Graveyard Taco Appetizer

Made even easier with ready-made Costco layered bean dip.

Recipe 

Halloween's Just Around the Corner!

And while a little bit of lunacy might be fine, full-on festivities would not. Still, it's great fun to revisit earlier celebrations realizing that we'll soon be beyond this stage!

Revisit the past Halloweens here.

Pretty Fine Pumpkin Patch

While these photos were taken last year, Roger Reynolds Carriage House (Encinal Avenue, Menlo Park, CA) is currently stocking a selection of sensational squashes.

Preserving your pumpkin

How to help your Halloween pumpkin live longer?

For the most thorough analysis, including pictures of deteriorating jack-o-lanterns, check out this site 

"There are 5 most common methods of pumpkin preservation. If you want your pumpkin to last longer then use the following things after you simply carve it and clean it out.

1. Bleach.  The pumpkin should be soaked in bleach solution (1 tsp. bleach/gallon water) for 8 hours. Thereafter it should be sprayed daily with a mild bleach solution. The soaking and spraying is intended to hydrate the pumpkin flesh, while the bleach is an antimicrobial.

2. “Pumpkin Fresh.”  We sprayed the pumpkin daily with commercial pumpkin preservative Pumpkin Fresh, as directed on bottle. The solution contains water, sodium tetraborate decahydrate (borax), and sodium benzoate (a preservative and fungicide). The label describes it as a “fungicidal solution.”

3. White glue.  You can also coat the inside and cut surfaces with white glue. The dried glue is intended to seal the pumpkin, preventing dehydration.

4. Vaseline.  Vaseline is also a good way to make your pumpkin live longer. The pumpkin should be coated on the inside and cut surfaces with petroleum jelly. This is intended to keep the pumpkin flesh from dehydrating.

5. Acrylic spray.  Carved pumpkin can also be sprayed with acrylic finish spray. The spray is intended to seal the pumpkin flesh, preventing dehydration and acting as a barrier to mold growth."

W H O A !

Can you imagine being their neighbors?

Great outtakes!

From stencil pics.

Halloween at Our House

Free form organza ghosts and goblins, tiny-toothed bats dangling from light fixtures, funny folks (Halloween and otherwise) woven into our dinners,  touches of lunacy here and there... 

Absolutely my kind of holiday!

Battery-operated votives and candles light spaces that simply won't accommodate a flame.  A relatively realistic, flickering glow illuminates spots such as the rat condo, interior door decorations and outside Halloween lanterns.  Back to Costco to stock up on more of these programmable, flameless candles for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So warm and welcoming without the risk of fire.  Long-term therapy, perhaps, but no fires.

Final foray into pumpkin patch

Into the pumpkin patch from SL:

Cookie-Cutter Pumpkins

These cookie-cutter pumpkins are anything but run-of-the-mill. They take no time to make and will add a gorgeous glow to your porch or walk. Start by selecting a theme, such as leaves, ghosts, or spiders. Because pumpkins are pretty tough cookies, look for durable cutters made of thick stainless steel (www.cookiecutter.com). Smaller ones work best, as larger designs tend to lose their shape more easily. Preparing the pumpkins is easy as pie. Cut a hole in the bottom instead of the top, and clean out the insides. Place a cookie cutter on the pumpkin. Gently tap the cutter with a rubber mallet until it pushes through the skin. Repeat until you complete your desired design. Then simply place each pumpkin over a small candle, and enjoy the ghoulish glow.

Just one of many from Martha

Adorable!

"Kids can bone up on anatomy and create a fun Halloween decoration at the same time when they make a skeleton out of noodles. With an illustration of a skeleton as a guide, they just need lots of dried pasta, white glue, and construction paper to assemble the pictures. We snapped some of the pasta in half and used alphabet-soup noodles to make labels."

Click for more creative craft ideas from Martha Stewart Living/MSL.

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Crazy about carving?

But wish your artwork lasted longer?  Look what I found.  I'm waiting for after the big day sales.  Will tackle this project next year. 

Very, Very Vincent.

For carving instructions, yeah right, click here.

More your speed?

Jar-o’-Lanterns

Directions and photo from Southern Living.

Too much time on your hands?

Here's how to solve that problem.  You have to be kidding, right?  Direct me to the closest bridge.

To purchase a carving kit online, visit www.xacto.com. Click on “Products” and then “Cutting Tools.” The variety of blades in the standard woodcarving set will make you a master carver.  

Concept and photo from Southern Living.

One final thought

About this or any other holiday.

Assuming that you plan to celebrate and/or decorate next year AND you don't want to rethink everything you spent time creating/organizing, photograph what worked.   You'll save a tremendous amount of time and energy.  The goal isn't about perfection.  It's about simplicity/sanity/starting points. All while capitalizing on what worked well.  Tweaking or total revamping, absolutely allowed.

No need to make an album, as I did years ago/though this still works for me today.  Just figure out how to organize and, more importantly, how to access those photos.

Halloween Postmortem

Yes, I have definitely lost it.  Or I'm well on my way. 

We've had non-stop house guests with more on the way.  Don't ask.  It's been Great Fun.  Really.  REALLY!

So what better time to revamp storage?  Products. Not People.

In an effort to Clean Out Every Conceivable Nook and Cranny in our House/OMGOSH/in order to make space for/as one Feng Shui consultant expressed/New, Exciting Things to Enter/I discovered our kids' Halloween costumes today. YES! Some pieces are missing but generally outfits are intact. This is the upside of saving Everything From One's Life. There is, as you might imagine, a HUGE DOWNSIDE. The benefit is that these mini-works of art/yeah, right/are now being refurbished/revitalized and brought into Our Current/soon-to-be dismantled/Halloween Household.  I am not endorsing this kind of behavior. But, hey, Halloween is my kind of holiday, remember? Thanksgiving is almost a month away.

So if any holiday is Your Kind of Holiday, how do you store stuff from year to year?  Initially I used cardboard boxes. Critters chewed their way into/and demolished/everything. So we've gradually been shifting to large, labeled plastic bins. Target was my target today. Tomorrow, labels printed for each room or set of rooms. Or outside spaces.  I'll try including pictures today but if those coming for dinner arrive, tomorrow's the day.

We're on our way to seeing what New,Exciting Experiences Are Coming Our Way!

Feng Shui Lady, you're going to be so proud of what happened today! 

Even if you're not, I AM!



Happy Happy Halloween!

Have a wonderful day!

I adore Jacquie Lawson's cards.  If you're not familiar with her work, click here to send a Halloween greeting to a friend or family member.

Thanks, Pat, for the reminder!

Happy Halloween, friends.

Freeform organza ghosts and goblins, tiny-toothed bats dangling from light fixtures, funny folks/Halloween and otherwise/woven into our dinners,  touches of lunacy here and there...  Yes, absolutely my kind of holiday.

I am enjoying how sucessfully the battery-operated candles light spaces that simply would not accommodate a flame.  A fairly realistic flickering cozy glow without the risk of fire.  See rat condo and door decorations.  We've positioned larger, programmable ones on our steps inside Halloween lanterns.  I'm going back to Costco to stock up for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So warm and welcoming.  Without any work.

Wonderful memories from our days in Lindenwood. 

Also included, a sample of the music we cranked up to accompany spooky outdoor scenarios each Halloween.  Great Fun!  I mean how often do you get to enjoy this kind of craziness?  Once a year.  Go for it.

So easy to download MP3's from Amazon and then broadcast. 

Halloween, Homewood-style

If you spend any time around our house during October, you'll quickly discover that Halloween is My Kind of Holiday.  I grew up in the Midwest where blustery/brisk autumn evenings provided the perfect backdrop for trick-or-treating.  And this was often a family event.

Yep, we trick-or-treated together.  My parents, at the door on their knees with their trick-or-treat bags in hand.  Wait, I just remembered that we all carried pillow cases/how cool is that? They also hosted Very Spooky Parties in our basement.  Which was a pretty scary place without any decorations.  These were really terrific events.  People still comment on those Halloween parties.

Bear in mind that I grew up on the south side of Chicago.  Our costumes?  Not too PC today.  Geez, we didn't even know what PC WAS back then.  We dressed up as, get this, Black People and Chinese Folks.  OMGOSH WHAT WERE WE THINKING?  I hate to even admit this.  But there we were with cold cream and burned corks smearing blackness over our faces OR stretching nylons over our heads then tugging at the top to create the perfect look.  How embarrassing is this?  Terrible.  But that was life back then.  In Homewood, Illinois.

Here is my childhood friend's Homewood Halloween memory:   Dr. Jensen lived on our street and he felt that handing out candy was unhealthy.  Each kid at his door was given a glass of milk to drink while he stood there to make sure we drank it.  We trick or treated in groups and one group would yell to the next group NOT to stop at Dr. Jensen’s.  The next year we avoided his house altogether. 

How much fun was that, Joan?  A LOT. 

Update on Friday, October 29, 2010 at 9:01AM by Lois

From Kathi:

Lois, loved the blog today.  Lots of laughs.  I can picture your mom and dad on their knees with their bags.  This explains a lot about your great sense of humor.  I loved the Dr. Jensen story as well.  I am still laughing about that one.  Health nut mom that I am/ was, I passed out raisenettes some years, McDonald's ice cream certificates and other tries at healthier snacks.  My kids were not proud!

Kath, nor were mine.  Particularly when I distributed a list of Alternatives to Candy to our neighbors.  My kids Could Not Figure Out why that was such a Loser Year in terms of treats.  Once was enough, even for me! 

Alternatively, our kids ate whatever they wanted on Halloween and then we/or the Halloween Witch/ traded tiny Lego sets for the rest.  Limiting the length of overconsumption was key to my sanity and their sugar-saturated highs.  

With the upcoming holiday in mind

Found when searching for simple Halloween ideas.  How is that mask constructed?  It doesn't look so easy.  Your thoughts?

Ghost Writer.

Go for a classic twist on this old school 'stume by going in a standard white sheet and carrying around a journal. It's low maintenance, but guaranteed to make people laugh. 

From Drop Box

Pumpkin carving taken to a new level

Amazing creatings by Ray Villafane.  Watch for him on the Food Network Challenge: Outrageous Pumpkins.  One Unbelievably Talented Guy!