I Love decorating my home for holidays, especially Halloween. I'm not a big fan of the gory decorations, but I do like a tasteful spooky house. I'm not out to scare the neighborhood kids out of their wits! But, I think they have fun being a little spooked out.....I used to carve the pumpkins every year, but admittedly I have become quite lazy by using the pre-carved plastic pumpkins you can buy anywhere. I pick and choose my efforts, and I have become quite okay with taking shortcuts where they can be done and my pumpkin carving is one of those! Well, at least so far this year.
When I was a kid, the neighborhood came together every year and turned our neighbors house into a haunted house. All the moms and dads participated. You would have to enter the totally dark house, and crawl upstairs where you would be directed to the bathroom, and you would put your hands in the sink and feel eyeballs (olives) and brains (I still don't know what that was). Then you would crawl to other rooms and the dads would jump out at you in their home-made zombie costumes. After, we would all gather to the garage (there were probably 25 kids and parents!) and bob for apples.
For trick-or-treaters, my mom would totally go all out. One year she bought one of those latex bald wigs and painted her face grey-white with big black circles under her eyes. That was just to answer the door and hand out the candy. Another year, she made a black wood coffin which she waited in on the front porch for the kids to approach. They had to open the lid for her to hand them them the candy. She would moan and groan and they would run off screaming, but totally excited and thrilled. Then there was the year she waited in the tree and jumped out as they walked by with a big BOO! Yes, they ran away,...but came back for the candy!
Those are all great memories I will never forget. We would trick or treat by ourselves then come home and eat candy till we were sick. Parties and costumes were home-made and inexpensive,... and times were safe.
I'll someday try and recreate those kind of memories for my children, but in the mean time, (if I can find my halloween decorations that are somewhere in my storage unit), I will put out the black feathered crows, the black cats and rats, the cobwebs, and the mice. I have the candy ready, and who knows, I might even find some scary music for my record player.
I did these Martha Stewart paper rats on my staircase last year. They looked really cute! (I bought them at Michael's.)
If you are going to carve a pumpkin, you might want to invest in this neat gadget from Williams Sonoma. It is a remote controlled pumpkin light, that even works in rainy weather. It also has a switch to change from steady to flicker candle light. I think this sounds genius!
I was just in Pottery Barn today and they have some really cute fall and Halloween decorations. The best time to buy them of course is after Halloween, when they are marked down, and use them next year.
Neighborhood in Calgary, Alberta Canada
Photograph: njchow82/flickr
The first year I was married I made two scarecrows, using bales of hay and the clothes from my husbands closet. It was easy and looked really cute. I had them propped on the hay with pumpkins, corn and gourds surrounding them.
Photograph: abbyjane/flickr
I haven't attempted carving a handle, but I have used pumpkins as vases before. Make sure you actually use a glass container inside to hold the water and the flowers. You can purchase all the flowers at the grocery store, and where you can also purchase some cabbage, like shown above. I like how the flowers are all kept to one color. For another pumpkin-floral idea, see my post here from earlier this week.
As to the entertaining, you can never go wrong with ordering Eleni's New York cookies. They are little delicate but delicious works of art. You could buy a box and wrap each one individually as parting favors if you are hosting a party OR you can mingle them in with store-bought cookies, or better yet, home-made ones. The hardest part.... is deciding which one to buy!
All above cookies courtesy of Eleni's New York
This is actually really easy to do. Just use icing, candies, marshmallows, chocolate chips, licorice, gummies and store bought cupcakes! I always tint pre-made icing with food coloring to make different shades of icings for my cupcakes. Use a cupcake tiered stand and you have an instant centerpiece!
Brownie Pops from Williams Sonoma
The traditional Carmel apple made indulgent with the addition of chocolate and nuts.
From: Williams Sonoma
This cake is one of those "But it's too pretty to eat!" moments. How cute is he? I'm sure my sons could make him creepy with some candy-corn fangs and food-colored blood.....
From: Williams Sonoma
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!
