Happy Halloween

House Elves Only!

You know how when you have a party and everyone ends up in the kitchen no matter how nicely you have set everything up in all the other rooms? I'm hoping this will keep a few of the kids out of the kitchen. What do you think?

It's just an old sheet with the message stenciled on in green spray paint. Then we tore it up from the bottom so you could pass through it easily. The cats are having a lot of fun with it, but I hope

I didn't just make a plaything for them. Oh well, on to the menu.

The Fat Lady

Sooooo......
Our library is going to be the Gryffindor Common Room for our Halloween party and of course we needed a portrait of the Fat Lady in the Pink Dress on the door. I cut two pieces of brown paper; one to fit each sliding door and found a photo of the Fat Lady on the Internet. Then I sketched her in and colored her in with oil pastels. Then I finished out the edges to look like a stone wall. Now, if we can just remember the password! Was it Caput Draconus? or Fortuna Major? or Pig Snout?

Hogwarts and Hogsmeade

Here is the set up for the front of the Three Broomsticks. I had to position a spot light up on the siding to help the name show, but I'm quite happy with it. Next I'll start decorating the inside to look like a pub.

And here is the Hogwarts sign over the front door. It too is made of Sintra (that PVC sign material). It was more difficult to illuminate and I'm not exactly happy with how it looks. Maybe I'll try another spot light from a different angle. I want it to be easy to read and right now the shadows are too confusing. Maybe the green light isn't right? What do you think. Suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Three Broomsticks

One of my plans for our Harry Potter Halloween Party is to turn our little cottage/shed/studio into the Three Broomsticks. I figure the kids will want hang out there just like they did in the books, so I'm trying to make it authentic yet kid proof. I plan to arrange two small tables and eight chairs like you'd see in a pub. I've put away the girly stuff and hung some red plaid curtains. I'll set out pewter mugs and cups, and a few bowls of snacks. I've even found a recipe for Butterbeer which I plan to test sometime this week.

LOM has already made the sign for out front. It's about 24"x30" and made out of Sintra. (Sintra is a PVC product that we use all the time in the sign industry.) That font is called Hogwarts and I found it online. Isn't it perfect? Has anyone got any more cute ideas for decorating the Three Broomsticks?

And a Murder Mystery Too

Remember when I showed you this and said it was the start of something big? I'm glad to say it's almost finished. We have been invited to a murder mystery party this month and the Lord of the Manor supposed to be... No, wait, I'll let you guess.

I got the shirt, vest, jacket, and pants at a thrift store and I made the tie and added some lace to the cuffs of the jacket and pinned together some odd ribbons to hang from his pocket.

Then I checked the Halloween store for the hat and they had it alright, but wanted $35.00 for it. Too expensive for me, so I shopped online and found it for $25.00! I added two hatpins, and a real peacock feather and, Voila, his Mad Hatter costume is complete!

Isn't it a lovely hat? I had nightmares of myself trying to make one. I'm sure glad I found it. It has plenty of hair so I can snip off a bit for the wild red eyebrows too.

Now I just need to get busy on my costume. I'm supposed to be...No, wait, I'll let you guess...

later...

Harry Potter Halloween Party

Hello, hello? Is anyone there? I'm sure you all thought I'd dried up and blown away, but no, I'm still here slogging through life one day at a time. It's been a wild and busy year with one crisis after another; health issues and surgeries for family members, business woes and the stress they bring, money going out and out and out, and just today $600 for a new motor for the washing machine! Don't get me wrong, there have been some good times too, but I for one will be glad to wave Bye bye to 2010. 2011 has GOT to be better, right?



This time of year I always start thinking of Halloween and planning a party. We are doing a Harry Potter theme this year. I've printed the invitations to look like Harry's acceptance letter and I've started setting up the rooms. The living room will be Professor Trelawny's classroom; Divination.


To create a smaller door, I built stone walls between two of the openings from the entry hall. Well, they aren't really stone walls....

they are brown paper that I colored to look like stone walls and taped into position. Then I hung tablecloths in the opening and pulled them back with some old tassels and made some glittery letters to say D I V I N A T I O N.

Then I moved the sofa out and substituted three small tables with red tablecloths and arranged comfy chairs around them.

At each table is a crystal ball. Ok, it's not really a crystal ball, but a glass globe from some old light fixture. I found them at thrift stores. I spent less than $2.00 for all three of them. I set them in some gadgets I found at the thrift store and around the house. I think maybe I'll spritz a little white paint in them to cloud them up a bit, but they look pretty good, don't they?

I think Professor Trelawny made them read Tarot cards too, so I scattered some of them around on this table too. I wonder what the King of Swords means?

At this table the students are studying tea leaves. Remember when Trelawny sees the Grim in Harry's cup? That's not the Grim in there now, is it? Gosh, I hope no one gets the Grim at our party.

Now I'm off to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I've been watching a lot of Harry Potter movies lately for inspiration and we can HARDLY WAIT until November when the next movie comes out. Are you a Harry Potter fan? Which character would you be if you came to our party?

The Start of Something Big

It's that time again people. Yes, that magical time of the year when I start thinking of Halloween. And costumes. And parties.

I hit the thrift stores Saturday and I've already started sewing too. Here is the start of LOM's costume. It shouldn't be too hard to guess who he is going to be. We bought the pants, shirt, vest, and jacket and with embellishments they will be fine. I'm making the tie, hat, and hatpins. I'll keep you posted on the other costumes as they come together.

The Party

I thought my blog would be back to normal today, but of course I must tell you all about the party, so I'm thinking tomorrow things will be back to normal. I promise.

The Fire Roasted Flesh Worms were wonderful! See their toothy little mouths? The chutney complimented the roast pork perfectly, and although we cooked four of them, I think we should have made more.

The Scream Cheese with Bloody Jelly was just a classic treat with a creepy presentation.

The Swamp Water tasted surprisingly good! It was lemonade concentrate, limeade concentrate, 7-Up, and rainbow sherbet. Really simple, but kind of brackish looking.

Horse Woman made these Devil Eyes. The green stuff looked a little like Wasabi, which would have been fiery, but it was regular egg yolk stuff tinted with food coloring.

This was just guacamole and blue corn chips, but we called it Guacamoldy and Petrified Bat Wings.

One of Teen2's friends made this graveyard cake.

And I made these with the leftover bread dough from the Mummified Mice. Hmmm, I can't seem to find a photo of the Mummified Mice, but they were precooked sausage links wrapped in this bread dough and cooked for 20 minutes. The kids seemed to like them, but I didn't get one so I can't tell you if they tasted good.

Here are some of the adults: Dead bride, Batman, Plan Bee, Lost Hiker, Julia Child, Bat Woman, and me, a Witch.

Here are some of the kids: Flapper, Pippi Longstockings, Pirate, Tourist, Doctor, ?, Chef, Cop, ?, Link, The Center of the Universe, Witch, Alice In Wonderland, Geisha Girl, Taco.

And I must tell you all that a famous chef came to help in the kitchen. Isn't it amazing? Julia Child came out of "retirement" to help us prepare our hors d'oeuvres. And look, she has her trademark glass of wine. And she said, "Bon Appetit" a lot too. And there was lots of food on the floor this morning.

So, we had a great party, and I hope you had a nice Halloween too. Now, it's back to our regularly scheduled programing. Thank you for your patience.

Gross Halloween Food

I'm pretty sure my obsession with Halloween has driven off most of my regular audience, so I'm going to go all the way here and show you the gross Halloween snack I made last night. If you're squeamish, better change channels right now and come back after November 1st when everything will be back to normal.


I warned you....

First you make Rice Krispie treat stuff and shape it into rough cylinders in your hands. Like giant slugs. Oh, butter your hands first so they don't stick and lay them on wax paper to cool.

Then while those are cooling, cut the bottom yellow part off of candy corn. Make sure to get rid of all the orange color, then cut those in half again.

Then melt a bunch of chocolate chips slowly in the microwave and...

coat the Rice Krispie treats with the chocolate. While the chocolate is still soft, push a few pieces of candy corn into it.

Corn Poopies! Aren't they cute?

And speaking of disgusting stuff, I made the "guts" for my Fire Roasted Flesh Worms this morning. I used Julia Child's cranberry chutney recipe and it looks perfect. The original recipe called for chili (!?) for the guts, but this is a Gourmand Halloween party, and a sweet chutney will go nicely with the roasted pork. Much better than chili, don't you think?

Dining Room Decor

Our Halloween Party is next Saturday so I've got the dining room all decorated. The potions ended up on the buffet along with one of those pots of fire and a dead rose bouquet. And lots of spiderwebs courtesy of Teen1. I supported the pot of fire on three branches wired together to form a tripod. And I hung the old tapestry from last year.

And nearly all my potions are arranged here on the buffet. I made a few more over the weekend....

like this Polyjuice Potion.....

and this Pepperup Potion...

and these toad spleens....

and this jar of poisonous mushrooms.

To prepare the dining room table I first put some boxes and books on the table to provide different levels for the various dishes, then put several tablecloths crookedly over that, then layered on some more old books, tarnished silver platters, old candlesticks with blood dripped candles, and a skull, some cockroaches and some mice. And of course, more spiderwebs.

I also printed out these little tombstones where I will write what each dish is; like Fire Roasted Flesh Worm, Kitty Litter Cake, Scream Cheese with Blood Jelly, etc.

I guess that's it from Amongst The Oaks where we are just hanging around waiting for Halloween.

Potion Bottles

Every haunted house needs some Potion Bottles, right? So I've been working on Potion Bottles and strange ingredients that a witch might use. First I scoured the house for odd jars, bottles, and glass containers. Then I started gathering creepy ingredients. For some of them I just used weird seed pods or fruit from the garden. Like those things called Deadly Nightshade; they are merely fruit from my Pittosporum shrub. And below are some tiny figs from a tree out in the field.

For Wool of Bat I used some fake fur that Teen2 had lying around. I just snipped it into little chunks and suddenly I had bat fur.

This is an idea I found on the Internet. You take a little plastic skeleton, wrap some spider web stuff around it, bent it into an awful position, immerse it in colored water and make a disturbing label. Mine says: Shrinking Potion Trials, June 1867, Test Subject No. 013, Healthy Male 22 years, Survived 2 days, 14 hours. The idea came from this wonderfully creative person who just happens to have some other great ideas I'm going to use too.

Here are more strange things from the garden. I think these are quince, but I'm calling them Datura stramonium. I know, I know, actual Thorn Apples are spiky little seed pods, but I'm hoping no one else will know that.

Oh, and this one was fun. It's a little yogurt, some lemon curd and some chunks of strawberry jam with green food coloring. The red jam chunks make a nice surprise when you pick it up and inspect it.

And some of my potion bottles are nothing more than things from the frige re-labeled. These are capers, but suddenly they look a little like Eye of Newt, don't they? And below are dried cranberries, re-labeled as Zombie Scabs.

For the labels you can snag images off the Internet and rearrange them in Photoshop like I did, or you can use felt pens and write your own. But whatever you do, make sure you antique them like I showed you here. Have fun with this, but be careful! You're messing with magic you know!