Halloween home decor ideas form the stained glass expert

I love to decorate our house for Halloween but I am always looking for some new ideas. I went to Alla FleetingStillness for inspiration with this matter.

Alla is a great stained glass items designer, I really love her style. I am proud owner of two wonderful pieces made by her and I am completely trusting her with home decor!  

 1. What does Halloween mean to you?

To me, Halloween is the most fun holiday of the year. I like it even more than my birthday. I think I like it because it is a holiday that does not celebrate anything in particular, at least for me. I know Halloween has a rich history, but it is not really the history that is celebrated. This is the most fun, no-obligation, crazy, come up with your own theme and let-it-all-out holiday. It can be very much fun for adults - I hosted a black-tie champagne party once, and always is fun for kids - last year we had a huge turnout of kids and parents, probably 70 people total. I like hosting parties, and Halloween parties are the most fun.

2. What would your suggestions be for picking Halloween decorations?
I love to decorate my house, both inside and outside. Every year I buy a few more items and my husband complains that they take up too much space in the garage. But he sure stops complaining when I open all those boxes and decorate the house, making sure it looks different every year.

I have neighbors that pull all the stops out while decorating outside. Last year, they had a huge installation with three life-sized surgeon figures operating on a zombie in their front yard! I think this is absolutely wonderful, but if you are not up for an effort of this scale you could just put out some strategically placed string lights, a few carved pumpkins, or votive candle holders in paper bags decorated with scary drawings. Just make sure you put sand into these paper bags to avoid fire.

Inside, I like to have a couple of focal points, so last year I got 3 5-foot-tall cardboard figures with repositionable limbs (a witch, a mummy, and a zombie) and attached them to the wall at the entrance. I also got a plastic sheet to cover the refrigerator with a picture of an open refrigerator full of spoiled food and severed limbs. This year I am planning to get a motion-activated broom that waltzes around and cackles.

After your focal points are in place, just pull out your last year's decorations and use them in a different way, or not as intended. For example, last year I took my old vampire shoulder-length black gloves, stuffed them with crumpled newspaper and stuck them behind a mirror - it looked pretty nice - two black hands reaching out :)

There are simple touches and small-scale handmade projects you can do that will add some extra spice. Transparent plastic sheeting from a hardware store (that is normally used to cover up the floor and furniture while painting) can be transformed into a removable wall mural of a cemetery or a Halloween table cover with help of only black and red permanent markers. White balloons wrapped into leftover plastic sheeting make wonderful floating ghosts, and also are great party favors for the kids.


3. What costumes are you and your family thinking about wearing this year?
This is the hardest question of all. I do not know yet. Last year I was The Queen Of Hearts, and my husband was what we called An Elegant Vampire, my daughter was a Witch with an electrified costume, a and my son was a Ninja that lost half of his gear. So far, my daughter has changed her mind about a 100 times, going from Hermione to An Indian Girl to A Witch to a Ninja… My son wants to be a zombie boy and he found a pretty cool costume for that. I will probably pick costumes for my husband and I after we're done picking for the kids. As the last resort, my huge butterfly wings, cat tail and ears, black feather boas, veils and other items left over from the past parties could be mixed up into some sort of a black mutant animal :)

A Perfect Day

Etsy is one of the great places to find new friends. It's fun to communicate on the forums but it is even better to meet the people in person.

So we got this great chance to meet with Alla and her husband (Alla owns the stained glass FleetingStillness shop on Etsy). She and her husband were on their way to San Francisco but they stopped here in Phoenix for a day.

What a wonderful day we had! Albina (AroundBeads) also joined us and we had so much fun! We were lucky to have some time to see downtown before we went to our house for dinner and nice quiet evening chatting. The next day we went exploring part of northern and central Arizona.

There was not enough time since our guests were living at 5 PM so we were making plans right while on the road. Since we woke up early enough we were even able to see Sedona!

We were very happy with the nice weather and spectacular views of the red rock mountains.

We started with a relaxing breakfast at the local restaurant.

After that we went to collection of art galleries that are located in a maze of wonderful buildings, arches, and vine covered tunnels.

There were so many unique hand crafted items gathered in one place, it is just amazing.

On a way back we got chance to stop by Montezuma's Castle and get an idea of how the ancient Indians lived in Arizona's past.

It is a very beautiful place with lots of sycamore trees and a bubbling brook.

From there we stopped at Bloody Basin and shot a few guns at a target. Then we went to Lake Pleasant so our friends could see what a pretty desert lake this is.

We hardly were able to get to the airport in time because of the rush hour traffic but we did! So Alla and Mark were on their way to CA to continue the next leg of their vacation and also meet with some of the other girls from our group

How strange and wonderful the modern world is. You are meeting people you met over the Internet and it feels like you have known them for years. We had a very, very good time!

Holidays Exchange

We were so busy for the Holidays that we did not have time for anything. Our Christmas tree is not up yet, no decorations on a house and greetings cards are not sent yet except of for my international friends, of course.

What I did find time for is my Christmas exchange :) I have received a beautiful little stained glass cottage tea light holder in perfect warm colors from Alla (FleetingStillness). I did not had time for photographs until now but I had short break yesterday and my new little tea light holder is ready to be introduced!

My new little cottage is simply the best, it seems that it came from a fairy tale story! This feeling becomes even more intense when you shut off the lights in a room and light the candle. A tiny tea light candle will not give you a lot of light but the dancing fire makes you feel so cozy!

Thank you so much, Alla, I love my new house!

I don’t want it to sound too commercial but really, you can ask Alla to make a cottage tea light for you in your favorite colors! If you like it please contact her for a custom order or simply visit her shop to see what’s available!

Interview With A Star - Alla at FleetingStillness

I love stained glass. I have hundreds of photos of stained glass windows in churches and antique houses taken during my travels. I still hope one day I will have one… I wish I would know that our house is our permanent home!

Anyway, right now I am just admiring these human hand creations and of course, I am interested to know how someone came up with the gorgeous designs and bright ideas. I am very happy to have a stained glass artist with us today, with her beautiful stained glass works and a wonderful story.

Please meet Alla from FleetingStillness!

Q: How long have you been creating?
A: I have been creating different things since I was very young. I learned to sew at 6, to knit and crochet at 8 and made my own clothes. I have also worked with wood, drew with ink and ballpoint pens and had a photo lab in my bathroom. With all that background nothing stuck for a long time until I started working with stained glass.

It has been on my mind for years, but started as pure coincidence. Once when I was at a yard sale I saw some tools, a book and a box of glass for sale. I bought it all and that evening I cut my first piece of glass, wrapped it in foil and soldered it back together. It was as simple as that. The rest just came naturally.

Q: What do you sell and what is so special about your works?
A: I sell anything I think would be fun to make out of stained glass and have around the house: window panels, sun catchers, lanterns and refrigerator magnets.

Stained glass is an ancient medium that is very capricious. When working with stained glass, it is normally flat and rigid and needs to be positioned to be lit in a certain way. All this makes it hard to compete especially with computer-based art. I try to come up with a way for stained glass to fit into the modern lifestyle. I make and sell one-of-a-kind (OOAK) items that I would (and do) place into my house to make it more beautiful and whimsical.

Q: What is the most important about your work?

A: I get a lot of ideas and try to create basic sketches whenever I can. When I make time to work with glass, I pick out a sketch that matches my mood the most. My sketches are very basic and each has a little story associated with it. I let my sketches transform depending on the music I listen to as I work, the story I came up with and the glass that lends itself to the piece. Very often the panel evolves so much while I work, that it is hard to trace it to the original sketch. For me this evolution is the greatest part of the process because the finished product is not just a colorful pattern but becomes an illustration, a postcard, a mood snapshot.

Q: When I saw your new line of stained glass cottages, I instantly fell in love with them! Please tell us how did you come up with this idea?
A: It was just one of the things that I thought could dress up a space. A bright and cute cottage evokes a happy, cozy, peaceful feeling. A cottage like that can be used to brighten up a kitchen or a nursery. A cottage plant stake will add a fun touch to your favorite flower pot.

My Halloween cottages are also a lot of fun. One of them is a sun catcher, it is a cottage with chicken feet. In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga - the bad witch, lives in such a cottage and uses it as a mode of transportation :)

My other Halloween cottage is actually a 3-dimentional candle lantern. It has been very popular. I made a series of these, each follow a theme but they are different and unique. I especially take pride in my works being OOAK.

Q: Do you take custom orders?
A: Yes, I do. I have made a number of pieces for specific settings in specific houses.

Thank you so much, Alla, for your time and your story. We wish you a huge success and a lot of happy customers!

You can find these and also other Alla's work at her Etsy shop, FleetingStillness

Please visit today!