Halloween decorations

I am excited for Halloween this year. It will be the first Halloween this year in the new place. I can already tell this neighborhood gets into it – there are decorations on many of the houses and already got invited to a Halloween block party I will be sure to attend. Last year, the day after I went out and got some half off decorations that I am using this year. I am not one to change everything in the house for the holiday, but I did change up the formal table and the entry hallway. For Halloween I place to put some pumpkin lights outside and larger pumpkins! Here are my attempts at decorating the place and pics of what I aspire to be! I plan to do a few more items this week, like carving pumpkins!!

I picked up some glass jars at Home goods and fillers at Tar-jay! All of the other items are Tarjay from last year, except the orange placemats from Ikea.

Our entryway - the ghost is a placemat from goodwill.

Follow up pic from Halloween night! There's no place like home!



Pumpkin Kitty!





And someday, when I have time I want to create something like this from House of Smiths.

Gorgeous fall dinner party.....

Centsational Girls Mantle

Also at Centsational Girl, when I have kids I want to do this with Mr. Potato head parts!

I heart candy corn and want to make this wreath!

Next year I will have a halloween party and make these topiaries.

what is better than kabobs? Espcially if it is gummy candy?

Sea Life Aquarium

Since scuba trips are out of the question right now, this past week I headed over to the closest I can get here in AZ – the Sea Life Aquarium! To avoid the crowds and save some $ I went on a Tuesday night (note to self – do not go to Arizona mills anytime past dark again!). It would be a great place to take kids and get a feel of the ocean. There were many more creatures than I was expecting - sharks, rays, and of course plenty of fish! They even had an area you could touch cleaner shrimp, crabs, and stafish (at this point I felt rather guilty that I had shrimp for dinner that night.....) I could not help but feel bad for the rays in a tank, they looked about ready to jump out and reminded me of my time in sting ray city in the Caymans. They do not allow flash, so excuse the bad lighting on these pics.

Plenty of places to crawl into, if you are a kid!

This is apparently the size of a sea creature when dinosaurs roamed, would be rather scary to see that in scuba now!

Refinishing a chair

I have been really into, ok obsessed, with decorating blogs lately. I have a fantastic house, but due to circumstances have a big empty house in some places so I am trying super hard to decorate on the cheap. I have been on the lookout for a chair to be my first attempt at refinishing a chair, and luckily several weeks ago I found the perfect chair! It was a whole $8 at savers. Here is my list of items I used:


• Rustoleum Spray Paint Primer in white
• Rustoleum painters touch satin spray paint in Heirloom white
• Sander block (wish I had used my full sander, lesson learned!)
• Fabic of choice from Hobby Lobby
• Foam from Hobby Lobby
• Batting from Hobby Lobby

Here is the before Picture of the $8 chair:

After a coat of primer

I unscrewed the seat from the chair, then used pliers to take off the current seat cushion. After the cushion was off, I added the Hobby Lobby cushion and batting. Then stapled it all back on with the staple gun. I saved the fabric from the original cushion to trace the size of the new fabric, then again with the staple gun!

 Lessons learned - patience! This took about a week with waiting a day for primer to dry, then the first coat of spray paint and the second. After the first coat of spray paint I got impatient and sprayed too soon - the paint bubbled up! This may have been due to not priming well (see this post from Centsational girl about how to fix spray paint issues that I used). I had to sand, prime, then repaint a spot on the back. Now on to find my next project to redo....

Submitted to:

Crown King Road Trip

Many years ago when I was working at camp in Prescott, I took a road trip up to Crown King in the Bradshaw mountains in AZ. For some time I have wanted to go back there but you should have 4 wheel drive, Enter in my fantastic 4 runner! I have had it for a couple of years but the poor 4 wheel drive has been neglected. Lucky for me I have some super adventurous brother who love to go on adventures! We just went up for the day, but such a great trip. In the town there are a couple of bars, and more ATV’s than people from what it appears. Great day trip to take if you are in AZ! I think it was destined for me to go there – after googling when I got back where we went there is an old ghost town called Shelley, AZ. It was apparently a place that had more women than men in the town.

Neil taking over the trail!

Bisbee - more horses than people!

Horseshow lake with Brian and Neil

Pull up to the bar....in your ATV

Labor Day Sky - y Camp Weekend

Last month over Labor day weekend I went back up to CAMP! Now, for any of you that know me well, camp is like a second home for me. I went there as a camper, counselor, and eventually summer director. There is no other place in the world I know of where lifeline friendships can be made so quickly and people connect in a unique authentic way. Maybe it has to do with being dirty most of the time Well that and all of the adventure! I had the opportunity to hike, canoe and roast my favorite marshmallows! I bet that once I have a family it will take on another meaning, but for now I was just really happy to get up there for the weekend. Here are a few memories that were made.