A lucrative Halloween

I'm going to try and simplify this as much as possible.
Emily wanted to enter the costume contest at work.  She heard there was a cash prize.  She researched and found the costume she wanted to make.  It was this one:

When she showed this to me I thought, wow that looks like alot of work, good thing she has alot of time to do it.  So she bought a few things here and there.  I bought a few things here and there as I found them.   Fast forward to the night of the 30th.  The costume hasn't even begun.  We had a long night ahead of us.  If we were smart we would have looked up the instructions on how to make this and put it together.  But we're not smart.   So we racked our brains and put together what we had and it just wasn't working.  It looked like the pirate was piggy backing on her.  We worked on it until about 11pm when I couldn't see straight anymore, let alone think straight.  So we slept on it and got an early start.  After some more failed ideas, we finally hit upon a winner.  It took some doing but we did it.  She was going to put it on at work when the contest started so I didn't get a picture of her with it on.  I took these before she left for work:
We found as close to skin color shirt as we could and she wore a sea decorated bra over it.

We made the fin and attached it to this basket decorated with treasure.

 This is the fellow who gave us so much trouble.  Pirates!

We recycled the face of this lady from a couple of years ago

 

 

 This is the destruction that I was left to clean up.

 

 

 Because I'm a dork and forgot to send my camera with her, someone took a picture of her at work and sent it to my phone.  Because I don't have a smartphone I can't put pictures from my phone onto my computer.  This is the best I could do.  She wasn't about to put it back on when she got home.

 It looks like the pirate is leaning over her shoulder. But at least he's not way shorter than her and hiding behind her back.  That was the trouble we had with him.

Anyway.  Long story short.  She tied for first place with a guy that looks exactly like those little green army men.  They each got $200!   AND she won the contest for just her office!  $60
I think we probably had about $20 invested in it.

Yes, I'm getting my commission if that's what you were wondering, because it was the first think I thought of.
I don't know how we got into the business of creative costumes, but I'm getting too old for it!

She's a silent winner

Well, Trunk or Treat is behind me now.  It was fun, but it will be more fun to go next year to just have fun.  Organizing something attended by almost three hundred people is alot of work.  And although I didn't win any of those cute awards in my Sheriff costume, this girl did:

She won best child costume, but she doesn't think she's a child.
There were so many original, creative, cute, funny costumes there.  I'm glad I didn't have the difficult task of judging them.

I didn't get a picture of this guy until we got home.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  I sprayed his hair black (it hasn't been black in years),  he HAD  pointy ears on, the makeup is a slight green, he's wearing a convincing starfleet uniform but he was a little too cranky to smile.  I can't believe he let me dress him up as Spock!  So many people didn't even recognize him.  You know it's a good costume when that happens.

Live long and prosper!

BOOOOoooooo........

This is what I'm doing for the tables for our ward trunk or treat.  Easy.  Inexpensive.

 I'm going to put them on the tables with some candy corn and mini pumpkins.
And look how cute these are!  One of my counselors made these to put on big candy bars for chili, costume & jack-o-lantern awards.

Very Cute.   I want to win one!

Happy almost Halloween

Tricks and Treats

Happy Halloween!!

We carved a very tricky witch pumpkin last night.  Here she is all spooky and glowing by candlelight.

Here is my treat of a chandelier my mom and dad found for me in Texas.  I took all the electrical out of it and hung it out in my gazebo.  Dollar store emergency candles make it glow.

Here is my outdoor "room" lit up (with the help of the flash).  It's nice to sit out here now that the nights have finally cooled down.


Those are my tricks and treats for Halloween.  I'm attempting to make bread bowls with potato soup for dinner.  Something to balance out all the candy!

Happy Haunting

There are some halloween mantle parties going on.  This is my haunted mantle.

Some haunted houses I found at the dollar store, displayed on my old window with a silver tray.

I found this "Happy Haunting" bunting template somewhere in blogland and printed it out.  I love how old and creepy it looks.

some candlesticks with spanish moss, crows, old books and a lantern.

I like how it turned out.  Not your typical orange pumpkin display.