Fantabulous Friday Freebie: Last Minute Halloween Decorating + Product Special

Happy Friday and Happy almost Halloween!  And for me and Victor it's Happy Anniversary! We've been married for eleven years now.  Time sure flies when you are having fun.

Or does it?  If you are like me, when you look back on 10+ years it is astounding how much has happened.  Frankly, I'm astounded by how much happened in the first year.  I remember everyone in the office thought we were cursed.  Two weeks after our wedding, Alex, my youngest step-son {11 at the time} was in a terrible car accident where the driver was killed.  He was sitting next to her in the front seat and was lucky enough only to suffer two broken legs.  It was a very, very sobering experience for the whole family.  Well, I doubt it was sobering for Alex, more like traumatic.  I'm so grateful he wasn't hurt worse.

You'd think that would be enough, but just a month or two later, Victor was in a car accident and ended up upside-down in a small river near our house.  Amazingly, he wasn't hurt at all.  Take that, curse!

We thought we were home free for a while, then just over a year later on New Years Day, 2002, at about 8:00 in the morning, our apartment complex had a terrible fire.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.  The apartment next to us was completely destroyed by the fire and we found ourselves homeless.  We truly believe we were spared by Heavenly Father.  In addition to the destroyed apartment next door, the fire destroyed the attic above our apartment.  All we suffered was some minor smoke damage and some melted plastic in our storage closet on the landing.   The five of us lived in my brother's attic for the next three months while we shopped for a house.

Such experiences surely strengthened our marriage and our family.  So take that, too, curse! Some pretty awesome things have happened over the past 11 years, as well.  Two beautiful little girls were born into our family.  Samantha and Hailey have certainly changed our lives in amazing ways.  Two of our boys have gotten married and started families of their own.  Those two little granddaughters of ours are the greatest gift our boys could ever have given us.  In the meantime, we moved to Arizona.  AND I got to pursue my dream of having my own creative business.  Who could really ask for more?  Of course, I wouldn't turn down being magically skinny or large buckets of money, but hey, who would?  I'm happy with what I have though.  Life is good.

What's that annoying cliche that you see done up in vinyl a little too often?  Oh right... "All because two people fell in love."  It's super sweet, but I suppose it's true.  Maybe I'll cut it in vinyl and put it up in the house somewhere.  Hmmm.... probably not, but it was a nice thought there for a minute.

Blah, blah, blah,  blah.... enough with the chatter, Jan... you promised us a freebie, remember? Oh right!  Sorry, I got all caught up in the reminiscing.  I'll get to the freebie in a minute, I promise.  Gotta tell you about my last minute Halloween decorating first!

The other day, Victor said to me, "Are you going to carry the bat theme inside the house?"  And I said to myself, "Hmmm... why not?"  And then I made these awesome Chandelier files.  And by awesome I mean, amazing!  I'm totally in love with these things!  I've just got to show you since they are up in the store now:

Did you know that I have a special offer going on these right now?  If you buy the Swirly Style Chandelier Collection this weekend you'll get the Halloween Chandeliers for free! That's an awesome deal!  ** Remember you have to put the Halloween one in your cart when you buy the collection to get the deal.  **

I cut the Halloween Chandelier in some black wall vinyl and put it over my Halloween display. Because I only have 12" wide vinyl, I used the 1/2 chandelier and cut it twice.  The second time I mirrored it before I cut it out.  Then I just lined them up on the wall.  You can't even tell it's two pieces.  One of my piano students asked me, "Did you paint that on your wall?"  Hahahaha!

Because I wanted to continue the bat theme, I also threw some more bats on the wall to go along with the chandelier.  This time I used the bats out of my Halloween Twisted Tree file.  I think these are my favorite bats of all my designs!  Who knew that one tiny element in that whole design would be so integral to my overall decor?

I couldn't decide what to do on the shelf.  The pumpkin eventually made it's way outside by the front door.

One of the bats even made it's way onto the clock.  Here's a good creepy story for you.  The night after I put the bat on the clock, the clock stopped working..... ooooooooOOOOOooooooooohhhhh....scary!  Nah, was just a dead battery.

Okay, here's your freebie.  I know you are thinking, FINALLY!  I decided that since I liked that bat so much, I'd share the design it came from with you.  So without any further yakking:

Today I'm sharing my die-cut design:  Halloween Twisted Tree

Boring but Important Legal Stuff: My terms of use are included in each zipped download. If you have any questions about how you may use this file, please read it. By clicking to download the file, you are agreeing to abide by the terms. If you'd like to share it, please don't. Rather, send your friends a link to this blog post. Once it's no longer available as a freebie, you might be tempted to share it with someone. Please don't! 'Nuf said!

Click to download your preferred file type.  This download will be available for the next 24 hours so get it while it's hot!

Sorry!  This download has expired!  Look for this design in the Sam & Hailey Designs Store!

As always, if you make something with this design, feel free to post it on your blog or in the VDBC gallery and post a link down in the comments section!

Time to get crafty, people!