by: Rachael Willerton
Instead of the usual sandwiches, at Halloween why not surprise the kids with these spooky snacks!
Pumpkin crackers
A round cracker with a slice of red cheese cut into circle on top. Decorate to look like a pumpkin with either soft cheese piped or a white cheese cut into shapes.
Skull sandwiches
Cut two slices of bread into skull shapes. Cut eye and mouth shapes into the top slice. Spread with butter. Spread the bottom slice thickly with jam and place the top slice on letting the jam ooze through the gaps.
Devil egg eyes
Slice a hard boiled egg in two. Scoop out the yolk and in a separate bowl mix in some mayonnaise. Spoon egg mixture back into boiled egg. To make the eye look bloodshot use tomato ketchup.
Ice scream eyes
Scope of raspberry ripple ice cream with a cherry on top. Add strawberry sauce for more blood.
Bat wings
Arrange chicken wings on a plate to look like bats.
Dried scabs
Simply a bowl of dried fruit. Red berries and raisins look good.
Blood and guts
Make up a red jelly and allow to set. Chop up jelly and add red fruits for a gory look.
Fangs
Slices of peeled apple with a strawberry (blood) sauce.
Witches fingers
Simply cocktail sausages with red or green peppers. Cut a small (1cm) slice out of the top of the sausage to form a shelf for the finger nail to rest. Cut the pepper into finger nail shapes and add a bit of soft cheese on the back to stick it onto the sausage.
Witch heads
Cover a fairy cake with green butter icing (or add green food colouring to cake mixture – a lot less messy and time consuming). Cover an ice cream cone in melted chocolate and allow to set. Add a little spare butter icing to the base of the cone to stick it to a chocolate digestive to form a hat. Cut up some liquorice laces and add to the top of the fairy cake to form hair. Place the hat on top. Use dolly mixtures for eyes and pipe black icing to form the rest of the face.
Blood
Any red fruit juice or squash.
Mud
Chocolate milkshake, mixed with ice cream and crushed chocolate flakes.
Lastly why not serve up crisps in a bowl with plastic skeleton or bats for decoration.
For other recipes and activities for the kids go to www.b4school.co.uk
Friday, June 5, 2009
Scary Halloween Masks- This Halloween Makeup Idea is A Recipe for Horror
by: Robert Closs
What Lies in Granny’s “Crypt”-ic Cupboard?
Searching for a scary Halloween mask? This Halloween makeup idea is not for the faint-hearted! This gruesome brew is for those who love the horror of HELL-oween. If you are nifty enough, Granny’s goodies could turn you into this!
The base of this Halloween makeup design is plain gelatin and strawberry jam. Remember, although this recipe sounds ghoulishly delicious, it’s not to be eaten!
Follow directions on the gelatin box, adding the proper ratio of boiling water to plain gelatin. To this, add about 1/3 ratio of glycerine to your mixture. (Glycerine is available in most pharmacies.) The glycerine will prevent the gelatin from cracking and give you ghoulish lasting power. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and simmer for five minutes. When it starts to cool, skim off the milky froth that floats to the top. Clear gelatin is all that should remain.
Pour part of the gelatin mixture into a cup that you will work from. You can reheat the remaining mixture on the stove or just microwave the cup you are working with, as the mixture will cool and become difficult to work with.
Take your artist’s spatula and put a small amount of gelatin on the back of your wrist to test the temperature. The mixture should be warm and fluid, but not uncomfortably hot to the skin. Now apply the gelatin to the face as if you were icing a cake.
Purposely do some sections of your subject’s face thicker than others to develop different textures and levels. The gelatin will want to drip sometimes, so catch these drips with the tip of your spatula and change their direction so they don’t set. Do one layer, let it dry and proceed with the next layer. As each layer gets tacky, use the tip of the spatula to create nooks and crevices. After 3 to 5 layers have been completed, you can create small holes to look like open, rotting wounds! (For those of you that are completely grossed by this Halloween mask, stick to lip gloss!)
Take the tip of your artist’s spatula and carefully dig a little hole through the layers until you arrive at the skin. You must be careful not to scratch the skin for obvious reasons – it hurts. A pair of cuticle scissors will help snip away small parts of gelatin to create large craters. Now fill the small holes and craters with strawberry jam (no tasting) and let the jam bleed slightly out of the wound…..Yum!
Ghouls in training may take this scary Halloween mask a step further by darkening the eyes with red, purple and black eye shadows. A grey and blue eye pencil will give a gorgeously ghastly color to the mouth. And remember, no nibbling on the jam, just on your victims!
What Lies in Granny’s “Crypt”-ic Cupboard?
Searching for a scary Halloween mask? This Halloween makeup idea is not for the faint-hearted! This gruesome brew is for those who love the horror of HELL-oween. If you are nifty enough, Granny’s goodies could turn you into this!
The base of this Halloween makeup design is plain gelatin and strawberry jam. Remember, although this recipe sounds ghoulishly delicious, it’s not to be eaten!
Follow directions on the gelatin box, adding the proper ratio of boiling water to plain gelatin. To this, add about 1/3 ratio of glycerine to your mixture. (Glycerine is available in most pharmacies.) The glycerine will prevent the gelatin from cracking and give you ghoulish lasting power. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and simmer for five minutes. When it starts to cool, skim off the milky froth that floats to the top. Clear gelatin is all that should remain.
Pour part of the gelatin mixture into a cup that you will work from. You can reheat the remaining mixture on the stove or just microwave the cup you are working with, as the mixture will cool and become difficult to work with.
Take your artist’s spatula and put a small amount of gelatin on the back of your wrist to test the temperature. The mixture should be warm and fluid, but not uncomfortably hot to the skin. Now apply the gelatin to the face as if you were icing a cake.
Purposely do some sections of your subject’s face thicker than others to develop different textures and levels. The gelatin will want to drip sometimes, so catch these drips with the tip of your spatula and change their direction so they don’t set. Do one layer, let it dry and proceed with the next layer. As each layer gets tacky, use the tip of the spatula to create nooks and crevices. After 3 to 5 layers have been completed, you can create small holes to look like open, rotting wounds! (For those of you that are completely grossed by this Halloween mask, stick to lip gloss!)
Take the tip of your artist’s spatula and carefully dig a little hole through the layers until you arrive at the skin. You must be careful not to scratch the skin for obvious reasons – it hurts. A pair of cuticle scissors will help snip away small parts of gelatin to create large craters. Now fill the small holes and craters with strawberry jam (no tasting) and let the jam bleed slightly out of the wound…..Yum!
Ghouls in training may take this scary Halloween mask a step further by darkening the eyes with red, purple and black eye shadows. A grey and blue eye pencil will give a gorgeously ghastly color to the mouth. And remember, no nibbling on the jam, just on your victims!
Friday, April 17, 2009
MYSTERI CAKE
1 pkg. coconut or any other kind of
cake mix
1 pkg. instant coconut pudding & pie
filling
3/4 c. water
3/4 c. cooking oil
4 whole eggs
--ICING:--
1/2 stick butter or margarine
1/2 c. orange juice
Juice of 1 lemon
Mix all cake ingredients and beat well, adding the 4 eggs one at a time. Pour into a greased and floured bundt cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. When done, remove from oven and pierce top for icing. Set cake aside and prepare icing. ICING: Melt butter or margarine and add the orange and lemon juices. Mix together well while heating on stove top. Dribble icing over cake while the syrup is still hot and the cake is in bundt pan. Let it stay a few minutes. Turn it over onto a cake plate and remove bundt pan.
cake mix
1 pkg. instant coconut pudding & pie
filling
3/4 c. water
3/4 c. cooking oil
4 whole eggs
--ICING:--
1/2 stick butter or margarine
1/2 c. orange juice
Juice of 1 lemon
Mix all cake ingredients and beat well, adding the 4 eggs one at a time. Pour into a greased and floured bundt cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. When done, remove from oven and pierce top for icing. Set cake aside and prepare icing. ICING: Melt butter or margarine and add the orange and lemon juices. Mix together well while heating on stove top. Dribble icing over cake while the syrup is still hot and the cake is in bundt pan. Let it stay a few minutes. Turn it over onto a cake plate and remove bundt pan.
MARY MYSTERIES
2 sticks butter
1 c. pecans, chopped fine
4 tbsp. sugar
3 1/2 c. sifted flour
Tart jelly
Pecan halves
Sifted powdered sugar
Soften butter. Mix all ingredients except 1/2 flour. Roll out about 1/8 inch thick. Cut with a small round cutter. Place a dab of tart jelly (black currant, muscadine or wild plum) on top of each cookie and top with a pecan half. Bake on cookie sheet at 350 degrees until light brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet while hot. When slightly cool, dust with powdered sugar. Makes 75 to 100.
1 c. pecans, chopped fine
4 tbsp. sugar
3 1/2 c. sifted flour
Tart jelly
Pecan halves
Sifted powdered sugar
Soften butter. Mix all ingredients except 1/2 flour. Roll out about 1/8 inch thick. Cut with a small round cutter. Place a dab of tart jelly (black currant, muscadine or wild plum) on top of each cookie and top with a pecan half. Bake on cookie sheet at 350 degrees until light brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet while hot. When slightly cool, dust with powdered sugar. Makes 75 to 100.
DEVILS FOOD CAKE
2 c. cake flour
1 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
2/3 c. shortening
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 sq. unsweetened chocolate melted
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. hot water
Sift dry ingredients together, put aside. Cream shortening and sugar together and add eggs. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk to creamed mixture. Add vanilla and melted chocolate and water. Bake in layers about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool and frost with butter frosting.
1 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
2/3 c. shortening
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 sq. unsweetened chocolate melted
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. hot water
Sift dry ingredients together, put aside. Cream shortening and sugar together and add eggs. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk to creamed mixture. Add vanilla and melted chocolate and water. Bake in layers about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool and frost with butter frosting.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Enjoy your Halloween party !!
by siwapol
Halloween, or Hallowe'en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses", carving Jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, and occasionally in parts of Australia. In Sweden the All Saints' official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November.
Trick-or-treating and guising
Costumes:
Halloween costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Costumes are also based on themes other than traditional horror, such as those of characters from television shows, movies and other pop culture icons.
Costume sales:
BIGresearch conducted a survey for the National Retail Federation in the United States and found that 53.3% of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up 10 dollars from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.3 billion the previous year.
UNICEF:
"Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" has become a common sight during Halloween in North America. Started as a local event in a Philadelphia suburb in 1950, and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $119 million (US) for UNICEF since its inception. In 2006 UNICEF discontinued their Halloween collection boxes in parts of the world, citing safety and administrative concerns.
Games and other activities
There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is dunking or bobbing for apples, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face. The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of TV series and specials with Halloween themes (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before the holiday while new horror films, like the popular Saw films, are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.
Halloween, or Hallowe'en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses", carving Jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, and occasionally in parts of Australia. In Sweden the All Saints' official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November.
Trick-or-treating and guising
Costumes:
Halloween costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Costumes are also based on themes other than traditional horror, such as those of characters from television shows, movies and other pop culture icons.
Costume sales:
BIGresearch conducted a survey for the National Retail Federation in the United States and found that 53.3% of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up 10 dollars from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.3 billion the previous year.
UNICEF:
"Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" has become a common sight during Halloween in North America. Started as a local event in a Philadelphia suburb in 1950, and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $119 million (US) for UNICEF since its inception. In 2006 UNICEF discontinued their Halloween collection boxes in parts of the world, citing safety and administrative concerns.
Games and other activities
There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is dunking or bobbing for apples, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face. The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of TV series and specials with Halloween themes (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before the holiday while new horror films, like the popular Saw films, are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.
Fun Halloween Ideas from Popular Magazines
by Jessica Vandelay
Halloween is the holiday that is celebrated every year on the night of October 31. The night is devoted to all things fun and spooky including jack-o-lanterns, ghosts and witches. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires, costume parties and haunted houses. Each year many family magazines, craft magazines and decorating magazines offer new ways to celebrate the spooky holiday.
Today, in the U.S. Halloween is the second largest commercial holiday. Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween decorations, food, candy and costumes. These magazines include Family Circle, Woman's Day, Family Fun, Country Living and Martha Stewart Living. Below are some of the Halloween articles featured in the October issues of these popular magazines.
Family Circle magazine, a magazine devoted to family activities, features the article "Spirits of the Night," on how to decorate with Halloween decorations. The article includes easy-to-follow directions and patterns for painting on pumpkins and other ways of creating crafty one-of-a-kind Halloween decorations.
In "Make Halloween Count" in the Oct. 7 issue of Woman's Day magazine, writer Crystal Tate outlines a unique Halloween program called "Trick-or-Treat" for UNICEF. The volunteer program is a great activity for kids interested in charity work. Here's how it works: trick-or-treating kids raise money door-to-door on Halloween then create a customized an online fundraising page, host a fundraising party and join the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF on Facebook.
Woman's Day also features many fun Halloween-themed recipes for kids of all ages to enjoy. In the Nov. 1 issue, the magazine features recipes like "Witch's Wicked Punch," "Bag of Bones," Pumpkin Patch Bites" and "Spooky Spiders."
FamilyFun magazine's October issue is their annual "Halloween Fun Guide." Everything in the magazine has a Halloween focus appropriate for young children and parents including costumes, decorations and treats. Articles include how to recycle Halloween costumes, how to make scary and spooky Halloween treats and decorating pumpkins without carving.
Country Living magazine's October issue is also packed with great Halloween-themed decorating, cooking and costume ideas. The easy to create ideas include "Halloween Hounds," a guide to making costume for dogs, easy Halloween treats, including how to use a stencil to decorate a cake and simple Halloween crafts.
For the more seasoned cook and crafter, Martha Stewart Living magazine is the magazine to turn to for Halloween decorating and cooking ideas. The magazine's Halloween-themed October issue feature directions for spooky party invitations, an October feast and clever treats and crafts.
Halloween is the holiday that is celebrated every year on the night of October 31. The night is devoted to all things fun and spooky including jack-o-lanterns, ghosts and witches. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires, costume parties and haunted houses. Each year many family magazines, craft magazines and decorating magazines offer new ways to celebrate the spooky holiday.
Today, in the U.S. Halloween is the second largest commercial holiday. Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween decorations, food, candy and costumes. These magazines include Family Circle, Woman's Day, Family Fun, Country Living and Martha Stewart Living. Below are some of the Halloween articles featured in the October issues of these popular magazines.
Family Circle magazine, a magazine devoted to family activities, features the article "Spirits of the Night," on how to decorate with Halloween decorations. The article includes easy-to-follow directions and patterns for painting on pumpkins and other ways of creating crafty one-of-a-kind Halloween decorations.
In "Make Halloween Count" in the Oct. 7 issue of Woman's Day magazine, writer Crystal Tate outlines a unique Halloween program called "Trick-or-Treat" for UNICEF. The volunteer program is a great activity for kids interested in charity work. Here's how it works: trick-or-treating kids raise money door-to-door on Halloween then create a customized an online fundraising page, host a fundraising party and join the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF on Facebook.
Woman's Day also features many fun Halloween-themed recipes for kids of all ages to enjoy. In the Nov. 1 issue, the magazine features recipes like "Witch's Wicked Punch," "Bag of Bones," Pumpkin Patch Bites" and "Spooky Spiders."
FamilyFun magazine's October issue is their annual "Halloween Fun Guide." Everything in the magazine has a Halloween focus appropriate for young children and parents including costumes, decorations and treats. Articles include how to recycle Halloween costumes, how to make scary and spooky Halloween treats and decorating pumpkins without carving.
Country Living magazine's October issue is also packed with great Halloween-themed decorating, cooking and costume ideas. The easy to create ideas include "Halloween Hounds," a guide to making costume for dogs, easy Halloween treats, including how to use a stencil to decorate a cake and simple Halloween crafts.
For the more seasoned cook and crafter, Martha Stewart Living magazine is the magazine to turn to for Halloween decorating and cooking ideas. The magazine's Halloween-themed October issue feature directions for spooky party invitations, an October feast and clever treats and crafts.
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