Halloween Craft #5: Pop Tart Pumpkins

I know I'm just a wee bit late on this one, but I've decided to post it anyway. I've seen some make-at-home pop tart recipes and I had been wanting to try them. I thought some jack-o-lantern poptarts would just be the cutest thing for Halloween, so here they are.

I recommend a homemade pie crust if you want them to taste really good, but a store-bought one does work. But trust me, it doesn't taste as good. 

Here's how you do it:

1. Roll out your pie crust on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4" thickness or less. You don't want too thick of crust.

2. Take a large circle cookie cutter and press one end of it down on the crust, leaving the other end on top of the surface. Use a sharp knife to cut around the cookie cutter except for a notch at the top for the stem. Cut around a rectangular shape at the top for the stem. 

3. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut/saw out the eyes and mouth and lift them out from the center.

4. Cut a simple circle using your cookie cutter for the base layer of the pumpkin (your top stem doesn't need a bottom layer, it will be fine).

5. Place a spoonful of filling (recipe below) in the center of your base layer and spread slightly outward, leaving a sufficient clean edge around the outsides for sealing the top.

6. Dip your finger or a brush or something in water and run it around the outside edges of the base layer and the underside of the top layer to encourage sticking. Place the top/face over the filled base circle. Using a fork, press around the outside edges of the pumpkin with the tines to seal it shut. (I skipped over the stem and it didn't leak out).

7. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

I've done some where I overfilled them and some of the jam filling spilled out the eyes and mouth, which is actually kind of fun too. It's like the jack-o-lantern is drooling or crying.

Jam Filling:

3/4 c orange marmalade or apricot jam

1 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp corn starch

Mix all together and use as your filling.

If you want to be more festive you can use a pumpkin pie type filling with a cinnamon frosting, but I personally prefer jam poptarts.

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Halloween Costumes 2012

This year's Halloween costumes were from the movie Up! I love bringing animations to life. I brought out my old house costume and took on the challenge of making Kevin, the bird. An added challenge was that it had to be wearable by a 3 year old. Which meant that attempt #1 was a no go (see below):

The neck and head were too tall and tipsy for my girl. They were attached to a bike helmet but the support still wasn't sufficient. And actually, I think the transition to the body isn't that great either. So it's probably good I had to make another attempt.

Now for a picture of my boy. I've mentioned before how active he is. Impossible to get a good still photo.

My hubs was out of town but fortunately my sweet mother-in-law came to trick or treat with us and get some group shots. I love my mother-in-law, I know not a lot of people can say that, and I feel very fortunate.

A few notes: For the scout sash, I went to the boyscouts website and downloaded a picture of each merit badge (so glad they had those available!). I put them all on one page and resized them all to 1.25 inches. I have a circle craft punch that size, so then I printed them on iron-on transfer paper (for dark shirts) and punched each one out. Peel off the backing and ironed them each onto the sash. The peeling off the backing was tricky and took forever. The shirt was from a thrift store, the rest I already had.

The bird: I wasn't planning on doing all those feathers. I was planning on just spray painting the felt body, but it looked terrible, so I had to do feathers. the orange feathers are actually just yellow felt with spray paint. Those looked fine. The body I ad-libbed and it could have been better, honestly. I'm not a great seamstress and times like these I wish I knew more, but it worked. It is padded with fiber fill (stuffing). The head started with a posterboard mold, padded with fiberfill, aluminum foil, and masking tape. I paper machéed it, let it dry, pulled out the posterboard and almost discarded the whole thing (that's when I started on head #1). It got a little deformed, so I had to remold a little with aluminum foil and then paper mache again. I used paper towels as my final layer of paper mache for a slightly better finished texture. The eyes are also paper mache (over small water balloons filled with air, not water). Turns out styrofoam balls are kind of pricey. Once dry, I spray painted it yellow and red. I used acrylic paint to do the green circles around the eye, then glued the eyes on. The pupils are drawn on with a sharpie marker. The blue part on the head is felt, and I just kind of pinned, glued, and trimmed. The head feathers are pipe cleaners and felt feathers.
Hope you had a happy Halloween too!

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Halloween Craft #4: Halloween Coloring Book Pages

We had a neighborhood "Fall Festival" party tonight, and we needed some activities to keep the little ones happy while the grown-ups socialized. Among other things, we had coloring. I quickly drew up these coloring pages for the kiddos and now I'm sharing them with you.
To download, click on the image and then right click and select Save As.

Happy Halloween!

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Halloween Craft #3: Tweed and Flannel Fabric Pumpkins

I had this idea last year but never got around to executing it. I'm glad I got to this year. I'm sure I got the idea of fabric pumpkins from somewhere else, maybe Martha? Who knows, but anyway, I thought some menswear would be the perfect touch for the season. A little dark, a little sophisticated, a little mysterious.

If you'd like some directions, this is a great tutorial.

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Halloween Craft #2: Sparkling Spider Webs

This is a craft that was inspired by a post on Pinterest. But I wanted to try it because I am lacking in decorations plus this was essentially a free craft since I already had all the supplies (which are cheap anyway).

Halloween Craft #2: Glitter Spider Web

Here's what you'll need:
1.wax paper or freezer paper with a waxy side (comes in larger size than wax paper)
2. glitter
3. glue-such as Elmer's
4. disposable box , optional, for controlling the spread of a glittery mess

Step 1: Lay your wax paper down on a flat working surface (inside your optional box).

Step 2: Open the tip of your glue bottle and start drawing a glue web.

Step 3: Pour generous amounts of glitter over your completed web, making sure every bit of it gets coated in sparkles.

Step 4: Allow to dry completely (this make take up to 24 hours). When dry, lift wax paper and shake off all the extra glitter (into your box, if you have one). Gently peel back the wax paper and remove your web. All done!

Tip: After a few more days the web does become brittle because it's just dried glue. So be gentle with it and keep toddlers away if you don't want it broken.

You can also do this trick on a painted pumpkin like I did a few years ago:

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Halloween Costume Collection

Welcome to October! I love Halloween. I think the biggest reason I love it is because of the creativity that it unleashes in people. The costumes, the pumpkin carvings, the decor, the food... everything gets a dose of fun. So to kick off the month, I thought I'd share with you a few of my costumes from past years (all home-made).
First, easiest costume ever. White clothes with black electrical tape. Add a cardboard head, and done.

 This was last year, celebrating UP!

 This you've seen. Ava's peacock costume.

Years ago some friends and I were the alien guys from Toy Story (I've also been Jessie, but have no photos).

And since I obviously have a tendency toward Pixar film characters, let's end with Elastagirl, AKA Mrs. Incredible.

I get my love of costuming from my mother, who always made costumes for her 6 kids (though some of us sometimes got hand-me-downs) Pin It

Peacock Costume How-To

I'm posting this in response to numerous requests for instructions on how to make the peacock costume I made for Ava last year for Halloween. I know a lot of you want to get a head start on the costume making, so I'm jumping the gun and sharing this in August. I don't have a photo step-by-step, but I will do my best to share with you how I made it so that you can replicate it if you want. Please let me know if my instructions need any clarity.

So first the easy part. The orange tights I got at Gymboree in October (they were sold as a Halloween item, so you might have better luck finding them then) and the onesie I got from Old Navy. Much easier than making those things. And useable afterward too. Another great resource for colored tights is welovecolors.com.

Next I bought the peacock feathers, large teal feathers, and elastic sequin material at Hobby Lobby (craft store). The sequin elastic was used for the headband as well as to hold the feather part onto her waist and legs so it stayed up properly. I bought a shiny teal blue polyester type material at JoAnn's (I think). I was lucky that the onesie matched the fabric color so well. 

I'd recommend gluing or sewing some feathers onto the headband—it would have looked better.

I figured it would be easier to explain visually, so I drew up a really simple diagram for the rest. The peacock feathers were really long, so I was able to cut them almost in half and use the bottom part inside of the fabric "petals" as support. Better than wire because it's lighter and less risky for the kiddo. A lot of the costume I assembled with a glue gun, because it was only going to be used once or twice, so I figured it didn't need to be too heavy duty on the durability, but you could sew more if you like. The elastic bands I sewed into loops—I figured glue wouldn't hold those very well.

UPDATE: I've been spending so much time sending out emails with the diagram that I can't keep up. So I've got it listed in my Etsy shop, but it's only $3. It's an automatic PDF download so you will have right away. Here is the {LINK} to my shop. Thank you!

Good luck and happy Halloweening a few months in advance!

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Halloween at Work

Here are some photos of the Halloween festivities at my office. Thank you, co-workers, for making this day so fun. Everyone brings their kids in to trick-or-treat, there are costume contests, decorating contests, coloring contest for the kids, and a chili/soup lunch plus cookies for dessert.

 Bees and bee keeper

 Braveheart

 Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat

 Harry Potter and the gang. My favorites are Moaning Mertyl and Mrs. Trelawney, and of course, the snitch.

 Nerd on a Segway. He may not be Gob Bluth, but I still like it.

 Lord of the Rings group. Look for all the specific characters... even including the ring!

Snow White and the 7 Dwarves

My favorite costume: gorilla carrying Danny in a box

Masquerade Ball girls

and their magnifiscent decorations below

 

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Halloween Costumes--the Photos

As promised, here are more photos of our costumes. I made them both (details at the end, if you are interested). If you aren't familiar with it, I'm the house from the movie Up.
Halloween is kind of a big deal at my office, and I look forward to it all year. They even set up a little photo booth for us to all get our pictures done.

My hair quickly became staticky. I only have this photo for now.

 

 

 

For the house I carved and taped together boxes, painted it with cheap craft paint, and drew on the siding and shingles with a marker.
For the peacock, I got the tights at Gymboree, the onesie at Old Navy, and the rest of the supplies at Hobby Lobby. (I'm kind of obsessed with these tights. She will be wearing them a lot this winter.) Pin It