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 :)

Preparing for a Wedding!

First of all thank you to my new followers! :) Thank you verry much!! I will be showing you a little more of my living room soon - All we need is our little accent chair and it is FINISHED!! I can't wait!!

I have been very busy the past couple months helping my older sister plan her wedding! She got engaged last October and finally the big day has come [October 18th actually!] But we are reaaaally busy helping her plan - my older sister, my mom and her mom [my siblings and I have the same dad but my brother and older sisters have a different mom than me and my younger one. AND we get along great with their mom :) including my mom!] have been helping her with the centerpieces and my mom is printing out the programs and menus. I am in charge of stamping maple leaves on the placecards.

My tools:

And my result:

Trust me it is not an easy job... it takes alot more time than you think it would! Each leaf has to be filled out perfectly! But anyway, my sister is having a small wedding and really trying to do it as cheap as possible which is why we all are helping her figure out her centerpieces. Flowers cost too much so instead of that, she wanted something with candles. Alot of ideas were thrown around and FINALLY we knew what our candles were going to look like...

The beads on it are gorgeous and I couldn't help from take some macro pics of them... and they actually came out frame worthy.

I can't wait to take pictures at the wedding on Sunday and show you how all our hard work paid off! But now I'm off to stamping away!

The Living Room Transformation: The Before

We have recently COMPLETELY re done our living room and are still waiting on some tiny little things to make it feel "done" - and is annoying because Jose will not let me buy one little thing for any other room until the living room is done [same thing he did when I was doing my office makeover which you can see here on my blog a couple entries back!]


But for now I dug up some "before" pictures of my living room to show you what I had. You see, this whole makeover started with the color on our walls. After 4 months living here in this apartment, I could not stand the blue walls anymore. But I decided to deal with it AT LEAST until we were here a year. And than after the paint color bothered me, this lovely wall unit below started to bother me as well. Here it is in the midst of our doing our office makeover:

I could not figure out what to fill those bookshelves with, I started to hate them there. So we took em off, painted them white and now they reside happily in our office :)

Here:

And here:

And the best picture I could find to proudly display our wall color is the picture I snapped at Christmas... I can't wait til this Christmas, my mantle is going to look muuuccch better. Besides! We were only living together for 2 weeks when Christmas decorations were put up! My apartment was scarce!

And than we just needed some new things - particulary an actual coffee table. We had this ottoman but that now is happily living in the office as well!

Well now we've got the new paint color, the bookshelves are gone and a brand new [actual] coffee table which we got for $20!! What a steal!

But for now you will have to use your imagination and wait til my living room is ready to show off!

Mellow Yellow...

Yellow is such a bright and happy color - why would you not want hints of it in your house, or even better - why not be surrounded by it?

My mother's living room is a bright yellow and I love how it looks! It makes me feel so calm and happy when I walk in her house. And when I look at these pictures it pretty much does the same.

This kitchen is perfection...

Ooh la la... a yellow bathroom!

All images courtesy of MyHomeIdeas.com

This Is Halloween!

October is finally here and so is Halloween! I know in my heart that Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday but every year when Halloween rolls around, I feel like it's testing me. I love Halloween and have so much fun with it! This is our first Halloween in our apartment since we moved in last November so I am having fun!

We have painted our living room [finally] and now I am able to decorate for Halloween! I won't post pictures of my finished living room because I still need to show the before BUT you will see a peek at my new wall color :) Which my man and I are both VERY happy with! It was a cape cod blue before - well thats what I call it :) lol and it didn't fit us anymore.

But anyway... this post is about the little halloween decorations I have around our apartment that I LOVE!

Like this little haunted house that lights up from a tea light candle that my sister got me ... at HomeGoods! [ooh and check out my spider "placemat" I bought at the Metropolitan Plant Exchange - BEST place to buy halloween decorations!]

I also got my candleabra there [I'm in the process of making bloody candles to put on it - stay tuned] and my purple flameless candle I bought at CVS. I thought it looked awesome so I picked it up.

And this little guy I got for a DOLLAR at Michaels!

My bloody hands are in my front window [and on my door] which I got at CVS both sets of hands for a dollar!


And Hitchcock is hanging with one of the mice that hangs out on top of our speakers - the other mouse is on top of the other one

And my witch's floating head [she moves and speaks] is chilling in the Dining Room on top of our wine holding table. I picked her up at Target last year for 30.

I'm still putting out some more [and always buying some more] Plus I have to get me some pumpkins for outside! [And show you my outdoor decorations!] Stay tuned!!

::Sigh::

I posted some pictures on my facebook page my living room, asking for suggestions from people [because I am REDOING IT!!] And someone told me if I was looking for a new rug to hop over to Dash & Albert Rug Company. Well I did and I die! The rugs are adorable! Nice, cute patterned area rugs. And on top of that they sell throws, decorative pillows and totes! Check it out!


And check out some of my favorites too below.

This pillow is soo cute!!

And this throw's pattern makes me swoon... ::sigh::