Halloween Banner

Welcome to Day 3 of the Hoosier Horror Blog Hop! I hope you are enjoying these posts as much as I have enjoyed getting them ready for you all. This post was inspired by a banner that Organize Your Stuff Now did last year.  I had pinned it last year with all intentions of doing it, but time got away from me. This year, I had a quiet morning to myself, and motivation with this blog hop, to get it done. Originally I had intended on making this day's post about our fall bucket list, but realized that I did the exact same post already last year. Oops!

This was a fun craft for mommy, but the kids could easily do this one as well. In fact, as soon as the kids came home from school, they noticed it right away. D even was sad when I didn't have her do the craft, so it looks like I may have 2 of each of these by the end of the week.

Supplies needed:
ruler
pencil
scissors
glue stick
green, white, black, orange, and brown construction paper
markers (I used Sharpies)

I first decided which characters I wanted to make. I knew that I had to have a ghost, Frankenstein's monster, and a bat. The original post had made these as triangles, but I liked the rectangle better. I made mine 5"x7". There really are not any other instructions other than cutting out the shapes you would like for each rectangle, and gluing them all together. For now, I just used a small bit of masking tape on the back of each character and taped them directly to my "mantle" shelf. I think of the next week, I will transfer them to some yarn and string it up under the shelf. I may add more as the month goes on, we shall see.

Frank and Pumpkin

Upside down Bat, and Candy Corn

Ghost

The whole crew on the shelf

Halloween crafts 2011

So yesterday was our group Halloween craft day! We had 7 stations this year, and it seemed like all the kids had a blast. 

This was marble painted spider webs. I was told about this one by L's teacher.

 Our finished webs

 Egg carton spiders. These we cut the cups of a paper egg carton, punch holes in the bottom, and slide in black pipe cleaners for the legs. Add 2 eyes, and you are done!

 A bunch of the kids finished projects.

 D working on her witch hat.

 Paper plate ghosts. Construction paper eyes, and mouth, and crepe paper streamers.

 Recycled Box Mummies. We wrapped white crepe paper around empty boxes and glued giant eyes to them.

 Tissue paper pumpkins. Paper plates, with glued on tissue paper. I showed the kids two ways to put the tissue paper on the paper plate. Most did the flat method.

 Toilet Paper Tube Bats. Wrap black construction paper around the tube, and glue on bat wings and eyes.

 And two gross snacks both found on pinterest.  These are bloody band-aids. Graham crackers with colored frosting.

 And dirty q-tips. Mini marshmallows on tooth picks, dipped in melted butterscotch chips.

Books we read:
Where's my mummy? by Carolyn Crimi 
Corduroy's Best Halloween Ever! by Don Freeman
Boogie Knights by Lisa Wheeler

Halloween crafts

We had our first set of Halloween craft days yesterday.  We were expecting 22 kids so we had to come up with a way to make things move smoothly.  We set up different stations and had the moms move with their children to each station.  There were 5 different crafts to do, for different skill levels.  These ideas came from all over the place.  Some were from The Mailbox, teaching magazine.  I have been picking these up from the library for preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade just to get some new ideas!

The first was just simply drawing pictures on black construction paper with yellow and white crayons.  Even the youngest can do this one!

 Next up, coffee filter bats.  I got this idea both from Frugal Family Fun blog, and Kaboose web site.  Use washable markers in purple, brown, grey or black.  Color the coffee filter, and "paint" with water over what you colored.  It gives it a water color type look.  Let it dry.  When it is dry, fold in half, cut points in the non-folded half, and wrap a half of a black pipe cleaner around the middle.

 This one is from my co-organizer Amanda!  She picked up black plates and cut slits all around.  Next we wrapped grey or white yarn around the plate to make a spider web.  The kids could then attach a plastic spider ring to the web!

 We were going to do candy corn sun catchers, but with the amount of kids we were having we felt this would be easier.  I drew a candy corn shape on some white computer paper.  I then ripped orange and yellow construction paper in pieces.  The kids glued the pieces to the shape.  Very easy for kids of all ages to do.

 This is one I got from The Mailbox.  We cut 8's out of black construction paper, and 8 legs for each one.  We got to talk about how sipiders have 8 legs.  Then we added 4 eyes to each one.  I think this one was one of the favorites!

 This one was also from Amanda.  She made a copy of different leaves and cut them out.  The kids then colored each leaf.  We cut the middle out of some paper plates we had left over from the group picnic.  The kids then glued their colored leaves around the outer rim of the plate.

Halloween Goodies

This last week has been jam packed with Halloween festivities for the kids. It started with a mom's group Halloween party on Saturday. I made cupcakes. Half were decorated as pumpkins and the other half as bats. I had gotten the idea from this book, and tried my hardest to make them look like the ones in there. I got close, not exactly the same, but I think close. The bat wings were a bit too large and heavy, they pulled the tops off the cupcakes. But you live and learn right? Then Monday we had spooky cupcake decorating with the kids. Basically it was a mess of frosting, candy, and sanding sugar, but the kids had a blast! Then today I hosted a candy corn day at the library. I made triangle sugar cookies, and topped them with royal icing. I was going to use the candy corn cookies as my cookie of the week, but have something else up my sleeve. I was very happy with how they all turned out and will give you the recipe for the cookies and royal icing that I made.

Candy Corn cookies

The bats before the wings

Pumpkins (Tootsie Rolls used as the stem)

Bat with wings (the wings were melted candy melts)

Cut out sugar cookies:


12 tbsp. ( 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg yolk
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350. Using mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. Scrape bowl as needed. Add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in egg yolk, and vanilla, and then flour and salt. Scrape dough onto a piece of wax paper, pat into a disc, and cover with another piece of wax. Roll out dough to 1/4" thick. Cut out with cookie cutters, and then place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown on the bottom and light golden on edges. (about 15 min) Let cool 5 min, and then transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely.


Royal Icing:
(combined from the joyofbaking.com and Alton Brown recipes)

2 large egg whites

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

3 cups (330 grams) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

1 tsp. vanilla extract

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice. Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use. I put them in plastic baggies and piped it onto the cookie.