TWO TRICKS AND A TREAT

Happy Halloween!

We were sitting in the living room last night, pumpkins aglow, and invited our little friend Leroy (you might have heard of him) in to visit.  Normally he isn't allowed into the living or dining rooms but we felt bad with him laying in the doorway watching us.  He spent all of three minutes with us before he decided it wasn't so interesting in there after all.  He went back into the kitchen and stayed there all night without trying to sneak in once!  I guess it's sort of the forbidden fruit phenomenon.

I ain't afraid a no ghosts.

The caped crusader himself.

It's the bat signal!

Some last minute baking found here.

IL NEIGE

It seems a little early for snow but Mother Nature's a stubborn lady.  In the spirit of winter here are a few prints from Sarah Jane Studios (a really cute etsy shop I found via Style at Home magazine).  Her vintage inspired prints are just lovely and she just illustrated a children's Christmas book this year.

Snow on Snow.

Winter Cheer.

Wellesley and Winslow, Christmas Post.

GALAXY DEFENDERS

Here come the Men in Black... Galaxy defenders. (MIBs.)

Costumes extraordinaire 2011.  Hubby and I were Men in Black and Leroy was an alien!  I actually had never seen the movie which became very apparent as people kept making reference to a flash thing that erases your memory?  I had no idea what they were talking about and hubby had to sadly explain I had never seen the movie and just watched the music video for Will Smith's song "Men in Black" as we were getting ready for the party.  Oh well.

I must say Leroy made a very good alien.  It was a bit of an experiment taking him to a setting with 60 people but he did very well!  He didn't even mind his costume (a feather boa, wire necklace from the dollar store and two styrofoam balls as extra 'eyes'.  I think because it wrapped around his neck he just thought it was his collar.  Apparently the feathers got stuck in his mouth sometimes but I didn't actually witness this myself.  He was a hit, I think.  What a good boy. :)

Our little alien.

MIBs.

Trying to determine what to do with the extra-terrestrial threat to our city.

POTLUCKY

Potluck or potlucky??  Potlucky because you get to eat my delicious cake. :)

Last night I slaved away on this cake (not really) for our Halloween party tonight at school.  I cheated and used a cake mix but I don't feel guilty at all.  I just didn't have time to produce anything from scratch.  I did, however, make the frosting using this recipe:

1/2 cup butter (I used margarine)

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 cups icing sugar

4 tbsp milk (divided)

10 drops of neon green food colouring

1 drop blue food colouring

Mix together with an electric mixer and add the milk as needed for the correct consistency.

My first cake tip is: using parchment paper!!  Line the bottom of your pan with it and your cake won't stick.  Once it's out of the oven, flip the pan over and peel the paper off your baked goods.

I trace the bottom of the pan and then use scissors to cut the parchment paper.

My next tip is to crumb coat the cake before you start spreading the icing on thickly.  This keeps the crumbs at bay.  This is easiest if the icing is a relatively soft consistency.


A crumb coat is a very thin layer of frosting over the whole cake.

Then you spread the rest of the frosting over your layers (I personally like a lot of it)!  Stack your cakes if you are using more than one tier.  Roll out the fondant (I use store bought after one particularly horrible incident of trying to make my own) and use icing sugar so it doesn't stick to the counter or rolling pin.  I realized after I started making the cake I left my decorating kit at my parents' house on Thanksgiving, so I used a sandwich baggie with a tiny hole in order to pipe on the spider web.  A little more frosting around the bottom of the cake and then I stuck on the candies.  Halloween spider rings on top and you're done!


These candies are from Bulk Barn.

Ta Da!  (The boa is part of Leroy's costume.)

HALLOWEEN APPROACHES

I love dressing up for Halloween because there just aren't enough occasions in life to wear a costume.  This year I've been trying to think of theme costumes for the three of us and it's a little harder than I expected.  I can come up with all kinds of ideas but most of them were too difficult (like Dorothy, Toto, and the Tin Man/Scarecrow/Lion).  Finally I've decided on our Halloween trio for 2011 but you'll have to wait till after Friday's Halloween potluck to see it!

On another note, we let Leroy sleep out of his kennel last night which we have been attempting on occasion recently.  He's in his crate all day so it would be nice if he could have some freedom at night.  Things went okay until I felt him land on me after a running leap at 4 am.  Ha!  Then he snuggled in between us and hubby seemed to think it was me crowding him off the bed (until he reached over and felt Leroy's fur, that is).  Then it was back to the kennel for him!  What a cutie.

Back to Halloween, here are a couple of super easy costumes I found from What I Wore - links here and here.  The last picture is my costume from 2009.

Carmen Sandiego

Dorothy.

Rosie the Riveter.