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Halloween

Blogtober, Halloween

Halloween Cookies Recipe

This is a basic sugar cookie recipe for Halloween cookies. We also make them using a gingerbread recipe which works equally as well.

Halloween Cookies

Halloween cookies - pumpkins

Ingredients

  • 225g unsalted butter
  • 225g caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 330g plain flour

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180° C. Grease and line two cookie sheets.
  2. In a bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla extract and egg.
  3. In a separate bowl combine baking powder with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients. The dough will be very stiff.
  4. DO NOT CHILL THE DOUGH. Divide into workable batches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut into whatever shapes you desire.
  5. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

To Decorate

I’ve found a great video on YouTube that shows you how to flood fill cookies.

 

I’m taking part in Blogtober18 with Mandi at Big Family Organised Chaos

Blogtober, Halloween

Pumpkin Carving Design Ideas

They always look so easy to do, but when you actually start to carve a pumpkin you realise you were kidding yourself and they’re not easy at all! We’ve tried a few different pumpkin carving designs over the years but inevitably we go back to good old triangles for the eyes and nose and a jagged mouth.

Mind you, we did manage a couple of different designs in 2016, but it wasn’t all plain sailing!

Halloween pumpkin carving

Kaycee Halloween pumpkin carving

Pumpkin Carving Ideas

I really want to try carving a better design in one of our pumpkins this year so I’ve been checking out designs on Pinterest.

I love this cannibalistic pumpkin and what’s more, there’s an excellent tutorial to show us how to do it.

cannibalistic pumpkin carving from Chopcow.com
Image Source & Tutorial

This tutorial from The Telegraph has links to pumpkin carving design templates.

pumpkin carving from The Telegraph
Image Source & Tutorial
3D pumpkin carving You Tube tutorial
Image Source & Tutorial

If you have a pumpkin design you’re proud of, please feel free to share a link in the comments 🙂

I’m taking part in Blogtober18 with Mandi at Big Family Organised Chaos

Halloween

Kaycee’s And Ella’s Party – Halloween 2017

We’ve never thrown a Halloween party before. I’d promised the girls that we would have one, one year and this was our Halloween 2017 party. I’m happy to say, they had a great time 🙂 They decorated the new covered outdoor kitchen and set out a buffet.

They invited friends from school and they all arrived in brilliant costumes. After filling up on burgers and Mummy hotdogs followed by apple slices dipped in chocolate from the chocolate fountain, they all went Trick or Treating.

I have to confess, though, that I’m a little annoyed with myself. I took photos of all the food and decorations but totally forgot to take photos of Kaycee and Ella in their costumes!
It’s the first year I didn’t get costume photos and I’m a little sad 🙁

Halloween 2017 party food Halloween 2017 chocolate fountain Halloween 2017 party food Halloween 2017 party food Halloween 2017 decorations Halloween 2017 party assorted Halloween truffles ghost and eyeball truffles Halloween 2017 Brain jelly Halloween 2017 Halloween 2017 marshmallow eyeballs Halloween 2017 Q-tips made from marshmallows and peanut butter

 

Halloween, Recipes

Bloody Hot Chocolate – Halloween Drink Recipe

Kaycee and Ella have a Halloween party planned and they’ve been searching for food and drink ideas. We tried this bloody hot chocolate recipe, (just to make sure it tasted ok before we serve it to the guests, obviously) and we all loved it!

Read more

Halloween, Reviews & Adverts

HomeSense Halloween 2017

Last year Ella was very excited when we had to go to HomeSense to check out their Halloween products.
We pulled up at HomeSense yesterday and I told her we were there again for the same reason. She immediately asked her dad if she could borrow his phone so she could take photos for my blog! We always enjoy looking at the HomeSense Halloween stock; they always have such lovely stuff. My favourite is definitely this cute little ghost 🙂

Ghosts and Witches and Dracula and Skeletons!

Ghost ornament at HomeSense Halloween
Photo taken by Ella

 

 

HomeSense Halloween - skeleton in a cape with a gravestone saying you're next

You can serve punch in his head!

HomeSense Halloween - monster with a hole in the head for serving punch

I’d keep this out all year, it’s so pretty!

HomeSense Halloween - skull decorated with flowers and wearing a top hat

Ella’s in her element!

HomeSense Halloween - headstone saying BARRIED D. ALIVE
Taken by Ella. She thought this was quite funny!

HomeSense Halloween - Ella HomeSense Halloween - decorated skull HomeSense Halloween - Dracula with hole in his head for serving punch HomeSense Halloween - witch HomeSense Halloween - skeleton

HomeSense Halloween

HomeSense Halloween

 

Family, Halloween

Halloween Plans – Party In The Grotto!

Halloween Plans

We went shopping to B&M at the weekend. I was looking for storage boxes for Kaycee’s and Ella’s new wardrobes. There were none to be found but the Kaycee and Ella soon found the Halloween aisle! Ant had mentioned that we might be able to have a Halloween party this year. He suggested we could decorate the new patio area, (henceforth known as the grotto!) now the roof is done.
This sent the girls into a tizzy of excitement and they started on the Halloween plans while we were walking round the shops!
Ella asked if she could use my phone so she could take photos of the things they want. She took A LOT of photos.

These are just a few of them 🙂

Ella posing - Halloween plans Frankenstein decoration - Halloween plans Spider decoration - Halloween plans Ghost decoration - Halloween plans Trick or treat bucket - Halloween plans Skeleton in a cage decoration - Halloween plans Skull glass - Halloween plans LED candle - Halloween plans

We didn’t buy anything for Halloween at B&M but we stopped off at Poundworld on the way back and bought loads of stuff.
Instead of a small party/buffet type thing that was in my head, the girls have planned for something much bigger! I’m actually looking forward to seeing what they come up with; we’ll be leaving all the preparations to them 🙂

Halloween, Reviews & Adverts

Tuna Monster Rolls with Princes

Halloween dinner

Ella doesn’t go back to school until tomorrow so we’ve decided to make a Halloween themed dinner for everyone tonight.
We’re making tuna monster rolls with tins of tuna we were sent from Princes.

Ella’s a huge fan of tuna and Halloween so these are perfect for her! For those who don’t like tuna (Kaycee!) we’re making hot dog mummies, serving Monster Munch crisps as well as pizza, zombie juice, and Halloween cakes.

Here’s how to make the tuna monster rolls

tuna monster rolls

  • Serves: 4
  • Preparation: Approx 25 minutes

Ingredients

  • 4 soft bread rolls
  • Butter, for spreading
  • A few curly lettuce leaves
  • 1 x 160g can Princes Sandwich Tuna, drained
  • 3 tbsp Greek-style natural yogurt
  • 4 cheese slices
  • 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Salad cress or grated carrot

How to make it

  1. Split the bread rolls in two, without cutting all the way through. Spread with butter and top with lettuce leaves.
  2. Mix the Princes Sandwich Tuna with the yogurt and share between the rolls.
  3. Cut each cheese slice in half with a zig-zag edge — just use a sharp knife or scissors to do this. Arrange in the rolls.
  4. Position the cherry tomatoes on the rolls to resemble ‘eyes’. We cut the tomatoes in half and stuck half a cocktail stick through them to secure them. You can top the rolls with salad cress or grated carrot to look like ‘hair’. Serve at once.

tuna monster rolls

tuna monster rolls

tuna monster rolls

tuna monster rolls

tuna monster rolls

Here are our pumpkins 🙂

Halloween pumpkin carving

Kaycee Halloween pumpkin carving

Tuna monster rolls with Princes tuna

Thanks to Princes for the delicious tuna 🙂

Halloween

Finally, the last day of October…Happy Halloween!

October 31st – Happy Halloween!!

It’s Ella’s favourite holiday. She’s been looking forward to it since September started. She’s really happy that it’s finally the last day of October!
Her costume is all ready for going Trick or Treating with some friends later. She’s very excited.

October 31st Happy Halloween

 

Woohooo I did it! A whole month of blog posts. I’ve really enjoyed taking part this month. I’ve found some great new blogs thanks to Hex Mum. This has been a great linky and I’ll be sure to join in if you run it again next year 🙂

Happy Halloween everyone. Have a fun and safe evening.

#Blogtober16
Halloween, Reviews & Adverts

Halloween Goodies at Homesense

Halloween Goodies at Homesense

It’s fair to say Halloween is Ella’s favourite holiday. She’s obsessed with Halloween the way I am with Christmas. When HomeSense got in touch and asked if we’d like a gift card so we could go and buy some Halloween goodies, she got super excited!
We all love shopping at HomeSense and while Ella was Halloween shopping, Ant was upstairs looking for a new knife. He found one but he can’t have it until his birthday next month!

Halloween goodies at Homesense

Halloween goodies at Homesense

Halloween goodies at Homesense

Halloween goodies at Homesense

Halloween goodies at Homesense

Halloween goodies at Homesense

She was spoilt for choice which meant it took a while for her to choose! In the end, she opted for some decorations that she can use every year. She also bought a plastic tumbler with some sweets inside. It was only £1.99 which we thought was an excellent price 🙂

Halloween goodies at Homesense

She bought some black sparkly pumpkins for £3.99 each

Halloween goodies at Homesense

And a skull candle holder for £9.99

Halloween goodies at Homesense

Thanks, HomeSense, for making Ella’s day 🙂

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