Halloween Cauldrons {Easy DIY}

Posted in Holidays, Homemade by mszerwo

Looking for a last minute Halloween craft? Planning on leaving candy outside for trick-or-treaters? Want a fancy way to display all the candy you’re going to eat yourself?

I have the DIY project for you: Oozing Witch Cauldrons!

Oozing witch cauldrons

This idea came from this year’s Better Homes & Garden’s Halloween magazine. We likely won’t put it outside for trick-or-treaters, but you’d better believe it’s filled with all our favorite candies already, awaiting Halloween this weekend.

This is a super easy craft. Please make your own and tag me or post your projects here!

Gather your supplies:

Cauldron ($6, Walmart)
Spray insulation ($3, Home Depot)
Acrylic paint for the ooze (had on-hand)
Stick for sign (We used a painted paint stir stick, optional)
Candy (once completed, for filling)

… And get started. This project is so easy a five year old can do it!

Prep spray insulation per package instructions (open, put on nozzle)
Set up work space (cauldron on top of working space– we used cardboard box in the garage)
Spray! (If you’re adding a sign, make sure you insert your stick/sign post when the ooze is still wet.)
And then wait per package instructions. Warning: the insulation will GROW as it hardens.
Once fully dry, paint the ooze, if you’d like. We used a “lime” matte acrylic that we had on-hand. The original instructions suggest spray painting, but that didn’t make sense to me, plus I had time to hand paint it while Michael did his virtual schooling.
Add glow-in-the-dark paint. (We did because glow-in-the-dark puffy paint is amazing. We put it on everything!)
Print and adhere sign. (We printed onto a heavy cardstock and adhered it with 1″ blue painters tape)
Fill with candy and enjoy!

Here are the PDFs for the signs: Witch way to the candy & Boo’s (which I envision filled with little alcohol bottles at a party during non-COVID times)

Gather your supplies

Apply insulation per the instructions. Make sure you drizzle some tendrils down the cauldron

Let dry. Make sure to stick your sign stick in while the insulation is still wet!

Paint, paint, paint. Green paint first. Glow in the dark paint after its dry.

We opted for spooky green ooze, painted while I supervised “at home” school

Added some glow in the dark puffy paint once the green paint was dry.

Fill it and place it and you’re done!

Ready to print signs (8.5″ x 11″) CLICK FOR THE PDF

23Sep2020

{DIY} Skeleton Flamingos

Posted in Crafts, DIY, Holidays by mszerwo

I think I’ve found the silver lining to our current COVID situation: quality time with Michael.

We are spending a lot of time together: between “Mom School,” “Zoom school,” and the shortened days of “in-person school,” it’s all Megan & Michael time. All. The. Time.

While Michael works on his school work and crafts, I’m trying to not be on my phone all of the time, so I’ve been finishing up some in-process crafting projects. (Our school room is the craft room, after all.)

I found an image of skeleton flamingos on Pinterest and I thought they were fun, decorative, and not too scary.

So, I bought some flamingos from Amazon. Do note: these are “mini” flamingos and much smaller than I had expected.

We had some leftover matte black spray paint, so I set up a spray paint area and went to town.

Fast forward a few months, and I finally had the time and tools to finish the project!

What do you need?

Matte black spray paint (We used Rustoleum’s High Heat spray paint, leftover from painting our fireplace, likely purchased from Home Depot)
Plastic flamingos
White oil-based paint pen (I think I got mine from Michaels, medium tipped)

That’s it!

I searched a few images on Pinterest and just started drawing. The paint I used dulled my white pen a bit throughout, so I wiped off the tip and kept going.

It took just a few worksheets, crafts, and PlayDoh sessions and I was done! These actually took less time than I expected.

DIY Skeleton flamingos, Halloween decor, lawn art

Our flock!

If you decide to follow our lead on these non-spooky skeleton flamingos, please tag me in your photos or post pictures here!

Happy haunting!

18Aug2020

Fall bucket list {2020}

Posted in Holidays by mszerwo

It’s almost finally fall: sweatshirts, sun, and a chill in the air!

It’s half-way through August, but the sun is going down earlier and earlier each night and the other day there was a chill in the air. And I already saw Christmas cards at the store, so it’s time to switch seasons.

Because of COVID, no one has any idea what Kindergarten will look like this year, I’m running out of TV shows to watch with no hope of new shows on the horizon, Michael’s birthday plans have been re-tooled over and over again, and our weekends will now be football-free, much to Brandon’s chagrin.

So I’m going to focus on something near and dear to me: the changing of the season and our fall bucket list.

Make our scarecrow. I’ve had the stuff since 2018 and this year we’re finally going to make it!

Decorate for Halloween. Michael is taking after me and loves Halloween too! With COVID what it is now, I don’t think trick-or-treating will happen, but we’ll still buy some candy and indulge. I think Michael is going to be Martin Kratt of the Wild Kratts for Halloween, since he will already have a costume. (He’s having a Wild Kratts-themed birthday in mid-Sept. and will receive a Creature Power Suit)

SPOOKY!

Boo! These cheesecloth ghosts were a new addition last year.

Apple picking! Maybe we’ll have weekdays free. Maybe we’ll visit on a weekend. Who knows. It will be a fun time, regardless. So far this year we’ve picked strawberries and blueberries.

Visit a pumpkin patch. There are so many farms here. We’ve visited Greg’s U-Pick Farm for the past three Falls, so we will be there again to take a photo of Michael in this pumpkin house. Maybe we’ll even go on a socially-distant hayride! I usually go for the imperfect, warty pumpkins. I don’t see that changing this year. After a visit to a really cool corn maze in Ohio last October, Michael is really excited to find more mazes here too.

Three years at the pumpkin house!

I prefer the unique, warty pumpkins.

Carve our pumpkins. Maybe Michael will even help de-gut them this year? We can roast the pumpkin seeds, eat pot pie, all of the things.

PUMPKINS!!

Bonfires! We just bought a Solo Stove and I can’t wait to use it for a toasty fire and s’mores!

My birthday! I don’t have plans yet, but it’ll likely involve some corned beef (my favorite!), one of these big cookie cakes, a great bottle of wine, and some quality time at home.

I’m planning on one of these for my birthday… plus a few years!

It’s only right that I memorialize (mourn?) some of our favorite Fall traditions that aren’t COVID-friendly:

School? Who knows. Our school district is such a hot mess.
A really big birthday party for Michael and a visit from Grandma & Boppa.
College (& NFL?) football.
Trick or treating
Hockey lessons
A night on the town to celebrate our anniversary (#9 this year!!)

Pumpkin picking at the pumpkin patch

Read our 2018 list here… WARNING: it’s pretty similar.

11Apr2020

Halloween recap {2018}

Posted in Crafts, DIY, Holidays, Homemade, Parties! by mszerwo

What a Halloween!

We dressed up, paraded, trick-or-treated, and ate and ate and ate.

Most of my creative juices went to Michael’s Mater costume, which was a work of art.

From the front:

And from the back… a working tow hook!

And let’s not forget the working headlamps once dusk hit! (Don’t you just love the pie tin radiator/candy dish!?)

Mater was WAY too big to wear to school for Michael’s class parade, so we pulled this Captain America costume out of the closet. Look at these little super heroes!

Apparently Michael grew a bit… Look at his shoes and fake shoes.

Brandon and I phoned in our outfits, thanks to Target. They were fun and easy– fine by me!

Of course we had some festive eats too… Our many-layer dip was so easy and paired perfectly with orange and black chips from Wegmans:

And some sweet treats, “blood” courtesy of food coloring and corn syrup, applied with an infant medicine dropper, edible axes made by Wilton, bought by me:

We carved pumpkins too. All around, the perfect holiday!

1Dec2017

Halloween recap {2017}

Posted in Food, Holidays, Homemade by mszerwo

While I’m very behind in posting about our adventures in Buffalo, I did want to share this year’s Halloween recap with you. Only a month late. Oy.

Michael loves the zoo these days so he celebrated Halloween as Zookeeper Michael! He dressed in his safari khakis complete with a hat, vest, and animal cookies for his friends at school.

Michael’s Halloween costume

Zookeeper Michael

One of Michael’s (and our) friends came over and we trick-or-treated around our neighborhood and met some of our new neighbors, which was nice. It only took us 45 minutes to visit 10 homes. Michael brought his zoo along with him. This was the perfect costume for the chilly Halloween night in Buffalo: Michael stayed warm!

“Trick or treat!”

I did a quick Halloween craft too. It was a Pinterest find and very easy and inexpensive. There are an obscene number of dollar stores here, which I’m getting more accustomed to frequenting for party needs. For this project you need only a couple of supplies: vase (I chose three in varying sizes), googly eyes, a roll of gauze, super glue, and a flameless votive.

Ghost votives!

How do you make these spooky ghosts?

Clean glass in lower quadrant and eye area with rubbing alcohol.
Glue on eyes.
Place glue in area you’ve just cleaned.
Place gauze on top of glue (don’t glue your finger!)
Wrap gauze around the vase, avoiding the googly eyes.
As you’re reaching the end of your vase or gauze, place a dab of glue.

It’s not a holiday without some candy eyes. I colored my favorite browned butter Rice Krispies treats, added some green candy melts to the stem, and made these magical pumpkins:

Rice Krispies pumpkins!

Finally, what do you think of my cheese plate?! I love it. I also love our new local grocery store Wegman’s– and their orange cheese! It’s kid and adult friendly and was delicious!

Halloween cheese tray

Finally, Brandon and I ditched Michael to attend an adults-only Halloween party! We had a blast as Homer and Marge Simpson.

The Simpsons: Brandon and Megan

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween! I’m already thinking about family costume ideas for next year, so please share your ideas if you have any!!

Still thinking about Halloween? Check out my recaps: 2013 | 2014 | 2015.

(I didn’t do a Halloween recap for 2016!? I’ll get right on it! It was too cute not to share!)

6Nov2015

{Halloween 2015} BOOze bags and ghost onesies

Posted in Baby Michael, Crafts, DIY, Drinky drinky, Holidays by mszerwo

Last year I wrote about BOOzing people. It was a great idea that I promptly forgot following the drafting of that blog post. Whoops.

However, I re-discovered the idea as I was perusing Pinterest recently. (Thanks, middle-of-the-night feeding for Baby M!) BOOze bags would be the perfect treat for the University of Washington tailgate that we hosted with our friends Parker and Stephanie on Halloween: booze as they walk to the game and snacks for the route or inside the stadium.

I also pinned this pin and thought nothing of it (I pin a lot of images!) until Stephanie asked if I was planning on making a costume for my little guy. With that comment, an idea blossomed!

My onesie inspiration

I decided that I would use the above image as a guide to make some super cute ghost onesies for our little guys. (Stephanie and Parker’s son was born in June and while they’re not friends yet, he and Michael will be BFFs before too long!)

I had the onesies on-hand and spent a whopping $2 on fabric puff paint. Using the above images, I freehand outlined the ghost faces with an ultra-thin point Sharpie and filled it in with high-gloss puff paint. I pre-washed the onesies, but have not (and may not) wash them again, as I’m not sure how the puff paint will launder. I’m sure there is some guidance somewhere on the internet!

Ghost onesies for the boys

Since we were co-hosting the Halloween tailgate, ghost onesies would be perfect for an appearance at the tailgate and some of our own “BOOze bags.” (Unfortunately with an 8 p.m. kickoff — 8 P.M.!!!! — the boys were not able to show up in their costumes.) However, they still wore their new onesies and we still made the BOOze bags!

BFFs in their spooky outfits

I found mini bottles of Jim Bean “Ghost” Whiskey (on sale!) and Fireball (also on sale!) and put them in cellophane bags with orange Kit Kats (my favorites!), fun size Snickers, mini Reese’s cups, Starbursts, and suckers!

Voila!

The finished product: BOOze bags!

Pin this for next Halloween and don’t forget about BOOze bags like I did!

4Nov2015

Michael’s 1st Halloween {2015}

Posted in Baby Michael, Crafts, DIY, Holidays, Homemade by mszerwo

Baby Michael was born just in time to celebrate his first Halloween in style!

I originally wanted him to be a Cookie Monster, but there weren’t costumes in the itty bitty size that I needed. (We did end up receiving a toddler-sized one as a gift, so be on the look out for our Cookie Monster next year!)

Late night breastfeeding is conducive to lots of Pinterest browsing and I found this adorable glow-in-the-dark skeleton outfit on sale. $8 for a costume? Done.

Skeleton baby & skeleton head wine!

I also made this ghost onesie for Michael. (More on that in a future post; hopefully this week)

BOO! It’s Michael!

You’ve also already seen Michael’s pumpkin bib. It was a gift and was perfect for Halloween and his six-week Facebook photos.

Michael’s six-week photo shoot

Finally, his Waldo outfit came together by happenstance. I was going through Michael’s outfits, saw the red and white striped onesie and his blue pants and voila! I added a red electrical tape stripe to his hat from the hospital, along with a yarn puff. The only item I needed to purchase were pipe cleaners for his glasses. $1 total. Cheapest– and cutest– costume yet!

Where’s Waldo… er… Michael!? I found him!

Look at those specs!

Which costume is your favorite? I like them all!

We tried putting Michael in an actual pumpkin too, something I’ve always wanted to do with a baby, and it was an extreme failure. We were all laughing as much as my sister was. Everyone except Michael. Maybe next year?

This looks so easy on Pinterest…

30Oct2015

Halloween preparations on Megan’s Island {2015}

Posted in Baby Michael, Drinky drinky, Food, Holidays, Homemade by mszerwo

Man, this baby vacation is flying by and I’m not doing nearly the amount of fun festive crafting and blogging that I had hoped I would be! I had grand plans of decking the house (and the kid) out for Halloween, but I’m nowhere close. Alas, he’s worth it — and I followed through on decking him out!

Michael & Beary Goldberg: best friends!

BOO! It’s Michael!

First things first, I found a bottle of wine for Halloween: the 2013 Dearly Beloved Forever Red. There are many bottles out there and this one matches Michael’s skeleton costume the best, so I had to have it. Plus the price was right at under $10.

Skeleton baby & skeleton head wine!

I’ve seen lots of Halloween-y wines at QFC and Trader Joe’s, and here are some wine-specific candy pairing ideas I found this year. If wine isn’t your thing, VinePair had some great Halloween Candy/alcohol pairings last year. Read my post here.

For a festive dinner, I’ve been scouring Pinterest during middle-of-the-night feedings and have settled on a “scary” lasagna. I opted for this “Cheesy Brussels sprout lasagna” with a scary face topping. I’m hoping it looks like this, but without the red sauce:

Scary lasagna!

Last year we made a zombie meatloaf (this is awesome, delicious, gluten-free, and quick and easy, if you need an idea!).

In 2013, we made squid ink pasta with “brain” sauce.

For more Halloween ideas, check out my Pinterest “Halloween Inspirations” board. So many great ideas that you could even do on short notice for this year!

31Oct2014

Treats > tricks

Posted in Food, Holidays, Parties! by mszerwo

I hope your Halloween is off to a great start! I think treats are better than tricks, so I brought these scary zombie/hulk hand cupcakes into work today!

Happy Halloween!

31Oct2014

Happy Halloween!

Posted in Food, Holidays by mszerwo

Today’s the day: Happy Halloween! We’re doing not too much today. Likely dressing up as ourselves and manning the candy bowl. Another crazy night on the Island!

Again this year we made Halloween dinner early, so I could share our fine meal with you!

I was inspired by this meatloaf idea from Pinterest. I used my favorite meatloaf recipe (with fontina, leeks and ground turkey), then shaping it accordingly and adding bacon. We have our turkey loaf every couple of weeks, since it’s so good and not that bad for you. We substitute chia seeds for the breadcrumbs and follow the other instructions. And it’s delicious! If you’re looking for a scary, spooky, healthy Halloween dinner, this is it!

Here it is raw…

And cooked…

Originally I used garlic cloves for the eyes and shallots for the teeth. Unfortunately they blended in quite a bit with the lighter shade of the ground turkey, so I swapped the garlics for olives. It was just for show, but photographs quite well!

If you’re not into turkey meatloaf, perhaps you’d be interested in our pasta dinner from last Halloween.

Enjoy! Have a wonderful Halloween and don’t forget to “fall back” this weekend!

Megan's Island

Welcome to my island!

Tag Archives: Halloween

Halloween Cauldrons {Easy DIY}

{DIY} Skeleton Flamingos

Halloween recap {2018}

Halloween recap {2017}

{Halloween 2015} BOOze bags and ghost onesies

Michael’s 1st Halloween {2015}

Halloween preparations on Megan’s Island {2015}

Treats > tricks

Happy Halloween!