a Hollieween party

Last night I hosted my 3rd annual Hollieween party and as usual, the turnout was small. Very small (4 guests)  but I'm sure that's because 99% of my friends have moved hundreds of miles away over the past three years and I haven't made any new ones. What few friends I do have left, most are unmarried and childless and I think they're kind of turned off by the whole "Hollie's a wife and mommy now so that makes her uncool" thing so they've stopped coming around... oh well, more candy and beer for me.

But at least now I've learned that on the subject of party guests, it's definitely quality that matters. Not quantity.

For the party I dressed us all as hobbits. The original idea was to just dress River as a hobbit but then I realized that we all have the clothes to put together hobbit outfits. So there you have it, a family of hobbits.

Since I'm not fond spending tons of money on costumes the only thing I bought were our pointy ears, the elven brooches and rubber cavemen feet that I "hobbited" up with wood stain and hair.

I used wig hair on my feet and snipped a lock of my husband hair for his. Everyone was pretty grossed out by that.

For my costume I wore an old thrifted skirt and blouse, husband's vintage vest and a cape bought at last year's Renaissance faire.

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Here's the before and after on my hobbit feet. I used gel wood stain topped with my own liquid foundation makeup for a better skin tone match.

For River I cropped some old pants,  made his cape out of one the husband's old tee shirts and drew swirling hair on his little feet with eyeliner. The vest and shirt are handmedowns.

The husband wore old cropped work pants, thrifted suspenders, Renaissance faire cape and a shirt from his days of Civil War reenacting. 

A couple of days before the party, I spent a great amount of time decorating. Well, I didn't just do it for the party. I LOVE Halloween and I love low cost "use-what-ya-got" DIY projects.

The only thing bought for my tiny "laboratory" were spiderwebs and battery operated tea lights for a bit of subtle illumination behind my DIY specimen jars.

Ghost farts!!

(Packed cellophane, water and food coloring)

River and my friend Jennifer. 

During the party we played an impromptu trivia game I invented based off one of my favorite books Where are they buried: how did they die?. The book is full of mini-bios about some of the world's most famous people, how they died and directions to their graves. The game was to guess how these celebs died based on info given about their age at the time of death, the era they lived in and their lifestyle. 

The end results of the game? Lots and lots of lung cancer. 

  And here's one of my favorite Halloween revamps. Cheap strawberry wine turned into delicious virgin blood. MUAHAHAHA!

I love love love love Halloween. I just can't get enough of it and if it were up to me, I'd keep my home decorated like this year round, dress up in different costumes and have a party every weekend.

So how do you feel about Halloween? Any special plans for this year?