A Haunted Walk

My hubby and I have no children yet, so we unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), don't have a plethora of delicious Halloween candy laying around the house waiting to be eaten.  We did however, take a walk around our neighborhood last night and boy oh boy, was it a party!  People from different parts of LA actually drive to our neighborhood to check out all the decked out Halloween homes.  At times we had to walk on to the street to get around the packs of Trick-or-Treaters.  Everyone was having a blast, including the parents out with other parents enjoying a warm evening walk with their deliriously excited kiddos.
Here are a couple homes we saw on our walk.  I have some day photos from a few days ago and a couple night photos.

The pic above is a close-up of the photo before it. That photo changes as you walk by it from an old-timie kid portrait to zombie kids portrait. Freaky!

I wish this one would have come out better. It really did look like a movie set, including that ball representing a full moon hanging in the tree in the upper-right corner.  You're just going to have to trust me on this one, super scary and cool.

Skeleton Decorations

Do you love the Nightmare Before Christmas?  Show your love with these adorable decorations.  Quick, run out to your garage or wherever the Christmas ornaments are stored, grab the ones you're sick of and paint them white and add the faces with black paint or permanent marker once they're dry.  While the white paint is drying, maybe draw some practice faces on a notebook, since mistakes with black paint will be hard to cover up and if you've forgotten...HALLOWEEN IS TOMORROW!

Monster Entrance

I love this.  Even if you don't have a huge entryway like this home, you could make the front door the mouth and put the eyes above this.  You still have a few more days left to decorate before Halloween!

Black Cat Decorations

This would be sweet hanging on your mantle.  All that's needed is black construction paper that you cut out to make the face and your clear Christmas lights you probably have in storage to use as their eyes.  After cutting the faces out, take a hole punch to make holes to put the lights through.  For full directions, check them out here.

Comic Book Costume

If you're like me and still trying to figure out what you're going to be for that Halloween party this week, argh!  I came across this great idea.  You just need a vintage-y dress and some good face paint/make-up.  Posing in those cartoon poses for pictures is probably a good idea too. ;)

Here's an example of a poster.

Bloody Beverage

These are cute and disturbing at the same time.  Grenadine fills the syringes and the liquid is 7-Up or Sprite for the kiddos and those not wanting alcohol and soda water & vodka for the adults looking for a kick.  I'm sure you can google syringes, but I found some at Party City.

Mummy Dogs

I think it's time for another Halloween snack.  This would probably work best for the kiddies, though maybe you could make them out of cocktail dogs too.  This is just a hot dog, with the "arms and legs" cut and wrapped in Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough.

Not at home for Halloween?

If you're not going to be home for Halloween, maybe you're at a Halloween party or taking the kids around.  How about this great idea from who else, Martha Stewart.

Drill small holes in a large pumpkin (Martha suggests a foam pumpkin so the sticks on the suckers don't get soggy) and stick in the Tootsie Pops. ("How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?...  The world may never know.")  I never liked the brown ones, even though orange and brown are Halloween colors, the red ones were always my favorites.

Easy Peasy Ghosts

How's your Halloween decorating going?  Need a little something to hang in your entryway?  How about these scary ghosts.

Need:

• White Balloons
• Cheesecloth
• Black Permanent Marker
• String

To do:
Blow up the balloons, color the eyes and mouth (if you feel like adding one), make sure to draw them big enough.  Also make sure to put the face on the "bottom-side" of the balloon, so the tie of the balloon is facing up, that's where you'll tie the string on to hang them.  Shred the cheesecloth at the bottoms and put a small hole in it to put the tie of the balloon through.  Hang and scare!

Bring on the Pumpkins

Maybe we need our own pumpkin patch for the amount of things we can do with pumpkins.  How about as an ice-bucket?  Scoop out the pumpkin guts, add ice and drinks.

A Witch for the Front Porch

The Halloween decorations are starting to go up around our neighborhood.  Lots of spider webs and tombstones covering the yards.  If you're still looking for more ideas to decorate, how about this easy witch?

You'll need:
Striped Tights
Old black shoes (thrift stores are full of them)
Black Umbrella
Newspaper to stuff the tights
Chair

Instructions:
Attach the legs of the witch to an umbrella and anchor the umbrella to a chair.

Paper Doll Costume

I think this costume is so cute.  I'm trying to figure out what I want to be for Halloween, maybe a paperdoll.  Check out the instructions here on mommyenterprises.

Mummy Cupcakes

These are great, you just need a chocolate cupcake recipe and vanilla frosting.  Check out this site for tips on putting the frosting in a mummy-like fashion.

Ghosts in the yard

My husband and I take a nightly walk every evening through our neighborhood.  There's this amazing section of our walk that always goes all out for Halloween.  Seems like the neighbors are competing with each other for the scariest Halloween set-up.  It's all great to me because each night our walk gets more and more interesting as the houses start setting up.  Hopefully by this weekend, everyone will be set up and I can post pictures from our walk next week.

I came across this great idea that would be perfectly creepy on Halloween night.  It's basically just, chicken wire + glow in the dark paint = ghosts in the front yard.  Love it!

Candy Corn No-Bake Treats

It's pretty early for this sweet craving I'm having, but I saw this recipe and my mouth is still watering.  No baking involved, you can get the kiddos working on this treat for their next Halloween party.  From Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.

Beautiful Fall Centerpiece

A came across this simple centerpiece on Midwest Living.  White pumpkins, bittersweet to wrap around them (I used to hunt this with my parents when I was little.  We'd be driving down south to my grandma's house and we'd stop off with a couple good clippers and start gathering.), and an orange table runner and tea lights. Voila!

Haunted Outdoor Wreath

I love this look.  You'll need a circle wreath base you can find at most craft stores and a bunch of raggedy cheesecloth.  Maybe even those spiderwebs to finish it off could be cute.  Along with black and gray ribbon and some scary halloween skeleton hands or anything else you find.  Wrap and hang.  Or buy it here.

Bat Vampire Cake

This cake is adorable.  I'm guessing the trick is in the frosting.  This is from Cookies and Cups, so check them out for the the full recipe and directions.  They made a red velvet cake, which is so cute, so it has deep red on the inside.

Spooky Dinner Setting

This is happening for Halloween.  How amazing is this dinner setting? It's from the blog smartyhadaparty.com.

Owl Cupcakes

Yum-o! And so easy.  From the blog Pepper+Buttons.