Black Halloween Wreath

Gloss black spray paint is my new best friend this Halloween season. It brings different elements together with a spooky kind of glamorous vibe. For this wreath I started with a sparkly (yes, it was glittered) twig wreath and some fake roses that had seen better days.

Then I pulled some eucalyptus out of an old arrangement and hit them with the spray paint, too.

Not too many, I'm trying to go with the "less is more" trend. For me, that is hard!!

I added a bit of Dollar Store spiderweb and a cutout of a haunted house. It is also gloss black but the camera picks it up as dull. Trust me, it's black and shiny!

Here it is on our Navajo Blue door. I like the stark contrast of the black against that nice blue. I added some ruffled plastic streamers that blow in the wind.  Spooky!  It's not simple, visually, but it is simpler than my usual style.

Can you see the three tiny bats flying around the haunted house? They gave me a nice surprise...

..because from inside they look like this! Serendipity, baby! Maybe I CAN embrace the less is more design ethic, but after Halloween because you haven't seen the fully decorated front porch yet.

Is there such a thing as too much detail? We'll find out and I'll post it right here.

Halloween Windows from Poster Board

On our last trip to the Dollar Store, Insanely Creative Christy and I got to brainstorming about cheap Halloween decor for my front windows. We thought of the silhouettes Martha Stewart showed on her website so we grabbed 6 sheets of black poster board at 2/$1 and came up with these decorations.

We did this in one afternoon and we got the giggles doing it. It was alot of fun.

Christy came up with the idea of the monster eyes and claws coming out of the louvres. They look awesome.

She added some crow cut outs and then she cut out the window shapes from my drawings on the poster boards. We used double stick tape and we impatiently waited for twilight to see how it all looked.

Hey, that looks pretty good with just the flash on my camera. But wait, there's more...

Here's how they look after dark. Pretty cool, huh? And we still had poster board left. So Christy cut these out and stuck them up in my kitchen windows. Forgive the fuzzy pics, I was laughing at the time....


So cool and so cheap. They will look great on Halloween night if we don't scare the neighborhood kids away!

Now we are thinking how we can use poster board for Christmas decor and other holidays. Hmmmm, when we come up with something I'll be sure to post it here.

I'll be posting this to the fun linky parties listed on my sidebar, come check them out for some great, creative projects.

Spooky Floaty Bats

Last year I made these floaty, quivery bats out of crepe paper and curly wires.

On my Halloween decor tree inside they shook and floated and quivered every time we walked by. I loved how they came out!

So I thought that this year it would be neat to make a larger version for outdoors. Floaty black bats that would shiver in the wind.

Here is what I pictured in my mind and I am so jazzed this project came out exactly as I'd pictured!

I thought to use felt or craft foam but they are too floppy without a wire inside the wings. Then I found this bundle of foam packing scraps at St. Vincent's for fifty cents. Score!

I cut these out with scissors freehand since the scraps were an odd shape. I was able to finagle 3 or 4 bats out of each sheet.

This is concrete rebar wire which can be found at Lowe's for cheap. This roll cost $3.50 a while back and I use it alot.

Cutting a generous piece of wire and leaving the curls intact, I ran one end up inside the foam then crimped it over at the top.

Yikes, albino bat!
Time for the trusty cheap spray paint from Walmart in gloss black.

Ooh aah! EXACTLY what I had in mind! The gloss paint on the foam sparkles in the sunlight and every little breeze makes them float and quiver and shake. Here they are on a foggy morning, so spooky and cool.

They make me laugh! Love it! So now I have over 3 dozen of these black beauties ready to fly out of my deck planters. I'm putting some on tall wires over 4 foot long so they'll be even more quivery.

We plan to decorate the whole deck soon and I'll post pics when we do. For now I'm loving my floaty bats and the kids going to the bus stop do too. That's a win win!

I'll be posting to the fun parties in my sidebar. Take a moment to come check them out, you never know what clever projects you'd miss.