The Haunted MANsion

Yeah....I gave the party a Logo...

The bachelor pad that the husband used to live in still houses some of our dearest friends, so when one of them decided he wanted to host a Halloween party (and i spilled out ideas like a broken atm machine spills twentys) he asked me for some pointers. And so it began my first holiday brain child. 

Lucky for him I had used black and white in my wedding colors so I had a good supply of basics to help out, but there were still a lot of details to create. And that took about....I think the total is maybe $60 now... and a couple of visits to the dollar store and the goodwill outlet. If you want the ultimate cheapest junk, you have got to find you one of those, they just kind of eyeball it and offer you a price, it's incredibly fabulous if you plan to basically destroy said item anyway for some new creative purpose. But a good thrift store will do as well. 

One of my black table clothes gets a spooky make-over

We foraged the bins and found a variety of masks, material scraps and mangled pieces of costumes to use. I also snagged some hefty candlesticks and different sized frames to be painted. The dollar store was also productive, if you frequent that place you'll probably recognize some of the items. 

As a warning, i was doing this for a guy so there's not a lot of "cuteness" factor, which is really more my thing, I don't like scary movies and all that actually. However, he is more into that so I tried my best to do it :) Not gonna lie, I started to give myself some bad dreams.....and when you see this stuff you won't even know why, its not that bad but I have THAT kind of imagination, go figure. 

As you can see, I removed the glass from the frames we found (goodwill outlet) and painted the cardboard backing with some fake blood (crafts store). Then I took the plastic hand (dollar store) and stuck it on to that. I did a similar effect for the fake heart (dollar store) and the alien mask above (goodwill outlet). Its kind of like a body parts gallery....? *SHUDDER* but the guys loved it! So macabre ftw.   

 

A collage of artwork for a big blank wall

Also, you simply cannot go wrong with a whole lot of black tulle and spider webs. Those are you background basics. Cut the tulle up to get a worn look, whether its a stand alone or a layered material. I coupled the tulle with a the garlands of skulls (dollar store) to hang on the chandelier for a good first impression when people come in the door.