Our Trick Or Treaters

Our little trick or treaters! They chose their costumes by themselves this year and they were all pretty simple to make. Especially Aaron's. That kid cracks me up. I wanted them coordinate, as usual, but it was fun to leave it up to them and see what they came up with!

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Glow Stick Lanterns

 How cool are these?!?!?!?
 

My kids were excited to have these in their rooms the other night when they went to bed. Simply fill a small jar with water and then cut open a full size glow stick and pour it in! I haven't tried these with the smaller ones from the dollar store. I'd imagine you'd need a bunch to get the same brighness as one of the thick ones. Break the stick first to activate it and be careful while pouring out the contents. I used some kitchen shears to cut the top off of the glow stick which was a bit tedious, but worked. Gently swish around the water (but do NOT shake) and you're set!
 

These would look neat lining a driveway or walkway on Halloween! We always seem to end up with a bunch of glow sticks after going trick-or-treating, so we'll be making more of these!

I found my inspiration here.

The smaller jar glowed bright for 2 days.

I used a pint sized an a quart size and used 2 full sized sticks in the quart. The pint sized one seemed to be brighter than the quart sized jar. I bet baby food jars would work GREAT.

Here are some other cool ones I saw on the web! So neat!


Extreme Glow


Glowstick Lanterns

 

Meet Ruby!

Just one feature this week....our sweet new baby Ruby! She is absolutely perfect and we are so in love with her!  I hope you enjoy the guest posts this week and next from some amazing bloggers while I snuggle with my little one!

Soft Pretzel Bites Recipe

Soft pretzel bites are one of my kid's favorite snacks. Mine too. It's hard to buy pretzels at the store anymore or from the shops at the mall, because they just don't compare to homemade ones!

Homemade Pretzel Bites

1 1/4 cup warm water

1 T. plus 1/4 tsp. yeast

3 3/4 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 c. + 2 T powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. vegetable oil

Bath:

2 c. warm water

1/4 c. baking soda

Place all ingredients (except bath mixture) into bread machine and run the dough cycle.

{If you do not have a bread machine, make these like any other dough. Mix water/yeast (let sit 10 minutes), add dry ingredients, knead, raise until doubled.}

When dough is done, preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Make a bath for the pretzels by combining the baking soda with warm water and stir until soda is mostly dissolved (it won't dissolve completely).

Roll out dough into a long rectangle (about 12"x24"). Using a pizza cutter, cut into small 2" sections. Dip each dough square into the water/soda bath and place on a greased baking sheet. If you are making salted or garlic pretzels, sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake for 4 minutes, then rotate pan and bake another 4 minutes.

{Our variations are as follows}

 
For your basic salted pretzels, sprinkle pretzel dough with kosher salt BEFORE baking. When they come out of the oven, brush with melted butter.
 

 For Garlic Parmesan pretzels, sprinkle with kosher salt BEFORE baking. When they come out of the oven, brush with a mixture of butter and garlic powder. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

 
For cinnamon/sugar pretzels, brush with butter AFTER baking and then roll in cinnamon/sugar.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do!

Halloween Candy Pouches

 One of Kaylee's little friends came over to play the other day and the girls had a great time crafting. We made these little pumpkin pouches out of felt and they were so simple. Kaylee has had so much fun with her little preschool felt apple, that I thought she might like another seasonal felt activity.

 I cut out two pieces of felt for the pumpkin, cut a hold in the back and sewed another piece of felt across the top of the whole to make a flap. Then I inserted a stem in between the two layers and sewed it all the way around. If I were to do these again, I would make a slit instead of the hole. It would hold more candy that way.

 Then I cut up black felt in different shapes and let the girls design some cute faces. Their little pumpkin faces ended up being identical.

 After we glued the faces on and let them dry, the girls filled their little pouches with candy corn and mellowcreme pumpkins.

When Aaron got home from school he thought the pumpkins were pretty neat and wanted to make one. We decided to make a little ghost for him. Same method. Only this time I made a slit instead of a hole and it worked out perfectly!

And that was it! A fun little Halloween craft in minutes.

Stocking up on Craft Kits

 I love kid's craft kits. I'm a sucker for the $1 section at Joann's and Oriental Trading. I recently placed an order with Oriental Trading since the baby was coming and I thought that Kaylee and Aaron would like to have their craft drawers stocked with fun activities since I will be busy with a newborn. I am not being paid by anyone for this post. I just thought I would share what we do to always have fun craft stock on hand, inexpensively. I was trying to think how on earth we accumulated such a variety of supplies. Friends have asked me this too. I never go to the store and spend a lot or buy a lot. I usually just pick up one thing to add to our stash each time and usually spend less than $3 for that item. Over time, it adds up and it's fun to always have the basics on hand.

Our staple craft supplies are: popsicle sticks, pom poms, googly eyes, foamies, glue sticks, water colors, feathers, foamie box kits, stickers, pipe cleaners, unfinished wood items, little plaster figures, construction paper, fun cutting scissors, velvet coloring sheets, scratch sheets, etc.

In our basement, we have little drawers. A place for everything. I don't keep all of their craft supplies down here, but things that are pre-packaged and won't get spilled all over the place go down in the basement. Everything else (beads, foamies, etc.) stays up in the upstairs craft closet.

I love the packs from Oriental Trading. Everything comes in sets of 12. I keep most for my kids and send a few to my sister's kids. Most of what I order isn't too seasonal so they can use it year around. Here are some of the clearance finds I got recently.

 500 robot bead foamies for $1.99

1000 eye stickers (perfect to add to ANY picture or craft) for $6.

I also found dot marker pages for $.49 (50 sheets), sea/beach foamies (500) for $2.49, and "create your own race car" sticker sheets (12 pack) for $1.49.

I love that Joann's has the coupons. If I don't have a lot of higher priced items to buy, I'll let the kids pick out things in the $1 section and get them 40% off. Steal!

Hobby Lobby and Michael's also have great deals on craft supplies. I keep an eye out in their flyers for items like tempera paint, wooden cutouts for the kids to color/paint, etc. The tempera paints are usually $2/bottle, but on sale I've been able to get them for $1/bottle. We have them in every color they make! They are washable and work so well for kid's crafts.

A couple of years ago I went onto Oriental Trading in January and bought over $200 worth of craft kits for $75. All of their Christmas and holiday kits and supplies were 50-75% off. I kept some for us and packaged the others up for family and friends the following year for Christmas gifts. Their kids LOVED the kits! I sent them early (the end of November) and said that this was one gift that they could OPEN EARLY! So they had fun Christmas crafts to do all month long!

I save the nut containers from Sam's (with the screw on lids) and store my foamies and foam beads in there. The conference kit totes work perfectly to hold markers, water colors, crayons, and glue sticks. We keep these in the kitchen so that they have access to them anytime they want.

It's nice to just have a stash that the kids know they are allowed to get into. Aaron would rather go create a little craft than do most anything else on a rainy day!

Restaurant Apples

 Derrick and I both LOVE the skillet apples at restaurant like Chilis and Cracker Barrel. This year I decided to make our own with some of our tree-picked apples. I usually make batches of applesauce to freeze, but after making these a couple of months ago, I haven't even broken out my kitchenaid attachments for applesauce. These are so much better! And they are very simple to make. You can vary the recipe and spices as much as you like, but here is how I make them.

Restaurant Apples

6-8 apples

2 1/2 c. apple juice (divided)

2 T. sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

3 T. cornstarch.

Peel and chop your apples into desired size. I like them a bit smaller than the ones in the restaurants, but you can also just slice the apple into eighths and cook them that way.

Depending on how large your apples are will determine how many you can do in a batch. You'll want a nice layer of chopped apples in a single layer of a large skillet. The skillet I use covers the largest burner on my stove. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Pour 1 c. apple juice over your apples and bring to a simmer on med-high heat. Continue to simmer on medium heat for 6-8 minutes, or until almost fork tender.

Combine (with a whisk) cornstarch and remaining juice. Once apples are tender, pour cornstarch mixture over apples and stir until thickened. Remove from heat.

These keep well for at least a week in the refrigerator and 6 months in the freezer.

Our Spooky Little Tree

This spooky ghost tree was easy to make and FREE. That is always a bonus! I simply clipped off some branches from a tree, spray painted them, and then put them inside of a little teracotta pot. I stuck them into some floral foam to keep them secure and added some Spanish moss.

Aaron got busy and made some dum dum lollipop ghosts to adorn our tree. Perfect for the front entry!

Baked Apple Chips

 Tis the season for fresh picked apples! Living in Ohio provides us lots of opportunities to enjoy farm fresh produce. There is a fruit farm down the road from us that grows the most amazing apples. We enjoy going and picking them from the trees. In fact, we are going this weekend! Then we can make more of these...

Baked Apple Chips

These are very addicting. I think I need a second oven so that I can make more of these at a time. As it was, I could only do 4 or so apples (they were large honey crisp apples) at a time and they went FAST!

I don't have a produce mandoline, so I sliced the apples as thin as I could and arranged them on baking sheets, lined with parchment paper. The parchment paper is essential. Spraying them with cooking spray doesn't work (I tried that and the chips stuck!). To core them, I just used a small cookie cutter and pressed it in to the center of each slice. You just need to remove the seeds. Most slices didn't have seeds in them anyways. Then I sprayed them with butter cooking spray and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on them.

I baked them at 225 degrees for 2 hours, then let them sit in the oven over night. I rotated the racks after an hour so that they baked evenly. They were perfect.
 

Monster Eyes!

 Corn Syrup, googly eyes, and food coloring is all you need to make your own monster eye concoctions! Just mix. Super easy! We had these fun little viles that used to have candy in them, but glass jars work great too. The boys had fun making these a couple of years ago and we still have them in our Halloween decor.

Original Inspiration via


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The Easiest Gift Tags Ever

 Sometimes I'm not sure if I should share projects like this because they probably aren't new and are so simple that it seems silly that I am excited about it, but I am going to share anyways!

I realized (this MORNING) that this week will most likely be my last week of teaching piano before baby #4 makes her debut. So I whipped up some little treat bags for my students using items I had on hand.

Fangs from this project, candy corn from this project, and some Halloween chocolate coins. I put them in some little red cellophane bags (that look orange) and went to get some festive ribbon, but didn't have any!

 So I took a strip of Halloween card stock paper, folded it around the bag opening and stapled it. That's it! I think I will do this more often and save my cute grosgrain ribbon for other projects!

So that's it. Probably the most boring blog post, but EASIEST gift tags ever!

Homemade Tootsie Rolls

These were a hit with the kids! Fun and easy to make, and they make a lot! I searched for a recipe that used baking cocoa (because that's what I had on hand vs. baking chocolate) and also a recipe that needed to be warmed up. I thought it might help create a smooth dough.  Couldn't find one. So I used several different recipes to come up with these. The texture was just right. Slightly softer than regular Tootsie Rolls, but still smooth and firm. Especially when pulled right out of the refrigerator.

 The ingredients are basic:

6 T Baking cocoa

1 tsp. Vanilla

3/4 c. Powdered Milk

2 T Butter

3 cups Powdered Sugar (divided)

1/2 c. Corn Syrup

Cooking Spray

 In a sauce pan (on med) heat butter, cocoa, and corn syrup until smooth and melted.

  Stir in the powdered milk and the vanilla extract. Remove from heat.

 Add a cup of the powdered sugar and stir until it is incorporated. Once that sugar is mixed in, add a second cup of powdered sugar and stir to mix. At this point the dough will start getting stiff and it might be difficult to stir more powdered sugar into the candy.

 Dust your work surface with powdered sugar (using the remaining cup of powdered sugar. 1/2 cup at a time), and knead the candy until it is smooth. If it is still very soft, knead in more powdered sugar until it is firm but not dry or crumbly.

The dough might be a little sticky, but it dries as you work with it so I just sprayed my hands with a little cooking spray to keep the dough from sticking and I didn't have any issues.

 Once the Tootsie Roll candy is smooth and a perfect firm, break off a small piece and roll it into a long, thin rope. Using a sharp knife, cut it into small pieces and place them on a wax paper-lined baking sheet. Repeat until you have formed all of the Tootsie Roll dough into small pieces. We ended up with over 75 pieces.

 Aaron had fun making shapes with the dough that I gave him. He used cookie cutters to cut them out.

 Refrigerate the tray of Tootsie Rolls until they firm up, for about 1 hour. Wrap Tootsie Rolls in waxed paper to keep them from sticking to each other. They will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. I like them cold, but you can bring them to room temperature before serving.

Enjoy!

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