A Germ Free Halloween

Recently I sent my daughter to school with this sanitizer all prettied up for Halloween. I thought it would be a cute and useful little gift for her teacher to use in their class. I know school kids go through a lot of this stuff!

I used a bottle of Purell hand sanitizer that I pulled the front and back labels off of. It came off clean. If it hadn't, I would have used my Goo Gone to get off all the sticky stuff so I could have a clean surface. Then I just stuck on Halloween stickers I got at Hobby Lobby(you can't see some of them well, but they say GHOST,PUMPKIN,CANDY,SPOOK,SCARY,and BOO) and tied some coordinating ribbon. Simple, yet cute! Hope you have a germ free Halloween. Germs are scary!!

Monster Munchies

I know Halloween is over, but I want to share some of the "monster munchies" we had at our party!Maybe you can keep these in mind for next year! Yeah, I know I said I would share them yesterday, but I just couldn't fit in blogging yesterday. Before I share the treats, take a look at my goblins up there. I realized I didn't show a pic of them together. Laci, the skeleton girl;Trent, the 80's rocker(although he didn't have on his outfit or his super cool inflatable guitar. He was feeling very back-in-the-day Bon Jovi,btw!);and Ivy, the nice witch!

Monster Munchy Menu
Frankenstein Fingers
Pumpkin Bites
Mummy Cakes
Monster Munch
Eyeballs
Goblin Goop & Chips
Assorted candy
Moldy Bones & Blood
Swamp Juice

Moldy Bones & Blood. You can find the recipe here. Although for these, instead of using one whole bread stick, I cut each bread stick in half length wise first to make them thinner.


Always a favorite in our house, finger cookies. This year instead of the regular version I make that looks like the fingers have blood(red gel) and jagged fingernails(blanched almonds). I made my friend, Kim's, variation,Frankenstein Fingers. The kids loved them! You can find the recipe on her blog, Kim's Korner, here!

Along with the fingers, I just did a store bought pumpkin cookie, too. Some kids will just not eat those fingers! They are a little creepy!


I made mini cupcakes and piped rows of vanilla icing with my leaf tip to look like a mummy face. The eyes are mini chocolate chips.


Our favorite cheese dip was the goblin goop!I thought that was appropriate since the kids tell me that dip looks like throw up! I know . Gross, right! But it tastes soooooo good! You can find the recipe here!


Also on the menu, were gummy worms and peanut butter cups. I thought I needed some fruit on the menu, so I put some grapes in a dish and called those eyeballs! Yummy! Swamp Juice, green fruit punch, was our party drink. Monster Munch was served in these cute treat holders from Hobby Lobby! I simply added green food coloring to melted butter and mixed it in with the pop corn. I don't think I'll do this one again, though. The kids ate it, but the pop corn sat there and got kind of stale and yuck! This one is off the list!

Halloween Bash 2010

Friday night we hosted our first Halloween bash!!! Our house was FULL!! I think we had a total of 14 kids come to the party! We had food, games, music, dancing and most of all, FUN! I have to admit, at first, I was a little overwhelmed. I mean it was 14 kids(plus 5 parents), but I just went with the flow and the party turned out pretty good! Thanks to my husband who jumped right in and helped make food,provided us with some Halloweeny tunes and lead some of the games! Here are some pics from the party! Tomorrow I will share pics and recipes for the party food!


Our first game: The Mummy Wrap! Laci and Anna are wrapping Grace, their mummy!


Next game: Witch's Brew. Their were 3 teams and each team had to suck up paper bats and ghosts with a straw and put them in their bowl without using their hands. The team with the most won!


I think their favorite part of the party was doing the Cha Cha slide, Cupid Shuffle and attempting the Thriller dance.


Last game was the Spider Web game. Basically everyone stands in a circle and one person holds a ball of black yarn,holds on to one piece and throws it to another person. When you're done you have what should resemble a spider web, although the kids said it was a star.

Halloween Cake Stand

Today I have a Halloween cake stand to share with you. Okay, it's basically just a black cake stand, but I'll be using it for Halloween goodies. I'm also linking this up to Skip To My Lou's Made By You Mondays.

I've posted before about my obsession with cake stands and pedestals. Love 'em!!! Really! I do! The first thing my husband said when I made this one was, "Hmmm. So where are you gonna store that?" I guess he knows I'm running out of room because I have so many of them. But I couldn't resist making this. A black cake stand has been calling my name for a while now. I found a super cute one at Hobby Lobby, but didn't want to pay their price.......even with a half off coupon. So when I was in Wal-Mart I found black plates and bowls in their section with dishes and serving pieces. Best part, the plate was $1.75 and the bowl $1.25. Total price=$3.00! That's what I'm talkin' about! To learn how to make these easy cake stands go here!
When it was all dry, I tied on some Halloween ribbon to dress it up. I also see that this picture doesn't do it justice. The lighting is very bad, but trust me it's super cute!

Mantel Makeover-Halloween Style!

I love it when it's time to pull out the Halloween and fall decorations. It's so much fun! So last week I started making over my mantel for Halloween, trying to use things I already had on hand. I'm happy to say that I only spent $8 and most of that was on candy for the apothecary jars! I like the way it turned out and what I like even more is that I didn't spend a lot of money!
My three little goblins also love our mantel makeover!


I used a black frame I had in my stash and simply cut out a black #31 with my Cricut and applied it to the glass. My $1 black crowe and $1 pumpkin from the Dollar Tree go great beside it!
The apothecary jars are my kids' favorite thing about our mantel. Everyday my 3 yr. old asks me if I'm done with the candy yet. Nope, not yet! I made these a while back and love to use different fillers for them. For our mantel I went with( $2)candy corn and ($4)chocolate eyeballs. Eek!



I have had this set of three black frames from Target dollar spot stashed away in my loot for sometime just waiting to be used. I framed orange card stock and added the letters that I cut using my Cricut. To finish it off, I used a vase I had from Dollar Tree and filled it with some little branches I pulled off one of our trees and spray painted them black. Easy peasy!

Dressed & Ready

Wednesday night was Trunk-Or-Treat at church and the kids were dressed and ready for some trunk-or-treat fun. This year Trent is the cartoon version of The Joker(green hair and all), Laci a cute cowgirl and Ivy is Piglet. They can't wait for Saturday night when they will be dressed and ready again for trick or treating in our neighborhood. Hope your Halloween is sweet and safe!

Gone Batty

Today I've gone "batty" with these cute candy bar covers. I found these at Skip To My Lou the other day and thought it would be a great treat for the kids' teachers. They would also make great party favors for a Halloween bash. Skip To My Lou actually has two cover ideas. A bat and a mummy. They even provide a free down loadable template for the bat.You can find them here. Just cut out your template, trace it onto black card stock, cut, attach a candy bar(I used a Hershey's bar) with glue dots,add some googly eyes, then fold in the bat wings and attach with glue dots as well. Very simple and cute. My picture is not the greatest, though. You can't see the cute, curvy bat wings very well. A simple yet fun project for Halloween.

Creepy Treats

Creepy treats anyone??? My family likes creepy Halloween treats, so I try to keep an eye out for some new ones. Since it was my turn to make treats for family home evening, I thought I'd try out a couple new ones that I had found. Even though the kids like treats like this, I still sometimes have to do a little convincing to get them to eat it. The cookie fingers I make every year get them every time. The kids will not eat them at first, but then they come around and realize, Hey, it's just a cookie.

Monster Mouths

I have seen these in many magazines and a lot on the web, so I thought I'd try them. Just core an apple, cut it into fourths then cut a slit out of the middle. Push slivered almonds into the apple to look like teeth.I don't have an apple corer, so I just cut mine apples into wedges and kind of propped them up against each other. On the "gross me out" reaction of my kids, on a scale of 1-5--these got a 3!

Q-Tips with Earwax

This is a new one I found that I just had to make. Yuck! These gross little things are super easy to do. Use a Wilton sucker stick and push a mini marshmallow onto each end then spread a bit of peanut butter on each marshmallow for the earwax. Laci would not eat them at all! After a while, Trent dug right in! Gross scale-- 5!

Frightening Fingers

I thought these fingers were great. I make cookie fingers, but hadn't seen them done with cheese before so I gave them a try. All you do is cut a piece of string cheese in half, make a few knuckle marks in the center of the cheese with a knife and then attach a sliced almond with a dab of cream cheese for the finger nail. They turned out okay, but if I make them again I'll cut a slant off the end of the cheese where the almond goes to make it look a little better. I think these were the kids' favorite out of the three. Gross scale--4!

Baked Ziti and Moldy Bones

That's right! I said baked ziti and moldy bones. I thought the moldy bones would get us in a Halloween kind of mood. I love to make creepy and sweet Halloween food for my family in the weeks leading up to Halloween. The kids especially think it's fun! Look for more Halloween treats to come.

Baked ziti is one of my family's favorites.(This is actually baked rotini, since I was out of ziti noodles.) I like it because it is so cheesy and delicious. It makes a big dish, so their are always leftovers for the next days lunch, too. Their is one ingredient in this recipe that you may think won't go very well in this dish, but trust me it does. It's the cream of chicken soup. It kind of blends in with the melted cheese and makes this baked ziti sooooo good!


The moldy bones were super easy to make with refrigerated bread sticks and tasted great with grated parmesan, garlic and crushed basil on top. Just be sure to roll them long enough so you can tie a loose knot at the end. Get both these yummy recipes below.



Baked Ziti
16 oz. ziti noodles
1 lb. lean ground beef or ground turkey
1 small can cream of chicken soup
1 26 oz. jar pasta sauce
1 c. cheddar, divided
1 c. mozzarella, divided

Boil noodles and drain. Brown meat and drain. Stir pasta sauce into meat and warm in pan. In a 2 qt. casserole dish , layer half of noodles, then half of meat sauce on top of noodles. Pour cream of chicken over meat sauce. Sprinkle 1/2 c. cheddar and 1/2 c. mozzarella over soup. Layer with the rest of the noodles and meat sauce on top. Cover. Bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining cheddar and mozzarella. Bake for 5 minutes longer uncovered. (This dish always fills up my 2 qt. dish to the rim. You could make it in a 9x13, too)

Moldy Bones
1 can (7 oz.) refrigerated original bread sticks
1 egg white, beaten ( I used a little melted butter instead)
1 Tbsp. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. dried crushed basil leaves
garlic salt

Heat oven to 375. Spray cookie sheet with non stick spray. Unroll dough; separate at perforations into 6 bread sticks.(The refrig. bread sticks make 12, but just double them up so they are thick enough to be rolled to about 12 inches) Roll each until 12 inches long. Loosely tie knot in both ends of each bread stick. Place on cookie sheet(do not twist).
Brush bread sticks with egg white ( I used butter). Sprinkle with cheese, garlic and basil.
Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Can serve warm "bones" with pizza sauce for dipping.

Commander Fox, A Nice Witch And A Bumblebee

I hope y'all had a fun and safe Halloween night. We did. The kids especially. After dinner, they all got dressed up in their costumes. Will took all of them out in our neighborhood to trick-or-treat while I stayed home to give out candy. Boy did we have some trick-or-treaters! We had so many kids come by I ran out of candy. I do think it's fun to see all the kids that come by and to see the different costumes. The Super Girl costume was very popular this year. I also had a lot of those scream mask things. Those were creepy! Trent went as Commander Fox from Star Wars Clone Wars.

Here is Laci as a nice witch.

Ivy is our cute little bumblebee.

I did get our witch and Commander Fox to stand still long enough to get one shot of them together. They were SO excited to go trick-or-treating!

Halloween Goodie Buckets

When I saw these cute little metal buckets at the Target dollar spot, I knew they would make a nice treat for Trent's teachers. However, I only purchased two of the small ones so one of his teachers got the BIG bucket. It just looks big compared to those tiny ones actually. I hope they enjoy their treats.

I made simple tags by using my Spooky Sweets set from Papertrey Ink, punched it out and mounted it onto a scalloped circle. I then tied on some cute ribbons to jazz up the buckets.

I hope his teachers like Hershey's nuggets 'cause that's their treat. The nuggets have simple Avery labels wrapped around them that have been stamped with different Halloween images. A cute way to liven up the candy and coordinate it with a theme like Halloween. Oh, I also threw in a spider ring just for fun and spookiness. (I'm doing my creepy witch laugh now...........scary!)

Costumes of the Past

2007

Trent the army man;Ivy, our plump little pumpkin and Laci as Stephanie from Lazy Town.

Today I wanted to share some of our kids' Halloween costumes of the past. I love to look back at all of our memories. So do the kids. They could sit and look at scrapbooks, pictures and listen to stories for awhile. It really captures their attention.

They already have their costumes for this year. Yay! It usually takes awhile to figure out for them, but it was really easy this year. :) We will do trunk-or-treat at church, which is always a fun time, and trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. Bring on the candy!

2006

This picture always cracks me up. Laci was just a bit scared of her brother the vampire at first.

2004

Trent as a ninja. This was one of his favorite costumes.

2004

What a cute little bunny! Laci did not want to wear those ears. Good thing I sewed the bushy tail to her pants.

Yummy Mummies

Trent and I are making these "Yummy Mummies" for one of his classes at school. I thought it would work well since their course of study is Egypt. They're actually going to get to see the mummification process on one of their field trips this year. He's very excited! Anyway, I came up with this idea after seeing some little candy bars wrapped with gauze and thought, Hey, I can do that with tissue rolls. These little mummies are super simple. Just wrap gauze that has been cut into strips around the tissue roll and glue on googly eyes with glue dots. I also inked up the gauze a bit with brown ink to give them an aged look. What makes these mummies so yummy? They are stuffed with two fun size candies. I hope his class likes them.

Laci informed me that the mummies keep looking at her when she goes in my room where I have them stored.
BOO!

Halloween Treats

On Sunday evening, the kids and I made these fun "Mummy Dogs" as part of our dinner. They're so cute. One of their favorite things about Halloween, besides costumes and candy, is making fun food and spooky treats. I like it too. We get to spend time together and make something cute and yummy. We all got a kick out of these. They tasted pretty good,too.

Mummy Dogs
1 pkg. beef franks
1 pkg. refrigerated crescent rolls or bread sticks
mustard

Unroll crescent rolls and roll between hands to make a long rope. Wrap around beef frank starting at the end. Bake on cookie sheet at 350 for about 15 mins. or until rolls are browned.
Make mummy eyes by dotting with mustard.



After dinner, we made dessert. Spooky spiders and witch hats. We have made different Halloween treats over the years, eyeballs, fingers, ghosts, etc., but these were a first. I think they're keepers. The kids really enjoyed making these......and eating them.

Witch Hats
Keebler Grasshopper cookies(any flat cookie would work)
Hershey Kisses
Icing in piping bag

Put a dot of icing on bottom of a kiss and set kiss on top of cookie. Line kiss with icing or decorate to your liking.


Cookie Spiders
Keebler Grasshopper cookies
pretzels
peanut butter

Spread peanut butter on bottom of one cookie. Break pretzels to make spider legs. Set pretzels on peanut butter topped cookie. Four on each side. Top with another cookie. Squeeze two dots of icing on top of the cookie for eyes.

Laci was really into this. She even put hair on her spider(with icing). Creepy!

Trent was whippin' out spiders and hats pretty quick. The witch hats were his favorite to eat, spiders favorite to make.