Halloween Trick or Treat... Let's Focus On The Treat!

When October 1st hit us this year, it was time to start thinking about Halloween! While I've got one child who has planned out her costume throughout the year and then changed it just to change it again, we were ready to start baking ups some sweet treats. We started off with spooky cupcakes... using the Wilton buttercream icing recipe, we iced our homemade chocolate cupcakes into ghoulish piles and topped them with off with some candy eyes! Custom DIY cupcake wrappers were made with black construction paper. Let us know if you try these simple treats for your holiday party!  

My New Love Of Homemade Vegan Pizza.

The hardest thing about homemade pizza is finding the patience to wait while the dough rises for the crust. But making your own pizza from scratch is so satisfying, tasty, and easy on the budget. Plus, where are you going to find gourmet vegan pizza and know exactly what went into making it? We found ourselves at home on a Saturday afternoon and with the cooler temperatures, having a make your own pizza party was the perfect activity to warm us up and bring some laughter into our household. 

Since my 40th birthday, I'm been making more of an effort to eat a vegan diet so my two pizza's consisted of vegan mozzarella cheese and vegan parmesan cheese. This was the first time trying my hand at vegan pizza, and working with these two cheeses. I wasn't completely sure how the cheese would melt and end up tasting, but I was so happy with the end result. I've linked the cheeses I used at the end of this post that you can purchase on my Amazon site. 

The first pizza, I kept simple with an olive oil base with crushed garlic. I added both kinds of cheese, and during the last five minutes of baking, sprinkled fresh spinach leaves on top. The second pizza I added a fig jam spread for the base, caramelized onions that I made while the pizza dough was rising, both kinds of cheeses, and finished it off with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar after it came out of the oven. Both recipes were so simple and yet so flavorful.

Vegan Mozzarella Cheese - Amazon {here}  ::  Vegan Parmesan Cheese - Amazon {here}

Chinese New Year Fortune Cookies DIY.

The fortune cookie is so iconic to Chinese cuisine in North America, but a completely foreign concept to the authentic Chinese diet in China. We still decided to include it on our dessert table for our Chinese New Year Party. However, we thought we would dress the common fortune cookie up a little using the colors of our party, of pink, red, and gold.

We laid out our unwrapped fortune cookies on parchment paper, melted a pack of white and pink Wilton Candy Melts in a double boiler on the stove, and had fun dipping the cookie into the chocolate. Immediately after the cookie came out the chocolate we added colored sprinkles in varying textures and set them out to dry on a clean sheet of parchment paper.

This was our first time tasting chocolate dipped fortune cookies, and like most things chocolate, you just can't go wrong with such a fun addition. This dish added such a fun pop of color to our table and helped to tie the colors of our party together. Let us know if the comment section if you decided to give this a try! We'd love to hear how it turns out!

Bamboo Steamer - Amazon {here}  ::  Authentic Chinese Rolling Pin - Amazon {here}  ::  Fortune Cookies - Amazon {here}  ::  Chinese Take Out Containers - Amazon {here}  ::  Pink & White Paper Lanterns - Amazon {here}  ::  Cupcake Wrappers - Amazon {here}  ::  Hanging Dragon Decoration - Amazon {here}  ::  Dragon Puppet - Amazon {here}  ::  Dragon Dog Costume - Amazon {here}  ::  Red Ribbon - Amazon {here}

Flower Arranging.

I haven't done too much flower arranging. I like to leave my floral arrangements pretty simple, by sticking to one color palate or by keep clusters of the same flower in one arrangement. Since we live within walking distance of Hong Kong's largest Flower Market, I figured there was no better time than now to try my hand at flower arranging.

I made sure to keep my design simple. I stuck to a neutral color scheme with pops of purple. The eucalyptus added the extra layer of texture I was looking for.

Just Add Glitter.

Just add glitter. That seems to be my mantra lately, much to the chagrin of my family. A couple weeks before we celebrated American Thanksgiving I found myself in the toy shop with my two children. Although they knew they were not going to be purchasing anything that day, I decided that the bag of plastic animals needed to come home with me so I could cover them in gold glitter and add them to my Thanksgiving tablescape.

To cover the animals in glitter, we simply painted glue on to the animal and then sprinkled glitter all over them until they were completely drench in the shimmery stuff. We let them dry, and it was a quick, simple, and cost effective decoration.

My First Attempt With Succulents.

If you've been on our Instagram feed, you'll know I recently did a little gardening. I decided to wait until after our holiday to Thailand to try my hand at growing succulents. I've always admired them, but for some reason have approached these plants with trepidation and a bit of anxiety. I did not just want my plants to survive, but I wanted them to thrive!

A stop in to the Flower Market, here in Hong Kong, and I had my plants with the necessary potting soil and rocks to supply proper drainage in my white Ikea pot.

I love the end result. I've done the research regarding proper lighting, watering, and maintaining the plants. Here's to keeping these alive for the next year!!!!

DIY Flower Crown.

We had extra flowers floating around our home so we decided we would make flower crowns out of them. I would make these all the time in university, using wild flowers my best friend and I found in the mountain fields of Virginia. Back then I would just weave the flowers together using natural elements to secure them and prevent any flowers from slipping out of the crown. It has been awhile since I made my last one, and this time I used clear scotch tape to secure each flower strand together. I used clear scotch tape because I did not have green floral tape in the house. The green floral tape would work best and create a tighter hold to the crown.

Glitter Makes Everything Better.

I may be going a little overboard, but I have started adding gold glitter to everything that is stationary in our home. There's no reason, other than I just think it looks pretty and I love the extra sparkle it gives to my decorations! The funny thing is that my six year old daughter immediately notices the change, while it takes my two boys a little longer to catch on that slowly everything is turning to gold glitter!!!

There's A Wocket In My Pocket DIY Costume.

I was impressed when my son came up with this costume on his own for Literacy Week. He decided he would pick a classic storybook character, and chose Dr. Seuss as the author. Then he chose from his favorite Dr. Seuss book. 

I quickly scoured the internet for costume ideas, and found this image {source} that you can click on. I copied it since we don't have a printer, it is a fabulous template. I am not sure where the original source comes from. Please feel free to let me know, so I can give the proper person credit.

During my trip to the craft store, I was able to pick up a sheet of yellow and green construction paper. A big difference between Hong Kong and the United States of America, is that Hong Kong sells you individual sheets of paper, while the States will sell you a whole pack at one time. 

After I cut out the wocket, I attached it to some card stock to make it look that the wocket was resting in my son's pocket. I purposely chose a white shirt for my son to wear so that it makes the wocket more visible during the parade that they will have at their school.

Angelina Ballerina DIY Costume.

As a mother, I feel as though I'm doing great putting together handmade Halloween costumes. Then the school our kids go to, threw me for a loop when they said each child needed a costume from a book to help wrap up Literacy Week.

I wasn't looking to spend a lot of money towards a costume for either of my two children, so we pulled what we could from what we had in their closets. Initially I wanted my two to dress up as the book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie". My daughter would dress up as the mouse and my son would dress up as the cookie. Neither child was too thrilled with the idea since it wouldn't make sense when they weren't together. So we scratched that book idea and my daughter asked if she could dress up as Angelina Ballerina instead.

I took to the streets of Hong Kong in search of poster board, construction paper, and ribbon that I could use to make an Angelina Ballerina costume for my daughter. Fortunately we already had the white tutu from a nativity play at church. I drew out the mask onto white poster board and used pink construction paper for the ears and nose. A pink bow tied between the little mouse ears completed Angelina's classic look. A long pink bow around my daughter's waist tied the whole look together.

Halloween Costumes 2014.

Let me introduce you to our two stick figures. Yesterday on the blog we shared what you need to make this costume. I should also warn you that the black electrical tape did not like to stick well to my son's pants. It was a bit of a tricky costume with tape that didn't want to stick especially while walking around. Unfortunately I forgot to put my SD card into the camera this morning and I missed out on taking pictures of the kid's Halloween parade at their school. When they got home this afternoon, I put them back into the costume so we could get some pictures in our backyard {patio}.

Halloween Costumes DIY.

The older my children {I should really say daughter} are the trickier it becomes to agree on Halloween costumes. Gone are the days when I can just pick the costume out without having to consult anyone. This year my daughter wanted to be a princess or a ballerina like all the other girls in her class. But my husband and I gave her a firm negative on that idea.

In keeping with our homemade Halloween costumes from past years, I knew I wanted to make the kid's costumes again this year. I miss having my large studio stocked with craft supplies back in Myrtle Beach. There are no stores like Hobby Lobby, Michaels, or AC Moore here in Hong Kong, so finding what I needed to make the costumes proved to be a treasure hunt.

Halloween is a widely celebrated holiday here in Hong Kong. When we learned that we would be moving to another country I secretly hoped that I wouldn't need to plan Halloween costumes for my kids. No such luck here. Instead I learn that parents have their kid's Halloween costumes custom made by professional tailors each year. There's no throwing a white sheet over your body and cutting holes out for the eyes to call yourself a ghost in order to garner sweets.

But that's not the case in our household. We cut holes out of white paper plates to make eyes for our stick figure costumes. After a trip to Gap Kids to purchase white pants for my son {bonus, the pants were on sale because it was the end of the season}, a trip to the stationary store for black marker, and a trip to the electronic store for three dollar black electrical tape, we were in business. 

This is a very economical costume that fortunately both our kids agreed upon. I differentiated between the two faces to keep them separated by gender.

Halloween Costumes 2013.

We chose to do a family costume again this year. And we chose to be The Beatles. After talking my daughter out of being a princess, she was super excited to be Ringo Starr. My favorite aspect about design is designing costumes or events as economical as possible. My daughter's black suit was a suit that my son had outgrown. We borrowed my husband's suit jacket from a good friend of ours. Black spray paint for the little ties and black fabric dye for my tie, and we were good to go. I drew the musical instruments on poster board. Please ignore the fact that I accidentally drew my husband's guitar backwards. We know that Paul McCartney was left handed. 

Halloween Costumes 2010.

I knew what this year's costumes for Halloween were going to be. I knew what my son's birthday party was going to be that year, and so I planned his Halloween costume to coincide. That meant we could get more than one use out of the cowboy outfit. We purchased our son's cowboy boots and a bolo tie from the Wild West store here in Myrtle Beach. The rest of his outfit we had on hand. Incidentally, he ended up wearing a different shirt for his birthday party. Our daughter's Halloween costume was purchased from a thrift store. It was originally an adult sized costume that I altered down to fit her. Her little fringe boots came from Old Navy.    

Halloween Costumes 2009.

As you can tell, we enjoy picking our costumes based on a family theme. This year our daughter is visibly in the picture! We had gotten her costume the year before from the children's clothing store, Gymboree. It's difficult to tell from this photo, but her little costume was a purple fairy costume. I wanted to design around her's, so our son was a frog. My husband was a fly. I was a lily pad. Using the same technique as I used when making last years spider costume, I made my husband gigantic wings (that you can barely see behind him). I made my son's frog costume except for his hat. I purchased his frog hat off of Etsy. His frog costume was fairly easy to make. I took a green sweatsuit and sewed felt circles all over it. Then I cut out frog shaped hands and feet out of the same felt and sewed them to the end. I knit a long red "tongue" that we attached to my husband to mimic a frog catching a fly!  

Halloween Costumes 2008.

I know we're still in September, but before you know it, it will be time for Halloween. I thought it might be fun to share some of our family's costumes from previous years. So for this coming week, each day we will be blogging about the costumes we've worn in the past.

Since having children, I've really enjoyed making their costumes. This particular year, I was inspired by a costume I had seen online by Martha Stewart. (I was pregnant with our daughter at this time, but we weren't telling anyone yet.) We thought it would be fun to dress up as the nursery rhyme, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". I made my son's costume out of black construction paper. My costume was made using a white dress I had purchased on sale from Target and ironed on black lines for the web. My husband threw our water hose around himself to reminiscent of the water spout.

Halloween Costumes 2012.

 

I thought it might be fun to share my kid's Halloween costumes for this year. My son has his umbrella turned the wrong way, but his costume is "Raining Cats and Dogs". You can click right here for the stencils that we used to make the cat and dog "rain" from the Parenting website. My daughter is a "Pig In A Blanket". I love handmade costumes. Actually, I love handmade anything. I had seen these two costumes online, and knew they would be simple to recreate. I couldn't resist sharing the bottom picture of my daughter, at a Halloween party we went to, eating her costume (a pig in a blanket).