I asked my mom the other day if I was ever a princess for Halloween. “No, never. You always wanted to be a witch or something scary. You never wanted to be a princess“, and so it stands. I’ve always been more comfortable with darker Halloween costumes, and darker colours in general – not just at Halloween time. Case in point – I’m naturally blonde, but I dye my hair black because I prefer darker colours and I think it suits me better. Husband however, disagrees. Strongly.

I’m a firm believer in scary Halloween in my house. Not cute and bright – not to say any of those things are wrong in any way, I always find when I decorate my home, out comes the creep. All the old books, my swelling decanter collection takes the spotlight, and more stuff from outside comes in. I’ve almost always decorated from pieces I already have. I’m sure in time, when I produce spawn, the cuter Halloween will come out. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it … 

Something that irritates me to no end around this time of year is bad fake blood. It’s either believable and I’m going to faint, or it’s such a high-pitch red ain’t nobody believing that. A good few years back I came up with a recipe for good fake blood, which I use to this day. Mix a couple spoonfulls of instant coffee with a teaspoon of regular red food dye, and dilute with around 5 cups of water. You’ll more than likely need to mess with the coffee / red dye / water ratio, but it’s minimal effort for what I think to be convincing results. Keep in mind this is red food dye, so don’t be mixing it over your 3,000 count Egyptian sheets. Unless of course you’re looking to add a blood stain to a costume,  then by all means, drip away. 

This year I decorated with mostly pieces we already have. I got fancy on the shelf over our TV and taped a Blair Witch style stick man in our cloche {that movie still terrifies me. Please don’t judge}, I added some discerning labels to our decanters, an awesome skull wreath my dad found at Home Store + More {it was 50% off – and still is!}, and a smattering of skulls here and there – most of which were already out. Because in case you’re new here, I like skulls. 

So that is what I’ve added to our home so far this creepy season. I’ve been pouring all my spare time into making my Halloween costume. To go along with the creep factor, I’m dressing up as Lydia in her red wedding dress {which has about one million layers of lace that I’m sewing by hand}, and hubster will be Beetlejuice, obv. I cannot. Wait! What are you guys being for Halloween? And do you try your hand at making your own costumes? xx A

NOTE: no kittens were harmed in the making of this post.