THIS IS HALLOWEEN 2014

Halloween has come and gone, and it managed to be quite a festive occasion, despite there being no colorful, crunchy leaves littering the ground.

I was determined to make it feel like real Halloween season (i.e. not 80 degrees), and the only way to do that was to add some Halloween charm to our little apartment. If I had a house, I would have purple and orange lights and cobwebs and pumpkins and ghosts hanging from trees, but since I am confined to a small indoor space and on a budget, I had to get creative to make it feel like Halloween.

Halloween on all the closet doors:

This could stay up year-round...

Halloween in the bathroom:

I'm a little obsessed with pumpkin-scented things. This soap and candle were a Halloween gift from Eric's mom last year!

Halloween on all the lightswitches:

I am also obsessed with ravens, so I think this is the coolest. It was Eric's idea!

Halloween dish towels:

And, to top it all off, the beginning of my very own Halloween village!:

My mom sent the house in the middle to me as a gift last year, along with a bunch of my other decorations, for my first Halloween down south. This year, she surprised me by sending two more houses and the creepy glowing tree silhouette. Kristin gave me the jack-o-lantern tree, and Linny sent me the Nightmare Before Christmas book! I bought the All Hallow's Eve sign at Jo-Ann Fabric (they have GREAT Halloween sales mid-month), but had no good place to hang it. I really had no place to set things up properly, so our dining table became a makeshift Halloween display.

Next year, when I have a house (yes, when), I will be able to go ALL OUT for Halloween. But this was good enough for now :)

Halloween night ended up being as good as possible with our Florida fam. It was a very Disney-themed year. I was Cruella De Vil, and Eric was the Mad Hatter. Kristin, Ben, and Chloe were the Evil Queen, Snow White, and the Prince. Their families and a bunch of our friends came over. We went trick-or-treating for Chloe's first Halloween (to three houses, which is plenty for a 6-month-old with 11 adults following along), followed by lots of spooky-looking, delicious food and pumpkin beer from Tequesta Brewing Company. A couple of the neighbors actually came over and played games with us, so we made some new friends. AND the temperature dropped in to the 60s, so it even felt like fall!

All in all, it was a pretty clutch Halloween.

Now... WHO'S READY FOR CHRISTMAS?!?!?