberries, sugar, lemon juice and maybe water. Actual strawberry syrup is key or the red color. Hershey's syrup looks too pink.

Anyway, I thought it would taste good on vanilla ice cream so I put a little on top of it. I then realized it looked like blood splatter. So I went a little nuts with the syrup splatter and voila blood splatter ice cream! I used Friendly's Vanilla Bean ice cream here. I like to think of this as American Horror Story inspired since I made it for the night of the new season premier (which I'm hoping to discuss at some point this week or next week). 

Witch hat cookies

These are super easy to make! I got this recipe from Pinterest a few years ago when I was having a Halloween party. You just need some orange colored icing (you can make your own or buy it), hershey's kisses and Keebler fudge stripe cookies.

Take the cookies,place them chocolate side up. Then place a dot of icing in the center and top with a hershey's kiss.

Link to original pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/547539267167379297/

Halloween Sugar cookies

This picture is like 4-5 years old now. I swear my decorating skills have vastly improved.

These are self explanatory. Make a sugar cookie dough for making cut out cookies and use Halloween cookie cutters. You can easily find some at Walmart or a party store. Then decorate with icing or sprinkles

Candy corn cheesecake mousse 

This is a recipe I found on Pinterest for a Halloween party I had. My friends are still complimenting it! Essentially this is a cheesecake mousse colored to look like candy corn. To make this you need:

• One 8 ounce package of cream cheese
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk or cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla 
• 1 small container of cool whip, thawed
• Orange and yellow food coloring
• candy corn to garnish     

1. Beat the cream cheese in a large bowl with an electric mixer until fully smooth. You don't want any lumps! 

2. Slowly add the powdered sugar, then the milk/cream. Add vanilla

3. Continue mixing. Beat for about 1 minute on medium to medium high speed. 

4. Fold the  cool whip into the cream cheese mixture and stir until fully combined. I always use a rubber spatula to complete this step. 

5. Get a smaller bowl. Scoop about 1/3 of the mixture into the bowl, add orange food coloring and stir. Scoop another 1/3 of the mixture into another bowl and stir in yellow food coloring. 

6. Scoop the white mousse into a piping bag, squeeze a layer into the bottom of a small dessert dish of your choice. I used small glasses to keep the candy corn look. Repeat with a later of orange and then finally the yellow on top. 

7. Refrigerate your mousse for at least 30 minutes before serving. 

8. Garnish with candy corn. 

Link to original pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/547539267167611709/

Vampire cupcakes

This one is also super simple. Bake cupcakes - any type you would like. Top with white frosting and put 2 dots of red food gel on top. Make sure to indent the tip of the tube of food gel into the cupcake a little to get it to look like an actual bite. 

You can also take some plastic vampire fangs, cut them in half horizontally and stick them into the cupcake.

You can also take black or even dark purple frosting and draw Jack Skellington's face on top.

My cake decorating skills were shit in high school. 

And what party isn't complete without drinks? There are tons of Halloween themed drinks on the internet - alcoholic and non alcoholic. Punch is a staple at my Halloween parties. You can make a punch in so many ways as well as decorate it to fit the theme in many ways.

My Halloween punch consists of a bottle of ginger ale, 4 cups pomegranate juice, 2 cups orange juice and 2 cups pineapple juice. Mix all of the juices together and add the ginger ale just before serving. I also may have added food coloring to this batch to improve the color.

And I like to get some rubber gloves, fill them with water and freeze for severed ice hands. You can also drop gummy worms into your punch.

There you have it, some Halloween food inspiration to go with our movie lists and music list. What should be next in my Halloween countdown? Comment and let me know!

Xoxo

Death of the party

P.S I'm noticing a weird formatting issue with my posts lately where they have a white background. I have no idea what's causing this but I'm working on it.

UPDATE: It was a simple HTML problem, I'm working on fixing the other posts like that. 

Eclipse & Non-Scary Halloween Films

Hi everyone! I hope the formatting of this post is alright! I am posting it from Blogger's shitty app since I fell off of a ladder Saturday night while hanging some Halloween lights. My back is still killing me, I'm confined to the couch so no computer for me. It was an old ladder that had been fixed once already. I reached too far and the ladder gave way and collapsed, taking me with it. I fell into the DVD cabinet in my living room and on top of a lamp shade. That sure was fun x___x. No worries though, my dears! I'm fine, just pretty sore in some places still. 

I meant to have this up last week but the past week was incredibly busy for me. I wanted to talk about a cool experience from last week and share another Halloween post! So they're being combine into this post.  I have a few  DIY decor posts on the way, it's just a matter of actually finishing these projects. So stay tuned for them! 

Sunday night  of last week (September 27) was a very special night. Not only was it a supermoon and not only did we have a super moon eclipse, but we had a blood moon eclipse as well.

For those that don't know, a super moon is a larger brighter moon. A blood moon eclipse is an eclipse that follows a regular one where the moon starts to turn red. It has to do with the position of the sun. I'm a total nerd for these types of things so I was outside watching.

There actually have been a series of blood moon eclipses since April of last year. I have gone out during every single one of these while braving rain, wind, asthma attacks, the cold and annoying clouds to see the blood moon. Every single time save for last night, it was either raining or very cloudy. Damn New England weather!!

Which brings me to that sunday's adventure. I stood in my driveway and in the road of my street, watching the first part of the eclipse. I kept having to run back and forth because of the moon's position changing. I actually stood outside and watched the entire first eclipse - I watched the moon start at full and then disapear. I must have been out there for an hour and a half just staring at the sky. Time sort of disapeared.

My neighborhood can be wonderfully spooky at night. 

I did try to get pictures of it...but this was the best I could get -_-'. 

I tried 4 different cameras and could not capture the eclipse. The moon must have been too bright.

After a while my grandpa joined me. (My grandparents live next door to me, I should mention. )For once I explained something to him; telling him about the blood moon. We watched the eclipse through his binoculars.

As I watched the eclipse, I happened to see a single leaf fall slowly from a tree into the road. There wasn't any wind. I have never in my life felt so close to nature or so close to the moon. I even dragged my mom outside to watch. It was so beautiful and amazing. I couldn't believe that my neighbors (I could see their tv flashing in their window) would rather watch TV than to see the beauty that I was.

After the moon disapeared, my mom made my come inside for a while because the cold was aggrivating my lungs. After a while, Vicky Imessaged me and told me how red the moon was, so I ventured back outside. I went directly to my grandparents' yard to get a better view. I stopped, looked up at the sky and there it was.

  [Photo credit to a friend of Vicky's.]

               [Photo credit to Vicky]

I was astonished, it was so beautiful! And I was so happy I could finally see this wonderful sight. It was literally over a year in the making. The weathermen said it would be cloudy and possibly hard to see but it was clear as day right in the center of the sky.

I stood and watched for a while, even dragged my mom out of bed to see it. I stood for a good half hour staring at it and looking at the stars. The stars were so bright and beautiful. I just stood there thinking about how amazing the universe is and how we're only just a tiny spec in it. I thanked Mother Nature for allowing me to see the amazing sight. It really was breathtaking.

Now, we shall segue into the next part of this post: my top non-scary Halloween films! I realize that not everyone is a horror nut like me and many people get scared easily. So as requested by my friend Max, AKA Based Ryu (Hiiiii!!! :D) here is my list of family friendly Halloween films to get you into the spirit.

                     Hocus Pocus

I'm not going to bother to discuss this since I did in my last Halloween movie post. It is an absolute must see though!

        Nightmare Before Christmas

I have already discussed this one as well, it is a Halloween classic and belongs on this list as well. Jack Skellington is like the PG face of Halloween. 

                          Casper

I LOVE this movie! Yes, I'm talking about the one from the 90s with Christina Ricci. I was obsessed with Casper as a kid. Ghosts and Halloween, what's not to love? 

                       Beetlejuice

If you never saw this movie for Halloween I am so sorry. Your homework will be to go watch it!! This Tim Burton classic is about a couple named Barbara and Adam who are killed in a car accident and suddenly find themselves stuck in their beloved home as ghosts. Soon the yuppie Deetz family along with their goth daughter, Lydia move in and disturb the peace. Barbara and Adam are too tame to scare the family from their home, so they enlist the help of  bio exorcist Beetlejuice to drive them from their home. 

I've actually been stalking channels because I've been dying to watch this one lately (I don't own it ;____;) but it hasn't been on when I've been able to watch it. 

                      Corpse Bride

If you liked Nightmare Before Christmas, check this one out. Set in the Victorian era, a shy and clumsy young man named Victor is about to be married to a young lady named Victoria whom his parents arranged his marriage too. After fumbling and making mistake after mistake during the rehearsal he runs into the woods to practice his vows and accidentally finds himself married to the beautiful Emily...a corpse risen from the grave. 

                  Practical Magic

I love this movie so much!! It's about the women of the Owens family, who happen to be witches. A curse is placed upon their family that any man that falls in love with them is doomed to die. The main characters, Gillian and Sally are sisters that are incredibly close though both very different. They live with their eccentric aunts since their parents are dead. Sally is the more logical of the two and Gillian is the fun loving romantic. I don't want to say much more in fear of spoiling the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it! 

                   Frankenweenie

Another Tim Burton movie, this one was years and years in the making. In black and white and a throw back to the old monster movies Frankenweenie is about a boy who loses his beloved dog and brings him back to life. 

        Scooby Doo on Zombie Island

If you're a 90s kid, chances are you've caught this one on Cartoon Network during the Halloween season. This one is about the Mystery Inc gang reuniting after being split up and doing their own thing for a case. This case brings them to Moonscar Island where they hope to encounter a real ghost instead of a man in a mask. They soon stumble upon a dark secret which is more than they bargained for. 

This was a Halloween staple for me as a kid. I also high recommend 

Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost, 

 Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School 

and Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf'. 

                  Halloweentown

This is a Disney Halloween classic.  Ahh I miss the 90s Disney Channel original movies. They were so good!! This one is about a girl named Marni, her brother Dylan and sister Sophie who figure out that their grandmother is a witch and follows her to her home in Halloween town; where all of its inhabitants are monsters and a dark force is attacking them. 

Honorable mentions: 

Coraline 

and Edward Scissorhands.

There you have it! My eclipse adventures and some non scary Halloween movies so you all can enjoy this spooky season. Anything you want to see as part of my Halloween series? Comment and let me know! Stay tuned for more! 

Xoxo

Stay creepy