Tis' my favorite season...

We are really excited for Halloween! I have been doing my best to pass on my love of Halloween to my kids. We already have the costumes (well, for the kids anyway- they are going to be Jack and Jill) and we are anxiously awaiting the big day.

I have waited patiently for many years to have a house of my own and to be able to decorate a fireplace mantel. Since Halloween is my all time favorite holiday, I was particularly excited to be able to decorate this right now. I don't have a ton of knick-knacky type things so I didn't really have much to work with. I found 4 or 5 jars at Goodwill for a couple of bucks and either made or found the rest of the stuff around the house. Here's a tour if you are like me and are interested in this type of thing. 

I got the pumpkin lights a while back at the dollar store or somewhere like that. The wreath was made by my mother-in-law a few years back. I really love it.

I found the idea of candy jars on another blog. I copied a few outright and came up with a few on my own. Here we have hollowed frog eyes (they are really those green gummy rings) and bat droppings (black wrapped chocolate Kisses). I made the photos last year. I just printed off some old black and white photos of the internet and glued some googly eyes over their eyes. 

I found some books at a second hand store and spray painted them black. Then I painted the letters with gold craft paint. The tea cup is filled with small bags and pincher thingy to get the candy out of the jars.

Here are Goblin Crowns (peanut butter cups) and Pumpkin Teeth (candy corn) and some more googly eye photos.

In this photo we have the green Love Potion #9, some monster eggs (peanut m&m's in the holiday colors) and Slimy Worms (gummy worms) and some black crows of course.

I found a salt shaker at a second hand store for a quarter. I washed it, printed the label on brown paper, modge podged it on the jar and distressed it a bit with brown ink. Then I tied some twine around the top and added the "drink me" label. I could not find a cork anywhere in the house, so I folded up some brown paper and rolled it up and stuck it in the top. Oh, and the green liquid is just water with green food coloring. I really liked how it turned out.

Here is Jonathan with his best "pondering professor" look. Next to do on our to do list is get that fireplace up and running...I seriously cannot wait.

Oh, and I'm still pondering what to do on the front porch. I'll add some pictures of that when I figure it out.