Halloween

Trick or treating with the itsy bitsy spider and friends

November 1, 2012

Okay, so maybe I didn’t feel like editing pictures last night after trick or treating…. Better late than never!

It was amazing to see the difference between this year and last year. He seemed to know exactly what to do, and tore off with all his little buddies.

Trick or Treat 2012 @jayna

JP decided that he wanted to be a spider for halloween (we’re talking early September, here) only because he saw it in the PB Kids catalog. I flinched a little at the price tag, especially given that he would probably change his mind 100 times before halloween. Turns out, he stayed loyal to the idea of being a spider. He even sometimes likes to wear it to play in – I guess that’s just stuff only 3 year olds can relate to!

We had a terrific halloween night trick or treating. Lots of candy.. Way too much candy!!

Trick or Treat 2012 @jayna

Filed Under: Halloween, Parenting Leave a Comment

How to make halloween bleeding witch finger cookies

October 26, 2012

spooky witch finger cookies via http://www.behindthestudio.com @jayna

I’ve been MIA around here, pretty much all week – but it’s because I’ve been baking all week long like a little keebler elf, making all sorts of halloween goodness. Tomorrow will be our spiderman halloween party, which I’ve mentioned awhile back and it’s finally here – I’m so excited to pull it all together! Tomorrow afternoon, I will have 7 little boys under the age 5 running around my house

JP helped in making these – He was the official mixer operator!

spooky witch finger cookies via http://www.behindthestudio.com @jayna

They were super simple to make – it’s just a basic sugar cookie recipe, molded into a finger shape. I used blanched almonds to give the effect of a witch fingernail. Blanching natural almonds is easy, just soak them in boiling water for 1 minute, drain and dry them and the skins will peel right off.

spooky witch finger cookies via http://www.behindthestudio.com @jayna

I got the recipe from here - this recipe calls for almond extract, but since I didn’t have any, I just left it out. It’s still sweet and tasty! You can even add food coloring as you see fit, I contemplated the color green – but decided against it.

Witch Finger Sugar Cookies

Recipe type: Cookie

Ingredients

1 cup softened butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2⅔ cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup blanched almonds
Red cake decorating gel

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper
Mix together the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in a mixing bowl
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt
Slowly add in the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture until it becomes a soft dough.
make each cookie into a shape of a finger and press one almond at the tip, for a fingernail appearance.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden.
After they have cooled, remove the almond and put a small amount of red gel and put the almond back.

spooky witch finger cookies via http://www.behindthestudio.com @jayna

Filed Under: Halloween, Recipes, Sweet Recipes Leave a Comment

My DIY black sparkly halloween candelabra & mantle reveal

October 10, 2012

How to make a haunted tree decoration

Making a DIY Halloween Candelabra is super easy and cheap to make! Halloween is hands down one of my favorite times of the year – I talked about it last year when I wondered if JP hated dressing up in a costume. BTW – I’m thinking this year will be different because he picked out his own costume, and he’s actually excited to wear it – so it all remains to be seen.

I decided to make a halloween candelabra after spotting a similar product on Zulily one day – but I just can’t justify spending 40 bucks on a once-a-year halloween candelabra. Making one seemed alot more within my price range! Here’s what I used:

1 decorative natural wood base
1 long 1/4″ natural wood dowel
Flower arranging wire
6 glass votive candle holders
Fine black glitter
Black glossy spray paint
1 package of coffin candy (found at the Dollar Tree)
Decorative spiders
Decorative skulls

First things first, I cut the dowel to the appropriate length I wanted because I didn’t want it to be too tall.

Wooden Dowel

Then I drilled some holes in both the base and the dowel and secured them together with a screw.

Wooden dowel

Once you have that secured, you can begin wrapping the pole to create your spooky dead tree. I started by making the branches that hold the votive glasses. I cut 6 pieces of wire by doubling the length of the pole and adding an extra 10″. I wrapped each wire around the lip of the glass candle holder to make sure it has a secure grip.

Florist wire

Then using a long pre-cut wire, I twisted and arranged these around the wooden base as I saw fit. This is the fun part – you get to decide what the shape of your tree will look like, be creative!

Once I had all my branches looking as I wanted them to, it was time to spray paint them! Before it completely dried, I made sure to sprinkle some black glitter all over it, to shine it up.