A Halloween cocktail party

This year, we have been invited to a couple parties. Jason tends to only go out for Halloween ON the actual day, and has been extra super busy with freelance projects, that we have declined all invites.

However, I decided to (once again) invite myself over to Auntie's house the day before my day off this week. That later turned into an informal Halloween-type get-together. That kind of ended up being a small party, in the end.
I was there most of the day on Thursday (from about 12:30pm...after being at work since 4:30 that morning), but waited for others to arrive to start drinking. Uncle made me a Manhattan as soon as he got home, though, so that was nice.

One of my sisters bought this beautiful punch bowl for Auntie's birthday (next month), but gave it to her early so she could use it.

Oh, what a surprise! I brought a cheese plate! I chose what I called 'Halloween inspired' cheeses: (clockwise from the red log) the log is a cranberry goat cheese-chosen for the obvious reason...it's red color; there's a tintern- a chedder with chives-which i chose for the green wax coating; then a white stilton with apricots-again, chosen for the orange coloring; the little wheel is a delicious triple cream brie coated in vegetable ash-it's called 'moon dust' with i thought was kind of 'spooky'; and, the top wedge is the black pepper crusted toscano...looks like dirt.

At first it was to be a small gathering, where we'd not get to fancied up with costumes, but just make masks to wear. I made my mask, which i was going to wear with a fancy dress, but my idea morphed into something of an owl. Basically, I made the owl mask and found some brown fabric, and decided to just drape it around me to be a 'fancy owl'.
I actually ended up wearing the mask as a hat the whole night...

...which i really LOVED!

Here's part of the gang ready tarot cards.

Some spooky decorations.

This awesome cake was made by the girl in white, sitting on the floor in the above photo (she was a latte).

I actually liked my hair, but this is how i looked when i got home...so tired I had to keep telling myself not to fall asleep as I drove home. I am not a 22 hour day kind of girl!!