Been feeling Crafty!

I got into a crafty mode the past two weeks and shared 3 blog posts over on the Design House Digital Blog featuring 13 Days Of Halloween. Check it out HERE. I had seen a blog post over on The Crafting Chicks blog and it spurred me. If you have never been to their site - let me just say it will really inspire you to get crafty! I am pretty sure the ladies I visit teach don't read my blog and if they do I guess the gig will be up. But my neighbor Teresa is my VT partner and we decided to treat our ladies to 13 days of Halloween fun. We really enjoyed spending one afternoon making these BOO blocks - another idea that I found on The Crafting Chicks.

So... that is what I have been up to... that and getting ready for Halloween around the house.... decorating, buying pumpkins, planning costumes, etc. Of course we will be having our Halloween dinner like I shared last year on my blog. The kids love it and I have lots of fun preparing it for them.

Halloween Dinner Menu

Ok I have it narrowed down. The kids will get a menu with only the creative names listed in hopes that when they order it will be all out of order. They may get dessert first, they may get no utensils to eat with when they need them, etc. It just adds to the fun. All of the food items are showcased in my previous post unless otherwise noted. I have the items divided up in this post just so you get an idea of what is main course, appetizer, dessert, and so on. On the menu they will be all mixed up to throw the kids off in making their selections. I'm guessing we will be having our dinner at 4:30ish on Saturday but I need to be sure that it works for all my kids so that they can all enjoy the fun. I plan to take lots of pictures and hope to be able to show you how it all turned out. If you decide to host a dinner like this I'd love to hear your ideas too.

knife - spooky slasher
spoon - grave digger
fork - devil's staff
napkin - corpse bride's veil

mummy dogs - curse of the mummy
pizza mummies - entombed skull
chicken wings - bat wings (probably from the deli or in the freezer section)
ketchup - vampire kiss
drink - cauldron chiller (some kind of beverage - whatever I grab in the soda isle)

bread sticks & marinara sauce - blood & bones (see this item at Our Best Bites)
mini dill pickles - frankies fingers (frankenstein)
cheesy fingers - lost digits
apple slices - monster jaws
ghost crackers - haunted boo
carrot/olive appetizer - edible eyeballs
pretzel sticks - boogers on a stick (find this item at Halloween Is Here)

candy corn pudding - corny treat
spider cookies - spider's web

Halloween FUN!

I hardly know where to start with this Halloween themed post. Every year I like to have a special Halloween dinner for my kids. They always look forward to it & we have lots of fun with it. We serve 18 items in 3 courses and the kids write their 6 selections down for each course not having any idea what it is that they are ordering. Since we have now been doing it for several years, they have started to figure out what all the items are on the secret menu. So this year I went on a search on the internet for some new ideas & I must say I was not disappointed. I found more ideas than I will ever be able to use but I will share the ideas I am going to use and then some of the ideas that I found that were just too fun to not share. For starters, I needed some new theme music for our Halloween dinner and I was able to find a great free download of 31 tracks of creepy music at this site, Oddio Overplay.

I'm still narrowing down my 18 items for my Halloween Dinner Menu but will be back with another post when I have my decision made.


Candy Corn Pudding from Paper Jewels
Butterscotch on the bottom, vanilla (dyed with yellow food coloring) in the middle, whipped topping on top. (Make this kid friendly by using clear plastic tumblers.)
Scroll down on her blog to see the darling Ghost Grub she shared. CUTE!
Do you want more candy corn themed ideas? Skip To My Lou had some fun ones & if you are a scrapper/paper crafter - you are especially going to enjoy her ideas. I'm thinking it might be fun to dress up the beverages at our meal like this.

I only wish that there were a better balance of food ideas out there - there are way too many cute dessert ideas out there for me to reasonably serve. The kids will be getting plenty of sugar with their trick-or-treating so I can't give in to my temptation to serve too many of these cute goodies. These and other fun spider ideas can be found at Bakerella.


Although this is not something they would be eating... I do think my kids would get a huge kick out of these and I hope to find some time to make some this week with them and then we can use them as a centerpiece for our dinner. This idea can be found at Our Best Bites - I LOVE this site! Aren't these shrunken heads made from apples fun!

Here are some food ideas that I will be using on the menu from Our Best Bites. There are lots more fabulous ideas over there so be sure to check it out for yourself.

Mummy Dogs:

Monster Jaws:Cheesy Fingers:

Kraft Foods - I am going to use the ghost crackers
Family Fun had this cute idea of Mummy Pizzas as well as these edible eyes made of carrots & olives. They had lots more for you to look at too.
I thought these eyeball tacos on the Food Channel were just too fun and we may have to do them another year since I am going to go with the pizzas and hotdogs this year.

Are you in the mood for spaghetti? Here is a spooky one where the meatballs are made to look like eyeballs and a cute one.
From About.com
From Hostess with the Mostess In addition to this spaghetti be sure to visit this site for some more fantastic photos of ideas. I love the ribs, burgers, coffins... heck it was all very cute!

Some other sites that I found some fun ideas on were:
Epicurious - a cute mummy meatloaf
She Knows Parties - what an extensive list she has compiled for over 50 ideas for Halloween parties