{10 Days of Halloween} Felt Pumpkins

It's not too late to decorate a pumpkin for Halloween--especially felt pumpkins! They're portable, easy to clean up, and you can make them in less than 10 minutes!

All you will need are some orange and black sheets of felt, which are only about 25 cents at Walmart.

With a black sharpie I drew the outline of my pumpkin on an orange sheet of felt. I made mine small enough to get about two pumpkins out of one sheet of felt. Then I cut around the outside of the pumpkin outline.

With the black felt I cut out the face pieces. Then you are ready to put your pumpkin together! We had fun cutting out different types of eyes, noses, and mouths.

It was fun to mix-and-match the different face pieces. We also made a few silly add-ons, like the eye patch, fangs, and the top hat, to make our pumpkins more unique. 

These pumpkins will make a great addition to your flannel board set. If you don't have a flannel board, check out this post for some ideas of how to make your own flannel board.

-------------------------------------------------------

Day ten of

{10 Days of Halloween} Make a Costume Mask

Need a quick costume for Halloween? Try making a mask! They're cheap and easy to decorate.

These are the supplies we used:

masks (2 come in a package)
glitter
puff paint
pom poms
feathers

I picked up all of these supplies at Walmart and a few we already had on hand from other art projects. The masks are fun because there are so many ways you decorate them! We used glue and tape to attach the pom poms and feathers.

{cross-eyed clown}

We made one like a clown

{mystical lady in black}

and the other more mysterious and pretty.

Another good idea would be to make super hero masks. These masks are a quick way to get dressed up for any of your Halloween festivities--at a corn maze, Trunk Or Treat, Halloween party, or on Halloween night.

-------------------------------------------------------

Day nine of

{10 Days of Halloween} Pumpkin Family Night

For this activity we went to a local pumpkin patch and everyone got to pick their perfect pumpkin to carve.I wanted to make it special, so I made this invite for my family and posted it on the front door for everyone to see as we left in the morning for work and school.

{click here to print your own Pumpkin Family Night invite} 

After we went to the pumpkin patch, we took our pumpkins home and had fun carving them.

It is a little slimy digging out all those seeds but that is the fun part right?  We didn't throw them all away so that we could use them as part our treat for later.

The kids had fun helping to design the pumpkin faces and the older ones even got to help do some carving this year.

Some turned out more scary or goofy.

But each one was a little different.

After the pumpkins were carved we placed a candle inside each one--they looked so good!

Then we washed off the seeds and set them out on a cookie sheet.  We covered the seeds with a little butter and salt them put them in the oven until they were roasted brown.  Mmm, so yummy!

We decided to eat our pumpkin seeds while we watched Charlie Brown a the Great Pumpkin.  What a fun night! By the time the movie was over, we were all ready for bed.

-------------------------------------------------------

Day eight of

 

{10 Days of Halloween} Jack-O-Lantern Pancakes

Tonight we had breakfast for dinner.  My family likes having breakfast for dinner, but I also had a new pancake recipe that I wanted to try. But we couldn't just have ordinary pancakes...they were Halloween-style, of course! We made ourselves some jack-o-lantern pancakes.

Here's the pancake recipe--it turned out really yummy!

Pancakes

2 eggs
2 ½ C flour
½ C sugar
1 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ C oil
2 C milk

Simply combine the ingredients in a bowl and mix together.

After we made the batter, we added some food coloring to make the batter orange like a pumpkin. (I used about five drops of red and yellow food coloring for mine.) Then cook the pancakes like normal.

When the pancakes are ready, the fun part is letting your kids decorate their own jack-o-lantern pancakes anyway they want!

I set out a few bowls of toppings for decorating, like raisins, chocolate chips, bananas, and peaches. You can use any fruit or toppings that you like (i.e. sprinkles, nuts, whipped cream, etc.).

This was a fun way to engage my kids during dinner and make it fun to eat too!

-------------------------------------------------------

Day seven of

{10 Days of Halloween} Ghostly Marshmallows

This is a fun, quick treat to eat while watching Ghost Busters (or your favorite Halloween movie).

I bought the giant marshmallows for this--seriously, they're huge.  They looked so fun to eat!

We dipped the end of a skewer into some chocolate syrup and used that to draw ghost faces on the marshmallows.  Then we put the ghostly marshmallows in the microwave for about 15 seconds and watched our ghosts get VERY large and puffy as they cooked. 

However, the marshmallows don't stay puffy, they end up looking all distorted like this when you take them out of the microwave.

We had our ghost trap ready when the ghosts were done and caught them and squished them between our graham crackers--just like they the Ghost Busters.  Once our gooey ghost treat was ready we watched the Ghost Busters together.

-------------------------------------------------------

Day six of

{10 Days of Halloween} Witches Brew

One of the reasons I love Halloween is that there are so many fun things you can do! I love hot stew with the cool autumn weather. But I wanted to make dinner even more fun by having different kinds of "witches brew."

First, I made a little invite and delivered to each of my family members in the morning. Here's what the invite said:

 
 {click here to print your own Witches Brew dinner invite}

For dinner I made some crock pot "brew" (just regular stew with veggies and stew meat). Then I also made a "caldron" (or big bowl) of homemade root beer with dry ice. The fog from the dry ice made the dinner seem more spooky and mysterious.  Finally, as a yummy treat after dinner, we made our own witches brew.

Here's what we did. I used a muffin tin with liners and filled them with different ingredients for our witches brew. If you were hosting a Halloween party, you could set out the ingredients in cups or mason jars with labels. But for my family, I wanted to keep it fairly simple. I chose six ingredients we had on hand. But if you want more ideas, check out this list of awesome witches brew ingredients (thanks to family crafts):

Earthworm Knots (Miniature Pretzel Twists)
Bloated Ants (Raisins)
Candied Spider Eggs (Dots or Gum Drops)
Ghost Guts (Mini Marshmallow)
Shredded Lizard Gizzards (Coconut)
Witches' Warts (Chocolate Chips)
Baked Skelton Bones (Pretzel Sticks)
Bat Brains (Popcorn)
Boiled Lady Bugs (Red Jelly Beans)
Braised Beetles (Milk Duds)
Cheesy Owl Eyes (Puffed Cheese Balls)
Chocolate-Dipped Houseflies (Chocolate-Covered Raisins)
Compressed Cobwebs (Chex Brand or Similar Cereal)
Crumbled Bat Wings (Blue Corn Chips)
Deep Fried Fingernails (Bugles Brand Snacks)
Dehydrated Dragon's Wings (Doritos)
Dirty Shoelaces (Black Shoestring Licorice)
Dried Seaweed (Chow Mein Noodles)
Flattened Slugs (Corn Chips)
Freeze Dried Drops of Blood (Red Hot Candies)
Goblin's Belly Button Lint Balls (M & Ms, Any Style))
Plops of Pigeon Poop (Yogurt Covered Raisins)
Rat Claws (Shelled Sunflower Seeds)
Roasted Snack Eyes (Peanuts)
Splintered Turkey Bones (Shoestrings Potato Chips)
Toasted Cat's Eyes (Blanched Almonds)
Vulture Toenails (candy Corn)

To make the witches brew, I wrote all the ingredients on slips of paper and placed them in one of our Halloween trick-or-treat buckets to draw from.  (You could also make the labels with pictures for younger children.)

Then each person drew three ingredients from the bucket and that determined their witches brew.  Everyone had fun gathering their ingredients and mixing their brew--there was a lot of cackling and witchcraft going on at the dinner table!

{witches brew of earthworm knots, ghost guts, and candied spider eggs}

-------------------------------------------------------

Day five of

{10 Days of Halloween} Halloween Gift

Are you hosting a Halloween party this year and need a party favor? Or do you need a special way to say thank you this Halloween season? Well, here is a gift idea that anyone would love. 

These hard plastic cups with straws are not only useful (they hold hot or cold beverages) but they make great gifts! I found these Halloween cups at Walmart for a small price, but you can find them just about anywhere now.

I filled the cup with some tasty goodies! I included a ball point pen, gum, and a mix of candy (sugar free, chewy, hard, and chocolate). 

I didn't add any special packaging for these gifts because I felt like the cups were already decorated enough. But if you have clear cups or want to add a little more flair, simply wrap each cup in cellophane and tie with a ribbon. 

I included this fun Halloween poem as a gift tag. 

{click here to print your own Halloween poem tag}

Now you can give a special Halloween thank you to any of the special people in your life!

-------------------------------------------------------

Day four of

{10 Days of Halloween} Witchy Witch Hat Cookies

I needed a treat for my Cub Scout pack meeting and these little witchy witch hat cookies were perfect. They are cute and super easy to make.

All you need is:
2 packages of Keebler Fudge Stripes Dark Chocolate cookies (their NEW)
1 package of Hershey kisses
1 package of M&M's

1 can of frosting (I used blue for Cub Scouts but orange for Halloween would be cute)

(Makes 64 cookies.)

I simply used a knife to spread some frosting on the Keebler cookies. Then I topped it with a Hershey kiss and and upside-down M&M to look like a W for "witch." If you use a baggie or cake decorating tips to place the frosting, it would make the cookies look prettier. But because I was short on time (and I knew the boys wouldn't even notice), I decided to keep it simple.

That's it! It's an easy Halloween treat to be enjoyed by all!

-------------------------------------------------------

Day three of

{10 Days of Halloween} Monster Movie Night

Welcome to day two of...

Last night we went to see the movie Hotel Transylvania as a family.  It is a cute Halloween movie, and a simple way to get in the spirit of Halloween.

Because Hotel Transylvania is all about monsters, it would be fun to play the Monster Drawing Game while you're waiting in the theater for the movie.  All you will need to play the game is a pencil and paper and your imagination, of course!

To play the game, fold your paper into thirds.

On the top section, one person draws a monster head.  When the head is finished, the person folds the paper over so the next draw-er cannot see it.  Then, without looking at what was drawn before, the next person draws a neck, body, and arms (if any).

Again, the draw-er folds the paper so only the last blank section is showing.  Then the last person draws the legs and tail (if any).  When everyone is finished drawing, unfold your paper and see the funny monsters you created!

You could have several drawings all going at the same time as they get passed around.  Then you don't have to wait while only one person is drawing.

When you are done with the monsters, you'll be ready to sit back and enjoy the movie.

If you don't want to venture out to the movie theater, you can always do this same activity with a favorite Halloween movie of your choice.  One of my favorites for Halloween is Ghost Busters. It's an oldie...but still fun to watch about once a year. :)

What is your favorite Halloween movie?

{10 Days of Halloween} Spooky Story Dinner

Today it is October 22nd--exactly 10 days until it is Halloween (including today). That means this is day one in our mini series...10 Days of Halloween!  In the next 10 days we will be sharing fun and simple ways you and your family can celebrate Halloween. We will be including simple activities, dinners, crafts, and recipes--a little of everything to savor this spooky time of year. Happy Haunting!

-------------------------------------------------------

To get into the Halloween spirit at my house I decided to have a spooky story dinner.

We took a little trip to the library and found LOTS of fun and spooky kids books available. 

As we sat down to eat dinner, I turned off the lights and lit two candles at the table.  The candle light was bright even to read by and really added to the scary atmosphere.  I read some of the scary stories we checked out from the library as we ate together.  What an easy way to celebrate Halloween!