Fun and Creative Gift Idea! Colortime Crafts and 15% OFF

This is a coloring project that my son did for Halloween that came from Colortime Crafts. The project came with this canvas trick or treat bag and the markers to use and directions on how to use them. You want to make sure you have a piece of cardboard between the canvas layers so that the fabric marker doesn't seep through.

I had previously shared the coupon code with you to get 15% off and that code is still good through the end of the year. Click On the Link Below for the Latest Online Special offers and promo codes to Colortime Crafts and Markers http://usfamilycoupons.com/coupon.php?regionid=75&bid=10978&dealid=3413 .@usfg OR go to Colortime.com  and use Code: FGH15

This would be an awesome holiday present 4 any kid. Or would make a cute party favor and activity at a birthday party.

They sell all of their items without the fabric markers so you can reuse the ones that you have had before. Most of the coloring items are under $5 and include t-shirts, pillow cases, backpacks, totes, bandanas and more.

Happy Halloween

Free clipart from Clipartix.com

Halloween Ice - Fast and Easy

If you are like me, you are happy to do holiday decorating if it is fast and easy but still has a big impact. Well, Halloween Ice does just that and you could throw it in an ice bucket or in a punch bowl and it will instantly up the creepy factor to it. Just make sure you make these a day in advance.

Nothing special, just water in ice cube trays with plastic spiders and bugs in them (pick them up at Dollar Tree) and gloves filled with ice to make a floating hand in your punch bowl.

Easy Halloween Manicure

This will probably be the easiest Halloween manicure you will find on the internet. All you need is black fingernail polish some googly eyes and some quick dry glue.

Simply paint your nails in the black polish and allow them to dry completely. You may need to paint two or three coats to get a solid black depending upon the brand of nail polish you use. Once the Polish is completely dry put on a drop of quick dry glue and press on some googly eyes. This will take a minute to completely dry and then you can go about your day showing off your creepy googly eye fingers.

Easy Halloween Cupcakes

I bought this as a kit from Aldi's, but as you can see they would be pretty easy to recreate without the kit. You just need some food coloring, print off some clipart and instead of "bones" sprinkles you could use crushed oreos around the clip art limbs sticking out to make it look like the had just freshly emerged from the ground.

Halloween Milk Jug Lights

This is a quick and easy way to decorate your lawn or porch or just outside your door. Grab an empty milk jug and using a permanent marker draw a Halloween design or scary face, tuck in some Micro Starry Lights (like these lights on Amazon) and you have a quick lighted Halloween display that you can have inside or outside.

Here are some other ideas to use those LED lights for:

• Haunted LED Tombstone
• Coffee Can Star Light
• Bottle Light

Last Minute Halloween Food Ideas

Just a couple ideas if you are trying to round out your Halloween party menu. You don't have to always make it look like something, but instead rename it or play off the name.

Tombstone Pizza  - use the name brand and insert some Halloween toothpicks
Maggots & Cheese - you guessed it, it's Mac&Cheese
Severed Fingers - Just hot dogs with some cuts and slices in them and some ketchup (blood)

Some other Halloween found ideas include:

• Jack-o-Lantern Puke 

• Jack-o-Lantern Krispies 

• Brain Treats  

• Vampire Donuts 

• Witch's Brew

•  Vampire Slush 

• Corned Beef Face Dip

•  Halloween Sugar Cookie Cut Outs 

•  Halloween Marshmallow Popcorn Balls 

• Vampire Blood, Zombie Drool, Chopped Toads  

• Spooky Lunchbox Ideas 

Next week, I will share some easy Halloween Cupcake ideas with you too.

Halloween Popsicle Stick Hanging

These were so fun to make with my kids and their friends. We started out with gluing all of the popsicle sticks on to 2 sticks (on the back side to brace it). Then we painted how we wanted them to look, and fro what you can see one person wanted to just paint a pumpkin in a frame instead of having the whole hanging be a pumpkin, which I thought was an interesting idea.

I put out a variety of colors of felt and other crafts supplies for them to choose from and cut out what they wanted and hot glue in to place. We use jute twine that we hot glue in place to hang it with.

Halloween Party Condiments

A little while ago I blogged about making severed fingers from hot dogs and used ketchup as vampire blood and told you about how I labeled everything. Here are all the condiments I head out to go with the severed fingers including zombie drool, vampire blood and shop toads. People got a kick out of the different names which gave it a more spooky feel.

Halloween STEM Sculpture Activity for Kids

Aldi's sell these fun bags of Halloween Shapes (pumpkins and ghosts). Encourage kids to build a sculpture using regular mini marshmallows and these other holiday shapes. Have them problem solve how they can use these shapes that are different sizes on different ways and how they make have to change their design (especially if they have done this project with only mini marshmallows)/

I had bagged up the marshmallows in individual bags for each of the kids in my daughters classroom. We did this project 2 years ago and I just now got around to sharing it. :( Sorry I don't have sculptures to show you, but it was really fun when they had to try to figure out how to work with what they had and with the odd shapes. Makes them think!

Where Did We Go Wednesday: The Great Pumpkinfest at ValleyScare

This was our first year going to the Great Pumpkin Fest at Valleyscare which is a holiday theme for Valleyfair amusement park in Shakopee Minnesota. Before I bought are season passes for Valley Fair, I had tried to find out information about Valleyscare and it's more family-friendly features. There wasn't a whole lot of ailable until they switch their website to the holiday season. What I can tell you is that most of the rides are actually open and running. Someone at certain times and some run the entire time. They are only open on the weekends during this time. There are a variety of character shows and concerts in the park to attend as well as a viewing in the theater of a peanuts Halloween movie. There was also a petting zoo, which they sold food at to feed the animals if you wanted. There is a corn maze and a straw bale maze for the very little ones. They have a place where you can sit and color a coloring sheet and participate in a coloring contest as well as the storytelling witch which you get to sit around in a semicircle and listen to a witch tell stories. Another feature for the younger kids that are 11 and under is trick or treating. They gave each kid a small bag that was filled with Halloween stickers and they got to go to 4 different areas to trick or treat at and we're given a piece of candy a couple of other theme toys and a bag of chips.

The day we went it was sunny and in the low 60s, so it was pretty nice weather to be outside. We hardly had to wait in line for any of the rides. The kids had a chance to go on some rides they normally would only have gone on once or not go on because the lines were too long. We are actually hoping to get back there one more time yet before they closed at the end of the month. You have two more weekends to go check it out.

They also have a few haunted areas. One of the haunted areas has the lights on and is family friendly with no one jumping out at all. The other two haunted areas are open only on Sunday and have people dressed up jumping out at everyone, but they are not allowed to touch you. They recommend that 13 and older go in it but they don't turn away anyone younger. We were told that the scariness was the same during the day as it is at night in those two features the only thing is you aren't coming out into total darkness afterwards where there are other zombies and haunted things roaming around and scaring you. So you can get a sample of what it is like to do those things without going in the evening. We did do both of those but one of them I only did with my daughter.

Halloween Food: Severed Fingers (Hot Dogs)

I think these are absolutely hilarious. To make them I just put the hot dogs in a Crock-Pot and cook them for a while in there. Before cooking them though I used a Healer and peeled off a little bit on each end to make it look like a fingernail. Then I use a knife to cut in knuckle creases. I think they actually turned out pretty realistic-looking. And of course the ketchup is blood on the fingers. I labeled all of the food I made at our Halloween party last year and call Dee severed fingers. The ketchup bottle I wrote vampire blood.

No Carve Jack-O-Lantern Ideas

These are simple ideas to "save" your pumpkin from carving. Maybe you want to bake it as well as have a jack-o-lantern (you can bake and eat a carving pumpkin but they are not as sweet and are stringier than a pie pumpkin, but if you are going to puree it, does it really matter?)

For the eye ball one I just used a dab of Elmer's glue on the back of each one and stuck it in to place and used up a packet of google eyes from the dollar store to make this.

The second one is also from the dollar store. They sell little jack-o-lantern kits (like the ones I used on our Halloween Pop Bottles) and usually there are 2-3 in each packet.

And finally, I save 2 large googly eyes from the packet to use for this one. I wrapped my pumpkin in toilet paper and used clear packing tape to keep it in place and applied tape periodically as I wrapped it and finally just glued the googly eyes to the toilet paper.

Corned Beef Face Dip

Halloween Cheese Dip
2 pkg Budding Corned Beef
2 8 oz. pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
2-3 green onions, sliced
2-3 tsp. worchestershire sauce
2 tsp. salt
Green olives and tortilla strips salad topping

Directions:

• Chop one package of corned beef 
• Mix together chopped corn beef , cream cheese, onions, salt and worchestershire sauce
• Shape in to a ball and chill in the fridge for 3 hours
• Remove chilled cheese ball from the fridge and place on a plate
• Place strips of plastic wrap under the side of the ball before shaping, you will be able to easily pull the strips off before serving so you have a clean plate
• Shape cheese ball in to a head
• Slice 2nd package of corned beef in to strips
• Press 2 green olives in to place as eyes
• Cover head with corned beef strips, leaving a thin strip open to insert tortilla strips
• Insert tortilla strips as teeth
• Serve with assorted crackers or pumpkin tortilla chips.
• Enjoy!

Lowe's Build and Grow -- Pumpkin Carving Demonstration with FREE Pumpkin

SIGN UP NOW!!!

This is for THIS SATURDAY! Registration just opened yesterday, but I guarantee you that spots will be filled fast. This is a picture of the sign I took at my local Lowe's and it says that each child will gt a FREE mini pumpkin and sticker sheet. Plus you get to watch a pumpkin carving demonstration using a Dremel Pumpkin Carving Kit (perhaps they will give a coupon for those kits). We are already signed up and I am very interested in seeing how we can making carving pumpkins easier!

Jack'o'Lantern Puke (Spinach Dip)

I seriously love Halloween and I think there is so many fun things you can do to serve food in a creepy way at your Halloween party. For this one I used a small Pumpkin and gave it a face that made it look like it was puking. I served corn chips and pumpkin tortilla chips on the side and had semi homemade spinach dip in the center. I like to use Knorr seasoning packet and the recipe on there to make a spinach dip.

Knorr Spinach Dip


1 box (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1 container (16 oz.) sour cream

1 cup Mayonnaise

1 package Knorr® Vegetable recipe mix

3 green onions, chopped

Directions: Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine well. Place in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours prior to serving. Stir before serving.

Enjoy!

Pottery Candle Jack-o-Lanterns

I just love this set that I made. It was all made by slab rolling and hand building. I think they look even better in person. It was hard to get the lighting right for the colors to show up and also have them look how they do in real life. To start out with a slab ruled out all of my clay and head different shapes of cylinders and Cones that I molded them around. After letting them sit for a while too allow the clay to harden a bit I carved in the jack-o'-lantern features and any indentations I made.

The tray on the bottom has a texture on it that I made by pressing in texture mats. And made the leaves by using a leaf form that I bought on Amazon. The places I used on the darker orange and the wife are both a textured glaze that I put a clear coat of glaze over the top to make it a little smoother but I wanted to see how the rough look would turn out. I actually liked how those turned out better than the yellows glaze that I use which was called Fool's Gold. The tree and all of the features on the jack o'lanterns and ghost are all used in a fire brick color glaze.

Inside I talked a battery-operated tea light but you could use a regular tea light if you wanted. I love how the light shines through the jack o'lantern features.

Creeped Out Dollar Tree Halloween Goblets

I absolutely love how these Halloween goblets turned out. You can buy these goblets at the Dollar Tree for a dollar apiece. They are just fine playing but I wanted to make them seem even more creepy and fun for our Halloween party. I used acrylic paint on these. The neon yellow and pink colors are glow in the dark paint.

And I also glued into place a couple of plastic gems on the ice and some plastic rhinestones on the teeth. I thought by adding a little bit of paint I really increased their creepiness tenfold.

Anytime Sangria

Serve cold or ice or warm it up on the stove for a yummy holiday cocktail for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Serve cold in the summer. Or the color of this Sangria is perfect for a "Blood Sangria" for a Halloween Party,

Anytime Sangria

1 bottle sweet, red wine
1/3 C brandy
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
16 oz. Sprite (lemon-lime soda)
1 lime, sliced
1 lemon, sliced

Directions:

• Mix together wine and brandy in a pitcher (or pot if warming)
• Whisk in spices
• Pour in Sprite (keep it room temperature if you are serving this drink warm)
• Slice fruit and place in the pitcher
• Serve warmed or over ice

Have a FANG-Tastic Halloween!