Dead & Breakfast Inn - Halloween Date Night

You've heard of Christmas in July...but have you ever heard of Halloween in January? No, of course you haven't. That's because no one is SO slow that it takes 3 months for them to get around to posting a Halloween idea... except me.  But, actually... I'm just 10 months ahead of schedule. It's never too early to start planning for Halloween 2013. It's gonna be epic. 

 I was in charge of date night the week of Halloween... and I've been wanting to do a "Dead & Breakfast Inn" theme for quite some time! Here's what I did:

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Hubby was greeted at the Inn's "entry way" with a welcome card asking him to sign the guest book...if he dared!

an upclose look at the "welcome card":

He wasn't the first guest at this D&B....

Decor & Effects

I had our guest room all decked out with creepy Halloween decor, strobe lights, and some skeleton garland lights when he entered. You can bet I found everything I needed at The Dollar Tree: bloody cloths, mini strobe lights, black crows, skeleton head, black cauldron, napkins, foam gravestone, skeleton garland, etc. I used some of the decor from my living room (in this post). My husband agrees that the best part was the dark room lighting up sporadically with the strobes....really gave it a cool effect!

Of course, all the decor in the world won't do much unless I feed the poor guy! This "Dead & Breakfast Inn" served Killer Cuisine that was Drop. Dead. Delicious. 

 yummm...

Graveyard Greens with moldy dressing & Cauldron Chill-Eee with crumby crackers...all washed down with some Cursed Concoction (of course, it was brewed to imperfection).

And for dessert, a Toxic Mud Slab a  la wickedly sweet I-scream. It was to die for...

As if that wasn't enough, the Inn provided these toxic treats (crows bones and earth worms) for late night snacks.

The Inn also had plenty of other activities in store--including a Horror-ibly Hot Bath and a Frightful Film. Just for fun, I threw some green glowsticks into the bathtub (kinda like this blogger did) for a creepy and cool effect. Dollar Tree had some cool glowstick masks, axes, and such too that are fun. 

Since you have a LONG time to prep for this, you can make your own printables, right? No? Okay. You can take mine if you'd like.

You can download them HERE---it's a zipped file that you will have to extract/unzip before accessing the individual files.

Halloween Decor to Die For....

Oh, I do love me some Halloween. You know what they say,

"Home is where the 'haunt" is..." 

That's certainly true of my house this year. I've been brewing up all sorts of spooky Halloween decor and it all starts at my front door!

The Witch is In! 

Dying to know the Details?
Orange Burlap Wreath - homemade using this as a guide
Black Chair - yard sale find! (Hit up your local thrift store, get any small chair, and paint black to get the same effect!)
Witches Broom - yard sale find! (check any party/costume store or online...they sell for pretty cheap)
Candy Cauldron - black cauldron from Dollar Tree, lined with burlap
Witch Hat - Dollar Tree
Black Mat - nothing fancy here, just a black kitchen mat from walmart; but a spider web mat like this one would be cute!

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Step inside, won't you?

Eerie, huh? I LOOOVE it. :)

 I really love this little poem found via Positively Spendid:

"Backward, turn backward,

O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again

Just for tonight!"

(You can download my printable at the end of the post if you want it.)

Here's my DIY Spells & Potions Book:

I created my own pages in Photoshop using a combination of spells found on the internet and bits of my own made-up nonsense. (You can snag my printable pages below as well.) I printed the pages to fit the book I was using and then inked the pages up using grey ink. That's it. (I didn't go all crazy with buying an old, dirty book at a thrift store to use only for this decor project. That's just one more thing I have to store. This is a book right from my bookshelf that will go back when Halloween is over. Eventually, I'll make myself a real-deal spell book, but this works for now!)

...nothing too creepy in these spells. The "Clean House Spell" was just downright funny and I knew I had to have it in my book. (It came from a 13 year old from the UK! source)

Dying to know the Details?

Gravestone - Dollar Tree; many varieties!
Black Crows - Dollar Tree
Hour Glass with Black Sand - $8.99 at Ross Stores, October 2012
Black Flowers - Dollar Tree
Black Frame - Ross Stores
Potions Beakers - bought from walmart (filled with candy). I empied the candy and replaced with

uncooked white rice and chow-mein noodles.
Witch Hat - Dollar Tree

You didn't just come here for my tricks, did you? No, you came for the treats. I don't blame you....

These printable spell book pages are in JPEG format so that you can resize them as desired in Photoshop or another photo editing program. These are 5.75 x 9.25.