Finally! Halloween Party.

I have been making Halloween decorations on the past few weeks, and today was the time to put everything together. My cupcake topper was full of cupcakes, my Head Hunter had strawberries dipped in chocolate as heads, and more Frankestein lollipops were displayed on the table.

My Frankenweenie head was used to have his own table. The "dirt" to make his grave was made from Oreo cookies (without the filling)that had been pulverized in the food processor. The skeletons and coffins were made with chocolate molds from Michaels. I also placed some of the skeletons on top of brownies, and used the same Oreo "dirt" on top of it.
The little tree branches o top of the caramel apples were a creation from my book Glitterville.

And the marshmallow popcorn was a recipe from Giada's Halloween show from food network( I added purple food coloring to the marshmallow after melted).

Thank God Halloween is just once a year. The kids were so busy playing that they hardly ate. It looks like I'll be eating all of this for the rest of the week.

Mini Samurai.

My love with martial arts comes from a long date, so I was just amazed when I saw a picture of a samurai costume. This guy made his costume using Rubbermaid trash cans, and the details he added made it so beautiful that I had to try my own. Using different materails from the craft store to look more realistic, I also saw several pictures to inspire me.
The hat was made from a kid's safari hat, painted in black. Then I cut out the front, and added that big horn on top using a golden paper from the scrapbook section.

The body is made with black foam sheets. The red details are made using red piper cleaners. The shoulder pads were also cut out from a safari hat, painted in black and sewed into the neck part. Then to the shoulder pad I attached more pieces of black foam paper. The red circle is made of a pipe cleaner, and the little metal details are hooks from the sewing section. And the sword was bought also at Michaels, painted in black and strings cut out from a black T-shirt.
Finally to dress up, just a black outfit underneath and snow boots.
Well, maybe my costume doesn't look as good as the Rubbermaid Samurai guy does. But my son thinks it is pretty awesome.

Zombie Dog

As Halloween approaches, the pressure is on to make more decorations. With a few plans in my head, one of the ideas was to make the dog from the movie Frankenweenie (or at least the head). I was lucky enough to have my friend slash relative Geralda to help me with ideas on how to put the dog together. So she first showed me how to make the head with a balloon and cover with papier mache made with paper pulp, a technique new to me.

After dried, we put the head on top of a little plastic bucket, and covered with paper clay. The surface of the face became a little bumpy, and I guess to get a better finish, it should be covered entirely with paper clay. But for lack of time, money added to a little laziness, I left like it was. I guess it looks more rustic, which will go with the theme. Then the whole thing was painted with white acrylic paint, details made with black 3D paint pen, black marker and black make up. The nails on the neck were made of a wooden stick glued to a water bottle cap, painted with black acrylic paint and glued with hot glue gun.
Still trying to figure out how to use him in the table, but I have a few days to think about it.

Witch Cupcake Topper

This is my favorite craft to make. A cupcake tower, or maybe can be called a centerpiece too. It is just so easy and fun to use pretty paper to cover stirofoam rings rings, stack together, and add stickers to it. Everything from one trip to Michaels. Easy and fast, anyone can put it together. By the way, to save some money, I used my round cake pan in the middle part.

Not so scary door

The wonderful thing about having house guests is when you find something in common with them. My husband's distant cousin, who he hasn't seem in about 30 plus years came from Brazil with her family. It was nice to know that she was the person who first introduced him to art, and has loads of practice with crafts.
So I took her to shop at my favorite place MIchaels, and she helped me pick items to make a Halloween wreath. I wanted do have dark colors, and I fell in love with all the black and purple flowers (they are hair clippers). From them we choose everything that would match colors, and had a little bit of glitter.
At home everything was glued with a hot glue gun, and placed around to make a rich decoration.
So my door is all dressed up for the trick or treaters now.

Sugar levels increasing!

Now that I see everything Halloween, there are some ideas that I had to test. One of them is this wonderful cake created by Sugar, and her blog Cooking with Sugar. She shows how to make this awesome Halloween cake step by step, and also explained by video here.

Countdown to Halloween!

I patiently waited for the month of October to stat my Halloween crafts. Looking for quick and cute ideas, I found some adorable Frankeinstein pops. The idea came from Kitchen Fun with my three sons. She shows step by step how to assemble this pop. But I didn't have all the material she used. I made mine using the same Graham crackers, but using a knife, I cut around to give a little shape to the head. For the filling I had some chocolate, so I melted and made a little sandwich (it also helped to secure the stick for the pop). And for the hair, I used my new best friend, ready to use Cookie Icing (since I have a really hard time making my own icing). For the eyes, mouth and his scar, I used my food coloring pen. It didn't take long to finish the whole thing. The hardest part was to take a picture with my kid.

We love coca cola and mentos

If you like to get messy with your kids, a fun project to do is a geyser with Coca Cola and Mentos. I first saw this in one of our favorite shows, MythBusters. But last week I saw a live presentation of this at the Maker Faire in Queens, and these two guys dressed like scientists create a show with explosions of Coca Cola and Mentos. They encourage the kids to do the experiments, and explain how it happens. Their web site is Eepybird.com, and they have the step by step of making these geysers. Let's get messy!