A Jasmine Yarn Wig

Princess Fierce wanted to be Jasmine for Halloween. She made up her mind in September and never wavered. I'm fairly confident the decision was based purely on the fact she wears a two piece outfit. I lucked out and found two complete blue and pink Jasmine costume including gold shoes at a local consignment store for under $30 for everything.

She wore the pink outfit to see Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream with her cousin. An excellent show if you can still catch it in your town. For the show I tried to style her short, thin hair in the best imitation of Jasmine's hair I could manage. She loved the result. But for Halloween I'd made the offhand comment that I thought I could make her a Jasmine yarn wig. After Disney on Ice she told me she hoped I could make one but if I couldn't she'd be happy with her hair this way again. Such a sweet girl.

I searched Pinterest and Google for inspiration but came up with only one other person making a yarn Jasmine wig. And she used a completely different method than I was comfortable with. I cannot crochet yarn into a highlighting cap. Nope. So I went my own way. I started with a pair of black girls tights from the clearance rack at Target. $1.50 for her wig cap. I put the waist around her hairline then tied a tight knot with the legs. 

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Chalkboard Pumpkin Countdown

Fourteen days until Halloween! I have a snowman that countsdown to Christmas but nothing else. And my kids love to know exactly how many days are left until a special event. This year I created a chalkboard pumpkin to countdown the days until Halloween. Each day we wipe off the number and write the new one with chalk. After Halloween I'll change it to read Days Until Thanksgiving.

Just start with a good sized pumpkin. This one had a rounded front shown here and a nice flattened back that worked perfect for the countdown.

Apply a few coats of chalk board paint. And you're done.

Huge added perk to this simple craftiness is the kids can use the chalk to create different Jack-o-Lantern faces on the other side.

Happy Halloween!

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Easy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

The cookies are entirely too simple, perfect for fall and completely adaptable to your tastes. They can be made with only a handful of ingredients...ingredients you very well may have lurking in your pantry right now. Great for Halloween or Thanksgiving get-togethers or just for this afternoon.

All you need is cake mix, canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), chocolate chips, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. I'm a big fan of Betty Crocker cake mixes. I always stock up when they're on sale.

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Snake Wreath

This is another creation credited to Pinterest. I'd seen a snake wreath pop up there a month ago, a snake wreath created by none other than Martha Stewart. I had to make the wreath with my family's snake history including the copperhead that bit our dog last year and the rat snake somehow discovered in my son's room; we needed a snake wreath for Halloween.

I found a plethora of rubber snakes at the Dollar Tree and dollar spot section at Target.

I also needed a wreath. I wanted a large grapevine wreath and I found this one on half price day at my favorite thrift store.

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Halloween Costume Recap: Catwoman

Best laid plans and having children goes together as well as oil and water. Halloween is a great example. You may recall Princess Fierce wanted to be Darth Fairy for Halloween. Yet she needed the costume made in advance to also be worn while watching the Dragon*Con parade. She loved her Darth Fairy costume and was convinced it was still going to be worn again at Halloween...

until...

well, until...

the boots.

These boots changed everything. Princess Fierce was given a nice $20 bill in her birthday booty. When we head off to Target to spend said money she sees no suitable toys. Instead her newly minted five-year-old self walks down to the shoe aisle. Wha? Did she just turn five or twenty-five? She tries on several things until she spies these black boots on a high shelf. From the minute they went on she was in love. She looks up at me hopefully to ask if she has enough money to buy them. Indeed she did. 

And indeed she did buy them. Then she said something else. Her heart bursting with future joy, her eyes lit up with excitement she says, "and now I want to be CATWOMAN for Halloween!"

But, but, but what about the Darth Fairy I made? *sigh* I had to admit the boots would rock as part of a Catwoman costume. And I couldn't forget her favorite person to find at Dragon*Con to be photographed with was...

Catwoman. However, I asked her if instead of being the Dragon*Con Catwoman I could persuade her to check out a much more child appropriate Catwoman.

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Halloween Costume Recap: Medusa

The week before Halloween I decided to go as Medusa. Then I was in a mad rush to find the components. First the dress. I didn't have time to peruse the thrift stores for the perfect gown in my size so I just purchased a "Greek Goddess" dress from the Halloween store. White would not work, however. The dress was 100% Polyester and everything I read told me it would not dye. 

I took my chances. And it worked! One box of black Rit Dye, in my front load washer no less, gave me a perfect and evenly dyed gray dress. 

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Witch's Cupboard Halloween Game

For the third year I've done this spooky table of gross things for the kids to touch at our neighborhood Halloween party. I try to include new icky things each year. It's always a hit with the kids. They do love gross things. 

The entire table display is done kid height. I throw an old black sheet over the table then top with a torn piece of cheese cloth. For the cauldrons I cut cheese cloth in half, fold diagonally, lay across the cauldrons with a gap at the front. Next I fold up the corners loosely and stretch a rubberband around to hold them in place It's supposed to imitate fog coming out and leaves place for the kids to reach inside and also peek at what they touched.

The sign reads: Welcome to the Witch's Cupboard. Reach beneath the fog within the cauldrons and touch if you dare. I created the sign by doing a google image search for old paper. I chose the font from the free Halloween fonts at dafont. I do a cheap laminating job by using strips of packing tape. And I created the stand on the back from leftover cardboard. It's hard to see what's next to it in this picture but those are "Dried Bat Wings." I bought the dog treat pig ears and painted them black. Totally creepy.

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Candy Corn Pudding Cups

I think this will be my last Halloween inspired goodie of twenty-ten. *sniff* I do love Halloween so much. However, every moment of Autumn is awesome, my favorite season of all. This morning I decided to whip up one last surprise for the kiddos before the onslaught of CANDY!

I stood on the pudding aisle earlier this week and thought of all the layered Jello candy corn inspired treats I've seen. Why not pudding? French Vanilla has a yellow hue.  And Butterscotch is in the orange family. I knew there was a tub of cool whip waiting at home already.

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Candy Corn Brownies

The candy corn must be gone by the end of October. I thought baking some of them in brownies would be a festive and yummy thing to do. The kids were obviously in full support of this plan. I did regular candy corn on top of mini brownie muffins and caramel candy corn on top of a pan of brownies. While I do have several brownie recipes from scratch, these were from a box. But not just any box, Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix.  Love this brownie mix! If you've never tried it you need to change that. It's so tasty on its own but if you have Heath toffee bits, you should throw a handful in the brownie batter for a truly mouth altering experience. But I digress; this is about candy corn!

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Tony Stark and Abby Sciuto Halloween Fun

This weekend we had some early Halloween fun. My man and I had double Halloween parties on Saturday night and Sunday we took the kiddos to Boo at the Zoo. For the Halloween parties my husband thought it'd be fun to go as Iron Man. Since he's grown his hair out and sports a goatee I thought Tony Stark would be better. Plus I'd seen this instructable earlier in the year on how to make an inexpensive arc reactor and I'd been wanting to make it.

 One strand of battery powered LED lights and a 3" styrofoam disc. Total cost: $7.27

I cut the disc in half so it could be as thin as possible, then poked small holes where I wanted the lights to go.

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Creating Catwoman's Necklace

Princess Fierce has changed her mind about wearing Darth Fairy costume I made her again on Halloween. Apparently she really only wanted it for the Dragon*Con parade, or at least until she found a pair of knee high faux black leather boots at Target. She bought the boots with her birthday money choosing the footwear over aisles and aisles of toys. And the same afternoon looked at me and said, "I want to be CATWOMAN for Halloween and wear my boots!"

I considered the more recent catwoman incarnation but really determined that's not fitting for a five year old. We're going old school, Julie Newmar style catwoman. I've got the boots, the black pants, the black shirt, the black ears but I need the gold belt and most importantly the gold necklace to pull this off.

I couldn't find a lion button or charm so I cut the head off a toy lion.

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Painting Pumpkins

As I mentioned before, I do not like to carve pumpkins. I only did a carved jack-o-lantern and expensive trip to a "pumpkin patch" one year with all our kiddos. I was disappointed the pumpkins weren't on a vine in this so-called patch but instead we were carried by tractor pulled hay ride across a field to yet another field where pumpkins were scattered about. The kids enjoyed the day, our wallets did not. And the resulting carved pumpkin became a stinky, rotting mess on the front step.

The one and only year in a large Pumpkin Patch, October 2007

The next year I switched gears and instead of spending too much on one day in a crowded field with strangers to buy one expensive large pumpkin, we visited our friends that run a pumpkin patch in front of their church and let each kid pick out their own pumpkin to PAINT.

The first painted pumpkins, October 2008

My goblins with their creations year two of painted pumpkins in 2009

This year the kids started asking very early in October when we would be going to visit our friends' pumpkin patch to buy the pumpkins. And I suppose by year three I can call this a tradition, right?

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Candy Corn Bark

I had the unoriginal idea to make candy corn bark. Seems from a quick search on the Internet this is done often when the love it or hate it October candy is aplenty. Nonetheless I gave it a go from my own pantry.

I had a couple bags of white Wilton candy melts, a bag of candy corn, some festive orange and black sprinkles and a bag of Halloween colored Oreos.

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Painted Glass Pumpkin Luminaries

I do not like to carve pumpkins. The one year I did it with the kids it was not a pretty result, the face or the following ant invasion and rot. Eww. Ever since that fateful Halloween, I've been taking the kids to a local pumpkin patch to pick out their own pumpkins to bring home and paint. I adore the way the decorated pumpkins adorn my front porch, but I miss the flickering glow of a jack-a-lantern. Now I miss it no more. Several weeks ago I came across this great project on Crafts by Amanda for Halloween Painted Jar Luminaries. Go look at them; they're awesome. 

That same week I found a bevy of floral glass vases for one dollar each at a local thrift store. When I saw their shape I thought they'd make great pumpkins.

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Eyeball Necklace

When I saw this bouncy ball spider necklace in my facebook feed earlier this week, I was reminded I had extra bouncy eyeballs from my eyeball wreath project. I also happened to have a pair of white girl's tights in my craft stash to make a spider sac decoration.

I grabbed the tights. I only need one leg for the spider sac.

No problem then to cut off a leg for this project too.

Drop a bouncy ball eye in the leg and knot on each side. Repeat.

Tie ends together and hand over to Princess Fierce. She loves it! 

I think it would be better done with less opaque tights. Also I would definitely need to use ladies' hose for an adult necklace; this is just long enough for my little girl. I still have more balls, perhaps the adult version will follow.

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Halloween Eyeball Wreath

I couldn't sleep last night so I got busy making the Halloween eyeball wreath I've been imagining.

I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to do it so I gathered a bunch of supplies from my craft stash. The wreath form and black ribbon were a dollar each from the Dollar Tree, the black glitter leaves and flowers are from Michael's and cost a dollar too, the black tulle is leftover from another project and the eyeballs are bouncy balls and a big bag cost only $4 at Target. I wanted to wrap the wreath in black grosgrain ribbon but it turns out I needed two spools to cover the form. So I changed course and wrapped it in the black tulle.

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Make Your Own Halloween Tea Lights

I was thumbing through my latest issue of Family Fun Magazine when I came across instructions for turning ping pong balls and battery powered tea lights into spooky halloween eyes. I quickly did one eye ball. Then I found orange ping pong balls that afternoon and thought why not create miniature jack-o-lanterns? So I did. Then 9yo, owl-obsessed, Thing One asked if I could make him an owl...with a spooky tree. So I did. Then the ideas from the kidlets kept pouring in.

Lights On

Lights Off

The Entire Set In Action

Now Barbie has a jack-o-lantern.

If you want to make your own all you need to do is cut an X in the bottom of the ping pong ball, pop it over the "flame" on the battery powered tea light then create your design using permanent markers. Super, super simple. You can also use a pencil to draw your design first and make adjustments since the pencil marks erase off the ball easily. Similar, but not nearly as attractive, single blinking eye battery lights sell at Target for $2.99 each. My boys were full of praise for me when they saw the Target version...and its price. I already had battery powered tea lights on hand but my local Dollar Tree also sells two packs, batteries included. And the ping pong balls can be found for around $2 for an 8 pack at the grocery store or big box stores. My neighbor even tells me she saw them at The Dollar Tree.


I think I may need to do this at Christmas, too. Glowing Christmas trees, or candles, or ornaments, or angels...

I was so in love with my first three creations I took a quick video to share with my friends on facebook. Unbeknownst to me, my man snagged a video of me. Oy. Enjoy the Behind the Scenes.

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