Yummy Mummy Treats

Hallowe'en is in just over a week and I know that our two kiddos off at university are working super hard right now so I thought that a little treat would be appreciated. It's a miracle of organizational skills but I actually got these mummy treats made and mailed off last weekend. I know, I know - amazing isn't it. 

I thought I would share the idea with you because, friends, these couldn't be easier to make and yet you look like you put some effort into the gift. To make the mummy treats you just wrap a chocolate bar in black paper. Then you wrap over the black paper with toilet paper (white crepe paper might have been better, but I didn't have any) and add a pair of googly eyes.

It's all about the eyes don't you think! 

Linked to A Pretty Life in the Suburbs Halloween Link Party

More Pumpkin Carving

We carved a pumpkin in art class again this year (You can see the pumpkin I carved last year here).  It is such a fun, low pressure activity.  I really don't stress over my design as I know it will be in the compost bin in a weeks time. This year I went with a ginkgoesque type leaf.  I love ginkgo trees so this seemed like a fun image to wind around my pumpkin.

These little pie pumpkins got turned ...

into these ... and then we had a little impromptu pumpkin photo-shoot.

I love adding a carved pumpkins to our front porch as it is a little different than the usual jack-o-lantern and I'm much more into pretty than scary.  I also bought a pumpkin and an assortment of squashes to decorate with.  The squash have the advantage that we can eat them when Hallowe'en is done (we don't eat the pumpkins that we carve as they are watery - grown more for size than taste).  

Have you carved your pumpkins yet?

Hallowe'en 2012

I hope you all had a good Hallowe'en.  My husband had to do all the decorating this year, including pumpkin carving, as I wasn't that into Hallowe'en.  Why you ask?  Well, because: a) we don't have any kids at home right now so it just didn't seem that fun and  b) I was way more into doing my latest DIY home project which I will give you a sneak peek of at the end of the post.
It all turned out for the best though as Jonathan has hidden talents as a pumpkin carver,

window dresser,

and ghost maker.  

And I got some more done on my project.  Win, win, I would say.

WISH Wednesday #55

When I saw these Pumpkin Die-oramas over at The Art of Doing Stuff I just knew they would be fantastic for a Hallowe'en WISH Wednesday post.  Are these not perfect. Kind of like Faberge was into pumpkins instead of eggs and had only the dollar store at his disposal.

The Art of Doing Stuff

If you go to the website you can see more details and read about how to make your own die-orama.  Should you decide to make one you absolutely must include the glowing skulls - are they not the best.

Hallowe'en Ghosties

Hallowe'en has come and gone and our little ghosties looked great with the black light making them look blue and - well - ghostly.

We have a friend from France visiting so it was fun to see Hallowe'en through his eyes.  

I hope you had lots of fun and lots of candy.

Hallowe'en Magazine Copy-Cat Challenge

Debbie over at Debbiedoo's Blogging and Blabbing is having a magazine copy-cat challenge.  Actually she's had several over the past year or so, but I've never been able to join in any of them as they always came at at time when I was super busy.  Well I vowed this time to get something organized.  


I looked around at different magazine pictures and really liked the one below.  The cute little ghosties made out of painted gourds especially caught my eye.

BHG

I started by going to the grocery store and buying myself three butternut squash to use - that way it would be a frugal as well as fun craft, as we would eat the squash afterward.  Squash are a lot more expensive than I thought though, as buying three of them set me back $10.  So when I mentioned to my husband that I was going to paint them white and then we would eat them afterward, he didn't think that was such a wise idea - you know paint leaking through the skin into the flesh of the gourd and all.   


I had to agree that was a problem, so after discussing a few ideas I decided to try using white pantyhose to cover the squash.  The next day I went to the dollar store to buy some and lo and behold you can't find white pantyhose anywhere.  Who knew?  I guess white pantyhose went out with the 1980s and uniformed nurses.

Then I remembered a package of white tube socks that I have had in the basement for a year now while I try and convince my 17 year old son to wear them.  Anyone else have stubborn teenagers who will not wear the economical tube socks, but insist on wearing the very expensive wool hiking socks from Mountain Equipment Coop.  Sigh!  Anyway, it did occur to me that maybe I could make three of those poor neglected tube socks feel useful by making them into ghosts.  

It was really pretty easy.  I slipped pushed the squash into the socks and tied the tops.  Then I made eyes and mouths out of sticky-back felt.   


I have to say I think they are pretty darn cute.  And we can eat our little ghosties when Hallowe'en is done!

Happy Hallowe'en everyone!  

Puffy Pumpkins

Since it is almost Hallowe'en I've been doing some crafts with the special class that I work with in one of my schools.  Last week we made these adorable pumpkins out of two pairs of panyhose, some batting, paint, and black felt.   I love their lumpy-bumpy uniqueness.

They are pretty simple to make so I'll explain how we made them in case you are wanting a last minute Hallowe'en craft.  I didn't take any photos during the process as my hands were busy helping the students. 

Here's how you make them:
1.  Cut off the panty and the toe part of two pairs of pantyhose
2.  Lay all 4 legs of the pantyhose on top of each other on the table and tie a knot in the middle.   When you spread the legs out you now have 8 pieces coming out from the centre knot.
3.  Stuff each leg with batting
4.  Pull the loose ends of each leg together at the top and tie them with some string
5.  Paint the pumpkins - we used tempera paints with orange for the body and a greeny-brown for the stem
6.  Cut out face pieces from black felt (or black foam) and glue them on

I have to say that making these crafts with the kids is a part of my job that I really enjoy.  And in case you are wondering, the classroom teacher and I made the students work for all the pieces they needed to use and before they could paint each section of the pumpkin.  There was a lot of rhyming and identifying sounds happening in the class as the students were all very motivated to make their pumpkins.   

I took pictures of each child's pumpkin so they can write about them next week.  Nothing better than a little pumpkin photo-shoot.

Here's what the same class made last year (you can read how to make them here). 

Power Tool Pumpkins and Other Easy Hallowe'en Decorations

Hallowe'en is pretty low-key in our house these days with everyone a teenager or beyond.  We did get into the action a little bit though.

Hallowe'en threw up all over our living room window.

We decorated our front hall with a flag, a cauldron of candy ready to hand out, and

our ghost!  We put him up every year and the kids love it.  It was my husband's idea to put a white duvet over a step ladder, add black construction paper eyes and a mouth, and light it with a black light.  Ingenious!

The only one wearing a costume this year was Juno - and we really weren't sure what she was dressed up as.

As for the pumpkin we had to get creative.  When your younguns grow up into teenagers, they may or may not want to carve pumpkins any more.  That's when you move on to using power tools!  Using a drill puts a whole new spin (get it - spin!!!) on pumpkin carving - a good spin if you are a teenager.  Actually a good spin if you are me as well, because then I don't have to do the carving and we get an interesting pumpkin to put out for Hallowe'en.

I have to say that I thought the term "power tool pumpkins" was one I had invented until I read this post on Rambling Renovators blog, which referred to this post written in October 2009.  Their original post was written in my pre-blog days, so I have to say that I likely owe the inspiration and term to them.  It is a much loved tradition now.

 

Trust Martha to take pumpkin drilling to a whole new level.  Her power tool pumpkins are very creative, but I'm thinking Martha hasn't put a teenager boy in charge of making them.

 All images from Martha Stewart

  

Hope everyone had a fun Hallowe'en.  Do tell how the pumpkin carving went in your house.  Any ingenious costumes visiting your house this year?

 

Linked to the 2010 Hallowe'en Pumpkin Party Parade at Under the Table and Dreaming

Pumpkin Jar Lanterns

Look what I made today.  Aren't they adorable?

One of the parts of my job as a Speech-Language Pathologist, that I enjoy the most is working with a special class for children with learning disabilities.  Twice a week I go into the class and we work on early literacy skills.  I try to make it fun so we play a lot of games and do different activities while we are practicing clapping syllables, making rhyming words, and identifying sounds in a word.  

Last October I got the idea from someone's blog (sorry it was in my pre-blogging days so I didn't keep track of the source) for these adorable pumpkin lanterns.  I emailed the idea to the teacher and she loved them as much as I did, so we made them last year and again this year with a new group of students.  Now don't think it was all fun and games in the class.  We made the students work on their rhyming skills before they got each strip of orange tissue paper to glue onto the jar.  The kids were so excited to make them and even more excited when we lit the tea lights so they could see them glow.  

I wanted to show you in case any of you want an easy fun Hallowe'en craft.  And thanks to whoever's blog I got the idea from.

Up-date:
I've been asked to divulge how I made these lanterns, so here goes -
1.  We painted glass mason jars with watered-down white glue.
2.  Then we put 1-inch wide strips of orange tissue paper onto the jars vertically.  The strips of tissue paper look best if they overlap a bit so it looks like the ridges and folds on a real pumpkin. 
3.  Then we gently painted more glue on top of the all the orange so all the edges were stuck down and the lantern will look shiny when the glue is dry. 
4.  We cut out eyes, nose, and mouth from black construction paper and used the watered down glue to attach them.  We also painted glue on top of the black paper so they would look shiny as well. 
5.  Finally, we put green tape (it might be tape for painting or for gardening, I'm not sure which) around the mouth of the jar to look like the stem and to finish the top edges of the tissue paper.  You can put the jar upside down to dry.