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Friday, November 1, 2013

Post-Halloween Lowdown: Quick, Easy & DIY

‘Fess up, who is coming down off a candy high?  Or maybe yours is just starting?  Snuck into the treat bags while the kids were at school?  (That’s me!)

So, this year at the Personally house Halloween was thrown together and enjoyed in the course of about twenty four hours.  Might be record time around here.  This is the lowdown on how it all came together with very few purchases and a bit of elbow grease, but with a very festive ending.

First up was pumpkin carving, the night before.  The design is always left up to whoever wants to participate.  This year it was only Personally Junior who came up with a fabulous Batmouth design which he carved out of MY white pumpkin from MY front porch vignette.  Apparently it was cooler than the orange pumpkin we had picked for carving.  Anyone have any use for an uncarved orange pumpkin in November?

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Next up…costume.  I was worn down into approving a Minecraft head.  I still maintain that these are NOT safe for trick-or-treating and I don’t recommend them at all.  But if you are a cooler mom than me, or are equally worn down…here is how we made ours.

It’s a suitably sized cardboard box with kraft paper spray glued onto it, to cover the words and shipping labels.  A hole was cut out of the front for the eyes and nose…large enough to satisfy my mom anxieties.  Patterns can easily be found online for Steve and Creeper heads and swords, and from there it’s like an exercise in paint-by-number.  Junior and I took turns to get all the sides done. IG minecraft head-1

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Then my main contribution…supper.  Early the day of, I baked chocolate cake in time for it to cool, and whipped together a Carrot Ginger Soup.  The recipe for the soup is in this blog post.  I did a super cheater version and used a big bag of mini-carrots and purchased chopped frozen onion.  I served it with dollops of sour cream and slices of stuffed green olives to look like creepy bloodshot eyes.

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Orange pop in vintage milk bottles with black and white striped paper straws.

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These fun little grapevine pumpkins are indestructible and show up in various places every October, then get packed back into a bin come November.  I tossed a few onto the table for decoration, along with a piece of burlap runner layered over a section of the green drapery panel I got for THREE DOLLARS in this post, also used as a runner.

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And yes I made these adorable hot dog mummies which are completely copied from Pinterest.  And then for dessert I iced that chocolate cake with white buttercream (which I am the WORST at spreading) and drew a spiderweb on it with black icing gel.  The awesome chocolate spider is from the Bulk Barn…fun…and creepy.

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After the trick-or-treaters are back we cozy up with the loot in front of the fire and watch this movie.  It’s tradition.  On Halloween night The Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch…

IG great pumpkin dvd

…personally, Andrea