The Good, The Bad & the Cute!

Riddle and Hitchcock are dressing up this year for Halloween. This is Hitchcock's 2nd Halloween and Riddles 1st!

Last year Hitchcock was a devil ... because while living with my mom with Hitchcock, he was a little devil over there.

This year Hitchcock decided he wanted to be a cowboy and he fit the part perfectly. Look how handsome he looks in his hat and bandana!

Well Riddle thought Hitchcock's costume was sooo cool... he decided he wanted to be a cowboy too! Except he looks like a cowboy version of Dirty Harry. Like he's saying...

Go Ahead! Make.. my.. day...

Either way the twins look adorable! And now the twins are both passed out in the office together :)

Now if only I can find a Halloween Costume!! Eeek!!

Our Carved Pumpkins!

Our carved pumpkins are ready to make their debut!! Last night Jose and I went "pumpkin picking" and got our pumpkins than came home and carved them all up!

Here are our beautiful pumpkins sitting on our Easter tablecloth [oh well]! Mine's the one on the right - it was the most beautiful one left!

And here is Jose scooping his pumpkin out. Jose hates to admit it but he gets VERY into crafts! And pumpkin carving is another one of his secret loves!

My carving went nice and smooth [I carved Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas] and he came out perfect! I was so happy with it :)

Jose always likes to carve the most difficult pattern in the book and this one was the hardest - he kinda regretted it after a while but I think his mummy came out good!


And here are the finished products together

And outside with Hitchcock and Riddles baby pumpkins on the side of us!

Riddle was very impressed with our pumpkins.. in fact, they kinda creeped him out a little!

All in all we had some nice Halloween Fun! We watched the horror movie THE CHANGELING [not with Angelina Jolie] than got to carving pumpkins! And I consider it a success!

Pumpkins Everywhere!!

This is It... It is finally the week of Halloween!! Pumpkins are everywhere on my block and everyone has pulled out their Halloween decorations. Tonight Jose & I carve ours and though I all ready know what I am carving mine into [Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas - one of my favorite movies EVER] I wanted to check out some ideas!


Hop on over to Martha Stewart and you will find everything I did [and MORE! of course]

This one was actually sent in by a reader and I LOVE this! Especially because my dad was such a huge Elvis Fan!

Pumpkins on a chandelier... I'm in love with this whole look

Glitter Pumpkins are a big hit this year and these are adorable


This whole little candy buffet set up is awesome and the pumpkin lantern on the side adds to the effect


And a pumpkin planter!

Today I'm going to pick up a pumpkin spice latte, than burn my pumpkin spice candles and pop in Nightmare Before Christmas while we carve our pumpkins! And I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished products!

Have you guys carved pumpkins this year? If not, have you used any creative uses to display pumpkins?

Is It Just Me??

Or is anyone really anxious for the Christmas season to come all ready? I mean... I'm always anxious for it because it's my absolute favorite holiday but since I've been helping set up a brand new CVS store and we are skipping Halloween and putting up Christmas [it opens this week and November first is when Christmas needs to be set up so might as well!] and all I'm staring at the past couple days is Christmas goodies and it's getting me excited!!

I wonder if it'll be a white Christmas this year?? Last year right after we moved in to our apartment in November I bought our Christmas tree and put it up and Hitchcock laid underneath it dreaming a white Christmas...

And this snapped photo of our tree from last year makes me feel all warm and cozy :)

And I especially I can't wait to put Christmas decorations up in our semi-brandie new looking living room! [which I still have to show off on the blog but hold tight!]

I dont know... am I crazy because I am just DYING to put Christmas decorations up all ready??

A Beautiful D.I.Y. Fall Wedding!

My older sister is now officially married! It took her 40 years to find her someone but she did it and we couldn't be happier for her :) Yesterday was their wedding and it was gorgeous! A real low key and extremely unique wedding and everyone had alot of fun.

Jose and I cleaned up pretty well :)

But this is the wedding my mom and I had been helping out with ALOT. In fact here's an example of what we did. We made the placecards! Bought plain placecards from Michaels, printed the names and table seating on sticky labels and Boom! And we even bought some white pumpkins the day before the wedding and asked the restaurant to decorate the placecard table with them. Look how cute it turned out!

A little close up of the candles and cute little pumpkins [Shop Rite!]

And we also helped out with the centerpieces but my sister [who is seriously changed her mind about everything at least 5 times] totally changed the centerpieces the week before and came up with this instead - and it was so cute! [it was supposed to be that candle on a mirror plate but I will admit this is way better!]

And what are the candles in the hurricanes sitting on?? Coffee Beans!! GENIUS!!

A little closer so you can see... I was truly amazed at my sisters D.I.Y.!

And these are the favor boxes full of home made chocolates [her husband is a pastry chef! At the restaurant they had the wedding at! DOUBLE BONUS!] Plus we had another favor as well waiting when we left - gorgeous candle votives.

And my lovely mom made the Menus and programs... got the graphics online for free, cardstock at Michaels for 3.00 for 40, printed it at home! Bam!

And my sister had these leaves printed with their names on it. Sorry, don't know too much about these but they were scattered on the tables and looked great!

Everything was gorgeous! They used their iPod for music instead of hiring a DJ, asked some photography friends to take pictures for them and gave them a free meal, and the groom made their cake! If this isn't D.I.Y. Wedding I dont know what is! But everything was gorgeous and perfect!

Heres my sister and her new husband:

Our candle favors were adorable too :) AND I got to take home our centerpiece! But I'll show you those soon in their action at home :)

Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin King!

Last year for the first time EVER I carved a pumpkin! lol Yes I was 22 and had never carved a pumpkin on my own. This year I can't wait to do it again! I did it with Jose, my sister and my mom last year and they came out so good so I wanted to share! :)

Even hitchcock got in on the action - well he didnt carve but he did have his own pumpkin which he gladly posed next to :)

My sister [the film aficionado] carved Alfred Hitchcock's silhouette in hers - and it came out really good!

My mom of course chose the easiest idea and carved holes in her pumpkins [saw the idea in Martha Stewart magazine] than stuck my little mice in the holes.

I did a haunted house scene - you really can't see it too good in my picture though :(

And Jose did werewolves howling to the full moon - some pieces fell off of his but you wouldn't even notice because it still came out so good!

And here they all are lined up and read to be put outside! It was fun and messy but I loved all of them in the end!

And I know exactly what I'm doing this year... I got my stencil all picked out all ready :)

HeeHeeHeeHee!

D.I.Y. - Halloween Bleeding Candles!

Remember a week or 2 ago I showed off my lovely Halloween Decorations, including this very lonely candleabra?

Well I finally bought some candles from my lovely CVS and got to work on my little project. I saw this idea years ago done by Martha Stewart [and recently caught in on Young House Love!] But decided to show you anyway how mine came out.

All you need is 3 white candles...



A red candle...


And I was alone doing this so really couldn't get a good picture but you just pour the red candle wax on top of your long stem candles and Voila! Candles that drip blood!
Here's mine during the day residing on the mantle :)


And here they are in action. Awesome huh?


And a bit closer... these candles really lit up that side of the room. I was impressed and can't wait to burn them when we carve our pumpkins! [We are going to wait til the week of Halloween to buy them and carve em :)]

Whoo! Sooo easy to do. And insanely cheap. Those long stem candles are 2 for a 1.00 at CVS [but because I work for them I got a discount] and I all ready had the candleabra [which was no more than 9.99] And when Jose came home and saw them dripping blood, he was pretty impressed. He even dared to ask WHERE'D YOU GET THAT IDEA FROM? Damn! :) lol

Remember the time . . . Las Vegas '07!

I have been taking vacations ever since I was little. At first it started with just going down the shore [here in Jersey] every summer than it was going to Canada and than seeing the rest of the country. Well 2 years ago my mom and I decided we wanted to finally go to Las Vegas. I turned 21 in 2006 and was ready to go on an "adult" vacation. [even though 3 weeks after Vegas, we went to DISNEYWORLD for the 4th time but that's another post]

We invited all 3 of my sisters but my younger one was too young and wasn't interested, my oldest sister couldn't afford it but my other older sister was totally down. Than I asked my best friend and she was totally down (and panicked and almost cancelled on me the week before but I got her to go). And boy is she glad she did! So am I! Because seriously... Vegas is competing with Disneyworld as my favorite vacation spot.

Vegas is AMAZING! We went the 3rd week of August and it was BOILING hot but we LOVED it! In fact, my mom went back the year after and me and my best friend went back a year later with our girlfriends [and our trying to get our men to take us next year!]

Our first trip to Vegas was our trip where we were tourists and wanted to see everything. All the hotels and stuff, since they are like monuments! I was taken aback at how BIG these hotels were. We stayed at the Mandalay Bay and I highly recommend it! It was gorgeous and the rooms were huuuuge [my mom and sister bunked while my best and I did in another room RIGHT NEXT DOOR]. We even had a great view of the strip. But Mandalay is the very first hotel on the North side of the strip so you will need to take a taxi or shuttle to go to the rest cos the strip is looooong!

Here is my best friend and I inside the LUXOR hotel, right next to Mandalay! We had just landed so we were in our comfy clothes.

And this is the fountains at the Bellagio. Amazing! We caught the fountains just in time and they danced to Singing In the Rain!

Here's my best friend inside the lobby of the Bellagio. Check out that ceiling!


On our second day we traveled to see the Grand Canyon. It was very nice and I was not all too impressed and am positive we were on the wrong side of it to be impressed! Here I am in front of the Grand Canyon:


When we came back, we went to check out some more hotels and slipped into the Venetian, one of my favorites. Here is the INSIDE of the Venetian hotel with all the shops and restaurants. And look! Gondola rides! I still have to do that :)

We ate at Postrio in the Venetian, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. It was DELICIOUS and affordable!

Than we went to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum [also in the Venetian] I went to the one in New York a bunch of times and a couple in California, Canada, bunch of places - but this one is the BEST! Sadly here I am with a wax figure that looked NOTHING like Jon Bon Jovi. lol

And of course I am obsessed with The Girls Next Door and Playboy [and so is my best friend] so we were amazed at the bunny on the side of the PALMS fantasy tower!

And our last day we went to see The Beatles LOVE show performed by Cirque Du Soleil. I am a huge beatles fan so it was an amazing show! I LOVED it! Quite expensive but very good :) I'd love to see it again but they have like 6 shows in Vegas so next time I'll see another!

And those are the highlights of my first Las Vegas trip. My second trip was with my girl friends - and it was totally a girls trip. Lots of drinking, partying, fighting [c'mon, giiiirls], even some BIG money winning! But thats another post :) I LOVE Vegas and can't wait to go back!!

The Living Room Transformation: Picking the Color

Before I could do anything to my living room - the wall color had to go! Jose and I moved in together November last year and in February I was officially grossed out by the living room. It had no personality but I decided to think about what I wanted in my living room.

Here is the best picture I could find to show off our living room color:

I don't know why but I just did not like it! So I went to Benjamin Moore and checked out their paint. I usually use Valspar paint from Lowes but this time decided to go with Benjamin Moore. I took a couple swatches home to show to Jose and after staring at them day and night, comparing it to our dining room color and seeing which we ones we liked the most we narrowed it down to three.

Than it was up to me to figure out which would go best with the existing furniture we have and what we could work with best. In the end I picked SQUIRE HILL BUFF and both Jose and I are VERY happy with the end result!

Yes this is all you get to see cos my living room is still not done! Hopefully soon! All we need is our extra seating and we are basically done!

Ahh... this paint color makes me so happy :)