Life: Leaves are falling, Autumn is calling!

Fall literally has to be my favorite time of year. I equate it to all the great childhood memories I have. I think the fact that my birthday falls a week before Halloween helps too. I remember my Mom pulling out the fall decor in September, and of course decorating for every holiday throughout the season. In fact she decorated for every holiday, but now I am getting ahead of myself. For my birthday my Mom would go all out, planning a Halloween themed sleepover with every fun activity you could imagine. There would be scavenger hunts, pumpkin carving and decorating pretend tombstones, bobbing for apples, guessing the slimy concoction and scary movie marathons. It was some of the best times. Needless to say, fall is life and every year I make sure to make the most out of the season.

During the season, I always do a little decorating of my own but this year I decided to amp it up a little bit. At home I went for a full Halloween theme and started to decorate in the end of August, don’t judge me 😜. I went to one of my favorite places, HomeGoods to check out what they had and it was as if I had struck gold. I picked up some cute little felt jack-o-lanterns and some felt Halloween garland to match. The garland was the cutest with pumpkins, ghosts, bats and Frankenstein heads. Oh, I also found an adorable large orange candle with Halloween print on the outside to finish off the look. Jon had mentioned that some skulls would be a nice touch so while I was at the Dollar Tree picking up some fall decor for my cubicle at work, I came across some perfect small black and white skulls to add to our picture shelf at home.

For outside, I decided to re-purpose an old silver three tier shelf. Every year I do a little something with a couple of pumpkins and a small bale of hay but this year I wanted to do something a little different. I picked up a bale of hay at Michaels for about $6. At the Dollar Tree I purchased some styrofoam tombstones and fake spider webs to help craft my masterpiece. I added the tombstones to the bottom of the three tier shelf and draped the spider webs to add some dimension to the look. I added the bale of hay to the top shelf and now all I needed was pumpkins to finish off the look. I headed to Ralphs to pick up the first two large pumpkins and then to Smart and Final where I was able to find the rest, a nice collection of different sizes and shapes. While mostly done, I still want to add a few more final touches.

With the house done it was time to move onto my cubicle and I had an idea in mind but I wasn’t sure where to start. Luckily with the help of two of my friends at work I was able to put together something that I think came out great. With a stop at Michael’s to pick up some cute fall signs and Hobby Lobby to pick up some small wooden pumpkins, I started to put my vision together. Next was the Dollar Tree to get some fall floral (the best place for cheap flowers in my opinion) and Walmart helped me finish off the look with a small bale of hay for $3, and two artificial pumpkins. I arranged everything and my friend at work contributed a felt sign that added the perfect touch. My other friend helped me re-arrange the look to give it more dimension and it turned out perfectly. We took the acorn and leave cut-outs I had bought on Amazon and incorporated some hand drawn leaves to finish off the outside of our cubicles.

With decorating finished it was on to some other fun and games. We visited Disneyland and California Adventure because of course they too go all out for the Holidays and Halloween definitely not to be discounted.

Cars Land at California Adventure was exceptionally cute and we made sure to take lots of pictures. Jon loves cars and I love Halloween so this was the perfect combination!

We also went to Knott’s Scary Farm, also known as Halloween Haunt. While I felt last year was amazing, this year I wasn’t as impressed. I did get some neat pictures though!