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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Snakes on a Plain White Carpet!

Last night started normal enough, for our household. My man grabbed the best thrift store find from last week, a full size Optimus Prime helmet with voice changer for only 99¢, and ushered the kids to bed.

Then a few hours later while my man and I were enjoying NCIS and a glass of red wine we heard a scream, followed by our 7yo son running downstairs yelling,

"THERE'S A SNAKE IN BROTHER'S ROOM! HELP HIM!

What!?!

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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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Boys Tee to Girls Dress

My two oldest are boys, boys with shirts I love. My youngest is my only girl, a girl with a funky fashion sense. I like to get the most out of all the clothes I buy my kids and low and behold I've discovered how to make some of those boy clothes go all the way down the line to my daughter and in a way her inner fashion diva loves. All it requires is taking the best tees the boys have outgrown, finding a yard or so of coordinating fabric and adding a skirt. The boys' best tees become her spunky play dresses.

My oldest in the Dark Side of the Garden shirt two and a half years ago.

It all started with this Darth Vader topiary shirt. I found this amazing, super soft Threadless Tee several years ago at a consignment sale for $2. My oldest son loved it. Then it was passed down to my middle son. But one fateful day he decided to see if scissors would cut cotton. His query resulted in a small nick along the bottom hem. I was sad to see this shirt go before its time.  So I decided it didn't have to go yet. My daughter liked Star Wars...I could do something with this.

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