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Fall is one of my favorite times of year! After enduring the Tennessee heat and humidity throughout the summer, I'm ready for the cool days of fall. I love the leaves changing, having friends over on Saturday for bonfires and chili, and I love pulling out sweaters and sweatshirts. Don't get me wrong, I love summertime and flip flops and warm weather, but there's something special about the season of fall.
Halloween, one of my favorite holidays, is around the corner! I can't wait to decorate, get my children's costumes ready and prepare for some Halloween fun.
Here are some pictures of some favors I did for a Halloween party. I bought them at the Target $1 bin, added the children's names and some candy and made favor containers out of them.
The girls received the tins with the black feather boa embellishments and the boys received the felt containers shaped like ghosts and pumpkins. I added tags to the felt containers with each boy's name on them.
Here are some treats I made for the children. The first picture shows the setup of the "cemetery." I took a silver platter, cut styrofoam to fit and covered the styrofoam with crushed up Oreos. The Oreos give the appearance of dirt. I then placed a Halloween tree covered in spider webs on top of the styrofoam. I added little tombstones, pumpkins and plastic spiders to fill in the cemetery.
The picture below shows the cemetery once I added the Mummy Dogs.
The Mummy Dogs are super easy to make and the kids
love them.
Here's the recipe from www.pillsbury.com
INGREDIENTS
| 1 | can (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner rolls or 1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® Crescent Recipe Creations™ refrigerated flaky dough sheet |
| 2 1/2 | slices American cheese, quartered (2.5 oz) |
| 10 | large hot dogs |
| Cooking spray |
| Mustard or ketchup, if desired |
DIRECTIONS
| 1. | Heat oven to 375°F. |
| 2. | If using crescent rolls: Unroll dough; separate at perforations, creating 4 rectangles. Press perforations to seal. If using dough sheet: Unroll dough; cut into 4 rectangles. |
| 3. | With knife or kitchen scissors, cut each rectangle lengthwise into 10 pieces, making a total of 40 pieces of dough. Slice cheese slices into quarters (1/2 slice cheese, cut in half). |
| 4. | Wrap 4 pieces of dough around each hot dog and 1/4 slice of cheese to look like "bandages," stretching dough slightly to completely cover hot dog. About 1/2 inch from one end of each hot dog, separate "bandages" so hot dog shows through for "face." On ungreased large cookie sheet, place wrapped hot dogs (cheese side down); spray dough lightly with cooking spray. |
| 5. | Bake 13 to 17 minutes or until dough is light golden brown and hot dogs are hot. With mustard, draw features on "face."
Below is another take on the mummy dog! |
For drinks, don't forget to make some yummy Hot Apple Cider and Witch's Brew.
For my apple cider, I take a jug of Apple Cider (you can find some great seasonal ones in the produce section of the grocery store). I pour the entire jug into a large Dutch oven and simmer on low on my stovetop. I add an entire bag of Red Hot candies and slowly stir with a wooden spoon, until the candies melt and the cider is a nice deep red color. It is not only a delicious fall drink, but it makes your entire home smell wonderful.
For this Witch's brew, I bought a large black couldron and placed a large punch bowl in the cauldron. I filled the punchbowl with the Witch's Brew and then poured dry ice between the 2 vessels. You can see the effect it makes! The kids were mesmerized by this!
Ingredients
- 1 (6-ounce) package lime
gelatin - 2 cups boiling water
- 3 cups chilled pineapple juice
- 1 (2 liter) bottle chilled lemon-lime soft drink or ginger ale
- 2 cups chilled vodka, optional
- 1 large black plastic cauldron (available at party or craft stores)
- 1 punch bowl that fits inside the cauldron
- 1 plastic hand (available at party supply stores), sterilized in hot water
- 1 block dry ice (available at supermarkets, ice cream shops or ice companies)
Directions
Pour the gelatin mix into a large bowl. Slowly stir in the boiling water. Stir at least 2 minutes, until the gelatin is completely dissolved. Stir in the pineapple juice. Let cool to room temperature.
Wearing heavy duty gloves or using tongs, place the block of dry ice in the bottom of the cauldron. (Dry ice will burn skin, so handle it with gloves and tongs and keep it away from kids and pets!)
Use an ice pick to break the block into smaller chunks, if necessary.
Fill the cauldron with just enough water to cover the dry ice. It will begin to "steam."
Place the punch bowl inside the cauldron, on top of the dry ice. The cauldron will appear to be magically smoking.
Entrap the sterilized rubber hand between the cauldron and the punch bowl, squeezing it tight so the hand appears to be reaching out of the mist for help. Hot-glue the hand to the cauldron, if necessary, to hold it in place.
Carefully pour the drink mixture into the punch bowl. Slowly add the chilled vodka and lemon-lime soda or ginger ale. Stir gently to mix.
To finish everything off, I took refrigerated sugar cookie dough and rolled it out into fun Halloween shapes.
Since I'm such a fan of fall, I am always on the look out for decorations that can be used in October for Halloween, but are still appropriate for November and Thanksgiving.
It's a cylindrical vase, filled with branches from your own yard and miniature pumpkins hanging on floral wire! How beautifully simple is this!
I had to sign off my post with this picture! It really made me laugh, and I'm pretty sure would be the hit of any "candy bar" at your Halloween party.
www.marthastewart.com
Happy Fall Y'all,
Stephanie
