Spooky/ Yummy Haunted House.

I have been attempting, for the longest time, to have a edible Haunted House.
And instead of procrastinating, this year I started making it, without knowing I was going to finish.
So the beginning of the week, I started on my model. I have made a house in the past, using cake and Rice Kryspies, from the Gravity Falls Party But there will be enough sugar for the kids, so I decided to make the base out of cardboard.

Then I cover the entire model with aluminum foil, because it will be covered with food.

The next step was dip mini pretzels in melted chocolate, and cover the roof (at this point it looked very ugly, but I kept going to see if it would be better in the end).
For the house walls, I used pretzel rods, "glued" with frosting.
And for the entrance floor and doors, I used little chocolate covered wafers. And round cookies to make windows.

After the house was covered, I decorated with gummy candy Mummies, Pumpkins, and plastic spiders (which WILL be removed before eating).
This was made a day ahead, so I kept refrigerated, just in case.
The day of the party, a couple of hours away, I placed placed the house in the table.

To make it more real, I added some dirt for the ground, which was made from chocolate cookies grinded in the food processor. Plus the grass, made from coconut flakes with green food coloring.

I found some cool gummy candy.

And there was even a light up candy corn necklace( non edible, please).
I made a non- edible decoration, just because I wanted to use these cute clothespins I found at Michaels.
I made this candy corn on the cob, an idea from Instructables.
Now that the table is ready, I can't wait for the kids to come back from school.

Mommy Brain, Scattered Brain, or My Brain.

I could not decide on my costume, and all I knew I wanted to wear a hat.
Just when I was looking at some pictures of hats, heads, I saw a brain.
And that would be my hat, with the description of my personal(unscientific) look on the anatomy.
First I made a model with clay on top of a old plastic hat.

Later in the day, I used a technique that my husband found on line. He helped me with that part.
Using a sheet of a large foam sheet, I placed on a 350 degree oven for about 30 seconds.

Immediately the hot sheet is placed on a suction vacuum, with the model placed on top.

This way the foam sheet will shape according to the mold.

I repeated the process 3 more times, because I wanted different colors.

Then I cut each according to the areas I wanted, and glued with hot glue.

After done I wrote little signs to show the different areas of my brain.

It is lightweight, and people had a lot of fun reading it.

Thrifty Halloween, more ideas coming.

Today I worked on some more games for the kids, because nobody wants kids full of sugar and nothing to do. So hopefully this will hold them occupied for a little while.
I got some cardboard for kids projects, and made a game of "Toss the Eyeball". Note: however is anatomy savvy will notice my mistake on the hand, thumb facing the other side. But well, it is all wrong anyway.

These eyeballs are from the Dollar Store, and I cut and painted the skeleton and the floating eyeballs.

I had one more board, and I made a big spider web, and used all type of spiders I had available: plastic, stickers, paper.

For that we will use slingshot stick bugs to hit the targets, that I found on sale at Party City.
Then I remember that I needed to have a juice dispenser, to use the cups I made earlier this week. I decorated it with my Halloween paper, and placed all kinds of little favors I found at Michaels: erasers, plastic rings, stickers.

One idea I saw online was a game of Ring Tossing, and I thought this would be fun for the kids. So then that old witch hat, that my sister forgot 2 years ago, came out handy.
And for the rings, I got some glow-in-the dark necklaces, from the Dollar store. They will be good for trick-or-treat later at night.
The day is approaching, and I still have lots to do. My brain hopefully will still be working on ideas, to make a fun day for the kids.

DIY Halloween Part II

Another game I planned with the kids is the Mummy Bowling.
We grabbed some water bottles, and to wrap the mummy I used some old white grocery bags. After cutting the bags in strips, I used some tape and tied some knots in other ends.

Then I had some leftover googly eyes to finish my characters.
For the drinks, I had a bag of disposable plastic cups. I used a Sharpie to draw spiders.
Then used the tiny eyes to make them cuter. And these are the projects for the day. I hope I can find more cool ideas for the kids to enjoy.

Halloween party?

So with a week approaching Halloween day, my son reminded me that I had promised a Little (little) Party.
And again it is not a option to go out and spend a lot of money in decorations, games, goodies...but I really wanted to make something nice for the kids.
So the option was to recycle as much materials as possible.
The juice boxes were looking pretty tempting. And before discarding, I wrapped them in tissue paper, and cut some cute Halloween paper I had from last year (which I bought on sale at Michaels).
So with them, we can play Toss the ball and hit the monsters (or something like that).
I had an old spice jar, and a jelly jar, that I covered with the same Recollections cardstock paper.
And this is not recycling, but it is a inexpensive, cute idea for snacks. I used my clothespins, drew spiders with a Sharpie, and glued tiny googly eyeballs (also from Michaels).
They will be used to close brown bags, which I plan to fill with popcorn.

And also, on my last trip to Target, I saw the greatest idea on the chips aisle. It is a bag of Cheetos Bone Sahped. So I decided to put them in little snack bags, and made little skeletons using my Sharpie.

They look so cute. And taste so good. So hopefully I will be on schedule, because I have to come up with more ideas.

The Gravity Falls Mystery Book.

There is one TV show that my kids watch, and me and my husband love is Gravity Falls.
We love all the mysteries, the supernatural, and the corky characters (that resemble us when we were kids) that don't quite fit in with the rest of the kids.
So I suggested my son to be the main character, Dipper, who carries around a book of an unknown author, and it is full of secrets. He loved the idea!
And my mission for this week was to make that book!
I had a box shaped like a book, and it would be perfect to make some pages, and use as a treat box for Halloween

I used a large red cardstock paper to cover the book, like in the cartoon.

For the details I cut up gold paper (the goldest gold paper I could find on Michaels) and glued to the book cover.
Plus, I got so lucky I found this piece that looks like a one eye eyeglass. It was in the jewelry section at Michaels.
And not to forget, a few rips that Dipper's book has on it.
To make the pages, I cut a big, white construction paper to the size of the book. Then to make look "aged", I poured coffee on top and let the paper soak it well.

After a couple of minutes, I placed the wet paper in my toaster oven, and let it bake slightly on "toast" for about 2 minutes. I had to be careful not to burn it, but little parts that got a burn mark looked nice, to make look old.

Then it became wrinkly and old, the way I wanted.

My little son wanted to help, and I let him use a pencil to draw "The Triangle Man, Bill Cypher".

And I used a black and red Sharpies, a few splashes of ink, and copied the pages from everything Gravity Falls I could find on the web.

It was so much fun to write about these creatures, and make the book look real

And of course, Dipper's hat had to be here. I covered and old cap with white and blue felt, for my son's costume.
It will be Gravity Falls Halloween all the way!