BOO! OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

You might say that I'm a little bit of a wuss when it comes to Halloween. I don't like haunted houses and I don't do horror or slasher films. I have nightmares over these things and I value my sleep too much. Besides, I don't like to pay to be scared and have my heart race at an uncomfortable pace.

That being said, I do quite like Halloween. Not my favorite holiday, but I do enjoy the good creative outlet of adult costume parties and I have a blast getting my kids dressed up. I'm over pumpkin carving and perhaps trick-or-treating (really depending on the weather), but I do enjoy the fantasy of the holiday. I like the glittered skulls and retro jack o lanterns. I like the candy and I like the coziness of the season which means I get to wear my fab boots and coats (weather permitting). I like to spike my cider and I like to eat soups and crock pot meals.

This year, the kids wanted to go as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I'm too cheap to fork over $40-50 for cheap and thoughtless costumes, so I always try to make them myself. It gives me something creative to work on and also challenges my sewing skills. Although satin might be the devil in fabric form, I did get a Minnie skirt completed with the help of this awesome tutorial. And let me further say she has a thousand other awesome tutorials you'll get caught up on. Focus is required. But I'll be making this next...

Anyhoo... the kids' costumes were actually quite easy to assemble as I used mouse ears from a trip to Disneyland and with a few creative touches was able to knock these out on the cheap. The most expensive parts of the costume were the black turtle necks and pants which, obviously, can (and will) be worn all winter and were about $20 for both sets. The fabric and elastic for the skirt came to about $8, lace about $2 and the red shorts and tee were found on Walmart clearance for $1 and $2.50, respectively. White gloves were a buck each. No special facepaint as I just used my own liquid liner.

I think they look fab and I spent about $40 for both costumes - which includes very wearable Fall and Winter items.

We have also spent some time making this Halloween treats. I love bird and owl images. The animals not so much. Just ask Husband how I feel about the noise they make and the B B gun that is on the wishlist to knock these flippin blue jays out of our trees.

These owl treats were fun and SUPER cute... ONCE I got a handle on how to actually make them. I grabbed them from another craft blog (love all the great ideas here!). The instructions were maybe a bit incomplete, or I could have just been doing it wrong, which is very likely these days.

However, here's how I was able to overcome my challenges:

Using the half graham cracker, ensure it is laid length-wise on the MIDDLE of the plate. Crucial for even bloatedness.

Cut marshmallows in half with sticky side UP. Crucial for ensuring they don't glue to the plates.

Place yellow candy melt point side DOWN on sticky mallow. Crucial to being able to balance the chocolate chip on top.

Add chip and microwave about 10sec, until the mallow puffs about double in size but doesn't fall OFF the graham. CRUCIAL!!!

When you take it out of microwave, add candy corn on both mallows to keep them tight and glued to the cracker. Viola!

Super easy kid treat and they can assemble and add beaks.

After making about 20 of these, let's hope all the radiation doesn't melt my brain cells.

Happy Halloween everyone!