Monday, November 7, 2011

Halloween 2011

I'm WAY late posting anything on Halloween.  I'm sorry.

If it wasn't official already, it is now: Stephen and I love to entertain our friends and family at our house.  We've already hosted two big events at the house and I'm looking forward to so many more.  (Thanksgiving will be at the house this year too, I can't wait.  I'm already thinking of decorations and food.)





We hosted a Halloween party this year for all of our friends.  I'm pretty sure at the most crowded time the house had 25 people (and one dog) or more in costume.  It was fantastic.



We spent quite a few days decorating the house, inside and out, in preparation for the party.  We had orange lights all around the front windows and porch, carved pumpkins lighting the way up the front stairs, a chalk outline of Stephen and Mabel on the sidewalk and hanging, tortured skeletons hanging in the windows.  Inside we had spider webs, blood on the mirrors and windows, spiders and rats everywhere and lots of food.

My favorite was the hanging skeleton, he'll make an appearance next year too.  I hung an orange, plastic table cloth on the inside of the front window.  Then I taped up a large, paper skeleton to the window behind the table cloth and lit one small lamp in the room.  From the street you can only see the orange glow of the table cloth with the shadow of the skeleton.  Love him.

The most important part of the holiday was my costume.  I can be selfish every now and then, right?

I was a box of popcorn!  We had so many boxes around the house after I finished moving in we had to put one of them to good use.


Above is the finished product!!

I started with the box and cut out the bottom and head holes.  Stephen had to help me measure my head for that hole.  Then it was time for the arm holes.  The box was much wider than my shoulders so I couldn't just do little holes or my arms would have had to be away from my body and uncomfortable all night so I made pretty big holes.  They also came in handy for storing my hands later in the night when I needed to eat or drink.



Then I duct taped red and white stripes onto the box, folding the tape around all the edges so it wasn't rough.  Very important, especially around your neck.



The popcorn was the next step.  It's Great Stuff.  The expanding foam.  That was the #1 question I got at the party.  Spray the foam into little balls and when it expands and hardens, it looks like popcorn!  There were lots of warnings on how to use Great Stuff, but if you're not working too fast and pay attention to what you're doing, it was fine.  Nothing spilled, no fingers stuck together.  Easy peasy.

A last minute addition to the costume was the popcorn on my head.  We had a few test popcorns and Stephen was brilliant and glued one to a headband.  The perfect finishing touch.

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