Castellon's Kitchen: Halloween Decorating 2017

My computer is finally back from the computer ICU. It basically got all new guts, thanks to the virus my kiddos accidentally downloaded while playing Minecraft®. It shut down everything...sigh. No worries kids, I only love Halloween and couldn't post a single thing for the last month. 😥 Luckily these pics were still on my phone.
Things are looking up as I'm finally able to post all my Halloween creations. For the last two months my house has been in complete disarray. Boxes of Halloween decorations and craft supplies, plastic arms and legs, bloody jars, pumpkins inside and out...just crap everywhere during the creative frenzy, I call Halloween. I realize its nearly Thanksgiving, but take a look around and Pin it for next year if you see something you like. Enjoy!

Dining Room

This year I went with a black and white organic palette. Taking from nature, with a twig wreath with black and white oak leaves and white pumpkins. It was difficult to fight the urge to add skulls and spiders to my dining room decorations, however I resisted and created an elegant and very not scary style.

For the chandelier, I hung a few different types of black leaf garland to create this dramatic fall of foliage mixed in with more of the white oak leaves. I loved this so much I wanted to leave it up all year.

A very simple centerpiece for the table using a grapevine wreath spray painted black, white pumpkins, white oak leaves, black floral accents and candles. Easy and beautiful. Black candles would be great here too.

I love these skull stepping stones I got from the 99. So I added them to my plate rack on the other wall of my dining room. I guess I added a skull or too afterall...;)

Living Room

I went with more neutrals in my living room, echoing the white pumpkins from the dining room. Color inspiration came from the wreath I made using creams and off whites. Unlike the dining room, I added skulls and crossbones. :)

I continued the neutrals onto my entryway table. Unfortunately, I discovered the limits of my photography skills with the big window behind this table. Just couldn't get the picture I wanted. I took over 100 photos at different times, evening, morning, lights on and off, using filters, adding drapery to filter light, and ended up trying to adjust them in Photoshop for which I have limited skills as well...I'm really not that happy with these pics, but I wanted to post them anyway because I love this vignette.So ignore the yucky lighting. :)

Scarecrow Photo Booth

We threw a Halloween Party this year and I wanted to create a fun outdoor space that is basically a big Photo Booth with prop scarecrows, straw bales, corn stalks and my fake boneyard bonfire.This was so much fun to make and the final effect was really cool.Check it out!

Here's the How-to-link! Boneyard Bonfire

Cemetery

Halloween isn't complete without a cemetery. I didn't get too many pictures of the outside of my house and its hard to see the rest of the tombstones behind the tree. Next year I'll add more to this by adding ground breakers and more tombstones. I wanted to show the cool swirl lights. :)

Bloody Jars

These bloody jars were so fun to make. I've seen lots and lots of specimen jars on Pinterest, most have labels and aged effects. I went with a less is more approach. I wanted to see in the jars so I saved all my plastic mayo, peanut butter, pickle, jalapeno and cheese ball jars. Filled them with body parts, gauze and fake blood. I put these all over my kitchen for the party. It was a really cool prop.

Decorating with Jacks

I love Jack-o-lanterns. It wouldn't be Halloween without them. Here's a small corner of my kitchen where I display all my cute ceramic pumpkins and jacks.

Ghostly Woman

Here's an in-process picture (no arms yet) of the ghost I placed in the corner of my living room for the party. She was real simple to make using PVC pipe, foam head and creepy cloth. She came together in less than an hour. Easy breezy.

Grim Reeper

When my oldest son was 4 years old, we had this grim reeper decoration that made sound and shook when you walked past it. He was fascinated by it. He'd go up to it and trigger the sound and smile. That year, he was Batman for Halloween but he looked at me and said, "Mama, next year I want to be a 'Green Whopper' for Halloween." I laughed so hard, he was too cute. Here's my Green Whopper, (aka Grim Reeper) prop I made. The larger one behind it is one I got from The 99 Cents Only Store. I made mine with PVC, plastic rib cage, vertebra, skull, lots of creepy cloth, and witches hands from the 99.

Easy centerpiece using creepy cloth, bones, skulls, skeleton animals from the 99 and candles...

Easy light-up Jacks

This is just a fun and easy idea. I purchased small plastic treat pumpkins and battery operated tea lights and created this super cute jack-o-lantern. Perfect to add light to props to draw your eye to decorations or to light up walkways. Below, I hung a jack-o-lantern from the mouth of my skeleton cats that I placed in a planter on my patio.