Spooky Halloween Dinner

Happy Halloween my friends! I hope you are having a spooktacular day so far! I started my morning off with a Pinterest fail. Yeah. It was ugly, but we got a good laugh out of it. More on that later. I may even provide a photo for your amusement so stick around.

Last night our family had our annual "Spooky Dinner". I love holidays and traditions and Halloween is no exception. Every year we have a different menu of Halloween themed "spooky" food. I try to never use the same idea twice although that's becoming harder and harder (ideas welcome!). This year we had our dinner a night early because of work schedules. If you're reading this today (on Halloween), you still might have time to pull this off! If you stumbled upon this post at a later time, save it to Pinterest or to your browser favorites because it's never too early to start planning for next year!

I went super simple this year. Like suuupper simple. Normally "Spooky Dinner" is something I prepare for weeks in advance but let's just say this year has been nuts. After helping with a church dinner for 450 people last night, my grandiose plans were looking about as likely as Miley Cyrus joining a convent. Yeah. Not happening. Then this morning my son had to run the missionaries to urgent care with my car. Five hours later, no car, no way to get to the store, my plans had to make a little adjustment. Flexible, people. We must be flexible. So I made this menu happen with 2 hours from the time I was finally able to get to the grocery store, to the time it was on the table. BAM!

You're going to love how easy this is!

I absolutely love a beautiful presentation and today I had to let that go. As much as it may have killed me, this is all I managed to put together for the table. The thing is.....my kids loved it! They're not going to remember how I set the table, they're going to remember the time we spent together and the traditions we loved. P.S. The tablecloth is a piece of fabric I found at a thrift store for $1! I love the pattern and dimension it gives the table.

Severed Fingers (like I said......"Spooky" Dinner)

Embarrassingly easy. Slightly disgusting. Slice or tear a small portion off the bottom of the hot dog (for the severed area). Slice marks into the hot dogs to resemble knuckles. Carve out an area at the top for the nail bed. Place in a pot of boiling water to cook the hot dogs until warmed through. The "fingers" really look great at this point and you could serve them this way, but I just took it a step further and placed a small piece of sauteed onion in the nail bed area and secured it with a dab of ketchup underneath. Squirt a little ketchup at the base of the finger and you have yourself a pretty creepy dish. My boys LOVED it!

Swamp Juice found  Here

This "Swamp Juice" recipe found over at Purple Chocolat Home was really easy to make and tasted great! Because of my time crunch I just put the punch in a punch bowI, filled a clear glove with water and froze it as an ice cube for the punch. If I had more time I would've taken advantage of the free Swamp Water printable Here.

Bloody Eyeballs

As much as I would've loved to tell you this is my grandmothers famous meatball recipe, you would see right through that. "See" what I did there? Pun intended. These are frozen meatballs with a pimento stuffed olive on top. The sauce is one of my go to favorites from the time my kids were little, but you could easily use another sauce or bottled sauce. Mix 1/2 C. grape jelly with 1/2 C. ketchup (can also use chili sauce), heat in a saucepan until warm. Pour over meatballs for that eerie bloody eyeball look.

Cobweb Dip Here

I used a very basic bean dip recipe from Food.com but you could use any recipe you prefer. I added guacamole to the top of the dip and piped sour cream on in a circular pattern. If you have a piping bag you could use that but I was too lazy so I scooped my sour cream into a ziploc and cut off the corner to drizzle it out. Drag a knife from the the smallest ring in the center to the outside of the guacamole ring to create the webbed effect.

I can't tell you how many pictures like this one are on my camera. Remember my last post? See exhibit A as to why I am never bored.

I froze Dollar store bugs in ice cube trays for a fun addition to the spookiness factor.

Bloody Intestines

I have to admit.....these look pretty gross! They were a huge hit though and they were the first thing gone. Use your favorite breadstick or pizza dough recipe (or use store bought). Roll dough into one large, winding, rope. Twist inside non-stick pan or pan sprayed with cooking spray. I used marinara sauce with garlic to surround the intestines and filled in between each fold. 

Isn't he cute? Store bought bread with store bought spinach dip. Did I mention embarrassingly easy?

Table overview

I found this adorable Halloween Trivia Game with printable cards and envelope at The Mother Huddle. We had a lot of fun playing this game while we ate and visited.

The soda bottle labels are leftovers from the large set I mentioned in my Halloween Decorating post here. They were purchased at Target found in their Dollar Spot. I love them and with 9 labels for $1, I won't feel guilty about tossing them and purchasing new ones next year.

Now as I promised.....here is this mornings Pinterest fail. Have you seen this photo floating around Pinterest?



It is a really cute idea that seems easy enough. Right? Ha! Not so much. Here's my attempt:

Feel free to laugh. I did! These poor little guys didn't stand a chance! I'm thinking Krispy Kreme doughnuts are too soft to hold the teeth in place. I put the vampire teeth in the center and within seconds they expanded all the way ripping the faces of those cute little guys right open. Mean ole teeth. One little guy had his face explode and his eye popped off right off and shot across the box. Sad day. It's a good thing Krispy Kremes can make anything better.
 
As much as I would've loved to have been able to prepare my extravagant, homemade meal that I had planned out in my mind and served it on a perfectly styled table, that wasn't my life today. I considered not posting this meal because of the dark photos and simplistic meal. To some, maybe this dinner is not "blog worthy", but the funny thing is, one of my sons told me he thought it was the best "Spooky Dinner" ever! We laughed, we enjoyed good food, we enjoyed each others company and most importantly we made memories. One memory that I will take with me is the fact that things don't have to be "perfect" to be perfectly happy.

Have a 'Boo'tiful day!


 

Welcome to my "Boo"tiful home

Hello new friends! Welcome to our blog before our blog. Huh? What? Let me explain. My daughter Brianna and I are joining together with our combined love of DIY and decor with our cheap thrifty nature. We would love to share with you our ideas and tips for beautifying a home on a budget. While our "real" blog is in the design stages (with someone who actually knows what they are doing) we thought we'd create a space where we can preview a bit of what our blog content will be.

Today I would like to welcome you into my spooky home. 

Sofa Table Display

Formal Living Room Mantle

I knew I didn't want to spend a lot of money on Halloween decorations so I tried as much as possible to use what I already had on hand. Shopping your own home is one of the best ways to decorate on a budget. Take a walk around your home looking for things that can take on new life as part of a display, draped with a little webbing or black mesh, or even spray painted (as long as it will still work in its usual spot once painted).

Double Double print from It's Always Autumn via Eighteen25

I love this print from It's Always Autumn originally posted over at eighteen25 (check it out at here). I printed this at my local Staples Copy & Print center for $1.69. Yes. One dollar and sixty-nine whopping cents. Now that's frugal decor baby. I had this printed as an "Engineer Print" and if you have been living under a rock and don't know about Engineer Prints let me give you the down low. They are cheap.....wait, did I already mention that? Okay, moving on. They are over-sized prints that are printed in black and white only and on a thin paper (think blueprint thickness). The print above is the smallest size available at Staples and it is 18"x24" (the largest is 36"x48"  for only $6.59!!!).

For the middle section of my mantle I begged asked around for cool bottles from friends who drink alcohol and collected some pretty cool ones! For free!!! I picked up 3 small childrens books at DI (local thrift store) and covered them with painters paper. I added a small amount of spanish moss from a bag I purchased at the dollar store and a $.97 skull from Walmart to the top. The frame was one I already had on hand (LOVE it!!! A great Ross purchase.) and for the inside of the frame I printed clip art from the amazing Graphics Fairy (http://thegraphicsfairy.com). If you are not familiar with the Graphics Fairy, grab a snuggly blanket, curl up on the couch and tell your family you'll see them in a few hours. There's SO much there to print for....you guessed it.....FREE!!!!! 

There's not too much to say about the right side of the mantle. The white vase is part of my every day decor and I filled it with small branches from my backyard that I sprayed with black spray paint. The lantern matches the one on the opposite side of my mantle. They were both purchased at a thrift store for $1 each. They are actually citronella lanterns but when I saw them I knew they would be fun decor in addition to their function fighting mosquitoes. I love it when that happens! :) The black mesh used throughout my decor is from the dollar store (this one from Dollar Tree). The dollar store is a great resource for decorations. Although some decorations are cheap and might look like they come from the dollar store, others like this mesh are just as great as similar ones sold elsewhere for 3 times as much! Score one for us cheapskates!

Now moving on to my tablescape......

I started off my sofa table by draping it with my dollar store mesh (does anyone know what this stuff is really called??? Maybe I should actually read the package next time. Novel idea.). Then I used my usual trick of shopping my house. Let's take a closer look.....

The metal and glass orb decoration (yes, that's the official name. as official as 'black mesh'. yeah.) always sits on this table. I simply added a few black centipedes from the dollar store woven through the wooden balls that sit inside and a dollar store raven to the top. The concrete looking planter/urn was moved from elsewhere in the house and filled with more Spanish moss (still using the same bag) from the dollar store and topped with a raven and a few spiders and bugs. Small tip when filling items like the urn above: Instead of filling from top to bottom with the moss, conserve moss (or other filler) by wadding up a piece of newspaper or similar item and placing it in the bottom of the urn. That way you will only add enough moss to the top to cover the newspaper ball, using far less than you would have. 

I printed the two bottle labels at home using my printer. There are many, many fabulous resources online. Search Google images for Halloween labels and you will find more than you know what to do with. The two I used here were found here and here. Next I filled a Walmart glass jar that I already had (big surprise!) with more Spanish moss and skeleton heads (12 pk $2.97 at Walmart), and placed a dollar store glittered pumpkin on top of a candlestick I already had (are you sensing a theme here?).

Next I printed Book covers and spines that I found at Tip Junkie onto painters paper. You know the stuff....it comes on a long roll and you spread it out when painting trim to protect other surfaces. Clear as mud? Anyway, I cut it to fit in my printer and printed the book covers and spines and lightly taped them to books I already have in our family collection. These covers will come off and I will put the books back on our shelf after Halloween. If you wanted to leave your books covered for use year after year, you could find books at garage sales of thrift stores for around a dollar. The picture on the far right of my tablescape was printed from the internet. I cannot for the life of me find the source anywhere. Any. where. If anyone can give credit to the proper source please let me know. The photo is sitting in a matting and frame I got for $1.50 at DI.

If you're still with me you're a trooper! Moving on to the last spot....my formal living room mantle:

The lighting is horrible in my formal living room so forgive the poor photos. You'll get the idea though. As you may have guessed, I started with dollar store 'black mesh', shopped my house for some decor and accessorized with a few dollar store and thrift store finds. Cuz that's how I roll. 

More fun bottles! The one to the left was $.75 at DI, the one in the middle was donated to my cause from friends and the one to the right is from.....wait for it.....wait for it.....yep, you guessed it, my home! You're getting good at this! Yep, it's bubble bath. I opened the bathroom cabinet and there it was.....all green and looking like armadillo bile. Like I would know. But it works for me. Label here. 

For fear of sounding like a broken record let's make this brief: White dish shopped from elsewhere in my home (originally from DI $2), same $1 bag of Spanish moss used to fill only the top part of the dish, yet another raven (love them). Skull $.97 from Walmart.

Middle of mantle: Books from my home, round thrift store frame $1, bat printed from The Graphics Fairy here, dollar store glitter pumpkin.

Wine bottle covered in twine (gift from my lovely and talented daughter Brittany), thrift store bottle $1 (I think I may have squealed out loud when I found this in DI. maybe.) and a printable from Lil' Luna with a skull image originally from none other than The Graphics Fairy, which was of course framed with a frame from elsewhere in my house. The print will be switched back out after Halloween and a Thanksgiving print will take it's place. I'm sure I'll share that one too so be sure to check back with us soon!

One last little corner of my home......

A broken branch painted black is a perfect place for my friends the ravens to perch.

And lastly, let's take a look at my front door (that seriously needs to be sanded and stained again)......

A dollar store creepy door knocker adds an spooky touch to my otherwise tame front porch.

Whew! Thanks for sticking with me. I hope it was helpful and gave you a little inspiration to have a "boo"tiful home of your own this Halloween! Check back with us soon for more great decor and DIY ideas and don't forget to come back so you can link up to our "real" blog once it's up and going! 

Have a "spook"tacular Halloween!