she's crafty: halloween decorations - eyeballs in a mason jar

I'm all about homemade decorations. I got this idea on my own. When I was on a recent trip to Michaels a bunch of their Halloween decorations were 50%. There were four eyeballs to each package. I bought three packs. I already had the mason jar at home. Throw the eyeballs into a mason jar and voila! 

Here's the finished product. Sorry it's a little blurry. This was a pretty darn cheap halloween decoration. It only cost $1.50 (for the eyeballs). 

she's crafty: halloween decorations

Both pumpkins are fake and were bought for under $5 at Target.
That owl was found at the smelly .99 store.

The last time I decorated for Halloween was 10+ years ago and it wasn't even my house. It was a family friend's who happened to be an old babysitter but she was obsessed with all things Halloween and scary. So when I moved on my own, I never really decorated. I worked all the time or I had roommates and I never felt like anything was really "mine". I knew once I had a child I'd feel differently about holidays. Last year I was 9 months pregnant and experiencing braxton hicks like crazy so decorating was the last thing on my mind. I knocked out two mini crafts last year due to boredom surrounding early maternity leave. I wanted to make things, especially holidays a BIG deal for them. My little one may be too young to remember this now but he'll sit and stare and sometimes he'll try crawling off with a pumpkin. It's these little moments that I know it's totally worth it :) 

Since I'm on a budget my key factor was cost. The other factor in the situation was "kid friendly" since I have a very grabby almost one year old on my hand. You may remember I started talking about the decorations on this post. This is the finished product. I'd like to warn people how deadly the fake web is. Our fan was five feet away from the web and somehow the web wound up getting caught in the fan and breaking it. Funny yet kinda tragic (considering it's still mucho hot in LA). 

The fake web and spiders were bought at the smelly .99 store along with the beaker.
I bought the mummy rat at World Market. 

Michaels had the crows for 50% off. Since they were 50% I decided it was okay to buy them. 

I also bought the spiders because they were also 50% off. I put my gallery wall back up just so I could use these wall decals. I'm fully aware I'll have to take the entire wall down soon and pack it all up. Pardon the
photos that are a bit "off". I may or may not have big foot relatives who live above me.   

I made those trio of Halloween photos last year using graphics found here. I put one of
the crows right above the light switch. 

I won't miss these windows. The "creepy" fabric I found at Michaels for 50% and decided to add some spiders and crows to it. 

These eyeballs in a jar were the easiest DIY decoration ever and may have been the cheapest?
I'll be posting about that later :) 

a weekend in pictures

a little blurry but still adorable. saturday family morning snuggle sessions are a must. 

Eeeek! Today is the first day of my favorite month! I'm so happy for today that I could care less that I'm up with Charlie at 5am. At night I've noticed that crisp smell that brings promise of fall weather. We're still experiencing summer like weather here in LA. As much as I'm annoyed that it's 90 degrees in fall, I'm still sucking it up as much as possible (can we say beach trips?). We started decorating for Halloween and by we I mean me. Some people think I needed to wait until October to start decorating but I couldn't resist especially since my little helper was so eager to help and by help I mean take everything out of the bags and put them in his mouth. C seems to find the finish product visually appeasing. He'll sit and stare at the decorations. Which makes me even more excited to decorate for more upcoming holidays! I was out of commission all of Saturday due to a migraine. I spent most of the day sleeping and this party animal was in bed by 8pm. Wasn't thrilled that I had to miss my bff's going away party. I came alive around 11 on Sunday. Just in time to have a play date with our favorite pup. The rest of the day was filled with entertaining a cranky baby. Calming down a cranky babe means you're the one to miss the Giants game (let's not discuss the loss, k?). Thanks to Linds for accompanying us on our evening walk and entertaining C so I could quickly shovel something into my mouth.   

My morning running buddy. We didn't lose a sock. He insisted on not wearing it.
Charlie doesn't follow trends, people. He creates them. 

Charlie breakfast: scrambled eggs w/Kale, grapes and strawberries

Having a child who is exploring his surroundings and feeling the need to touch and grab everything means
having to decorate with child friendly items. Both pumpkins are light weight and from Target (both for under $4.) and the owl is from the dollar store. 

I wasn't sure about the fake web stuff but Charlie stares at it for hours so it serves it's purpose. My favorite
piece here is the mummy rat from World Market. 

I'm not sure how long this will be living on my dining room table but for now it will do. I couldn't pass up the
Frankenstein appetizer plate at World Market (hello! a 1.99?) and I'm sure Charlie will appreciate it when he gets to be a bit older. Online they sell the Frankenstein & Dracula plates for $3.98. I found those skeleton arm salad servers at Target for $5.00. I saw the "classier" version on Pottery Barn last year. Since they were only $5.00 (we're on a budget) and Charlie seemed to enjoy them, I bought them. The three skulls were found at the .99 store. Still not sure how I feel about them. 

Finishing Charlie's 1st birthday invites

my little bookworm

I'll talk about this project for Charlie's birthday a little bit later but I made major progress on it. 

It was a graveyard smash

This is my first Halloween where I haven't been planning a costume for months. Halloween falls a week after my due date and at this rate this little dude could be overdue. Even though I can't dress up that isn't stopping me from wanting get into the spirit of Halloween. Since I'm still in the process of buying furniture and seeing where I like things placed, I wanted to keep the Halloween decorations simple. I also wanted to keep things cheap aka homemade. If you're decorating for Halloween or doing some Halloween baking, I highly recommend listening to the Halloween Party station on Pandora. It helps kick the mood up a notch!

I found this banner over at the Graphics Fairy. I added orange ribbon and decided
 it would look best on my door.

I had a few Halloween prints that I printed out before I left for my maternity leave. I originally planned on putting them into $1 store frames but early maternity leave meant coming up with a "plan b". I had leftover card stock so I decided to paint the card stock black and once it was drying I glued on the prints. 

I flipped the prints over and decided to use orange ribbon (that I found for 50 cents) and connect them. 

It wasn't my ideal way of displaying these prints but desperate times sometimes call for a "plan b".
Besides, you can't beat only spending 50 cents on a project!

Last but not least.. The candy bucket for the trick-or-treaters.
It was only $2 at Target.