Author: alissachristensen

Two Spooky Smoothies

Yesterday we discussed some fun food options for Halloween, but you can spook your drinks up too! There are endless Halloween inspired drinks out there but these two are my favorite and kid friendly.

For some spooky ghosts in your glass melt some chocolate in your microwave. At 30 second intervals, stirring until melted. Use a paint brush to paint faces on the inside of the glasses. Let set a few minutes, then add your favorite vanilla milkshake. Top with whip cream to make ghostly tips.

Same idea here with the painted on chocolate faces. But this is vanilla pudding tinted green with food coloring. Add some crushed oreo cookies for hair.

Its the little things that make kids light up with delight, so try these simple desserts today!

Mummy Dogs and Other Fun Food

Here is another day for the kids. As we get closer to Halloween they get more and more excited for the night of candy! But you can make regular food fun too! Imagine your kids faces lighting up when they see the cleverly disguised food on their dinner plates tonight!

Mummy Dogs

I swear I have been waiting to have kids to make these! I think they may be a tad young for my hubby. But either way how can you resist the cutest that is mummy dogs! Grab some hot dogs cooked and some pilsbury cresent rolls. Cut the rolls into strips and wrap around the hot dogs. Cook according to directions. Add some mustard eyes and see your kids gobble them up!

Pancake Ghosts

This is a sweet morning surprise. Use a regular pancake batter and pour in the shape of a ghost. Add a couple chocolate chip eyes and mouth and you have a friendly ghost for breakfast!

Spooky Lunch Fun

Pizza using different cheeses to create a layer candy corn look. White yogurt with raisins eyes for ghosts, Bananas with chocolate chip faces can be ghosts too! Oranges with a drawn on Jack O Lantern face. Your possibilities with fun kid lunches are endless if you use your imagination right! A cheese string halved and pulled apart at the bottom, with food color faces. And of course gummy worms and other Halloween candies make a sweet dessert too! Your kids will be the envy of the lunch room when they open those plain paper bags to reveal this fun!

So there you have it Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all spooked!

Footprint Ghosts and Handprint Pumpkins

If you have little ones they are going to love today’s post. (Beware its a messy one!) A chance to paint…with their feet! I think what I love the most about this is you could make it a yearly tradition and watch the little ghosts grow! What a great reminder of how little the once were. Use some thick white paint. You want it to show up with one print. It would be hard to line them up for a second coat. Paint your child foot and roll onto black craft paper. Making sure the toes are on the bottom, add a mouth with some black marker and some googly eyes and you have your own personal ghost!

You can do a similar craft with their hands as well. Paint your round orange pumpkin, and add the stem, then paint your kids hands green and let them make the leaves with them. Lots of fun for kids! After all its Halloween its supposed to be all about the kids!

Mini Fang Pumpkins

This spin on pumpkins is easy and you can pump out a whole bunch for your mantle or mini gifts! Grab some mini pumpkins and some dollar store plastic fangs. And lets get started.

There is only 2 steps on this one! Cut into the side of the pumpkin with a carving saw. Remove excess flesh, and stuff those fangs inside. Add some scary red sewing pins for eyes. And there you go!

I know they are supposed to be scary but I still find them cute! And maybe you will have a couple pairs of fangs left over for the kids to play with! Or yourself!

Easy Halloween Cupcakes

So if you are wanting to send some cute easy cupcakes to work or school parties, here are some great idea’s! Make it even easier by using box cake mix. Yes you can go all out and make from scratch too but sometimes its just nice to go the fast way. Which PS I love to just make to eat raw. YUM! I haven’t done that in so long, for baby’s sake!

The Zombie Cupcake

Here your going to want to start with a chocolate cake. Dont use liners for this one, so you have a full effect of dirt. You can even add chocolate chips and/or nuts for a chunkier look. If you still feel the need for frosting of some kind stick to a glaze or ganache so its thin and doesn’t take away from your look. Then head to your favorite craft store and grab a bag of baby doll arms. This goes without saying, dont bake the arms in the cake. Add once your cakes are cooked and cooled. For an added touch add some cookie gravestones!

The Cupcake Liner Witch Hat Topper

This great site does some fun cake stuff. And this little tutorial is cute and simple.

instructions:

  1. Grab a regular sized cupcake liner.  Fold liner in half.  Fold in half again, creating a pie-like wedge.  Tape the two flaps together using double sided tape, so that you have one solid triangle.
  2. Fold in half again.  Tape again.  Now you should have a tall skinny wedge that is 1/8 the size of your original circle.  If your liner is now a flat triangle due to folding, fluff it up with your finger so that it makes a cone.
  3. Insert a toothpick into your cupcake and place your cone on top of the toothpick.  This is the body of your hat.  The toothpick will help your hat stay in place.
  4. Grab a mini cupcake liner.  Cut a hole in the middle of the liner.  I found it easiest to do this by folding it in half and then cutting out a ‘C’ shape on the folded edge.  Open up liner and slightly flatten with your hand.  This will be the brim.
  5. Slide the brim down over your cone to complete the hat.  Smush and crinkle to add character.  Bend the tip of the hat, if desired

The Candy Corn Cupcake

Start with a vanilla cupcake and a plain liner. Then grab your favorite stiff frosting. I like a good buttercream for this one. They hold up better than store bought ones. Split your frosting into thirds making one slightly smaller (your white) and one slightly bigger (your yellow) Then use food coloring to tint your frosting yellow and orange, leaving the small one white. Then grab a frosting bag and a tip of your choice to pipe first a circle of yellow, then orange on top, then white to top and finish!

Halloween Paper Dolls

This is beyond super cute! Two free downloads for printable paper dolls. A girl and a boy version. No one is left out! They are cute and they are Halloween. Surprise your favorite little one with this simple time sucker! I was so in love with paper dolls when I was little that I just love these two. Brings back lots of happy memories.

Click here to be directed to the site with the download. For girl version, for boy version.

Candy Corn Bunting

This one is super easy. And a fun cute way to decorate your home or classroom. The kids can even help you make this fun festive banner.

You will need:

thing 9 inch paper plates

Orange, yellow, and white craft paint

Brush for painting

Compass

Hole punch

Black Ribbon

Trace, using your compass, a 3 inch circle in the middle, next a 6 inch circle around that. Paint your circles accordingly. White in the 3 inch, orange in the 6 inch, and yellow on the outside edges. Next cut your plate in half, and in half again, and in half again. Like a pizza leaving you 8 slices. Continue until you have the amount you would like to make banner. Punch holes in each yellow corner and lace Ribbon through plates. You can either run the ribbon through the plates or tie off at each hole. Leaving longer ribbons at each end to hang banner.

Costumes!

I love dressing up! I used to plan my costumes months in advance. I even had a costume party for my 20th birthday. I’m sure when we were all out that night with everyone dressed up as enthusiastically as me, others were thinking “Halloween is still 3 months away!” But I don’t like to buy my costumes, I love to make my own. I use store bought items, or just stuff around my house. Creativity can spark up some great idea’s.

I have made a dozen or so costumes. I was a dark Fairy the first year in this house, a masquerade with friends one year. My first year out of high school I convinced a friend to be Hue Hefner and I was a bunny, I painted my whole body silver (twice) to be a nymph, I had my dad make a whole wooden contraption in 30 minutes to make a last minute costume as a marionette, And last year I used as much candy as I could get a hold of to make a candy costume. This year wont be as impressive as the others as I will be more focused on a new baby in the house! But I still have a cute one ready to go anyways!

But here are some other fantastic idea’s from other people. I just love how creative people get this time of year.

The corpse Bride, Where’s Waldo, Mary Poppins, and Mrs, Frizzle! These people definitely deserved to win some big prizes! And they are all costumes you can copy using things around your house, or individual pieces from a costume store. I cant wait to see all the costumes this year!

Spirit Jugs

After yesterdays post if you are still not feeling the pumpkin thing but are still looking for a festive walk way, try this idea!

We all go through enough milk cartons in our houses. Clean them out, draw some spooky faces and have your kids color them in! Using a craft knife cut a small hole in the back of each jug.

Line your house with your jugs and use a string of christmas lights, stuffing a couple in each jug along the line. Light them up to welcome your trick or treating guests to your house!

Source: Eighteen25

Pumpkin carving

Are you tired of the same old Jack O’Lantern faces on your pumpkins? Here are a few idea’s to inspire this years carvings. Some you can even make without those sharp tools so your kids can help out too!

To kick off the pumpkins we have a baby pumpkin! How fitting for my household. This one is super easy. Find a soother, cut the rubber end off so you have a flat surface to hot glue gun to the pumpkin. You can now either draw with a permanent marker or paint, your eyes and a nose. Or you can cut out these features if you still want to have a glowing pumpkin. Tie a ribbon on the stem, and you have one super cute baby pumpkin!

If you don’t have any kids in the house though, you can still add pumpkins in a classy way. Simply use your monogram of choice and carve a letter in your pumpkin. You can use this same simple carving method to cut out your house number as well. Stack a couple pumpkins and your house will invite trick or treaters in the classiest of ways!

You wont need any tools to cut these pumpkins. Just some paint. The possibilities are endless with paint. Create some simple candy corn pumpkins by layering orange, yellow, and white paint.  Try Some gold paint for a fun bright effect. Dress it up even more with some black patterns over the gold. But if you really want to have some fun think of your pumpkin as dressing up in costume. This orange M&M is perfect, but see what you can come up with too!

And Last today we have a Mummy Pumpkin. You will need, Cheese cloth, scissors, fabric stiffener,an artificial pumpkin, glue and hot glue gun, 1 inch googly eyes, optional glow in the dark paint. Cut your cheesecloth into 4x 12 inch strips, fold strips in half length wise. Apply fabric stiffener, according to directions. Apply strips to pumpkin Leaving top and bottom uncovered. Let dry. Hot glue eyes to pumpkin. Cut additional four 4×6 strips of cheesecloth. Apply fabric stiffener. Cover each eye diagonally to let eye peek out. Let dry. At this point you can be done but if you want a glowing pumpkin still, apply your glow in the dark paint and let dry.

I hope this inspires you to carve pumpkins this year. Its always been a favorite tradition of mine. And with this many idea’s, you dont even need to get messy and carve. Halloween is all about pumpkins so make some today!