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Night of the Living Dead Party

HALLOWEEN

Halloween is officially kicking my bottom.  Hard.

I think every day we’ve had something batty to go to or do or host.  Not that I am complaining.  I mean, I have a full spooky-inspired cookie cake sitting on my countertop right now waiting for me to break down and eat it.  Thankfully I have a whole bowl of mixed mini candy bars to keep me distracted because otherwise that puppy would be smashed like a zombie head on The Walking Dead.

This past weekend we hosted a Halloween party.  This was not my idea.  Two of the girls in my church women’s group decided that I was hosting a couple’s costume party.  Good friends do that…give you that extra shove.  I’m glad too because it was a lot of fun…I mean, c’mon, there were strobe lights 🙂

I whipped up the invitations last minute because we had already talked about it and set the time and place (those of us with kids need sufficient time to nail down a babysitter!) and the decorations were the same…last. dang. minute.

Oh yeah.  We had a fog machine.  I’m pretty sure that if it didn’t make me choke, I would put it in our bedroom for reenactments of Tales of the Crypt.  I’m not the best waker-upper.

Here’s a photo a little less foggy.  All the decorations I had on hand already (my paper spiders from last year, black candlesticks, sticks from the back yard) but the only thing I whipped up were the easy headstones.  I can show you a tutorial on those later.

The food was an assortment because everyone was supposed to bring a dish to share.  Thankfully we didn’t have doubles of anything and it was ALL delish.  I provided the little mummies (pigs in a blanket…but to be honest, some of those mummies looked like baby jesus), the chips and dip, candy and the veggies with dip.  I love the long carrot ‘fingers’ in the ranch dip…it’s just weird enough to make it look Halloweeny but not being gross (aka kitty litter cake).  We also provided the non-“toxic” beverages 🙂

As far as the table décor goes, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible but still be able to reuse the items later.  I hate just having decorations for one year and then feeling like they can’t translate into other areas.  In this case, I am gonna move my headstones to the front yard for Halloween night.  To me, nothing is scarier than real stuff….zombies don’t freak me out but a nest full of spiders will give me the heebie-jeebies for weeks.

We also created a photo area with this wall.  It’s actually pulling double duty because it is also hiding all the junk that I have been collecting for our next yard sale.  It is a hot mess behind that wall.  Speaking of wall…do you remember me talking about how we created a ‘pen’ for Will’s first barn yard party?  And then my sister got married on a cool platform?  And then I shared some photos of Weston with a planked background?  Yup.  All the same wood that I made Jeremy pull out of the dumpster.  And now it is hiding the stuff that probably needs to be in a dumpster.  That my friends is called irony.

Oh we also made a little drink table for beverages.  Sometimes (by that I mean all the time) we run out of room for the food and the drinks need to go somewhere else.  This was it.  I made the little crosses out of spare wood and the felt like this was another part of the scary graveyard.  And I borrowed another candlestick and my vase of black skulls from the upstairs table display.

The last bit of decorating we did in the bathroom.  The basement bathroom is fully tiled and has three different types of lights (one light fixture over the sink, one recessed light in the room, and one light/fan over the shower) so Jeremy switched out two of the three with black lights (a little FYI, don’t buy the crappy cheap black lights they sell around this time for $1.50….they aren’t gonna make anything glow.  In fact, they just shed purple light.  We found some good ones in the home & garden section of Walmart that cost around $5 each and they were the best buy).  I used a glowing pen that I had in my Halloween stash to write messages on the wall.

But by far the absolute best part was seeing friends in costume.  I think it shows a lot about people when you see what they dress up as.  My favorite was Gumby and Dr. Love.  You’ll know when you see them.

Jeremy and I decided that we would continue our running theme of Star Wars costumes.  I already had the Darth Vader voice-changing helmet (I asked for it for Christmas last year…yes, I am weird) and Jeremy got the storm trooper costume online.  Oh and let me just say that later on, we did a little dancing (ok a lot of it) and I am now never going to be able to dance again without a cape and a light saber.  It was awesome.  Don’t invite me to your wedding.

I have no idea what Jeremy was doing.  He couldn’t find his gun at this point.  It felt very awkward apparently…so he busted out the robot.

All in all, it was such a fun time.  Everything from eating to roasting marshmallows (oh yeah, there was a bonfire too!) to seeing a fox in our yard (scary) to dancing to just acting like we were kids in costume again…it was an eerily good time.

Also, had to throw this photo in there for effect…..ooooohhhhhh!

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. Some really cute costumes! I love the “Shamey” couple. Big Bang Theory is our absolute FAVORITE show!!!

  2. Hi, I firstly congratulate you for the well decoration, it is really fabulous. The costumes are excellently matched by the individual. All are displayed eloquently. I enjoyed a lot. Have a great day and enjoy and celebrate All Hallows’ Eve.

  9. I LOVE those invitations!! I tried to “pin it” but its not working on my end. Do you have a “pin it” button?

  10. Actually, you would have fit right in at our wedding… We had a Star Wars accented wedding. (Saying it was Star War themed makes it sound too geeky).

    But there was, infact, light sabers, a life size Yoda and a Han & Leia cake topper.

    What can we say, we kept it classy.

  13. You had a fox in your back yard??? What did it say???

    Sorry, I had to. You set yourself up for it 😛

  17. That looks like a great time! I haven’t even carved a pumpkin this year but the kids painted some at daycare and we have them all lined up on our steps. Go us! 🙂

  20. My favorite was “Shamey”, that’s so great!

    My 13 month old would fit perfectly into your Star Wars theme, she is going as Princess Leia this year.

  21. Why is it that adult H’ween parties are so fun? We went to a Steam Punk Ball last weekend as Steam Punk Batman and Cat Woman, and I’ve never had so much fun! My dad, on the other hand, just looked confused when I said it was adults only. Maybe he was candy deprived as a child.

  27. Man, I must have missed my invitation. 😉 That looks like so much fun!! I definitely want to save this post and throw a costume party for next year. Thanks for sharing!!

  28. At first it looked like you were levitating as Darth Vader – but now I think I can make out your right foot. Spooky 🙂

  29. Can you explain the wood panels more… What room is behind the wood? How did you attach them? It looks so well done that it almost looks permanent but I assume you aren’t planning to hold your yard sale junk hostage forever… Just curious 🙂

  30. Oh! Ohmigaw!!! That is legit the first time I have ever truly LOL-ed at a blog post! Here’s what did it…ready? “I am now never going to be able to dance again without a cape and a light saber.”
    😀 😀 😀 Why is that the funniest thing I’ve heard in 2.5 years?? Idk, but it is. I’m totes enjoying the image of a preg KB busting it out a la Darth Vader. Wow.

  32. Here’s a list of them…
    Effie Trinket (from The Hunger Games) & Gumby
    Sheldon & Amy from Big Bang Theory
    Dorothy & The Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz
    Little Red Riding Hood & Granny Wolf
    Cowboys
    Martha & Thomas Jefferson

    xo – kb

  35. Shamy made an appearance! How awesome. I think it’s great that you threw a costume party (with fun and creative food and decor!). More people should.

  37. I LOVE the idea of the blacklight and the glow pen in the bathroom! Brilliant! Totally stealing that for when we have a Halloween party 🙂 Thank you for sharing! Love your blog

  41. Just as some feedback – I’ve been considering no longer reading your post due to the high prevalence of sponsored ads. I am not single, but a couples-only party seems sadly exclusive of so many fabulous single people. Just a thought, but I wonder how your single friends felt reading about your party? It clinches my decision – different values so I’ll take me readership elsewhere. Goodbye and good luck to you and your family!

  42. How does a father of 2 little boys forget anything can act as a pretend gun when the need arises. When need be palms together, index fingers pointed out, and thumbs up. Bam! Enemy annihilated.

  44. We actually had single folks come…they just didn’t want photos taken or were busy roasting marshmallows! Even though it was labeled a couples party, everyone that knows us knows that everyone is welcome!
    xo – kb

  47. The wood panels were attached to other boards to create a platform (for my sister to stand on)…the room behind the wood ‘wall’ is just another small room (you can see the pictures of this space in the basement tour). We just leaned the entire platform up against the doorway and put our elliptical machine behind it to hold it firmly in place (just as insurance because it stands on it’s own and we just didn’t want someone to push into it and knock it over).
    xo – kb

  48. I just had to laugh when you said you loved dancing with a cape and a light saber.
    My husband is a HUGE Star Wars fan, and at our wedding in June we were called up to the DJ table and told to turn our backs to the room. Before I knew it, we were surrounded my Star Wars characters. My dad had gotten some of his friends and my sister to dress up and crash our wedding. I was in shock to say the least… not exactly something I had hoped for at our wedding, but my husband and plenty of our guests loved it.

    Here’s the video our photographer captured.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jltkXjZhpGU

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