Craft Party 2017

At the party someone asked me how many years I've been doing this and I couldn't remember off the top of my head.  Going back through old photos I realized this was our 10th year of official organized Halloween crafting. I guess I missed the opportunity to have a "10th Anniversary" party.  I can't believe I've gotten away with inflicting my addiction onto my friends for an entire decade.

The one thing you can count on every year is me not getting pictures of everything. This year I totally outdid myself and took crappy pictures besides.  I apologize to everyone who's creations look less than what they are due to my sorry photography.

It wouldn't be a Halloween craft party without potion bottles. 
There were glittery potions,

...disgusting concoctions,

...and just plain spooky bottles, 

 

Flowers might not seem spooky until you realize
that's a pile of bones at the bottom of the jar.

...and new this year, creepy bottles inspired by Russian crafters. Not that the Russian's are the only one's doing this, but more often then not I find myself on Russian craft sites.  You can check out my Craft Party 2017 pinterest board to see a few examples or search on "altered bottles".  This is what we came up with.

 

The best and worst thing about these bottles is you can use almost anything.  Sometimes having limitless choices can be a bit daunting, but this is a great way to use up odd bits of stuff.  These bottles used a variety of tissue paper, netting, twine, cord, beaded garland, old or broken jewelry, beads, glass gems, shells, dried lentils & seeds, faux flowers, and plastic critters & bones.  I am happy to see my salt dough skulls and wire components I made practicing with a wire jig finally getting used for something. 

Vampire Blood and Life Renewal labels courtesy of Love Manor. 

There were more fashionista skeletons this year.  I think the outfits were even more elaborate than last year if that's possible.  This a great way to use up fabric scraps and old Barbie clothes.  Nothing goes with gold pants like a Madonna style bustier and although it's hard to tell, the gal next to her is pregnant will a smaller rubber skeleton.  Congratulations, I guess?  

I like this bottle cap & cork top hat.  

Another great hat and who doesn't like furry gogo boots?

What this guy lacks in fashionable attire he makes up for with his interesting array of friends.  Bonus points for using a leftover piece of fence from an old project as a ladder to stand on (can't see in this picture).

There were also skeletons in jars.  Which is a nice way to display your favorite skelly, like this mermaid from last year's party.

A couple of our younger patrons came up with these jar ideas. 

The pictures don't do them justice, but I loved them so much I had to make my own.  I really like how the water doesn't cover the skeleton. I imaged it was low tide with the sea foam (sesame seeds) swirling around him.  I couldn't get the right sea levels on mine and ended up filling the jar.  Another nice thing about using jars, is the skeleton is protected. I had to snap a few joints to get mine posed right. They aren't broken all the way through, but they definitely wouldn't survive long if he was being man handled.  There was some leftover chain with tiny medallions that I piled up to look like treasure.  You can't take it with you, but that doesn't stop some from trying. 

This was a plastic bendy skeleton, partially spray painted. I like the two-face effect. You have to be careful when using spray paint on plastic, even if it's paint & primer or it says it's specifically for plastic. He's one of those plastics that doesn't play well with spray paint and as a result he will be forever sticky, but he looks so dementedly cool.  I'd be curious to see him sprinkled with black sand or glitter on the sticky bits for a little texture.

Here are some silhouette lantern jars.  Lightly spray painted in the inside and designs copied on the outside with black paint pens.  I'm glad to see more salt dough skulls finding a purpose.  I wish I wouldn't have tried to get the skulls into the first picture because it's not a good view of the four cats below.  The cat clipart can be found at ClipArtQueen. The "Eek" is from TheDiyVillage. The owl I found at FaveCrafts and the other cat is on pinterest.

One last creation is this Lost City. 

I forgot the actual name, but it's not Atlantis, because that's underwater.  

And now for the only reason my husband comes up from the basement while all this is going on, the food.

People brought some awesome goodies.  Monsters & mummies, spidery treats and other creepy delights.  There was a really pretty fall decorated cake, but I didn't think to take a picture until after I had already hacked it to pieces.  Seriously I shouldn't be allowed to cut cake, ever.

I have to admire these spider cookies, because I too once fell for the old “use a toothpick to drag out ‘legs’ from melted choc chips” and mine didn't turn out nearly as well as these.  There is a whole story about the photoshopped cookie that's plastered across the internet and has led to millions of chocolate chip cookies being decimated by toothpicks. 

I have zucchini up the wazoo this year, which is slightly more uncomfortable than it sounds.  So I might have made a few things with zucchini.  I'll post recipes later.  

I made Candied Lizard Skin (left) with one of my neighbors regular green zucchini and Frog Skin (right) with some of mine.  I should explain that mine is of the 8 ball variety, which as the name suggests is round and should be picked when it's about the size of an 8 ball.  This year my zucchini is having an identity crisis and has been more yellow than green.  

I also saved the syrup they were cooked in because it was bright green and purty.  I poured it into a beaker and set it by the food.  Halfway through the party I hear, "Mom can I drink this green stuff?" After I said yes I hear a bunch of others say, "Ooh I want to try it too!"  It wasn't until they had all tried it that I told them it was zucchini syrup.  Yeah, I'm a special kind of evil.

Alien Zucchini Ball

These are chocolate zucchini cake pops.

Since I had candy melts in other colors than the usual red and green, I decided to go for a bruised, decaying rat look. It ended up looking more like tie dye rat. 

And then I dropped the mold before I had poured the bottom, which wouldn't have been a total disaster, except this was "fancy rat" with raspberry blood, so it totally cracked and started to ooze. I sealed the bottom by laying it on top of a pool of melted red candy melts.  My husband had a great idea of adding more red candy blood to cover the cracks, which probably would've looked really good, but I think eating wise would've been too much candy melt.

Everyone at the party was very polite and lied and said my rat looked great and the cracks added character.

I do like how the raspberry blood oozed from the nostrils.
Too bad I would never be able to recreate that in a million years.  

I still had leftover purple and green melts so I decided to make Crunchy Beetle cookies in honor of Glenda Glinka:Witch-At-Large, one of my favorite books as kid. She's a bored witch who decides to amuse herself by turning into a little girl.  She's not sure what "PTA" cookies are so she decides to make her favorites in purple and green with lots of beetles.  I didn't actually want to bake anything so I dipped Oreo cookies and topped them with chocolate covered pecan roaches. 

One last thing just for fun.  I don't really decorate for the party.  Generally anything I display is a past project for inspiration or guidance.  Any other macabre stuff has probably been there all year.  The exception to that is the bathroom.  I saw this on Halloween Forum  and I knew I had to do it.

I used about 100 roaches.  Most of them are behind the door so people don't notice them right away.  There are a few strategically placed near where people would normally touch things like the light switch. Roaches are truly the gift that keeps on giving.  They freak people out even after they know they are there.  Roaches are magical that way. 

I use Loctite Fun Tak Mounting Putty. It comes cleanly off painted walls and does a great job holding the roaches. The only downside is it's blue and you can definitely see it from an angle, but trust me that's not what people see first. I did try Scotch Clear Mounting Squares, but they weren't strong enough.

And so that's what happened. I want to thank everyone for helping me make this a success year after year.  

Salt Dough Bunny Skulls

 

My daughter wanted to make decorations for Easter.  

I thought it would be fun to try our hand at salt dough ornaments again,

and I was itching to try a different medium for sugar skull bunnies. 

 

Quick recap since I've already done this before:

 

The recipe is 1 part water, 1 part salt, 2 parts flour, but don't add the water all at once because you probably won't need it all. You don't want a sticky dough.

 

I prefer to roll it out on wax paper and also wear latex gloves to protect my hands from drying out.

 

Use the end of a straw to make a hole for hanging.

 

Bake at a low temp for a long time or air dry for a really long time. 

 

After drying, rough edges can be smooth out with a small metal file or sandpaper.

 

After this experience this is what I plan to do next time for the drying process:

 

Bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for an hour at 200 degrees convection. After an hour bake on wire rack for another hour. If I have time to hang around the house, I'll probably bump that up to two. Then turn the oven off and let them sit as long as I can. I will also put a Post-It note on the oven to remind myself they are still in there. If some of the larger pieces still need to dry more, I'll just let them air dry on a wire rack for another day. 

 

Things I learned this time around:

 

Don't forget and dump in all the water at once because the dough will be too wet.

Don't forget to add holes for hanging before baking.

Don't think "Oh they've only been in oven 2 minutes I can quick add holes."

     They had already formed a thin crust. I didn't get nice clean holes, made a mess of things, and ended up making another batch.

Don't throw in a shrinky dink, just because you can.

Don't increase the oven temp because the shrinky dink isn't working.

     OK, I don't foresee anyone else doing the last two, but for instructional purposes it's worth noting that increasing the oven temp to 300 caused the backs of the ornaments to puff out. 

 

I decorated  my bunnies with a combination of acrylic paints and Sharpies. 

My daughter preferred to stick with the Sharpies, specifically the brush tip ones. 

Not a bad idea if you don't want to wait for paint to dry. 

 

 

Since it was Easter I had to make real sugar cookies too.  I made some regular sized cookies for the kids to decorate and I made a bunch of mini cookies for me to decorate.  I used the Garden Shape Cut-Outs from Wilton, they're supposed to be for fondant, but they are perfect for bite size cookies.   

 

 

Most of the adults I know like the smaller size without all the sprinkles.  I usually only make the round flower with a single star of frosting in the center. Quick and easy, zero skills needed. So I'm really not sure exactly what happened.  I felt fine and I thought I was doing alright, but the next thing I know I've gone all Martha Stewart and I've got like a hundred of these little buggers all decorated to the nines (for my skills, those cookies are ultra fancy). And it didn't stop there. 

 

I thought it would look really pretty to cover some of the salt dough eggs in strips of lace. I had visions of white eggs striped with an assortment of vintage white or off-white lace.  In reality I had one piece of white lace removed from the bottom of a tank top. The yellow flower and frilly ribbon were salvaged from a broken headband.  The rest of the bits were leftovers from various craft kits my daughter had.  

 

It always feels weird when I get inspired to make things that don't appeal to me. I mean I like the way they turned out, but I don't actually like them. This is probably exactly what crafting would feel like if I was cloned by aliens from the planet Stepford.  Best not to think about such things and just concentrate on finding a good home for these ornaments where they'll be appreciated.

We also made some mini salt dough cutouts, I used a toothpick to make a hole in the end before baking.  Here is an easy way to make tulip leaves.

 

2.5 inches from the end bend a pipe cleaner. 

Curve the sides a bit and give the end a twist.

 

 Make another 2.5 inch leaf the same way. 

Fold the rest of the pipe cleaner straight up the middle. 

Bring the leaves up towards the center and give the ends a little curl.

Put a little glue on the stem and stick it in the hole.  That's what she said.

 

 

OK back to Halloween, upside down tulips make cute little ghosts.

As always those leftover bits are perfect for making mini skulls. 

Now that I think about it, one of those would look cute on an egg shape covered in black lace. That's an ornament I could appreciate.   

 

A little bit more on sugar cookies. 30 years ago when I was a kid, sugar cookies sucked.  I don't know if it was just my family, but as far as I could tell cutout cookies were treated like red-headed stepchildren.  The grownups weren't crazy about them, but we had to have them around for the holidays. 

Cookie dough would be rolled paper thin to get as many cookies as possible out of a batch.  I remember watching delicate cutouts being carefully scooped up and gingerly transferred to cookie sheets. Then to make matters worse they were baked until browned ON TOP.  Of course by the time the tops were browning, the sides and bottoms were overcooked, many of the thinner ones working their way towards burnt.  Once cooled they were frosted and that's when we got to the good stuff and us kids got to decorate.  I remember spending forever on a single cookie, getting all the right colored sugar sprinkles in all the right places.  It was copious amounts of sugar mixed with pride and milk to dunk them (especially the burnt ones) that made them edible.

Why am I telling you all this? Because although sugar cookies bring back magical memories, I had never eaten one that tantalized my taste buds, not even from a bakery, that is until I found this recipe at JoyOfBaking.com. 

I do deviate from the recipe and use buttercream frosting instead of royal icing.  I know royal icing looks pretty and hardens nicely, but it doesn't taste the best and I think it's a horrible way to ruin a good cookie.  These cookies even taste really good without icing.

Now that I'm the one making sugar cookies twice a year for Christmas and Easter, I realize why my grandmother's chocolate chip cookies were divine, while her sugar cookies were not.  Making any kind of drop cookie is like joyfully dropping spoonfuls of love on a sheet of happiness.  Sugar cookies on the other hand, well lets just say rolling out dough leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to the dark side.  I find making sure I have plenty of time takes the edge off.  It also helps that you can make the dough a couple days in advance and after baking you can freeze the cookies until you have time to frost.  I also keep them frozen after frosting until I need them. 

My last advice is don't let them brown. It might take a few tries to find that sweet spot.  Once you get a batch that is only slightly browned on the bottom, then cook the next batch one minute less and they should be perfect. That's your sweet spot, write it down for next time. Always let the cookies cool on the sheet for two minutes before gently moving them to a cooling rack. They will be very soft, but once they cool completely they will be firm but chewy.

Here's the buttercream frosting.  I've had it for so long I can't remember where I got it originally.

Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk

Cream butter and add vanilla. Beat sugar in gradually at low speed.  Add milk and beat on high speed for 3-4 minutes. 

Update: One last thing I forgot to add, I found some awesomely quirky bunny coloring pages from a Hungarian kids show, Kerek Mese, http://kerekmese.hu/nyomtathato-szinezok-kifestok/ .  Besides Easter (Húsvét) and bunny (nyuszi) pages, they also have a sea monsters, a slug and much much more.