Trunk or Treat

So our Halloween celebration was to go to my Mom's church's Trunk or Treating party, and it was a blast :) Remember our Fortune Teller? Here she is all set up:

 

The chandelier lit up, and there were lights and sound effects and it was great :) We had a lot of fun!

Jack and Sally Skellington

What do you think? Did they turn out perfect?

Pumpkin Seeds

So everyone knows how to bake pumpkin seeds, right? We soaked ours for awhile in salt water, and then spread them out on cookie sheets and sprinkled them in seasoning salt. Then we baked them until they popped.

But the cool thing is, since we had several types of pumpkins, we also had several types of seeds, which had completely distinctive flavors! I highly recommend trying this, it's pretty cool :) So here's our three types:

 

The pale ones still tasted the best, but it was still cool to try the two darker types. And I've been told that the seeds will taste different according to how old the pumpkin is, too. Very interesting...

Jack-o-Lanterns

I love Jack-o-Lanterns. For the last several years I've done scenes or pictures (a cat on a fence, a fireplace, an owl) and so this year I wanted to do something a little more abstract. I picked the prettiest of the pumpkins with some great coloring, and I gave my pumpkin stripes and polka dots :)

 

It looks a little more like a fall home decoration than a jack-o-lantern, huh? So of course it didn't win the competition. You know who did?

 

My silly brother. He won the Gingerbread House competition last year, too! Not fair :(

When he and I were kids, we always used toothpicks to give our Jack-o-Lanterns extra features like noses and ears, and my step dad even did that for his this year (pinning the broken stem in place for the nose-- it was perfect). This year most of us didn't know what we were going to do till we saw our pumpkins, and that's one of the most fun ways to do it. And even little little kids can have fun with the pumpkin goop and baking pumpkin seeds. And I've seen some super cute variations with little pumpkins decorated with paper features!

Go Crazy :)

Peanut Butter Cups

This was actually my Mom's idea, but it was such a good idea I had to share! We used this recipe to make peanut butter filling, and then coated candy melt molds with a layer of chocolate...added a dab of the filling, and then put a layer of chocolate over the peanut butter. After a brief stay in the freezer, we had...

 

Peanut Butter Cups :) Aren't they great?? Some of them are even pumpkin shaped :)

Halloween Cookies

So one of the days I was at my Mom's for Halloween, I came home to see Halloween cookies set out to decorate! At first I thought she bought Halloween cookie cutters just for that day, but it turns out that her grocery store was selling undecorated sugar cookies to take home and decorate, and I think it's brilliant. I mean, sure, home made sugar cookies are great, but who wants to store Halloween cookie cutters all year for one day? Christmas cookie cutters make more sense, because Christmas is a season (yes, yes it is. Proven by science.) but no one wants to decorate Halloween cookies on October 17th.

Jack Skellington

So of course, since I was Sally for Halloween, Nick had to be Jack Skellington!

 

Here, Mr. Nicholas is pinning tails to his tux jacket (we were lucky he already owned a tux from high school).

I added chalk stripes to his tux pants, and we took them in with safety pins so his legs would look longer.

And here's his bow tie-- we used a hanger for the main structure, a black cloth cut to shape and drawn on with chalk, and backed it with black paper so it would be stiff.

Here's the tie with his jacket (also with chalk lines) and a white tee. 

And here's Mr. Nicholas working on his mask, which is just a piece of jersey with ties on it.

I'll be sure to add pictures from the day of Halloween a little later so you can see us both together :)

Halloween

Want to see the one Halloween decoration I put up?

Yup, candy corn lights :)

The Sally Dress

This is my Sally dress (from Nightmare before Christmas):

 

I used a regular dress and sewed on the patches of broadcloth (from JoAnn's) using a picture of Sally from the movie as a reference. I used a permanent marker to replicate the patterns on her patches. But the yellow was too bright for my taste so I tried soaking it in coffee.

 

And when that didn't get me anywhere, I tried some stronger coffee.

And I guess that worked a little bit...

But I still wasn't entirely happy, so I brewed up a potio...I mean, I threw some stuff in a pot...

Which included several tea bags, strong coffee...

Food coloring, red wine vinegar, and cocoa powder. It was marvelous! Just kidding, it smelled awful, and it didn't look much better.

 

And so this is how my dress looks now (after a good rinse to get rid of the smell. And the taste. Not that I tasted it.):

Let's do a side by side comparison, shall we?

Weird, if I didn't know better, I would say nothing had been done at all :-/

I'll be sure to update with photos from Halloween day, so you can see how I look standing next to Mr. Jack Skellington :)

Fortune Teller

Mom and I made this together for her car when we take it Trunk or Treating (for the kids at her church):

 

Hat from the dollar store halloween aisle; mop head from the dollar store cleaning aisle; cool glittery shawl from Mom's collection (maybe something similar could be found at JoAnn's?); jersey cloth from Mom's personal stash (stuffed with batting [also from her stash] and sculpted with stitches coming in through the back of the head); gloves from Mom's costume box; purple skirt and yellow top from Mom's costume box; pillow (body) tied around the middle to form a waist.

I'll be sure to take pictures of the whole car once it's put together-- Mom's made the coolest crystal ball, and she plans on putting up "curtains" using black plastic. Too bad our candles aren't secure enough to travel, huh?

Mom mentioned that this is similar to the method we used to make our own scarecrow one year (before I was old enough to remember) but using old clothes, straw, and a paper bag (for the head) instead of the above supplies. Kind of a fun fall activity :)

Halloween Cupcakes

My Step Dad is pretty awesome. I was at his and my Mom's house for an extended stay and going through a rough patch. My Step Dad comes home from the store and presents a little gift to me-- Halloween cupcake cups, Halloween nonpareils, and Halloween toppers. So for his birthday (October 10) I made him a huge batch of fudge cupcakes...and a little birthday cake :)

 

Now, in all honesty, I wasn't particularly fond of how the cupcakes tasted. I thought they were way too dry. But everyone else said they liked them...so maybe I'm crazy.

P.S. I have a really serious addiction to candy corn. Really serious. And the only good candy corn is found only in October. It is so frustrating.