Welcome to the Witch Party! 2017

Our new little party guest welcomes you to this year's Witches' Gathering!

You might remember his friend here from previous Halloweens.

That big frog is pulling a Hitchcock in this one. How do you like that hair? This hat/hair was part of a Halloween dog costume, if you can believe it!

This year's party theme was black cats. I was inspired by some vintage Halloween illustrations I've seen. You know, those old timey cat heads with collars and clown/party hats?

I drew/painted my own cat heads and cut them out of black cardstock. That's why they all have their own personalities.

Then I cut and folded two layers of orange paper for the collars. I then glued the cat heads/collars to some polka dot cards I picked up this summer.

I thought the polka dots went with that vintage party vibe.

The envelopes that came with these cards were polka dotted too.

I made matching place cards. I used a hole punch to punch out the polka dots on these. As you can see, we went with our regular Simpsonized Halloween names.

Some of you might remember these spider rings from when I shared them on Twitter. Spider rings have come a long way, haven't they? They're pretty glamorous now! These were from Dollar Tree. 10 for $1.00 wasn't bad!

I got them to fasten the black cat candy bags:

They were also fun to wear! All the party guests took their rings off the candy bags and put them on.

I'm going to share a few items I picked up before the party this year. Can you believe I found this at Dollar Tree? This sugar skull is pretty large and made of some light masonite type material. So it is sturdy. It's no surprise these sold out right away!

I also ordered Halloween stuff from Hollar for the first time this year. What a fun surprise to receive a box like this!

There were cute spiderwebs in each corner of the box.

Look at the adorable tape!

"HOLLARween"

Have you guys shopped on Hollar? There are deals to be found if you know your prices! So here are my Hollar deals. I got these three hanging fold out shapes for $1.00. I thought they fit with our vintage theme.

I held them together with a paperclip.

I saw this bat at Dollar Tree later on. And here I thought I'd scored this unique deal from Hollar! Although, I think I paid only 99¢ for mine. 😉

This picture makes me laugh! Check out his glowing red eyes. This bat really flies around in the wind.

These two have arms and legs that are moveable. They're made of a cardstock type material.

Here was a steal: Four of these spooky pics for $1.00! They're 5x7" and come in pairs. They stand up with backs and have an actual antique look with those frames.

He's pretty gruesome, isn't he?

I think I like her better as a skeleton. She's my favorite.

Then we have this little guy and two people that I imagine to be his grandparents.

Again, I probably like them better as ghouls.

Here's my favorite Hollar find, and what a deal it was! These luminaries have holographic insides. Four cats for a $1.00! Same with the owls. They're pretty large too, at 9". They sold out fast! I got the last of the black cats and the last of the owls. I was going to get two packs of cats, but the site said "only 1 left". I wasn't sure what I thought of the owls when ordering them, but I ended up loving them.

The owls have little wings cut out on the sides.

Looking into the luminaries, you can see the holographic effect.

Oooooh. That's how it looks with a bluish-white candle.

And from the outside:

With a yellow candle:

For the party gifts, I did some new crafting. I saw these wood stakes at JoAnn's and saw potential. These can be used in plants, floral arrangements, or just placed in with your decorations. There were a number of paintable wood pieces when I went, but I bought up the last of these stakes. There were exactly four witch hats and four cats left. So I figured, we could alternate them on the table.

And.... Spray painted black:

So, I ended up blinging up the black side, and painting the other side purple.

I love these ribbons of bling! I have covered so many things with this stuff! It's framing bulletin boards, boxes, all kinds of stuff over here. 😁 So I knew months back that I wanted to do something with it for the party. When I saw these black hats, I knew I had my chance!

I bought my bling on ebay, but I actually saw it at Dollar Tree recently.

The purple side with its little hat band:

I ended up loving this electric orange cat. He has some zing! And the black cat got a tiny bit of bling too.

I'll probably be back at JoAnn's, picking through their wood items again after Halloween.

The drink markers were a perfect fit with the black cat theme this time!

Here's a tip! Stick chocolate chips in your cupcake batter and you are going to get so much extra chocolatey goodness out of your baking!

The finished product! I bought these cat cupcake toppers years back and saved them for the future. This was definitely the year for them with the vintage black cat theme.

I got these triple chocolate KitKat bars for the treat bags. Would you believe some people couldn't tell the difference between these and the regular KitKats? Maybe some of you feel that way too. I could sure tell the difference. This is the first year I've seen these, so maybe they're new. I recommend them!

The guardian of the KitKats. 🕷 I may have secretly not wanted people to eat too many of these...

This is something I saw on Pinterest and wanted to try - the lounging skeleton in the treat bowl. I like him in the popcorn, it's like his bubble bath.

Mmm...

We made cat-shaped bread rolls:

We had black bean chili too, although I don't have any exciting photos of that.

The vintage inspired black cat napkins. They look like something that artist Shag would design. 

We ended up using a cauldron filled with leaves as the centerpiece.

You can see how we placed the cat/hat stakes on the table.

I put some real cosmos in with the silk leaf arrangement.

The kitty cat treat bags are peeking out under the arrangement.

I already had some orange and purple skull scatters that ended up matching the theme. Somewhat accidentally, the theme came together as orange and purple. When I noticed that happening, I looked for orange and purple things to add.

We had the same ice cream as last year: Dean's Chicago Brick. I assume that these colors look like bricks traditionally used in Chicago, like we have the "Cream City Brick" look in Milwaukee. Chicago area people, let me know!

Anyway, this stuff is really good. As you can read here, it's orange sherbet, vanilla ice cream, and caramel ice cream. I think these look like autumn colors.

Part of my bottle collection:

You'll probably remember these bottles and spell books from past years.

Here are the luminaries in action!

Here's a bit of my outfit. I went kind of vintage with the jewelry, because of the dress I chose to wear.

This cameo had been a light pink, then it faded to white in the light. So I repainted it and the chain bright pink and added some shading.

This bracelet is an estate sale find. I think it has a Victorian look. I know it's a lot newer than that, but it probably is vintage.

This pin on my hat is definitely vintage! This was my first antique store buy. I could write a blog post about the store and stores in that area where I found this! How old do you think this is? 1960s? I always thought it looked like a firework.

I'm not wearing my hat here, because it was shading my face for the photo. This is the same dress I wore to my cousin's wedding. I wore the same shoes too. I knew that was going to be a useable outfit!

Now, for how I decorated the outdoors. I know you've seen this before!

This spider was crawling out of a big cage in last year's display.

I had some scary sound effects playing outside. So imagine frogs croaking, wolves howling, etc. while looking at these.

The wind was very strong that night! So I was trying to think up ways to keep the candles from blowing out. I ended up putting them in deep candleholders, but even so, they didn't last long.

The wind blew the flame right into the side of this candleholder, which is why it is sooty looking. I think it looks cool for Halloween, though.

As you can see, the wind was really shooting that flame around and the wax was moving. The snake got it, I'm afraid. But I managed to scrape that off later.

And... it's out.

Our guests left some generous gifts:

Cute sugar skull towel:

A clever pot holder set:

The wine and the glass are actually from different people, but they go together well. The "Witches Brew" wine is being saved for Halloween night. Two people each brought a bottle of that wine, actually!

The glass was all hand painted, so it's the kind of thing I'd be afraid to drink out of. The base of it is pretty cool:

And if you tip it upside down, you'll see a drink recipe:

I'm trying to imagine what that drink would be like. Part of it sounds good.

Well, I hope you enjoyed these party pics! Next time I blog, I'll be sharing pics of people's Halloween decorations around the neighborhood!