Fall & Halloween Decorations

Happy fall, barbie dolls!

I hope you're enjoying the cool weather, pulling out your boots and scarves and enjoying pumpkin flavors and scents as much as I am. To me, North Carolina is in its glory right now, but to my Texan husband, this is "winter" (seriously, he bought egg nog the other day).

I've finished my fall decorating (except for getting my Halloween tree up - I just haven't had the time yet). I've taken some pics of my favorite elements below, but you can also check out our fall decor from last year by clicking here and clicking here.

 

 

 

And to think, it all started with this disaster:

And although I haven't gotten here yet this year, here's a photo from our 2013 Halloween tree:

Thanks dolls! Happy decorating!

A Barbie Halloween!

Hello Halloween Barbies!

I hope you all had a blast yesterday celebrating the holiday. We were so excited to spend our first Halloween at the BDH! I wore a Tooth Fairy costume and hubby went as a tooth, complete with a crown. Some of our best friends dropped in to see us as did several of our fab neighbors while trick-or-treating with their little ones. We made spider cupcakes (shown below in my Williams Sonoma spider cupcake holders courtesy of my mama) and pumpkin cookies with cream cheese icing. The cookies weren't very popular but the cupcakes went fast. I've included a couple of my favorite shots from last night below. I have so many absolutely adorable photos of our neighbors' kids, but hesitate to post them without the parents' permission. Take my word though, they were beyond presh.

 

 Here are our babies showing off their costumes. Aren't they cuties?

 Snacks (with a husband photo bomb):

 

With some of our favorite friends & my mama:

 

 With some of our favorite neighbors:

 

 Me in my tooth fairy costume:

Scout the cowboy taking a snooze:

 Apple cider:

Also, we've really started to notice this week how beautiful the trees are now that they're changing colors for fall. Here's a photo of the natural area across the street from our house with no filter. Aren't they gorgeous?

As a HUGE fan of chocolate and dressing up, I really enjoy Halloween, but this year was extra special because it was our first in the BDH and we got to see so many of our favorite people. I have to give Halloween its props, but I am BEYOND ECSTATIC that now, at least in our household, Christmas decorating can officially begin! As I wrote about in my latest post about my Christmas obsession, my 26 (or actually possibly 27 or 28 now - we found a few Christmas trees in storage yesterday that I didn't remember buying last year - whoops) Christmas trees take awhile to put up, so we typically start in early November to make sure we have them all up in time. This November we have a TON going on, plus we hardly had a Christmas last year due to the BDH not being done, so we're starting tomorrow! I'm so excited!!

Lastly, click this link if you're interested in reading about the family from Cypress, TX where hubby and I used to live that has helped inspire (read: exacerbate) my Christmas obsession. They founded the Christmas décor line Round Top Collection, which I absolutely love, but what's even better is how they fill their home with 12 amazing Christmas trees, most of which are professionally decorated and several of which are antiques. The entire house is absolutely breathtaking, especially the foyer which features a giant sled (see photo below courtesy of Fort Bend Lifestyle magazine)! Swoon. The best part is that they start decorating in mid-October, which makes me feel just a little less crazy. :)

 

As always, thanks for reading barbs! Stay tuned for Christmas tree pics!! xox

Halloween Decorations!!

Hello and happy October barbies!

Here at the BDH, we couldn't have been more excited to welcome the spooky season the best way we know how: with Halloween decorations! We had a ton already but one thing we were missing was a mailbox swag. Believe it or not, we didn't have a mailbox at our Houston rental house. The whole subdivision shared community mailboxes. So now that we have our own real mailbox, I was eager to adorn it. I'll walk you through instructions so you can DIY your own mailbox swag at the end of this post. Until then, here are some of the spookiest photos from around the BDH!

 

Here's my 7 ft black and orange Halloween tree! Over the years my love has Christmas has kind of leached into other holidays (I also have a 7 ft pink Valentine's day tree covered in Hearts, a Mardi Gras tree covered in beads and masks and a 7 ft white 4th of July tree covered in red, white, blue and stars). This year I've covered it in skeletons, ghosts, ceramic purple witches, pumpkins (of course), a giant creepy eye and some orange glittery spiders. Oh, and of course I top it off with a a candy corn hat, duh. The lace pumpkins around the bottom are DIY projects from several years ago.

I always love to pull out my two-tier spider web server.

 

Halloween bathroom (the rat keeps freaking out hubby, which makes me laugh):

Halloween chandelier. I only had a few of the pumpkin lanterns, but luckily mom bought a ton more last year when they were on clearance. This weekend she's going to bring me hers that she's not using so that I can have one on each prong. I also hung a glittery spider from the center.

 

 Spiders and a glitter pumpkin:

 Front porch with hard to see Halloween wreaths and little scarecrows in the planters

 Halloween wreaths! I DIY'd these two years ago.

 Halloween deco mesh DIY wreaths again:

 Scarecrows at the bistro table and Halloween garden stakes:

I got a ton of these pumpkin picks from the dollar store (!!) so I added them to all of my flower arrangements around the house.

 Glitter pumpkins are my current obsession

 

Bats, cats and pumpkins in the foyer:

 Ledge witch

 I know this was also featured in my fall decor post, but I couldn't resist adding it here too.

Skulls and Crate and Barrel spider cupcake holders in the dining room:

Mark Roberts Halloween fairy from my always trendy mother-in-law who collects them:

 More glitter pumpkins. Swoon.

A childhood heirloom, this pumpkin guy was part of all of my childhood Halloweens. It proudly stood in the doorway at the house in Bahama, NC I grew up in every October. Mom said I could put it up this year and I'm taking the responsibility pretty seriously.

 Spider web rug a la Target's dollar spot.

 And you guys know I love my Prissy Plates - here's the Halloween edition!

Can't forget the DIY deco mesh mailbox swag! Here's what you'll need:

1. Deco mesh - you can get it at Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Carolina Pottery or even Walmart sometimes (way less than a roll - maybe 1/4 a roll at most)(I used about 1/8 of two different rolls - the black roll isn't pictured here)
2. Mesh ribbon (the orange stuff) - available at the same stores
3. Accent ribbon - available at any craft store and also Walmart
4. Pipe Cleaners
5. Scissors
6. I added the white mesh roping for extra pizazz, but it's totally not necessary

First, unroll and cut two strips of about 4-8 feet of mesh, depending on how long you want the swag to drape over your mailbox. I cut one strip of black and one strip of orange and black. Line the two strips up, and pinch them at about 8 inches from the bottom.

Cut your pipe cleaners into halves or thirds and use the pipe cleaner to tie off where you pinched the two mesh strips.

Proceed  every 8 inches or so until your strips of mesh look like a catepillar and are pinched in roughly equal sized sections from end to end. If you want your swag to be symmetrical, make sure you do an even number of sections.

 

 I went back and added the mesh tubing because I had it laying around, but I don't think it was necessary.

The last step is to add the bow in the middle most pinched spot (assuming you want the swag symmetrical). I added an orange mesh bow and then a second bow on top of that with my accent ribbon. I left my bow tails/legs really long for added drama, but you certainly don't have to if you like a neater, cleaner look. And voila! Here's the finished product:

Isn't the foggy morning appropriate for this Halloween post? I wish I could give a cost for this project, but I had all of my materials leftover as scraps from previous projects. For me, it probably cost no more than $7 in materials, but if you had to go out and buy it all new it could be as much as $20, but you would have a lot of stuff left over.

As an added bonus and despite their complete irrelevance to this blog post, here are some good lawyer cartoons, two of my favorite outfits from the last week and a new pic of the BDH. Thanks for reading barbs! You guys are the best!

xox!


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