Ghoulish Delights for All Hallows Eve

Tricks, treats and fun, freakish eats! Halloween is the perfect holiday to try new dishes, dress up ultra fancy and decor your house to a home of horror. I have to admit, Halloween is one of my favourite times of year. My kids get the most excitement out of decorating the outside of our house to scare their friends when it’s time for trick or treating, plus they love to make fun halloween recipes the whole week up until the day.

Did you know that Halloween is also National Toffee Apple Day? Well it is. But of course I couldn’t do an entire post on toffee apples, well I could have but then I’d be missing writing about Halloween! So it’s all going into one. Toffee Apples are delicious and not just for fun fairs, make them at home, add your own toppings or use chocolate instead of toffee  and give those out instead of candy for trick or treating.

My favourite toffee / chocolate apples are incredibly easy to make and more importantly my kids love to get in on the fun! Adding smarties, hundreds and thousands, nuts, crushed Maltesers, popcorn or crushed biscuits to the outsides of their apples makes it all the more fun.

Toffee Apples with Toppings

Toffee apples have to be the easiest most fun way to celebrate Halloween. I’m not a big fan of giving out loads and loads of chocolate miniatures or bags of sweeties when I know that the kids would much rather have something like this. Side note: I only do this for the children in my neighbourhood where we all know each other. I wouldn’t suggest taking an unwrapped treat of any kind from strangers. If you aren’t close with your neighbourhood then this might just be the perfect addition to your families Halloween party. For go the piñata and go for this fun way to entertain the kids and give them something sweet that is tailored to every child.

For the easiest way to make toffee apples I found this recipe on WikiHow.

Easy Halloween Decor – DIY Style

Halloween decorations can cost a bomb, and if you work or have school aged children when do you have the time to go all out and decorate your garden / home? I don’t have an extra minute in my day let alone a few hours. So with this being one of the biggest kiddy holidays I get them involved. I found this awesome Window Monsters DIY Halloween Decoration from Wired.com and just had to give it a go. I made a few short amendments that made mine a bit spookier but that was up to what my kiddies wanted. Make yours just how you want them as well.

These are so cute, and not so scary, so the kids will love helping to make them. My few changes were to add tissue paper where there were eyes, so that they glowed a bit from the back lighting. I also didn’t leave the entire room light on, instead we chose to use battery operated candles so it glowed behind them making them more spooky. It’s fab when people drive by and see them, then they drive by again real slow.

Floating Candle Ceiling

Did your kids (or you) love the floating candle great hall scene from Harry Potter? Then they will love this DIY Halloween Decor idea from Eating Bender. This would make the ultimate halloween party decor for children or adults. For an adult party it gives great ambiance and for a kids party I mean Hello! Harry Potter themed kids party was my kids dream for years. Little do they know our conservatory is becoming the great hall on Saturday and it will be a fantastic surprise. Super easy to replicate using LED lights, cardboard rolls and white paint; do this for a birthday party or really any party.

DIY Kids Halloween Costumes

Halloween costumes are a big discussion point in my house right now. There have been several news items regarding the costumes that are purchased in stores being a fire hazard and I’m not taking any chances with my babies. When there are pumpkins around with candles inside there is no reason why I would even chance something horrible happening. So this year, we’re going DIY.

Voodoo Doll 

Sorry for the lack of imagery here, no pics of my babies in costume until after the day and using pictures of someone elses kids just seems out of sorts. So i’ll try to paint a visual picture for you so that you might be able to use this to make your kids a fun, safe costume.

My daughter decided on a voodoo doll as her Halloween costume after seeing some posted on Pinterest. This one was a lot of fun to create and she is definitely excited to show her friends at the party on Saturday.

Creating the outfit:

• Red and white stripped tights
• White Dress
  • Red felt heart cut out and sewn over the heart on the dress. I also sewed on white pipe cleaners with red puff ball ends to resemble needles.
  • Permanent market stitches on the tights and bodice of the dress.
  • Face paint with stitching over the mouth and fake needles in the hair

It’s a girly and fun outfit, but would be perfect for a boy dressed in white trousers and a white long sleeve top. It’s also a great adult Halloween costume, really it just is what you make it. Get creative!

Minecraft Steve

My youngest (8) is all about Minecraft right now. We’d already purchased for him the diamond sword and pickaxe, which are actually foam and do absolutely nothing but he loves them. I have to admit, I don’t exactly understand Minecraft but I’m more than happy to build and mine with him to his delight. So this year we found an online tutorial for a Minecraft Steve costume.

This costume is seriously easy to make all you need is a printer, a box the size of your child’s head, paper that is poster sized A3 will work and cardboard. Use a blue t-shirt so he looks like him and cut out the holes for eyes. Voila, your mini me is a mini Steve.

Here at Appliance City we’d like to wish you and your family a safe and Happy Halloween.