The One with Tombstones, Banners, and Ghost/Spider Pops

I think my expectations of the scale and caliber of how grand parties should be is extremely skewed due to the amount of over-the-top events I've been to recently. I'm dreaming of a rich man's party on a poor student's budget. Therefore, I've been racking the freebie downloads and pilfering through the dollar spots and stores trying to find cheap ideas and decorations to make Fox's party something to write home about.

For example, I found this digital banner on the Second Sister Suaviloquy blog (along with a whole bunch of other wicked cool free downloads!):

I printed it out onto textured white cardstock and then had fun dressing it up with old book page accordion flowers I made, ribbon and tulle, and dangling black jewels, like so:

PS - It says "happy haunting".

And then, I found this tombstone from Target for $5 to use as a template:

I went to Home Depot and bought a huge sheet of foam board, traced the Target tombstone onto the foam, made slight adjustments to the shape at the top for variety, and cut each one out with a knife. I made quite the mess.

Theeeen, I carved grooves and gashes into each tombstone (this time I took my work outside!) and painted a coat of gray paint over each one. I left a little bit of white foam showing through some parts to add a distressed look.

Once they dried I went in with black and brown paint and lots of water and tried to make them look more realistic.

Ta-da:

My Jackson Pollock's:

And last but not least, I found a tutorial from ohdeedoh to make ghost and spider pops (they have pumpkin ones too, but I'm not doing those for an unbeknownst reason). So I got some suckers, a box of cheap kleenex, a black garbage bag, and black pipe cleaners from the dollar store. I covered half of the suckers with kleenex and secured them with ribbon tied around the 'neck.' Instant ghost pops! Makes a cool wreath, no?

I'm debating whether or not to add faces with a black pen.

Then I cut squares of a black garbage bag, wrapped them around the remaining half of the suckers, wrapped four pieces of black pipe cleaners (two pieces cut in half) around the middle, and kinked them for legs.

Preparations are coming along! 2.5 weeks 'til the par-tay!