Monster Cake

My son and my husband celebrated birthdays a while back and we had a BIG monster party for both of them.  This is the cake I made for the party:

Thanks to this cake HERE for the inspiration I was able to put together a fun cake.  For the eyes on my cake I used Ritz crackers dipped in Orange Chocolate melts and added the candy eyeballs to the top. The mouth on my cake is just paper. Super easy and fun to make. This cake was a chocolate cake with Orange Cream Frosting.......yes it was super good!

Happy Everything Pennant Banner: teacher gift idea

I wanted to make something special for my child's Kindergarten teacher.  She is a great teacher.  She loves what she does and does a great job at it.  

So I made her a Happy Everything Banner that she can hang up in her classroom.

 Instead of waiting until the end of the school year to give this to her, we are giving it to her for Valentine's Day.

I am wrapping it up and attaching a note that says, "Thank you for teaching me so much about everything!"

I have made it easy for you if you want to give one away as well.

I have added them into my shop.

Go HERE for details.

Halloween Porch Decorations and Banner

I am super late getting this up on my blog.....but this is how I decided to decorate my porch for October.

I fun Happy Halloween Banner that was given to me for free last year, that I unpicked and resewed to fit the space of my new house.  The banner is perfect and because my door is taller it does not get in the way.  I made the black Halloween wreath last year, click here to see that post.

There are some big giant pumpkins on the porch as well.  Fun, cute and simple.

I am getting excited to put up my fall decor in a few days!

Wood 2x4 Witch's Hat

 I turned some left over wood scraps into a couple of cute wooden witch hats!

I painted the wood, mod podged paper to the front, glued the top and bottom of my wood scraps together and then added ribbon and spiders for detail.  Super fun, super easy and super inexpensive.

 Here is what I used to make them:

The tall hat is a 2x6 wood scrap and the small hat is a 2x4 wood scrap.  The rim of each hat is made from scraps of a 2x2.  I made some cute wood Candy Corns and you can look at those HERE.

 These cute little hats also make a fun costume for your pumpkins!!

Happy Halloween!

2x4 wood Candy Corns

I made these cute little candy corns a few weeks ago thanks to this post.

I made 2 different sizes:  The larger candy corn is made from a 2x6 and the small one is made from a 2x4.

I did not use tape I just free handed the stripes and then added ribbon for a fun detail.

These are a perfect decor addition since they will carry on through the fall season!

easy from scratch Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am addicted to these little things. 

I have grown up eating them from scratch for over 30 years, so when I decided to try the Cake box recipe that is out there......my reaction was yuck!!  I hated every cookie.  It did not matter which brand of cake mix I used I did not like the taste.  So I went back to the good old from scratch recipe that my mom would always make us.

 I love this recipe for many reasons.  The first being the taste.  Second, one batch makes 100+ cookies so you really only have to go to the trouble once and you have an ample amount of cookies to put in the freezer to enjoy all fall long.  That is unless you eat them all up before that  :)

The Recipe from my mom's kitchen:

1 cup shortening

2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

2 cups canned pumpkin

2 tsp vanilla

5 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp course salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground cloves 

1 package of MINI chocolate chips - totally recommend using mini chips!

Use a small ice cream scoop for unified cookies.  Makes 100+ depending on size of scoop.

Bake at 400* for 10-12 minutes

Enjoy!

Fairy Costume for 2012

 I tried very hard to get this girl to join her other siblings for a themed Halloween this year but to no avail, she wanted to be a fairy.  I think since August.  These little minds can sure be stubborn.....humm I wonder were she gets it :) 

 She is sooooo very pleased with how this all came together.  I great reminder to me that sometimes the simplest things are the best things.  This girl taught me a great lesson.  I had pinned several different ideas on what kind of head wreath I wanted to make her.  So we set out to the craft store together and by the end I had almost $10 worth of supplies in hand when we walked by the Christmas decoration isle and she found the "sparkly pink stuff" with starts and squealed with delight, "I want this on my head!"  So we put everything else back and left with the $1.00 package of sparkly pink stuff.  We added some ribbon to the back, made her a cute butterfly wand and she put on her fairy wings and she is so happy.  We had also found the pretty dress for $1 a few months back and she loves it.  She says she feels pretty when she wears it.  

I am happy with that. 

I very very pretty fairy indeed.

My Little Red Riding Hood and my Big Bad Wolf

I am happy to announce that 2 of my 3 costumes are ready for Halloween!

 I first bought a set of sweats at Walmart then found some fleece at Joann's to match and I made the little hat using this pattern.....and just added some ears to make it a wolf hat.  He will stay nice and warm. 

 To complete my Little Red Riding Hood I found the red dress at a thrift store for $3 and the cute white shirt for $1 at the same thrift store.  I made the Red Riding Hood cape using this pattern.  Add a cute basket and she is all set!

Stay tuned for my Princess Fairy Costume coming next week!

Edible Witch Pus Treats

Before you get all grossed out.........

it's pudding inside these witch cauldrons!!

Fun huh?  

Perfect little thing to take to a Witch Party!

Make up some Pistachio Pudding, pour it into the cauldrons and let them set up in the fridge.

Then add a cute little tag to each one and hand them out at a Halloween Party!

I was able to fill 4 mini cauldrons with 1 pkg of pudding mix.

I found the cauldrons at Zurchers Party Supply in town.

Now go eat some PUS!     *gross*

I am also handing out these little cuties at the same party.

They can be found in this post HERE

little miss Frankenstein Candy Jars

I made up these little cuties to hand out at an upcoming Witch's Night out party.

Supplies needed are:  baby jars (spray paint the lids black), googly eyes attached with glue dots, black web tulle and a plastic Halloween ring, sharpie marker to draw on face and green candy to go inside the jar (I found my green candy in the bulk section at Winco)

Halloween Mantel 2012

I have officially decorated my mantel for the first time since moving into our new place a couple of months ago.  The mantel is huge compared to what I have had in the past.....

thank goodness I had a ton of Halloween decor packed away to put on it :)

You can find the Candy Corn Banner HERE

My 2011 Halloween Mantel can be found HERE

Rapunzel and Pebbles Costumes for Halloween

Rapunzel

 I made this cute girl of mine some very fun Rapunzel hair for her costume. 

 It was simple, simple simple.  All it took was one thing of yellow yarn, a thick headband from the dollar store and some hot glue.  I made a long braid, then I wrapped the headband in the yarn as well then hot glued the braid right to the headband. She is so pleased and I am too :) 

 And then to get even easier or lazy, I'll admit it.......that is just how I am feeling these days just a few weeks away from having another baby......here is what I did for my little red head.  Pebbles.  You would too if you had a red head :)  She is at that stage where she doesn't like to wear anything to different so I just found some clothes in the colors I needed at the thrift store and put her own locks up in a fountain ponytail and added the white bow.  She looks cute, she is happy and she won't be ripping off any costume I worked hard on.  Believe me, I know this girl well.

Pebbles

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Mantel 2011

Here are my Halloween Decorations for this year.

I love how it came together, with the help of the dollar store, things I already had on hand and things I found for free.  

 I developed pictures from last years Halloween and hung them up in my fabulous frame.  

 All of the bottles you see were from the thrift store or ones I already had.  I just added some fun yarn to the top to dress them up.  The tree are branches we found up the canyon on a drive a few days ago.

 And that fabulous Halloween Print is available HERE for free.

 I love my bat specimen frame.  I have seen these all over bloggy land and decided to whip one up for myself.

 If you want to know how I made my silhouette banner, 

go HERE for the instructions. 

Happy Halloween everyone!!