Dressing Up for Halloween: Home Edition

I have been waiting to make this blog post since July.  What took me so long?  Well, I wanted to wait until just the right time to reveal the three new additions to our Halloween decor.  I have been patiently waiting for the calendar to turn to October so that I could 'officially' decorate for Halloween.  Not only did we gain new rooms and new gardens in our move, we gained new possibilities for decorating.  Feel free to rip off the ideas, I did.  However, Ian has a few original designs that I will happily highlight!

Let's begin with the 'SPOOKY' fireplace mantle.
The candlesticks on either end are Ian Carle originals.

Next, we have some Halloween Luminaries.

Finally, the Mummy.
These wooden letters are another Ian Carle original.

I had a few other items in the Halloween box to display as well.

I brought my Harry Potter books home from school to display.  Ian and I found this creepy, sparkly hand at a fun store on The Square to add and topped the whole look off with a hand-crafted wand from Carpenter Carle.

I already had the three candlesticks and decided three mini-pumpkins would add just the right touch.

This last guy has been around for awhile, but he's helping me count down the minutes until
October 31.

According to Ian, the cute decorations were not necessary since our entry way, formal living room and dining room are a haunted house all on there own.  
But Jen still has one or two more decorating ideas brewing.

Back to Reality

Since our last blog post, we have started back to work.  Our do-it-yourself projects came to a screeching halt when the calendar turned to August.  We packed away our scrapers, steamers, and weeders for bulletin boards and lesson plans.

I found this little idea on Pinterest.

In between setting up my classroom and writing lesson plans, I have found a little time to be creative in the kitchen.  It is not uncommon for me to get a little bit carried away when it comes to 'themed' parties.  Here's my handiwork in decorating cupcakes.

Mini-Dice Cupcakes for BUNCO

Piggy Cupcakes for the Church Pig Roast

We are in the process of having 22 windows and one sliding glass door replaced!  This was not a project we were willing to tackle on our own, so we hired this job out.  To date, 20 windows have been replaced.  We will be so happy when the entire project is complete and we can start making deposits back into the back account for future DIY projects!

Our Two Weeks as Strippers

Our Definition of Stripping Wallpaper: Trying to remove paper that had been glued to the wall over 60 years ago with some adhesive that was applied with the intent of it never coming down.  For us it was a journey of trying to minimize tears, sweat, and bad words flying from our mouths.

The beginning of the first layer coming off.

We thought tearing down wallpaper would go quickly especially since Jen had taken the first layer off in about an hour with little difficulty at all.  In fact she thought she was finished tearing down all the wallpaper, until I kindly pointed out that there was still another layer.  This is when the real work began.

First you have to know that the wallpaper was coming off at the seams and there was a burn mark next to one of the outlets so the paper had to go.  We have a lot more wallpaper in the house, but we decided to start with the entry way, living room and dining room.

Wallpaper Removal Products
We tried three different products of which the first two didn't work.  The first one we tried was one you had to mix with water and then use a sponge to wet the walls wait 15 minutes and then scrape.

Duration using this product before giving up on it: 3 hours

DIF also known as waste of money.

 
The second product we used was one that was a gel formula that came in a spray bottle and it wasn't supposed to run down the wall.  We thought this would work better and it did, but still we didn't like it.  You were to spray it on and wait 15 to 20 minutes and then remove paper.

Duration using this product before giving up on it: 1/2 day

Better than the first formula we tried.

After the second formula didn't work.  We decided to try a different approach.  We went to The Home Depot and bought a steamer.

If there were a super hero that you could purchase to do wallpaper he or she might come in a box like this.

We found this to be the quickest way to get rid of paper.  It still wasn't easy, but we were no longer on the verge of crying, using bad words or **gasp** hiring someone to come do it for us.
 

Our very own 'Wailing Wall' - The first place tears flowed and scrapers flew.

Hidden Meanings
One driving force was finding words underneath the wallpaper.  One of the words just said paper.  It was a bit disappointing since I was looking for words of wisdom.

The "Pa" in paper peaking through.  Jen being great at  Wheel of Fortune guessed it right away.

Paper

As we were taking down the last little bit of wallpaper we uncovered a real note.  First they put a date on the wall,  which was March 12, 1975 and then they wrote a few words.  It is a bit hard to read though.  One part says, "Life is just like a beautiful ______"  couldn't make out that last word.  Then it continues, " 'just one ..." and we couldn't make out the rest.
 

All of the important words of wisdom are missing.

The Tiger or (the Kitten)
Before using the steamer we used a device called the Tiger which would make little holes in the wallpaper and let the steam break down the glue.  It worked well and if you ever decide you too need to tear down wallpaper you will want one of these.

Using the Tiger.  I had reservations about buying a product called a Tiger since I am not a big fan of Tigers especially ones named Truman.  We named ours kitten.

It is telling me how happy I will be when school is back and I will no longer be stripping.

Final Thoughts
So the wallpaper is off the wall.  The house now looks scarier than it did before we started.  My sister came over the other day and mentioned something about it looking like a crack house. I think in every house project there comes a point where I doubt myself and say, "Should I really be doing this?"  I think we are there right now.

There's No Place Like Home

Last Saturday, some good friends hosted a little housewarming open-house style for us.  We were thrilled to show off our new home and willingly gave tour, after tour, after tour!  We were spoiled by our guests and look forward to having friends and family in our home again and again.

Not only did we have great fellowship with friends, we had some delicious eats too!

Two 'Green' Thumbs Up

Last week Ian asked me what goals we had for the yard for the week.  My first reaction was that I would be weeding violets.  I mean what else was really left to do?  So we set to work weeding violets on Tuesday and made some excellent progress.  We also have an empty flower bed that needed a little attention.  We have been eying the liriope at my parent's house so later that evening we headed over to True Value to check out their plants that were 50% off.  Who doesn't like a bargain, right?  They did not have any liriope, but we spotted some Knock Out Roses that were pretty, however they were a bit dry and looked to be nearing the end of life.  We decided to give Lowe's a try and found some liriope there, but it also looked a bit dry.  We decided a drive to Colonial Nursery was in order and drove out first thing in the morning.  We found three Cherry Red Knock Out Rose Bushes and nine healthy and thriving liriope plants.  As an added bonus, we also picked up a few annuals for 50% off.  We then spent the rest of the day planting our new foliage.

 Here we have a lonely row of hostas and a few pesky weeds.

 Ian created a plastic barrier to fend off the encroaching Bermuda grass .

Weeding as usual and yes I can do this with my eyes closed!

The lovely row of hostas was planted right where we wanted to put the rose bushes.  So, Ian and I made our first attempt at transplanting them!  So far, everything is still alive!  Once we transplanted the hostas, we could slip the rose bushes and liriope into place.  It looks so easy, but Ian had to dig 18 new holes for all the plants.  Oops...I forgot to include the three extra holes he had to dig when we realized a few of the plants were a little too close for comfort!

Places Please!

Ta Da!

We took the remaining hostas to the backyard to fill a void under one of the dogwood trees.  We hope they survive their 250 foot move!

The Naked Dogwood

Hosta Moving Mobile

Welcome Home!

Last year we purchased two planters for our flower beds at the old house.  We found the perfect place for one of them on top of an old stump surrounded by hostas.  It has been sitting there empty all summer.  We found some unique little flowers for half price to give a little color to the yard. 

Boring Before

Voila!

Let Freedom Ring

In our old house we were extremely limited on space to decorate.  The new house has numerous possibilities.  The first place I chose to decorate was the fireplace mantel.

 
I've been known to be a crafty lady.  I sifted through my Better Homes and Gardens archives for an idea and ended up creating some red, white, and blue pinwheels to give the front walk a little festive flare.

We had some friends over for dinner to celebrate our country's independence.  I tried to incorporate several red, white, and blue edible items to the menu.

Appetizers

Salsa and Blue Corn Chips

Guacamole

Main Course

Build Your Own Quesadillas

(chicken, cheese, onions, peppers)

Dessert

Berry Sour Cream Cake

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

Beverages

(Courtesy of Jones Soda)

Fufu Berry Soda

Cream Soda

Berry Lemonade Soda

Happy 4th of July from our house to yours!