"What's the '31' for...?" A Halloween end table.

I thought it was obvious that the 31 I stenciled on this table was for October 31, but enough people asked me about it that I am now certain it is obvious only to me.

 For my Halloween party, the apple green and turquoise had to go.  I wanted silver and black.

 I took the turquoise table and spray painted it with Krylon's metallic silver paint.  Once dry, I laid down a stencil I made with my Cricut and contact paper.  Then I lightly sprayed the 31 with more of the same silver paint.  While the silver was still wet, I lightly sprayed a gloss black paint over the top of it. (Just like my faux mercury glass pumpkin)

It looks old and mottled and I think it's really cool.

Stay tuned! Big Halloween Party wrap up coming soon.

Orchids can celebrate Halloween too...

I love orchids! They are a quick, easy, cheap way to have fresh flowers in your house. They're easy to pop into different containers and have them look like a million bucks.

They're often thought of as a spring or summer flower as far as decorating goes, but adding just a few  elements can make them work for Halloween too.

 Replace the bamboo stake that comes with your orchid with black, twisty, gnarled sticks.  Get black ribbon to tie the orchid stems to the sticks for support.
Spread a few spider webs, pop in a mini pumpkin or two and sprinkle with a few spiders.

Ta-da! Your orchid is dressed up for Halloween.

When Halloween is over, simply switch out normal sticks, remove Halloween elements and add some fall items like acorns, apples or mini gourds.  Easy!

We should let my 2nd grader take a crack at the economy...

Grant had homework that included reading a short story and answering questions about it.  The story was about a park ranger named Ranger Dockett and all he does as a part of his job.

The question Grant was supposed to answer:
What would happen if Ranger Docket stopped doing his job?

What I think the teachers were going for:
The visitors to the park wouldn't be able to learn about bird watching and pond life. (or something similar.)

What Grant answered:
They would fire him and then hire a new ranger to take his place.

Taking over the Captain's job on Labor Day weekend.

This kid cracks me up.

I'm in total Halloween-Party-Prep-Mode getting ready for our big bash tomorrow night. I did want to quickly share one of my favorite Halloween pictures so I can link up with:

Hubs and I try to dress up every year.  I liked the year we were Mr. & Mrs Frankenstein.

The world's easiest Glue-Gun table runner.

Yep.  Seriously the easiest table runner ever.

Step 1.
Find two long scraps of fabric. Match up the pattern and hot glue a seam. You could use fusible webbing too, but then you'd have to find your iron. (Seriously, if the wrinkles don't come out with a spritz of water and a quick tumble in the dryer, I won't buy the garment.  I. Do. Not. Iron.)

Step 2.
Get pretty trim or ribbon and hot glue to the edges of the runner.

Step 3.
Lay it on your table and set something on it.

In my case, a pedestal bowl that is holding fabric and ribbon scraps and my two Necktie Pumpkins...

Step 4.
Get all warm and fuzzy inside because you had all of these materials on hand and not only did it not cost you anything, it used up some of the craft stuff that you hoard on your side of the garage and will start to make a small dent in your fabric stash, which is kind of hilarious that you even have in the first place since you don't really sew anymore.
(Except with a glue gun.)

Turn Dollar Store beverage napkins into easy Halloween hurricanes.

Well, not entirely out of beverage napkins.  There are a couple other things too.

I'm getting ready for our Halloween party on Saturday night and I love lots of candles at my parties.  On the tables... on chandeliers... in the yard... everywhere.  I have a bunch of empty jars, and while I would normally just stick a votive in them and tuck them into my flower beds, I decided to spiff them up, Halloween style.

This was incredibly easy to do and took all of 5 minutes, not counting drying time.

First, grab some cute beverage napkins from the Dollar Store and an empty glass jar.

Make sure you completely remove the label on the jar (use Goof-Off or a similar remover.)

Next, completely unfold the napkin.  It is probably two ply, so carefully peel the printed layer away from the solid layer.

Cut it to fit so that it will wrap all the way around your jar.  Coat the jar with Mod Podge and gently press your napkin into place.  Gently work it all the way around the jar.  Do not rub it or press too hard, as the napkin will tear.  

Don't get all wiggy if there are a few bumps or creases.  This is a Halloween project.  Halloween is messy and creepy.  Let the jar sit and dry.

The napkin wasn't as tall as the jar, so once dry, I opted to wrap a little black yarn around the top of the napkin up to the mouth of the jar.  I used a hot glue gun to put little dabs of glue here and there while I wrapped it (unevenly) around the jar.  Again, Halloween is messy and imperfect, right?

My camera is terrible (Dear Santa, please bring me a Canon Rebel...) so these photos don't really do this justice, but trust me that it looks pretty darn cool.

Cheap and easy! Oh, how I love cheap and easy.

By the way, today I am also guest posting over at Positively Splendid as a part of Amy's Swell Noel series.  She's on maternity leave... having baby number 4!  (What kind of crazy person has 4 kids?!?! Oh. Wait.  Never mind.)

At any rate go check out the series, she has great decorating and gift ideas that are sure to get you in the mood for Christmas!

Which is good, because I am going to have trouble getting myself out of Halloween mode... I'm having too much fun!

Black sticks & silver mini-pumpkins... mmm mmm good!

Yes, yes, more pumpkins...

Does it make a different that these are little guys and not from the Dollar Store...?  No?  

These guys started out as little orange fakers.

I sprayed them with Krylon's silver metallic paint, then took a black Sharpie to add a little contrast to the stems.

 Then they just got dumped into an apothecary jar with some black sticks...

I put them next to my Garlic & Vampire Fangs in my kitchen windowsill. 

 Works for me!

More Pumpkin foolishness.... Necktie Pumpkins

Today we're recovering pumpkins with  neckties!

I picked up a couple of neckties at Goodwill that I thought would fit in with my Halloween decor.

I used a seam ripper to dismantle them and a rotary cutter to cut them into strips.

With a dab of hot glue on the bottom of the pumpkins, I glued one end of each strip and pulled it tight up towards the stem.

When they were completely covered, I wrapped gray ribbon around the stem on the dark one...

To be honest, I'm not really in love with the gray ribbon stem, but it'll do.

Each time I think I'm all pumpkin-ed out... I guess I'm not.

Guess who won the Duck Tape giveaway...

It's MiMi from Living in France!

MiMi is wacky and hilarious.  In addition to her blog, she has an Etsy Shop called The Cursing Crafter (where she has rated her crafts in difficulty by the number of times she cursed during the project...  Funny I tell you!)

Congrats MiMi!

In addition to mph, some speedometers measure nagging as well.

My parents are visiting friends on the East Coast.  They left their car parked at our house and I drove them to the airport.

In their car, I noticed this....

Little strips of pink sticker on the speedometer.

The stickers correspond to 25 mph ("David! Slow down! You're in a neighborhood!") and to 65ish ("David! You're going too fast!")

My guess is that my Mom has conveniently placed them there for my Dad, so he can easily see at a glance if he's about to have his driving critiqued.  He can ease his foot off of the gas and avoid any nagging.

After 50 years of marriage, I guess they better know who is the gas and who is the brakes....

I'm pretty sure this is what they're seeing over in Maryland right now.  I so wish I could go too!

source

This view just isn't available in Southern California.

Linking this post to:

If you wish you could be somewhere else, go check it out.

A "Craft Fail" and how I saved it (...and a cool giveaway from Duck Tape)

I have lots of ideas.  (Lots!)  Many of them work out exactly like I thought they would.
Many of them, well... don't.

I thought it would be cute to Mod Podge candy wrappers onto a Dollar Store pumpkin.  And you know what...?  It would have been really cute....  If it had worked.

But it didn't.
The wrappers are that weird plastic-y stuff.  It curls up. It won't lay flat.  Some of the strips looked as if they were adhered to the pumpkin and laying flat, but then I'd turn my back on them and they'd spring up again when I wasn't looking!.

They were lifting up, curling, and in general making me cranky.  (I might have even said a bad word or three.)

So I peeled all the strips off and did another Duck Tape pumpkin.
I did a zebra stripe pumpkin a few weeks ago, and to save the jacked up, glued pumpkin, I covered it with one of their new Duck Tape patterns that are out for Halloween.

Skulls!

See?
Duct tape really does fix everything!  (That and WD-40...)

  

How cool is this tape?!  This particular pumpkin is on display in the boys' bathroom.  (I did not take a picture of it in that setting because there are mirror issues.  And also, because I would have to clean their bathroom for the picture...)

You know what else is cool...? The wonderful people at Duck Tape have put together a nice selection of 6 fab tapes for one of my reader so that you can play around with this too!!

Six rolls of awesome possibilities!

Here are the different ways to enter:

• Go check out the Duck Brand Website and tell me what your favorite pattern is.
• Follow Duck Brand on twitter
• Like Duck Brand on facebook
• Follow or subscribe to The V Spot Blog
• Follow The V Spot on twitter
• Like The V Spot on facebook

Please leave me a separate comment for each thing you do... (each comment counts as an entry.)

Contest is open until Saturday 10/23/11 at noon, PST.  Please be sure to leave me an email address if your profile is not linked to an email.  (Cuz it would be a bummer to win and I can't get a hold of you...!)

Good luck!!

********************Giveaway is closed****************************