Halloween Decor DIY

Halloween Decor DIY: 
Have any cool Halloween DIY ideas to share? Leave a comment! I'll be sending out some FREE Printables!

1. Halloween Paper Bats: Using 4-6 sheets of construction paper, good scissors, printable bat template (download below), and scotch tape.  Create a "path" for the bats to travel along rather than hanging them randomly.

Halloween Paper Bats

2. Black and White Halloween decor: Group some black spray-painted frames and mirrors and hang. Use a black tray or platter to display mini white pumpkins.  Use white candles on a chic black candleabra.  Spiderwebs over everything to give the extra creepy effect!

Black and White Halloween Decor

3. Creepy Halloween Party Food:  Replace your Jello Brain Mold this year with instant Flan (find it near the jello boxes).  It already has that creamy look, but by adding a few drops of red food color to the caramel sauce, it looks quite bloody!  Take it to the next level by displaying it with a large knife or cleaver.  For the Bread Bones, get a can of french bread dough (e.g. Pillsbury) and divide into pieces with a sharp knife. Roll into finger sized pieces, and cut each end about 1".  Round out the ends and bake in about half the suggested time.  For a "dirty bones" look, sprinkle black sesame seeds on before baking.  Serve with a guacamole!

Halloween Party Food - Brain Flan (or Jello), Bread Bones

4.  Witch's Bottles of Potions - Use old wine bottles, beer bottles, and jars.  Soak in hot water to remove labels.  Use some twine and a little Elmer's Glue to wrap around neck of bottles. Soak a green or yellow highlighter in water for a few hours to overnight, pour into the jars and turn on a black light.

Want some free printable labels? Leave a comment below!

5. Black Light Decor - Get black light paint from a craft store like Michael's, Use a neon posterboard, draw a scene with sharpie, and paint areas with black light paint.  Use an old beat up frame and splatter some of the black light paint on the frame for a 3-dimensional look.

Black light paint & Poster paper in a frame

6. "Black & Cheese" - More party food! You can use homemade or out of the box mac & cheese - creep it up by adding a few drops of black food coloring to the milk and cheese at the end.  Looks disgusting, but tastes delicious!

"Black & Cheese" - My version of Haunted Mac & Cheese - just add black food coloring!

Bat Paper Cut-out Template - fits 8x10

Bat Template - Click to enlarge & download

It's Halloween at the Percy Manor!

Mr. Percy always gives me "the look" whenever I want to decorate for Halloween... in early September.  But it's one of my #1 favorite days of the year, so I decided I'd wait a few weeks to get him eased in to it.

I went garage sale shopping Saturday, and found some great little Halloween decor finds!  These homemade wooden stakes are so kitschy!  I decided to buy them, and then upcycle them by painting them myself.  We have an owl, a crescent moon, a skull and a bat.  Props to the maker who spent time cutting these out, but didn't do quite as well on the painting skills.

Here is what I did to them:

I haven't finished the crescent moon yet, still sketching.

Vintage Goodies on Etsy

You gotta be quick on the draw, because within an hour of posting, these items just sold!

Warm Fresh Bread

Yep, that's butter.

Ok, I know I tend to flip from one thing to another, pretty often.  But nearly everyday, I'm in the kitchen.  Nearly everyday, I'm watching (or listening to) a cooking show.

I've been wanting to tackle making my own bread, completely from scratch.  I've collected recipes on websites and blogs, looked to the pioneer woman for advice.  I have a bit of a bread fear.  I've tackled homemade pasta, pretty successfully, and many other chemistry-based baking, but never bread.

So, I decided to take the first step.  I saw this Krusteaz bread mix in Publix, with the optional Artisan Bread recipe, and I had to get it.  Today, I took the leap! And it was so ridiculously easy, I'm ashamed to even say it was any work at all... mostly babysitting the dough. 

Here it is:

I got the Krusteaz Country White Bread Mix (it comes with the yeast)

I checked out the directions for the Artisan Bread Directions, and it just looked too easy.  It was.

In a large bowl, I added the yeast packet to the mix.

Add 1 1/4 cup Room Temp water (75-85°F)

Mix well by hand with a spoon, it should be sticky and moist.

Now, find something to do for 2 hours.  Like paint something cool, read a magazine, watch TV, do laundry.

Make sure you cover the bowl, and set it in a warm, dry place while you're doing your thing.

It should double in size.  With about 4 tsp of flour sprinkled on the dough, carefully transfer to a pan, cookie sheet or dutch oven.

Now it's time to do something else for about 40 min.  Just let the dough rest uncovered. Heat oven to 450°

20 minutes in the oven, and you get THIS!  Don't burn yourself trying to eat it right out of the oven. NOM NOM.

Halloween Decor and Party Invitations

Check out all the new Halloween items in the Etsy store!  2 brand new hand made crow magnets, and 3 different DIY printable Halloween Party invitations... All equally creepy!

I'm working hard this week on getting more handmade stuff out for Halloween, so keep checking back!

New Halloween Crow Magnet!

She's a crow! She's a magnet! She's a Cragnet...?

Brand new handmade item in the Etsy Shop: This is a hand-crafted polymer clay folk-artsy sculpture of a black Halloween Crow. She has an Orange clay button for an eye, and orange ring around her neck, and small orange dots on her wing. She has lots of texture on her wing and body, and the large magnet is attached to her reverse side.

She measures about 4" from beak to tail.

Expect to see more like her!

The Witch - a Treasury

Bird Skull on 18" Chain, by mrd64

I love making beautiful treasuries, and this one: The Witch is no exception. I've already started thinking and planning for halloween, as I'm sure a lot of you are, and although the witch is categorically the most popular costume, I thought I'd look around etsy to maybe bring up the style a notch or two.