The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 8,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 14 years to get that many views.
Hello my friends. Another not so crafty post today. I have been wanting to share my girls’ Halloween costumes with you. Since Sandy had just hit us, and there was widespread damage to trees and power lines, our Halloween was postponed until Friday after Halloween. We settled for a quick jaunt around a close by neighborhood, since we don’t actually live in one. ( which is perfectly fine with me!)
My girls are getting older, and cute, fun costumes are not desirable. Especially with Alizabeth obsessed with zombies. She thinks they are pretty cool, and often plays zombie hunting games on the game system. I think zombie makeup is cool too. I often wonder and think to myself, how much my life would be different if I had pursued makeup as a career. Not fashion makeup, horror makeup. You might see some mistakes, but I have models who don’t like me getting too close to their eyes, and I definitely don’t have the ‘correct’ makeups for some use, but since we were just trick or treating,perfection wasn’t a big deal. When the girls were younger, I loved painting their faces, and they loved it too, until I was done, then they wanted to scratch and couldn’t, so less and less as they have gotten older have I been allowed to do it.
Annalise thought that going as a DOLL was pretty scary stuff. I mean, how many horror stories are focused on dolls. So here is my Doll Baby.
I love those big fake eyes, and the tiny little lips. She wore an old dress of Alizabeths, with dress shoes and crinoline at the bottom. She looked great.
I have deliberately put Alizabeth second, so you can run away and chose NOT to look at her pic. I used a cheapie cheapie makeup kit and used the fake scar stuff to rough up her cheeks. I also used black paint mixed with the red blood to create a more realistic look. She has touches of green in the pale makeup, as well as two shades of red blood.
I WARN YOU< THIS IS SCARY!!!
OK.
Here she is…
once we went outside, I took the rest of a tube of blood and oozed it down her arms and neck and hair. She loved it. She was quite scary and frightened many of her teenage friends.
Happy Hooooooowwwwllllloween!
I have been creating and putting off finishing my halloween creations. When we moved here, I sold all my halloween decor, and haven’t decorated for fall/halloween in a few years. I have recently over the past 2 years begun to miss it. I think I have drawn away from the fun/cutesy looking items into more, creepy, spooky items. You’ll be able to see that with these creations, nothing cute about them. I seriously recommend shopping at the dollar store for some items. I found that just a simple spray of paint can create items you might spend a LOT more money on. So let me show you.
lots of filters here on this photo , let me snow you what I created.
First, the dollar store creepy (not!) plastic skull. and some NO longer colored bugs and spideys. Just take your items and place them in a box, take them and some $.99 cheap black shiny spray paint outside, and spray away. I also glittered the skull with black glitter (Yudu glitter). Seriously good looking stuff, and for what- $2? can’t beat that with a stick.
I added some dollar store netting and spider webs. Check out that creepy spider, 2/$1! Doesn’t that skull look great. You should have seen the terrible paint job on him originally. Tip of the day- think about what else you could put a coat of paint on that would look like a much more expensive buy. Oh goodie, look at the pic I found, you can see the terrible skull, and how much nicer he looks now.
Look at my fun jars and tealights! Wanna see how those are made? Gonna be a long post today folks!
Let’s start with the tea lights.
You’ll need, two small fishbowls, two glass candlesticks, some alcohol inks, and some e6000 or craft goop ( silicone adhesive.
Originally I had planned on multiple colors, but I only ended up using Black, Red, and Purple.
Place some plastic down, so your inks don’t ruin your surface.
Using black, run droplets of ink at top of glass, then let them slide down into the bottom of the glass.
Do the same thing with the candle stick.
Now add purple, letting it drip and blend.
On the outside of the glass, you’ll want to put the red. You don’t want it to mix with the purple and black.
Now let them dry. Then you put the glass bowl on top of the candlestick with the Craft Goop. Let that dry, insert your tealight and enjoy your spooky candle tealights!
Like this idea? How about using some glass jars- spaghetti, salsa, cheesewhiz, etc.. You just need clean glass jars, some fun spooky stuff, craft goop, black paint, some black beads, and some more glass candleholders.
So basically, you are going to do a lot as the tealights steps. This time, paint only the candleholders and the jar lids, when those are dry, use the Craft Goop to glue the round bead to the jar lid, and the jar to the now black candle holders.
Insert your fun stuff into the jars. I used small skeletons I cut up from the dollar store, even the small brown ones were a banner. I added a couple dollops of hot glue to the inside of the spider jar, dropped in some webbing and then pulled it up and over the rim, twisting the lid in place to keep the webbing in place.
I tossed in a few spiders when I could. But the jars were too plain for me.
They needed labels. I googled free halloween printable labels and found some. You can find tons of them, just use what you like.
( and size them to your needs with a program like Word)
I decorated each jar differently, but the same. Using buttons, spiders, cheesecloth, netting, twine and plastic bugs.
I am so happy how my jars turned out. I might try to find a jar for one of those large spiders next year. I also hear that dried moss, spray painted beans, and hand sanitizer make creepy jar additions.
Happy Hallow- SCREAM everyone!
I have been on a Chex mix kick. First we experimented with Nutella Puppy Chow, big big hit. Then I tried Cake Mix Puppy Chow. Also delicious. However, I think we all get a bit tired of the 10x sugar taste- which to me tends to over power the other flavors. Plus – like any powdered donut. It’s a MESS to eat.
So, on to Almond Bark and what flavors can be created. I was buying on a whim, looking for pumpkin seeds and saw Heath Bits in the baking section. *lightbulb*
Toffee Chex Mix
You Need-
1 box Rice Chex Mix
1 1/2 packages of Almond Bark
2 cups slightly broken pretzels
1 bag of Heath Bits of Brickle Bits
1/2 bag ( or more) Heath Bits
1/2 cup mini Chocolate chips
Melt the 1 and 1/2 packages of Almond Bark, I do this in a microwave safe glass bowl. The biggest one I have, this makes a LOT. After the bark is melted, pour in your cereal and use a folding motion to start bringing the almond bark up and over the cereal. ( this helps prevent breakage of the squares) Now add in your pretzel pieces ( broken ones blend into the mix better- it’s asthetical) and your brickle bits. Lay your mix out on 2 large sheet pans covered with parchment paper ( nothing sticks) and immediately add in the mini chocolate chips and heath bits. Then let it cool/dry and simply break it up to put into platicware or ziplocs. It fills two gallon ziplocs.
enjoy!
Hello Friends! I have two fun Chex treats that are sure to please your little goblins.
This Chex mix is fun and perfect for Halloween treats- for class or friends/coworkers. I know my kids have taken this to school and gotten raves from friends and teachers.
You’ll need
1 box Rice Chex mix
1 1/2 blocks of Almond Bark- can find this at the Walmart. Yes, one whole and one half package, I like my chex well covered with the melted candy.
1 cup of yellow/orange/brown M&M’s. I sorted mine, didn’t take long- get the kids to sort while you heat up the bark.
I bag of Candy corn
1 container of halloween sprinkles
Melt the Almond bark in the microwave. I use a giant glass bowl- mine almost is to big for the micro. I heat it on high about 1 min. stir- go for another minute and stir. until it’s melted, I get it pretty hot, so be careful. Then I stir in the box of Chex, and I ‘fold’ the cereal over and over until it’s coating well. Add in the M&M’s, then get some parchment paper over a couple cookie sheets and spread the mix out until it fills the trays. I work fast and sprinkled on the Candy corn and sprinkles. Let it cool and store in ziplocs or plasticware to keep the moisture out. This makes enough to fill 2 gallon ziplocs.
I love taking a car ride out in the country, and we live pretty much in the country, so it’s not so hard to find it. We explore the surrounding areas, find new parks to go in and see what is local to our area. We often pack snacks and hit the Wawa for some cold drinks. I bring the camera, have the girls dress up a bit and grab extra tops just in case we find a great new place to take photos. Often we go up, into PA, and see what’s around there. And since we live that close to the Amish population, there is often lovely well kept farms and stores in the area. You can find nice bakeries and shops to browse in.
This weekend we took Sat. and drove to a new park by Conowingo,MD. There was a lovely little pond and covered mini bridge, and the leaves are starting to get some really beautiful colors. We also found an historic home with a barn that had the most beautiful doors!
Here are some photos we took this weekend. I had a hard time choosing which ones were my favorites.
Annalise
Alizabeth
The girls had a lot of fun posing for me. My gorgeous fall scarf was a great prop for them to use, esp with all the colors and how well it matched their clothes.
No crafty post today, just wanted to share some of whats going on in my life. Fall is arriving, and while I hate to see summer go, I look forward to the glorious color changes, the crisp clear days and the smells that I love . I love the pumpkin spice coffee, the salty crunch of pumpkin seeds, baking in the kitchen again, bonfires with hot dogs roasting, crisp fall days, the slight chill in the air. But I am sad to see winter coming. Not a season I would miss if I ever get the chance to move south.
A couple weeks ago was Homecoming, Alizabeth being a freshman, we weren’t exactly sure of what it would be like, so of course, we jumped in with both feet. Found her an amazing cute dress online, then found a second dress. Bought both, after trying them on, the second dress became her first choice. We found jewelry ( got to go on a road trip for it- score!) and new shoes with the highest heels she’s ever worn. I even found a little silver bag for her to hold her lipgloss, powder, phone etc.. And we decided that I could do her hair and makeup. So the weekend before, I did a trial run. Loved it.
However, when I set out on Saturday to do her hair, it wouldn’t stay to the side, so we gave up and left her bangs and gave her a smooth pulled back look. It was different for her, as usually she has some curls pulled loose.
Alizabeth originally planned on going solo to the dance, as she had 5 boys ask her to go and she couldn’t/didn’t want to chose between them all. However, one boy won her heart and she said yes to him.
This boy was a grand sport. Most kids don’t have photobug moms who take a thousand pics. I didn’t want them to have one of those cheesy black backdrop with school color balloons for their photos. We’re original here, something fun and just all over better needed to be done. The boy, D, came over early, forgetting his ticket and the flowers. 
nerves. and we headed to the local park to get some shots with a cool background.
Both kids were great about the pics, I suggested some fun and silly poses to keep them interested. And we walked out of the park with over 250 photos.
We finished just in time to get them to D’s house for the flowers and ticket, and some photos from his Dad. Then took them on to Homecoming. They had fun and the dance ended at 10pm. I know I’m looking forward to next years gathering and shopping for the next Homecoming! Alizabeth really enjoyed going with someone who is taller then her, as a lot of the guys asking her were her height, and she had 3 inch heels on.
