30Oct / 2014

Vintage Halloween Bash

All Hallowe’en

When the world is wrapped in slumber

And the moon is sailing high,

If you peep between the curtains

You’ll see witches riding by

It was this poem, printed on a sweet vintage style Halloween card from my mother that inspired my Vintage Halloween Bash. I grabbed my witches hat and broom to fly back in time bringing some old school charm and whimsy to the evening. I wanted this party to feel classic so Matthew bought me a fantastic book on vintage Halloween traditions and games and we wove them into the evening, creating a magical night. You set the tone with the invitation of course, so I mailed out vintage inspired cards with a hand written invitation inside. We played vintage fortune telling games, had food with the flare of days gone by, and partied into the evening.

We kept it classic in an orange and black palate. I spent the month of October crafting away, draping dip-dyed tulle around and placing crows and owls on the fence to keep a vigilant watch. I crafted hand-painted paper bags into a Cemetery Luminary and modge-podged tissue paper into floating ghosts with led lights tied inside to glow into the evening. We must have cut out a million bats; hanging them in flocks around the house and from the chandeliers casting eerie shadows on the walls. Pumpkins with holes drilled through them were stuffed with lights and glowed away on the porch. You can’t have a vintage Halloween without a Scarecrow so we propped up an old one that was gifted to me from my Grandma to make sure the crows stayed on the fence.

Here is the full breakdown of everything good.

Games:

Donuts on a String

Bobbing For Apples

Costume Contest

Guess how many Candy Corn

Chestnut Tree Fortune Telling

Décor:

Paper Bats

Bouquets of Flowers Infested with Bugs

A Paper Bag Luminary Cemetery

Tissue Paper Glowing Ghosts

Cobwebs and Tulle

Pumpkin Lanterns

DIY Halloween Candles

Pumpkin Diorama

Savory:

Black (olive tapenade) & orange (roasted pepper) Crostini

Deviled eggs with chili peppers and poppy seeds

Blue cheese plate with rosemary and olive “bugs”

Prosciutto wrapped asparagus

Trick or Treat Stew – with elk, yams and parsnips

Brussel Spout Salad with pistachios and bacon

Sweet:

Two-tiered marshmallow cobweb cake

Maple Glazed Bars

Carmel Apples

Popcorn balls

When black cats prowl

& Pumpkins gleam

May luck be with you on Halloween!

Marcella Rose

29Oct / 2014

Spider Covered Tablecloth {DIY}

Spider Covered Table Cloth

A BIG black spider lived in a hole;
A terrible spider was he:
As big as your hand, and with hairy legs,
And a mouth as red as could be.

The beetles and flies at the sight of him fled,
And even the birds were afraid.
He had two great nippers, and eight wicked eyes;
How he ran ! and what leaps he made
I and all who lived in the garden knew
That terrible spider’s lair,
And told their little ones, under their breath:
‘ 0 never, 0 never go there! ‘

Those who were naughty and disobeyed,
By their mothers would not have been known,
For the spider had sucked their juicy parts—
Sucked them as dry as a bone.

By A. Vine Hall

Spider Covered Table Cloth

I have spiders on the brain, spinning webs throughout my thoughts. Ideas buzz and stick in the gossamer threads as eight legs turn them over and over coating them with white filaments until they have become a reality then the spider sits and waits until the next idea comes flying by. Spiders; they are the embodiment of Halloween, dark, dangerous, frightening and simply perfect for our annual Halloween party theme. I have been toiling away; craft after craft, recipe after recipe. I perfect and make lists, checking-off each spectacularly arachnid-ish “to-do” with joy and delight for the upcoming soirée. I lack expendable income to simply go out and buy much of anything for parties so mostly things are crafted as imaginatively as possible with reused house-hold items and elevated paper crafts. This Spider Tablecloth craft is one of my favorites; it was really cheap and has a fantastic impact. I was even able to repurpose a stained, totally ready to trash, tablecloth, so I did it on a dime!

You will need:

Tablecloth

Iron – no steam

Scissors

Template – I used one from the queen of everything Martha Stewart

Iron-on transfer paper

To do

Print out templates onto iron on paper

Cut around edges of images leaving 1/8 of an inch of transfer paper

Using the no steam setting on the iron place over images for 10-20 seconds

Once image is cool enough to touch gently remove the paper to reveal the image

Arach– tastic!

Marcella

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23Oct / 2014

Mad Scientist Halloween Bash!

It’s pretty obvious that I adore Halloween. This year I want to give you readers a few of the parties I have thrown or catered in the past. I hope you enjoy and that it inspires some party throwing of your own.

I have some pretty amazing friends in this quaint town of Ashland, none better or more fabulous than Paul and Amara. They are the type of people who are always down for a few cocktails and a game of Cards Against Humanity or a fancy night out. They have been my guinea pigs on many an occasion for blog posts and I simply adore them both. Paul, an amazing audio book narrator, has superb taste in glassware. There is not higher compliment from Paul than getting something poured (usually aged for at least 10 years) into one of his fantastic glasses; absolute heaven. Amara, a copywriter for Harry and David, seems to always be on trend; rocking the coolest jewelry or a fantastic blouse or (my favorite) her neon Christmas décor, complete with blazing white Christmas tree, I mean what could be more awesome? I love everything she styles and everything she does. I find her haute-ness to be particularly amazing since this quaint little town is frozen in either the year 1901 or 1971; it’s weird but true. Now that you have the back story, you will understand how perfectly ecstatic I was when asked to co-host a Halloween Party with them. They thought of the most fantastic theme (no surprise), Mad Scientist!

Mad Scientist Party

This party was AMAZING. Sadly my pictures are not, this was before I had the fantastic camera I now use and the lighting was low and spooky. I hope you my avid readers will forgive the spotty shots, but the ideas and execution can still be seen, I hope. Paul and Amara outfitted their home with sheets of plastic covering almost every space and converted a spare room into a photo booth “kill room” where you could be wrapped up a la Dexter and have portraits taken of killing or being killed. They even had a friend dress as Dexter himself to stand in the shots! Let me just say, there are some pretty epic shots of me as Mary Poppins going on a killing spree. They completed the look with beakers and jars filled with colored water and dry ice. They even stuffed sweet looking stuffed animals into mason jars with glow sticks and yellow water to give the whole place a formaldehyde feel. One word: GENIUS.

This party theme is killer for a Halloween Bash but could be just as fun without the spook for a kid’s party or cocktail party!

I took care of the food, getting extremely creative with the theme. The menu included:

Savory

Sterile Crudité – all white veggies served in a shiny metal pan
Surplus monkey legs – my mom’s famous rosemary marsala drummettes with the bones exposed
Penicillium roqueforti (blue cheese) with Salami and Crackers served in petri dishes
Lobotomized Brain – made with shrimp and a spicy lemon horseradish gelatin

Sweet

Coagulated Candy Corn – made with red food coloring
Blood Slide Lollypops
Periodic Cookie Table of Elements – Each element hand piped onto a square cookie frosted white and arranged in order

Libations

Ta-KILL-Ya – Served with lime and salt
Redrum Punch – Spiced rum with blood orange juice
Nuclear Reactor Cocktail – Midori, homemade sweet and sour, vodka
Glass Cleaner with Ammonium D – Crème de Violet, bitters, and sparkling wine

Mad Scientist Party

It’s a mad mad world!

Marcella Rose

Mary Poppins Killing Dexter – photo credit to Paul Garcia

Mary and Bert – photo credit to Amara Waterman

17Oct / 2014

Halloween Candles DIY

I have been singing it all week, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” … Halloween of course! I love that the days get shorter, the air cooler and I get to pull out my thicker sheets. You’re layering those summer cotton sweaters with gusto in anticipation of the cashmere; yes it’s fall and time for things to get spooky. My husband and I have been brimming with excitement for our annual Halloween Soiree! This year, much to our excitement, we will be throwing it on the day itself. We have been spreading cobwebs, cutting out crafts, DIY-ing while watching our favorite films of the season.

I want to give you some simple and fun DIY crafts to do this holiday. I hope you will stay tuned to Marcellaroses.com for features on some epic Halloween parties, easy but impressive costumes, and some fun crafts and tasty appetizers to get your party started.

This is a fantastic craft: DIY candles. Take this craft and run with it. I have made stunning birthday gifts, Christmas favors, and decor for my home. The possibilities are endless. There is something about making them for Halloween that sends me over the edge though. The silhouettes, the candle-lit nature of the early evening, it’s just too much fun. So knock this craft out and bring a little spook into your home this holiday.

You will need

Pillar Candles

Tissue paper

Copy Paper

Wax Paper

Tape

Images

Hair Dryer

Tape

How to:

Tape the tissue paper to copy paper to make printing out the images easier

Print out the images onto the tissue paper

Cut out the images and lay them out on the wax paper

Wrap the wax paper around the candle and tape to hold into place

Heat image with the hair dryer for 5 minutes

Slowly peal off the wax paper applying more heat if needed

Light it up,

Marcella

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26Oct / 2013

Pumpkin Lanterns

Light the way into fall with this DYI pumpkin project

Halloween is my favorite holiday, the lights, the leaves, the lore!!! When you think about the holiday one of the first images that enters the your mind has got to be the pumpkin. It’s history and mythology date so far back that the stories have taken on a life of their own and you can’t tell truth from a tale told with too much whiskey on the breath. Since the original folk tale comes from Ireland we can be certain it is at least a wee bit o’ the latter. You cannot begrudge this humble little squash. It transforms every year into anything your imagination can muster. This yellow vegetable will metamorphose into anything and everything; from a witch, to a scarecrow, a monster, or a haunted mansion, Darth Vader, a pie or possibly humble Jack himself. What is it about the glowing pumpkin that seems to beckon autumn to come just a little faster? Whatever magic this modest orange globe has, I want to capture it this year and use it to help myself and my neighbors ease into fall a little more smoothly. Beckoning thoughts of spiced cider and crunching leaves, we enter the time of year where you pull your sweater a bit closer and take a moment to marvel at the moon. So join me on the way to fall with a little craft that is so very simple but so very full of autumnal whimsy….

Visit My Crafty Spot for the full blog and how to DYI this craft for yourself!

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24Oct / 2013

Pumpkin Diorama.

That’s right I said Pumpkin DIORAMA! Now when is the last time you heard the word diorama? I mean seriously…can you remember? I remember my last diorama; it was the fifth grade, Mrs. Rhodes class. I remember carefully trying to create a scene that fully expressed the emotion I experienced while reading the book Where the Red Fern Grows. I remember looking for the perfect sized shoe box and deciding where to place the opening; the slow, almost meditative process of painstakingly manipulating miniature little props to create a teeny secret world that I desperately wanted to be able to crawl into and live. Now that we are all grown up creating a Pumpkin Diorama is like taking a trip down memory lane.

Visit my blog for My Craft Spot for the rest of the story and how to DIY your own Pumpkin Diorama!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Marcella

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Tag Archives: Halloween

Vintage Halloween Bash

Spider Covered Tablecloth {DIY}

Mad Scientist Halloween Bash!

Halloween Candles DIY

Pumpkin Lanterns

Pumpkin Diorama.

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