Carving Night 2023

Carving Night was a blast.  I ended up taking absolutely no photos during because I set my phone down and my costume had NO POCKETS! (A serious oversight). So I had to depend on the kindness of other people smart enough to take some good shots.  

Caverns of time

Side project.  I've been trying to figure out what to do with the big window.  I had gotten some led strip lights and wasn't sure what to actually do with them-- they were on sale for cheap and originally I had intended to put them at the bottom of the stalagmites. Didn't work out,  buuut, I was scrolling pinterest and found a guy who did silhouettes in his window with foam core and lights taped behind.  And a white background.  

So ignoring the fact that it was 2 in the morning, I gathered cardboard and the lights and my exactly knife.  I cut out spooky eyes I borrowed from zombie pumpkin Jack o lantern stencils, then taped the led strip lights up and down the cave silhouettes I cut out of a cardboard box.  

Next was to hang them in the window and figure out a light I liked.  Might have to play with it a bit, but the rainbow fade looks kind of cool.  

Cave lights

Going batty

So this year's theme is a bat cave.  Not like batman. I've had to explain that more than once.  More like vampire lair vibes. It partly centered around what I'm giving out this year-- homemade plush bats.  

Slightly insane, no argument.  Especially when you consider that I'm making about 200 of them.  🤦‍♀️

But they've been turning out cute.  And I'm also giving out a spider ring and fruit snacks (bat food 😆). I'm going for an adopt-a-bat feel. 

Mom and Sam have been great in helping me turn and stuff the bats.  And I'm down to sewing up the last 60 or so. They've got little loops so they can hang.  My original idea was to hang them up on the porch and have the kids pick them. But with how quickly they tend to get in and out,  I think I'm going to go with these little cellophane bags with black stripes that look like a little cave.  Sam suggested adding little names on them, beanie baby style.  We'll see...