Fun Fall Food

I adore fall!  I love the leaves changing, the crisp cool morning air, 

the decorations and most of all - I love the food!  

Every year I look forward to changing up my menu for the cooler weather by adding

soups, casseroles, and more baked goods.

Another fun thing to add to my list is cool Halloween inspired food. 

This year, I'm trying to stay away from all the candy and focus more on savory

food, as well as some slightly healthier versions of our favorites!

Here are some recipes that are on my list to try!

These cool Pizza Mummies were found on  Family Fun

Oooh, creepy Carrot Fingers, also from Family Fun!

I love these spooky spider Mac & Cheese Bites from Celebration!

How about these yummy looking Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins 

I found at Everything I Love And More!

Ghastly Easy Ghosts

Sorry for the delay of this little tutorial - we spent last Friday in the ER with my oldest, getting stitches!  Of course being a doting, guilt-ridden mama comes first.  I know you all understand!  So without further delay:

Ghastly Easy Ghosts!

You'll need cheesecloth, starch and items to form the ghost shapes.  

We used toilet paper rolls, foil and sticks.  

*Most directions for these ghosts call for liquid starch, which I could not find.  I thought the spray starch worked extremely well!!!*

Cover your work surface well - the starch is a mess to clean up if it seeps through!

Now make the form that will shape your ghosts - 

use pretty much anything you have around the house!

Now cut the cheesecloth and drape over your form.  

Spray with starch.

Repeat with layers of cheesecloth until you get it as thick as you like. 

I think we did about five layers - I wanted them to still be a little transparent.

Spray, spray, spray that sucker until it's pretty wet.

Allow your little ghosts to dry.  

I am the queen of impatience, so I brought out the blowdryer. ;)  

Carefully pull out whatever items you've used to make the form.

Then allow your little cuties to model their ghosts!

 

This is how I've displayed them.  

I think we may make more though and hang them with fishing line throughout the house!

I'm linked up here with other fun crafts:

More Fall Decor

I think I posted before that I've never really decorated for Halloween before, but that I'm inspired this year by seeing so many ideas on other blogs.  Well, this week I've realized why I never decorate - my middle son's birthday is in October and I never wanted the decorations to compete with his birthday party decorations!  So, I thought I'd go ahead and show you all the couple of other Halloween decorations we have up so far.  Next week I think I'll probably focus more on things I'm doing for his birthday and after that we'll be back to fall crafts and ideas!

This is on our bar - that's a picture of me and the boys last year at the pumpkin patch.

Our summer-time margarita habit has now helped decorate for fall! ;)

Oh, on Friday, look for the super easy tutorial for those cute little ghosts!  

More SpOoKy Fun!

Boo!

Look at those SpOoKy little ghosts!  Hmm, they look pretty cute, right - kind of like little footprints?  They are!  My boys and I made this to go on our mantle.  I wanted something to replace our large family portrait that would go a little better with our spooky theme.  

To make this, I just took one of those big collage frames I had collecting dust and spray painted the cardboard black.  We traced their footprints on plain white printer paper and the boys glued them on.  Then we added the faces and I painted the little spider and his web.

The last thing we did was cut out the BOO! from scrapbook paper and glued that on.  

Super simple, but I think it's pretty cute.  And I adore anything with my kids' footprints or handprints!

I'm linking up with all these other crafty ladies here:

  

My SpOoKy Mantle

If you've been checking out any blogs at all lately, you are seeing TONS of great decorating ideas for fall.  I adore this time of year, but I've never really decorated for it.  I'm totally inspired this year, though.  

This is what I've done with my mantle so far!  

Headstone, blackbird, gray material & skull are from the dollar store - great finds!

See that tiny pumpkin?  It came in a bag of miniature gourds for a buck!  I spray painted it with Krylon Champagne Nouveau in a satin finish.

I spray painted a pie pumpkin with a black gloss spray paint.  I thought it needed a little something extra so I did a VERY light spray of the Krylon Champagne paint (in the wind, no less).  It gives it a nice sheen.

As I do little projects I'll make sure to show them to you all here!  

If you've got pictures of projects you've done, I'd love to see them!

I'm linked up here:

AndThe Stories of A to ZAnd Debbiedoos

Spider T-shirt Tutorial

Spider Handprint T-shirt

While looking through sites today for Halloween crafts, I came across www.allfreecrafts.com.

They had a craft idea that inspired me.

  

I changed it just a little bit - made it not so...cutsie.  And my boys helped me make a custom Halloween T-shirt!

You will need:

Newspaper

Paint & brushes (I used whatever craft paint I had)

T-shirt (I had an old orange shirt with a splotch of paint in my scrap pile!)

And kids' hands!

First, prep the area with newspaper or a drop cloth!  

Next, put cardboard or newspaper inside the shirt so the paint won't run through.

 

See the old paint?!  We'll cover that in just a sec...

Paint a little hand with black paint - don't paint the thumb!

(5 year old hands work great for this)

Press firmly and lift straight up.

Paint the hand again, turn other direction and press again.

I repeated the process with an even smaller little hand (from my 2 year old)

Add details - spooky green eyes and shiny fangs were our choice.  

Maybe you'll add googly or button eyes?  Shimmery embroidery thread for the web?

I'd love to see other Spider Handprint T-shirts!  

If you make one, please share a link or pictures!

I'm linking up at: