Halloween Yard Decorations

I finally had a nice day out to decorate my tiny little garden for Halloween. We live in an apartment, but the leasing office was nice enough to let us have a garden outside our dining room window. Now that my green peppers, jalapenos and chili peppers have died off, time to switch gears!

First, I had to make the gravestones. Why buy them when they're so easy to make? Stores do have really creepy designs, but I was going more for whismy. I used some thin, cheap foam that I had leftover from a summer project. Used a sharpie for the outline, cut away and painted it all in. I could have added some dimension by carving into the stones, but the foam was way too thin for that.

I also made a sign for the garden, that I think is adorable. I had an extra piece of molding that I bought from Home Depot (used to frame my bathroom mirror). Bought some flat planks of scrap wood from Michael's, and started painting. After I nailed all the pieces together, I coated the whole sign with a few coats of mod podge. Hoping that will protect from the elements a bit. So far so good!

Voila! My Nightmare Before Christmas graveyard. I bought the plastic fence pieces from the Dollar General... added some mini pumpkins and some spider webs. Since I took the picture, I added another tall pumpkin in the corner.

The Halloween party at my place is this weekend. I hope everyone likes my decorations!

Next week's blog post will show off the rest of my decorations through out the apartment, where to buy them or how to make them!

Have a great weekend!

Wine Glasses, Candles, and Pumpkins, Oh My!

October is my favorite month. There's so much I love about it... cider and donuts... pumpkins and falling leaves... decorating the house and making costumes. Halloween is almost here, so you know what I've been up to. If I can't find it, I make it.

The first decoration I made this year was a set of hand painted wine glasses. Simple, cute. Perfect for a glass of moscato d'asti while I'm reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. My inspiration for this set came from the adorable ribbon I had just bought from Michael's craft store (my favorite store in the world). I recently added these to my Etsy store. So far they've been dubbed a "favorite" but no sales yet. That's okay, I like them and that's all that matters, haha. 

Another little project was a pair of pillar candles that were just collecting dust. Candy corn candles! Aren't they cute? I cleaned them up a bit and took out some paint. I used some painter's tape to make a straight line between colors. If you would like to try this, I would suggest planning out the painter's tape. I painted the bottom 2/3 orange, then applied the painter's tape to create a straight line for the yellow. When I removed the tape, it removed some orange paint. I decided I liked the faded vintage look it gave the orange... I should have done the same to the yellow! I added these to my Etsy store as well, just in case anyone likes them as much as I do. For now, they look nice on my new dining room buffet table with the rest of my decorations. 

Finally, I decided to carve a pumpkin just a little different than the usual. Last year I had about ten pumpkins that I was given from work (cute little gift from management for the fall). The boyfriend and I carved or painted all of them, and left them out on our apartment patio. That was a pain in the butt to clean up after a few weeks of rain. So I limited myself to one or two pumpkins, and this is what I did (pictured right). I decided to create a lovely little carving for the blog! Charming Creations, where fun is the motivation. That needs some work. 

In the picture you can see my fake green apples. Yea, fake. I'm planning on painting one of them to look like the Snow White poison apple. Which my sister corrected me by reminding me that Snow White's apple was red. I like the green better. 

So what are you guys up to for Halloween? Carving pumpkins, bobbing for apples, trick or treating with the little ones? Comment below and share your favorite Halloween activities or traditions. I've love to hear about them!

Allow me to introduce myself...

You may call me Melissa... or Missi. Almost twenty-four years old. Artist. Crafter. Avid DIYer.

I'm in my last year of business school at Walsh College. When I'm finished, I'll have a BBA in Business Management.

I ask myself all the time, what's an artist doing at a business school? Well, College for Creative Studies was out of my price range. The idea is that the business degree might be able to help me with my artistic hobbies, and maybe even turn it into a real job one day. A girl can dream.

Because college and an office job was sucking the life out of me, I decided I needed a creative outlet. Or I was going to go mad.

When I moved into my first apartment, I turned my second bedroom into an office. I call it Le Studio. As it went from an unorganized storage room to a studio, I went from just college student to amateur entrepreneur. I didn't just want to make and paint things for myself in Le Studio. I wanted to share my ideas. What better way to share my ideas than with a blog?

This is probably the fifth blog that I've started. 

Onward! Into the over saturated world of bloggers! I'm going to need to work on my blogging and artist skills if I want to stand out in this world. Let's hope the fifth time is a charm.

Speaking of charm!

I started a small business out of Le Studio. I called it Charming Creations, and decided it would be a Boutique. I started with a Facebook fan page  to spread the word of my creations.

Reviewing my projects, I think I need to practice painting. 

So what prompted this business idea? I've always had fun making cakes, cupcakes, invitations and custom paintings for friends and family. They knew I loved it. I was asked to paint a custom wine glass for a 21st birthday. Okay, cool. That was fun. The ladies loved it. They instantly suggested that I create more and sell them online.

And just like that, Charming Creations was born.