Halloween was kind of exhausting this year, with everything a bit too last minute, and shitty weather that made it hard to set up the day before the party. But we ploughed through these various obstacles, and plenty of people braved the cold to come hang out with us.
I’m pretty worn out, and today is the first day of National Novel Writing Month, so here is a post of pictures of the decorations!
The theme was around Hammer Horror Dracula movies, which involve dozens of scenes in deconsecrated churches. I put that backdrop of ‘gothic’ windows together in two days. It deserved two months, but everyone liked it. Also cobwebs, black candles, and lots of wine.
Taste the Blood of Dracula is a Hammer Horror film where Dracula is resurrected in a Satanic ritual from a bottle of his dried blood. The text says: Blood of Dracula – Do Not Taste! May cause convulsions, spasms, delusions of grandeur, cravings for raw meat, B-12 deficiencies, chronic anemia, Vitamin D deficiencies, sensitivity to light, sensitivity to blessed objects, redness of the eyes, compulsions to resurrect or otherwise serve the Prince of Darkness, spontaneous garlic allergy, sensitivity to running water, may develop skin rash when in physical contact with silver, silver plate, or silver alloys, severe insomnia, bloodlust, serial killing or other violent behaviors. Please seek out medical or spiritual guidance if/when any of these symptoms develop.
Bruce and Patricia, who hosted the party, put this monstrosity together. Red-dyed water, with a zombie head. Hard to see in the flash, but I put green water proof lights in the top ring of water. I was delighted when they sent us video after putting the fountain together.Decorations just set up before putting out the food. Big skulls, tiny skulls, various decorations, cobwebs, “Halloween mesh cloth,” and vases leftover from my wedding and repurposed.
The picture doesn’t do this thing justice. It was super cute in person. The broken chiminea is filled with pumpkin lights. In person it looked like a little glowing pumpkin patch. It was Reed’s idea.
A closeup of table decorations. I bought the last of these styrofoam skulls that Michael’s had, on clearance. I have a lot of skulls now. That vase has gotten a lot of mileage. For my wedding last winter, I painted the insides blue with glitter. I repurposed them with a base layer of gray paint, and a layer of textured spray paint for a stone urn look.
My friend’s preteen helped distribute the skeletons, and was proud of this layout. I found those black roses on Amazon. They were pretty inexpensive. They’re made of some kind of foam that feels like leather and keep their shape better than cloth roses. I loved their look in the ‘stone’ vases.
