Don't Be Scared!

Once we get into our twenties, trick or treating just doesn’t do much for us anymore. Besides the cute little outfits girls wear out, how else can we still enjoy the holiday of Halloween? Well here are some cute and cheap ideas to throw a party that everyone will enjoy.

If you hate all the hassle of creating and carving out pumpkins, this is such an easier way to make and create a Halloween environment! All you have to use is a drill to put holes in the pumpkin at you are done! Spray painting on the first letter of your families last name onto a pumpkin is also an easy and fast way to do some Halloween decorations for your front yard. My other favorite is spray painting plastic jars orange, like the picture below, and use black permanent marker to draw silly faces on them. How Cute!

I got both of these ideas from other bloggers on pinterest.com. So go check them out and you can find much more!

Some of my favorite recipes for Halloween parties come from my mom, so even though these aren't exactly decorating tips, they are still great for throwing a Halloween party!

These aren't exactly decorating tips, but these recipes will make any party thrown at your place a total hit! My first recipe that I got from my mom is called “bat’s eyes”, you use 1 can of black olives, pitted, 16 ounces of cream cheese, and 1 ounce of ketchup. Fill these black olives with the cream cheese, pour some ketchup on your plate and place the olives on top. Gives an eerie feeling to everyone! My other favorite is called “bloody witches fingers”. Here you can cut up chicken breasts into finger looking slices. Coat these slices with crushed crackers and fry the chicken fingers. After this, place on a serving plate and pour barbecue sauce over them. If you want to add finger nails, you can cut black olives in half and place on the end of each chicken finger. You can also roll out dough into bone shapes and serve with pizza sauce to make it look like graveyard bones.

Now, Bring the Indoors Out!

If you want a place to hang outside that’s covered, there are great priced tents that are made to appear and act as a screened in porch. You can put pillows and cushions on your furniture that won’t get too worn from the weather. Any little coffee table will go great, and throw in some pillows to make it look even homier! This picture is from my grandparent’s porch. Even though they have a large spacey deck, this is perfect to sit inside, away from bugs and the hot sun. At my own house, my parents decided to do the same thing in our back yard. We placed bright green and red pillows, a thing rug and a mini coffee table. What we also added what a little wooden table that works perfect as a desk. We even placed a computer screen out there so we can work and enjoy the outdoors at the same time. Doing homework out there during the summer made it so enjoyable. Like I've mentioned in previous blogs, I'm a big fan of having a backyard to enjoy some great conversation and invite family and friends to come relax in. With a little bit of lights surrounding our yard it is the perfect atmosphere to begin a long day with or put an end to any stressful day. With such an easy and cheap way to keep out of the sun and away from the bugs then why not invest in such a purchase!

Hope these tools helped you create those special rooms that can bring people together!

Humanize don't junk

Style A to Zoe explains how being a style junkie can hinder your ability to create and maintain a humanizing space! One mistake many make in order to make their place of living more ‘homey’ is by throwing up pictures everywhere, creating a cluttered and lived in look. I know I’ve made that mistake before. My room at home has so many flower vases, an abundance of posters and pictures hanging on my walls, and a shelf filled with random decorating décor, books, and containers. My room might scream out everything that I love, but it doesn’t make my room look any better. My mom always said, “More isn’t always better”. So true! So try to keep a lot of your pictures down to a few frames in your room, your desk, or photo albums. Rachel made a good point and stated not to make the T.V the main focus of a room. It’s a conversation flow killer! Her solution, keep it covered inside a cabinet. If it is a flat screened up against a wall, then she recommended adding two chairs in front of the T.V that face the opposite direction so it becomes included in the conversation zone.

Seating

Another idea that I loved from Rachel was to create that conversational zone with enough seating. AS obvious as this is, it still seems that at least someone is left standing and leaning against another piece of furniture. This makes it even more difficult to enjoy a conversation if you can’t even enjoy where you’re situated. Rachel also pointed out, “create a quasi-circle, where collectives of guests, or even all of you living under the same roof, can gather. While you’re at it, give every seat in the house a view – whether it’s a picture on a wall, and open window, or a rare orchid in a corner” (133). In my apartment, I always tried to find places for a big mirror. One, if it is a tiny room, mirrors can enlarge the size of any room, making if feel much more open. Mirrors also seem to give a sense of elegance and brightness to a room. Like I always pursue in my blog, spray paint! You can always find a cheap mirror at GoodWill or any thrift store. If the frame is old and out of shape, give it a black spray paint! This instantly makes any mirror modern. The good thing about running into an old out of shape framed mirror is that vintage is in! So having some chipped paint around the frame (as long as It’s consistent and not just in one spot) may just be something you should leave be.

Get Inspired With Rachel!

Rachel Zoe’s book, Style A to ZOE The Art of Fashion, Beauty, &Everything Glamour, explores ideas how to be inspired, creative, glamorous, and chic. My favorite way that Rachel gets inspired is by collecting images of favorite icons from fashion, film, and history. “While you’re at it, collect images of favorite looks, accessories, interiors, even stuff you might like just because of the color, shape, or idea of it. Tear pages out of magazines, copy them out of books. Do whatever it takes to build up an inspiration file” (12). Even though Rachel is a stylist for fashion, the connection between fashion and decorating is very close! How you’re inspired with what you wear can transmit itself in how you decorate. Clothes and your fashion style is a way to express yourself, and from what I’m supporting is that your home decorating style should be the same way. However, your home is something that you want your friends to be comfortable in, you want it to be welcoming, homey, and inviting, on top of having it be your own escape. Whether you live in a lifestyle like Rachel Zoe or not, the idea is simple. With a lot of research and patience, you can create a home that matches what you love in a sense that makes you never want to leave. Rachel states clearly, “The first step in decorating a home involves assembling magazine tears, snapshots, memories, paint chips, and fabric swatches. Those could be images of a dress or a garden that evoke a shade or vibe you want in your home”(130). Rachel keeps all of these images jammed in a folder as a reference to remind you of the direction you desire.

Bring the Outside In!

If you have profusion of white bare walls, white furniture, or too much stainless steel in your house, then Rachel recommends a good way to soften the edges, healthy green plants. Don’t ever have anything dead in the room! It creates dead energy. “Lush green plants and blooming flowers bring nature indoors, and can be so elegant” (134). I can relate to Rachel because one of my roommates has a mom who was throwing out almost all of her green fake plants. Some had flowers and some were just plain green leave plants in a basket! We thought we would never use them, but we decided to try it out. We grabbed only five of them and placed them in little bare corners around our apartment. We placed them above our kitchen cabinets, on our stairs at the bottom as well as where you reached at the top of the stairs, and corners by our furniture in the living room. Ever since we included our new plant editions, we had so many compliments from friends who thought we had the best decorated apartment! Even though our cute candles and pretty patterned curtains were a great accessory, it was the plants that sealed the deal and really turned our apartment environment into something everyone loved to be in!
These are some of my favorite tips that I have learned from Rachel Zoe and later personally tried out! Your place of living can be transformed easily and cheaply by doing just these few easy things!

Throw Over Ideas

Everyone has those old T-shirts that don’t fit anymore, may have some horrible stains, or the lettering falling off. So why it is so hard to let these T-shirts go? The most use we can get out of these raggedy old T-shirts is throwing them on before bed time to sleep in. otherwise, they are basically stuck in a huge pile hanging around in your closet taking up space. But with the good memories that came with each T-shirt, we find it almost impossible to throw them away. I know I have T-shirts from every year at camp, one from every concert I went to, band trips, vacation trips, etc….The list can go on and on. Who would want to get rid of such special memories? Well I began feeling stupid for hanging onto all of them like I was a little girl who couldn’t throw away her Barbie’s. So I found a great idea. Turn all of them into a blanket quilt! By cutting out a square of the middle of each T-shirt that includes the major logo or occasion, I can sew them all together to make a decent sized blanket. So I looked around for some great instructions with my Grandma (who is one perfect/professional sewer!). Go visit my website at collegeaptdecorating2.webs.com for specific directions.