spooky mondays is back

I'm so glad my friend Wendy from Wendy's Adventures in Wonderland brought back Spooky Mondays. I had lots of fun doing it last year and today she is kicking off the first one for this year.

I decided to share a little bit of haunted history from my hometown, California's capital city of Sacramento. Lots of ghostly stories from the Gold Rush days abound here and this time of the year there are many places to enjoy a little bit of spooky fun.

one last spooky monday

I can't believe this is already the last Spooky Monday! I can remember when Wendy  first told me about it and how excited we both were. As always I'm just a wee bit late...

In case you might not have noticed I am a chronic nightowl along with one other owl out there who shall remain nameless {giggle}. So here are some spooky shots of last night's excursion into the kitchen to forage for my nightly bowl of cereal.

I caught this ghostie trying to beat me to the cupboard!

And a witch getting ready for a moonlight ride.

Here's a quick late night project. I made this card to send to a friend who has no idea that I even make little paper dresses and own a blog. She's the one who sent me the fun cackling witchy card.

I would also like to say THANK YOU to all the kind and lovely people who have given me an award for my bloggy this week. I truly appreciate all of them.

♥ ♥ ♥

Finally you have to go and visit these 2 places for more delicious Halloween treats.

First go over to Linda at Moments In An Eye and see her post about a house she saw that's all decorated for Halloween. It's amazing!

Then go and see Jacqueline at Purple Chocolate Home. She just dropped by my tea party and left an invite to visit her Witches in the Woods. You'll love it!

Thank you Wendy for a month (and more) of Spooky Mondays. I loved doing all of them. They made my Halloween even more magical. I will miss them {sob}.

♥ ♥ ♥

Happy Spooky Monday Tuesday

I haven't added my gratitude postscripts in a while so here is one for today.

Today I'm grateful for hot chocolate and moonlit skies.

They go together so well!

spooky monday and a 'dark' atc swap

It's another Spooky Monday Tuesday! I seem to always be a day late...or as I like to say, sometimes I just feel like I live in a different time zone! Thank you to everyone that stopped by my Halloween party. This is a mad week with my tea party coming up this Saturday too. I'm so excited. And starting to panic just a smidge as I'm farther behind than I wanted to be. But I've got my pointy hat on and I'm stirring and brewing as  fast as I can!

Here is the beautiful ATC Wendy sent me for our Blissfull ATC Swap. Our theme this month is DARK and I think this Gothic image and all the dark sparkles and elements Wendy used is perfect. Wendy is the hostess for the Blissfull ATC Swap and I'm so glad I got a chance to swap with her this time. You can see the one I sent her on her blog Blissfull Angels.

Each night my son and I add a few more things to the front of our house. Last night we did tombstones and ravens which I didn't do pictures of yet but here is what's by the garage door. There's one on each side. I started with a frosted berry wreathe and added a sunflower and black bow to it. On top is a foam cutout of an owl (from an old Martha Stewart magazine). Inside the wreathe is a tin luminarie hanging on a nail and inside that is a little battery operated tea light. I just turn it on each night for a spooky look.

Giant jack-o-lantern near the front door. I put another battery operated tea light in it instead of plugging in the light because I like the softer glow and it flickers like a real candle.

I'm also addicted to little signs!

This is Oliver. He followed me home from Michael's last week. He'll be at my Tea Party with his friend Blossom who you'll meet on Saturday.

Happy Spooky Monday!

Go and visit Wendy at Wendy's Adventures in Wonderland for more spooky fun.

P.S. Is it just me or is everyone having problems uploading images on Blogger? I can only upload one image then I have to go back to the edit post page before I can upload another one. It took me forever to do the Halloween party post! This happen to any of you guys too?

i'm late, i'm late

Sometimes things happen. And sometimes you don't realize that some things can actually be a gift in disguise. The city has been doing work around my neighborhood and this morning we woke up to no internet and no cable. Gasp! No morning CNN for my husband. No catching up on the latest Ghost Hunters tweets for my son. And no late Spooky Monday post for me. What's a family to do?

Well the husband and kid made it to work and school ok despite the missing pieces from their morning routines. And....I got a lot done! Ha! No distractions. Just peace and quiet and an occasional meow from Luna. I edited a good chunk of my Fanciful Twist Halloween Party pics, caught up on my ATCs, and even managed to bring out a few more decorations out of storage. Amazing!

Everything is back in order again. My Spooky Monday post is nearly a Spooky Wednesday one. So with a quick apology to dear Wendy here is my Spooky Monday.....

I really wanted to take a picture of the moon last night. That lovely crescent moon playing hide and seek behind the witchy tree in my front yard. I call it my witchy tree because in a week or so I'll hang pointy little witch hats from it. I wanted a picture of the moon because it's our moon. Yours and mine. The one that's going to light up our Tea Party in less than 2 weeks! It's our very own Halloween moon and we can watch it grow and grow until it looks like a ghost pumpkin against the velvet night sky. Isn't it exciting?

There are spooky shadows in my front yard that even a passing ghost might find curious. Like this one from a plant I named Arthur. Although he looks quite odd and unassuming Arthur plays a part in the Halloweening of my wee house.

And what might this curious warty gourd be you might ask? Isn't it beautiful? I'm told it's called a knucklehead pumpkin. Honestly! My son and I saw it and had to add one to our pumpkin collection. In keeping with our tradition of naming just about any inanimate object we dubbed this one Warwick of the Shire of Wharty.

Finally here is a look back at last years decor. This spooky witch scared a few little ones last year. I think she's quite lovely myself. And there is my plant Arthur right next to her. See he holds up one of my pumpkin lanterns. I love when everything twinkles with orange fairy lights which we are about to put up right now. Let's hope they all hold up in the heat tomorrow. Our October heat wave continues with another high of 91. I knew we would pay for that unusually cool summer somewhere. Any of you lovelies out on the east coast mind blowing a few more leaves my way?

Make sure to visit Wendy at Wendy's Adventures in Wonderland for lots more Spooky Mondays fun. And there's still time to join my Tea Party Under A Halloween Moon. Won't you come and play?

Happy almost mid week Spooky Monday!

screams, chills and thrills

Oh noooooo!! It can't be. There must be a mistake!

I like Martha (yes THAT Martha). I'm not a rabid fan. I rarely watch her the rest of the year and I don't think I've ever picked up any of her other issues from November to September. But for Halloween Martha is QUEEN. I always get October and her Halloween edition. I record her shows and I wait for her Halloween special to air. The new one airs this Sunday. On the Hallmark Chanel. The one AT&T (my cable) decided to drop this month. The one I won't see unless I do a quick switch to another service. Which means losing all the other recordings I have stored on dvr. Like all the episodes of Eastwick. Remember that short lived ABC series from last year based on the Witches of Eastwick by John Updike? So whilst I ponder what to do about this hair raising dilema let me share other Monday spookiness with you....

Presenting my first ever Frosted Petunias crafty tutorial! I started on this project this weekend and as I was working on it I decided to take pics and try my hand at a little tutorial. This one is superduper easy peasy.

I got the skelley garland at the Dollar Store for...$1! It always cracks me up when I'm there and someone will actually ask the cashier the price on an item.

OK, you will need mini skelleys, pipe cleaners in Halloween colors, black tulle, black sparkly ribbon, silk flowers, twine or skinny ribbon, scissors and needle and thread.

Cut a strip of tulle for the veil. It doesn't have to be perfect. I like it more uneven and ragged. Gather one end and secure with thread.

Cut a lenght of pipe cleaner and shape into a ring to fit the skelley's head.

Attatch the veil to the crown with thread.

Cut a strip of ribbon and twine or skinny ribbon for the corsage. Select a flower and make sure there's enough of a stem so you can attach it to the ribbon.

Tie the twine around the middle of the ribbon and poke the stem through the knot. Finally tie the corsage around your skelley's wrist.

Voila! A gorgeously gruesome skelley bride waiting for her groom. I'm making a few of these which you'll see later at one of my parties.

I also gave my studio a little spooky makeover. I reorganized and cleared out a few things because I wanted to make room for this....

...my very own enchanted Garden Spells chair from dear sweet Marfi! I can't tell you how magical it is in person. The detail on the tree, the layers of leaves and the sparkle from all the stars and bright red apples. Marfi also made one for her Practical Magic party giveaway so another lucky person will get to treasure her beautiful creation. Thank you Marfi!

Then I was also given this treasure by another of my dear lovely friends, Wendy! She crafted this deliciously witchy concoction with all my favorite Halloween treats. Aren't these vintage witches fabulous? It's perfect in my little space. Thank you Wendy!

And as if these amazing gifts weren't enough. I have also been blessed with luck and a lovely award for my bloggy!

The ever so magical Theresa from Faerie Moon Creations had the most amazing giveaway for her Practical Magic Party. I drooled when I saw her wonderful post. Her generous giveaway included handmade chimes (by her talented husband), an art print she created of Stevie Nicks (love her) and one of her own jewelry designs. And oh my goodness I won!! I'm so excited. Good thing she also included a little bag of lavender to calm me down. Thank you ever so much Theresa!

And finally...Marfi also recently recieved a One Lovely Blog award for her beautiful blog, Incipient Wings, and she was so sweet and kind and generously shared it with me.

Gosh I feel so honored and truly blessed to know such kind and giving souls.

Thank you everyone. I appreciate it all so much.

Now back to working on my party projects.

Make sure to visit Wendy at Wendy's Adventures in Wonderland

for all the Spooky Monday magic!

Happy Spooky Monday

an almost tuesday spooky monday

First I would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who came to our Practical Magic blog party this weekend and made it a HUGE success! The party posts were all incredible and absolutely amazed us. I'm still making my rounds which will probably take me the rest of the year! My post is right below for anyone still visiting and there's a pernament button on my left sidebar that links directly to it.

This is one pooped witchy over here! I just had to take a little break from all that blog hopping on my broomstick and rest my little toes for a while.

These are my first little pumpkins of the season. I found these 2 perfect mini ghost pumpkins at my grocery store earlier. We always start with the baby ones and build up to the big guys as it gets closer to Halloween. I was so excited to find them that I could almost ignore it being 99 degrees outside. Almost.

Here's my sweet LaLou, who isn't really mine but my neighbor's cat, even if she practically lives in my backyard. She watched me and Luna fly back in early Sunday morning on my broom after blog hopping all over the place. She was not too happy about being left behind so I made a deal with her. I'll bring her along on the next ride if she stops pooping in my backyard! Ok she can come anyway. She and Luna are going to have to figure out who gets to sit in front.

Since there are exactly 7 minutes left of Monday here in Tomato Land I'm sneaking this post in with Spooky Mondays at Wendys Adventures in Wonderland. She has a fabulous Practical Magic post that you don't want to miss.

Happy very late Spooky Monday!

spooky mondays

Happy Spooky Mondays! So many stores have their Halloween stuff out now. It's so much fun. I just love standing in the aisles and taking it all in. Especially right now when it's all new and it's still too warm for most people to think about Halloween...can you imagine?

I thought it was time to give my chandelier a spooky touch.

One of my recent finds was a package of glittery raven cut outs from the party store....I think it was Party USA. Usually most of their stuff is a little too gory and ghastly for me but this year they had a whole section of very cool vintage style goodies. Almost Martha Stewart like but at a much better price.

This package of 9 ravens was under $3.

I wound an autumn garland, and black and white wired ribbon around it. I also added black wired ribbon to each arm.

It seems like everyone is doing the glittery ravens and skulls this year. From Target to all the little drug stores. I love them though. I love the look of that black silhouette everywhere. I remember when Martha first started showing them in her magazine a few years ago.

That issue had templates for a crow, a bat, an owl and a cat. I cut out dozens of them from black foam and I still use them every year. Now you can just buy them from her line at Michaels or Joannes! You have to admit Martha knows how to do Halloween.

And speaking of Martha. I just picked up her October issue and I love this whole section on spooky specimens. Very elegant but still curiously haunted.

Happy Spooky Mondays!

Make sure to visit Wendy at Wendy's Adventures in Wonderland.

Well I couldn't wait any longer. I had my October background and banner done weeks ago. I was going to wait until the PM party but all this Monday spookiness just gets me into that mood. So here it is!

spooky mondays

Can you feel it? An ever so slight chill in the air in the early hours of the morning. I love to tease myself and wonder if it's time to grab a sweater before I head out the door. I do this every morning and of course the answer is still no. But it's coming.

Let's go visit the witch's cottage.

Just beyond the (American) river and through the woods (ok the park). Hey that's my house! I started bringing out some of my Halloween goodies. The ones that aren't buried DEEP in storage. This wooden shelf is the best thing I found this year. It's from my favorite thrift store and I bought it for $4.98! It's heavy solid dark wood and it's perfect for my little displays.

Miss Fiona is my newest witchy. I found her at Home Goods this weekend!

Hmm...I think some of us might be spending our weekends there the next few weeks.

Fiona even has her own book! I love this little childrens book by Mark Kimball Moulton. I've had it since Sebastian was a little guy and each year it's one of the first things I bring out for Fall. Do you remember the article Country Living did on the author's house a few years ago? Oh he has the most magical red cottage and garden which was featured in their October issue. I'll have to see if I can dig it up.

Potions and spells by candle light. And the wondrous aroma

 of pumpkin pie fills the witch's house.

As the witching hour nears visitors of the spectral kind

are drawn to the cottage in the woods. Do ghosts like pumpkin

pie I wonder?

Have a bewitchingly Spooky Monday!

Make sure to join Wendy at Wendy's Adventures in Wonderland

for lots more Spooky Mondays magic.

Wait I almost forgot! I wanted to show you this set of papers that I'm absolutely

drooling over. I didn't know they make them but it's just WONDERfully perfect.

Graphic45 makes this set of Halloween Alice in Wonderland papers!

I just realized they only sell wholesale but you

can also buy it here.

And here's the Country Living article on Mark Kimball Moulton's house.

Go see!