Bah Humbug

Bah humbug is kind of how I felt about Halloween this year, but I did make some effort.  At least the dozen trick or treaters we had made off with a nice, contact free, candy haul because I'm not a scrooge.  And even though I didn't go all out this year, I refuse to put away my decorations until I'm good and ready because they bring joy to my cold black heart.  

I'm slowly working towards a metal punk vibe.  The punk vulture has been around awhile, as has the spiked pumpkin, but the coffin guitar case, newly acquired this year, kind of cinched it.  That was really when the other skeletons started talking about getting a band together.  My frogs aren't done...yet. But at least I managed to finish their hair so they are presentable.  Froggy Rotten is sporting the red mop and Phib Vicious has the green hawk. 

I have a few projects to post about that are pictured and a few just out of view.  This year has been a lot of home improvement projects, but I have been squeaking in some time to knock a few creepy projects off my list.   

And now all the Turkey Day decorations are up...so I guess I'm set until Creepmas.  

 

Repurposed Coffin Case

My husband recently bought a secondhand guitar and had no interest in using the coffin case that came with it.  He was thinking about selling it until he saw the gleam in my eye, and I'm not going to lie probably a little drool, when I saw the black coffin with red velvet interior.

Before I eviscerated it, I got my skeleton out and tried a few poses to make sure it would be truly useful as a prop.

Gutting it was easy, the storage area was just a lid with a screw on each side and a couple of staples. There was also a little velvet covered bump for the other end of the lid to rest on.  For the moment I left the bump where it was at.

The middle hump was easy to remove it was just a velvet covered piece of styrofoam glued to the bare wood.  When I say velvet I actually mean velvet material quilted to a thin layer of foam batting.

Removing this left me with a bare spot in the middle and two slits in the velvet trim on either side.

There was no way I could have done a perfect patch job, the top and bottom were two separate pieces that where not quite lined up. But if I had wanted to spend the time to make this as seamless as possible I would have pulled up about a half inch of the velvet along both sides of the bare spot.  Then I would have trimmed the foam backing about a quarter inch so that it was a straight line and tucked the velvet material underneath the edge of the foam.  Then I would have continued on with the following, except my patch piece would have had to be precisely sized with all the foam removed from the velvet tucked underneath.

But I figured I could still make it look pretty darn good in half the time. First I removed any remaining glue with a razor blade.  Then I cut a cereal box to the shape I wanted.  I made it a little longer to cover the jagged edges of the velvet already in place and little narrower in width to accommodate the width of the velvet and foam batting.

I covered the cardboard with materiel I peeled off the styrofoam.  Hot glue is my least favorite bonding material to work with, but for this project it was perfect.

I still had the two side slits to contend with.   Trying to fix them with more velvet seemed foolhardy, so I decided to cover them with ribbon trim.  I used a wide faux leather ribbon, trimmed with sparkly fringe (Clearance purchase for the win!).   Since I thought it would look weird to just have it in two spots,  I evenly spaced strips of ribbon around the whole coffin.  

That meant I could remove the little bump at the top and cover the glue stain without it looking out of place.

The outside vinyl was torn in a couple places.  I colored the wood underneath with black sharpie, glued the vinyl back down with E6000 and used strapping taping to hold it flat while it dried. The final step was to replace the screws that had held the storage lid with much shorter screws so I didn't have to fix the holes.

I'm happy with how it turned out and it didn't take all day.  And now I have a cute coffin prop.  No, it's not big enough to actually fit a skeleton, but visually it does the trick and it's not as unwieldly as a full size prop.  It stores easily and has it's own carrying handle, which makes it pretty perfect for me.

Last year for Halloween on a whim I made my skelly dog a headbanger.  I already have a punk vulture and I've been meaning to do the same for my skelly frogs.  I have needle felted green liberty spikes for the big one and I'm working on some crazy red Johnny Rotten hair for the smaller one.  I just have to rock out my regular skeleton and I think I've got a band.

Creepmas Nativities

It's been a long time since I posted about nativities, 2013 in fact.  Sadly most of the links are broken, but the picture of my monster nativity is there.  And the link to Hyperbole and a Half is still active, recopied here for your convenience if you want to know how Kenny Loggins ruined Christmas. And trust me, you do want to know.

This beautiful paper craft Cthulhu nativity, by MonstersDomesticated can be downloaded for a mere soul condemning $6.66.

Nicario Jimenez creates the most amazing retablos.  I've had the privilege of seeing his artwork at our summer art fair for a number of years.  Pictures are nice, but to really take in all the little details, it's best to view them in person.

Creepbay discovered this nativity on etsy a few years back.  It's so wrong, especially the baby Krampus.

Posted on reddit by blueduckbutt, this one has to be the most joyous.  People always talk about the birth of Jesus being a celebration, but nativities generally have a lot of somber faces.  Look at the pure joy on that angels face, not that everyone else isn't sporting a toothy grin.  I love the dogs getting into the act.

This is another gem from reddit posted by insolent_swine. I just love twisted imaginations.

Checkout Creepmas.com for more information and see who else is participating.

Dark Elegance Upcycled Frame

It's funny, all I did was glue on a few plastic bits, add a smidge of lace and give it a paint job, but I feel accomplished with this project, unlike last time.


The skeleton hands were from a past neighbor, she was cleaning out her Halloween stuff and wanted to know if I could use them.   Of course I could.  And then I didn't, forever.  I get this mental block where I have to save things for the "right" project.  And of course no idea is ever perfect enough, so I have all these interesting items, neatly tucked away, being underutilized. Now you know my dirty little secret.  Well at least one of them.


I did temporarily use the hands as a sand fence in a fairy garden years ago.  Besides the hands, I also used two small plastic spiders and a few leftover bits of lace trim from my textured vases.

I gave everything a couple of coats of black gesso, and dry brushed on some Champagne Gold.  I've never been a fan of gold.  It's too yellow and I dislike yellow with it's sunny disposition. Give me a dreary gray or a moody mauve.  But Champagne Gold I'm utterly in love with, willing to look past it's rather festive name.  It's like a warm silver.

The picture of the darling little boy is from this awesome collection of altered photos by Kelloween.  I was torn between using that picture and this owl.  I can't find the original source for the owl, but I'm hoping by the way its strewn across the internet that it's public domain, just search for top hat owl.

Creepmas Monster

Like I said in my previous post the Creepmas Monster had a late arrival this year.  But as one neighbor exclaimed it was "Worth the wait!!!" [Note: Neighbor is still two exclamation points shy of insanity...but really it's a slippery slope once you get past that 3rd one.]

Another neighbor managed to get a picture of the elusive beast out in the wild.   

In previous years I've always painstakingly pinned garland, lights, ornaments etc onto to my ghillie suit, which then needed to be unpinned because all the lights and sparkle kind of ruin the camouflage effect for Halloween.  I've known for some time I need to do things differently but wasn't sure how.  Then Spooky Little Halloween did a post on Halloween Christmas Garland.

I picked up some plain garland on sale.  I hate to say it but I felt bad for Christmas.  The store shelves were empty, raped of their Christmas cheer and it was still a week before Christmas.

I zipped tied a bunch of stuff to the garland and wore that over the ghillie suit. It's still a work in progress, I had like ten minutes to throw this together.  This week all sorts of stuff has gone wrong, I think there are Gremlins behind it.  But I have some good solid ideas for next year and it was so quick and easy to glam up the ghillie suit and undo it afterward.  Never let it be said the Creepmas Monster doesn't know how to accessorize.  

Also new this year Halloween clearance Krampus (devil) horns!  I had been thinking of making my own, but figured I'd be time and money ahead buying these.

A couple more pictures I didn't get around to sharing during Creepmas:

Our local CVS has a Creepmassy sense of humor.  Meet Fergot McFlushot.  

And at the grocery store they were selling Grincsfa Trees.  

I guess now it's time to start being blissful and merry or a sugar plum or something...

Frozen Fingers

I know yesterday was supposed to be the last day of Creepmas, but I'm not ready for that. I still have creepy stuff to get done and life has been getting in the way. So I'll be here, all month, being creepy. Ok fine all year and it has nothing to do with Creepmas, I'm just weird.

But I do have one more recipe after this that you aren't going to want to miss. I finally figured out what flavor Krampus is, so be sure to check back in a few days.

If you want to make fingers that look like these you only need to know two things:

1) I used Wilton pretzel molds, the zombie, the witch and the skeleton.
2) To get the coloring you see, I used a ratio of one blue candy melt to 1/4oz white chocolate for the darker details and one blue candy melt to 1.5oz white chocolate for the lighter color.

You can use any truffle or cake pop recipe to fill them.  You could even use a pretzel rod, you know what the molds were actually made for.  But I figured I'd used Creepmas as an excuse to try another cranberry truffle recipe.  Everyone loved the zombie bites, a few years back, but I wanted to try something new.

I used this recipe for Cranberry White Chocolate Truffles.

The following is my slightly modified version.  I only made half the recipe.  I microwave my chocolate.  And I don't like the way the ingredients are listed in the original recipe.  You only use part of the white chocolate and dried cranberries in the truffle mixture and the rest is to coat and garnish.  I like it when recipes make it obvious in the ingredients list that they will be used in separate quantities.  Otherwise if you're like me, even if you've read through the darn thing twice, you just dump it all in and then are like, "What? I was supposed to safe some of that for later? Oops."

They do link to some pretty sound advice on tempering chocolate if you'd like to learn about that. Because I'm adding candy melts to the white chocolate and candy melts are infused with voodoo magic, tempering isn't all that important here.

The amount of chocolate & melts listed to coat the molds is approximate. I coated four molds and ended up only filling three and they were all different sizes so I'm giving you my best educated guess.


3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
5 oz white chocolate, chopped*
4 teaspoons canned whole-berry cranberry sauce**

1 tablespoon finely chopped sweetened dried cranberries (each piece should be approximately 1/8 to 1/4 inch)

5 blue candy melts

5oz white chocolate***

*Bakers makes a nice white chocolate with real cocoa butter.  It comes in 4oz boxes scored into 1/4oz blocks.  I'm lazy. I don't bother chopping it I just break it along the score lines and then break each 1/4oz in half.

**I make my own sauce and mince any large berry chunks, recipe below.  I think you could also substitute just about any fruit preserves.  

*** White chocolate and even white candy melts have a slight yellow hue, if you don't want the blue melts to take on a greenish tone use a bright white candy melt.  

Pour cream over 5oz of white chocolate in microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 1 minute at 50% power. Let stand 1 minute and then stir very gently until smooth. Stir in the cranberry sauce and dried cranberries. Cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap, then refrigerate until firm enough to roll, preferably overnight.

First make fingernail/accent color. Place 2 blue candy melts with a half ounce of white chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 30-40 seconds at 50% power, stir until melted.  If it's still not melted add another 20 seconds at 50%.  I use a small silicone spoonula, because not only does it stir but it can also scrape the sides of the bowl. 

Coat fingernail areas, for the bone fingers smear some along the sides/ridges.  You can use your finger to paint the molds, don't worry about perfection, nobody cares.  Pop molds in the refrigerator.

Add 1 candy melt and 1.5oz of white chocolate to your bowl. It doesn't matter if there is still a little finger nail color left, just scrape the sides so it's mostly sitting at the bottom.  Microwave for 1 minute at 50%.  Stir until smooth and melted.  Check to make sure it's not too hot by dripping a bit on your inside wrist. If you can feel the heat it's still too warm, if not it's just right. (Yep, just like a baby bottle.) Now spoon a little into your mold and gently push it around until the whole surface is coated.  You only need a thin coat.

If you run out add another candy melt and 1.5oz of chocolate and repeat the process. I had enough truffle mixture to fill three molds, but they varied a great deal in size.  After all the molds are coated put them in fridge to chill.


Gently press tiny spoonfuls of the truffle mixture along the cavities of the molds. Since these are meant to be used with pretzels you have to leave a little gap so when you top it off you get a nice seal.  If it gets sticky to work with you can put a little confectioner's sugar on your hands or re-chill the mixture.  I like to place plastic wrap over the top and gently press the mixture into the mold. Chill again after filling. My filling was pretty sticky so I waited until it was cold enough to peel back the plastic wrap.



Let them set at room temperature while you mix up some more chocolate.  Again you can keep adding to the same bowl.  As long as you don't overheat it, the old should easily incorporate with the new.  Make sure you always use 50% power.

Once your chocolate is done, it's time to top off your fingers.  The important part is getting coverage all the way to the edges, you want chocolate touching chocolate all the way around to create a seal.  Don't worry if it's not perfectly smooth, seriously nobody cares.  If you have to be all Martha Stewart, after it sets you can run a hot knife over it.  Some thing goes for if you have any rough edges after you pop them out.  Put a butter knife in a hot cup of water, dry it off, gently press it along the edge and it will melt any rough edges.  Don't over do it, you don't want to melt all the way through to the filling.  Reheat your knife as needed, don't forget to wipe it dry before pressing it against the chocolate.  

To pop them out easily stick them in the freezer for a few minutes. If they don't pop right out, they aren't cold enough.

My cranberry sauce is a combination of this Cranberry & Dried Cherry sauce and this Triple-Cranberry one.

1 cup frozen cranberry juice cocktail (I prefer just cranberries juice, no apple juice or other juices added)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 12oz package fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed, drained
1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped
3 tablespoons orange marmalade
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half

Combine cranberry juice concentrate, cinnamon stick and sugar in medium saucepan.  Bring to boil over high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Add fresh cranberries and dried cherries and cook until fresh berries begin to pop, stirring often, about 7 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in orange marmalade, orange juice and orange peel.  Cool completely, remove cinnamon stick pieces.  Cover and chill.  Can be made 3 days ahead, keep refrigerated or freeze.  Makes about 2.5 cups. 

From The Depths of the Deep Blue Sea

It's about time I finished this bottle, which I started back at the last craft party.  The contents were done, but I didn't like the lid.  I could've just painted it black and called it a day, but I had a vision and sometimes those bastards are persnickety.


I found a nice simple template for the boat at MollyMooCrafts.   I made mine on a much smaller scale of course. Actually I made two, slightly different sizes, because I wasn't sure what I wanted. When cutting out the pieces, instead of cutting all the way around, I left tabs sticking out here and there to aid in the assembly process.  After all the pieces where glued in place and dried, I set the boats on top of the lid and there they sat.  For a really long time.  A really, really long time, in a slightly mocking manner.

See, being made out of printer paper they were too thin and flimsy to just paint. And the thought of reinforcing their teeny tiny little hulls with paper mache seemed torturous. So they sat.  That is until The Great Nerf War of 2018. 

An epic battle some say, even though the only casualty was a living room wall.  Since I had to get everything out to patch a hole, I decided to also tackle the Father Vs Son WWF Match dent and the Ninja Sneak Attack dings.  The thing is, I live with animals, but as a result I've become a bit of a drywall repair goddess.  So there's that.

When it comes to drywall stuff and paint, I never work out of the original containers, I always just take out a little more than I think I'll.  So after everything had been repaired, I had a little bit of this and a little bit of that leftover.  I felt bad about just tossing it, so I mixed it all together.  It was maybe (didn't measure) 3 parts all-in-one primer paint, which is really thick and creamy, to which I had added some sand texture, 1 part joint compound and just a smidge of fiber reinforced compound.  Well it was all consolidated in one container now, but what to do with it? And there were those two little boats staring at me.

Well it turns out this stuff was perfect for little boats. 6 thin coats, inside and out and my little boats are nice and sturdy, with a uniform thickness I wouldn't have been able to achieve with papier mache.  On a few passes I scraped the side of the brush against the top edge of the boats to make a thick ridge.


The fabric draped over the lid and used for the sail came from my daughter's old mermaid costume.  Sometimes it pays to know someone who's been through a princess phase.  I've been using pieces of her worn to death costumes for years.  They have layers of different textured fabrics that have come in handy more than once.  This piece is some kind of synthetic satiny material. For the sail I distressed it by setting a toothpick on fire, blowing it out and using the glowing embers to burn tiny holes in it.  I started out using an open flame on the pieces hanging over the lid but that was too hard to control, stuff burns like crazy. Which leads me to realize how lucky we were that her "Princess, Sponge Bob, Jellyfish, Snake & Worm Party"*, full of princess garbed little girls, didn't play out like a scene from The Towering Inferno.

*That's the kind of stuff you end up with when you ask five year olds what they want to do for their birthday.

Continuing on, the mast is a toothpick with a few small beads on top, and is set into a small grommet.  The "water" is glue, fabric and tissue paper.  There's a little bit of cheesecloth down the sides.

If I were to do this again I would start with the lid and then add the contents.  As it was I had to cover the jar in painters tape, and keep it upright so as not to jostle the stuff inside.  I was too scared to take the lid of and work on it separately.  Things have grown in there since last year.  I can only imagine the aroma that would ensue from opening that jar. I do love the murky effect.  Yes for once that's not just crappy photography on my part, that haziness has been organically grown.  There's even an interesting line of rusty colored growth.

I rather like the idea of my pirate, decomposing next to his treasure, looking up from the murky depths of the ocean floor, contemplating whether or not it was worth it.

Easy Way To Remove Labels From Plastic

I have been saving this jar forever.  The kids talked one of their grandmothers into buying cheeseballs and apparently cheeseballs only come in these insanely huge plastic barrels.  I have no desire to acquire another insanely huge plastic barrel full of cheeseballs.  Although I can imagine presenting a large barrel of cheeseballs to Trick or Treaters and telling them to grab a handful.  I can also imagine trying to clean raw egg off the side of my house later.  So I've been hanging on to this one all this time, since besides having the capacity to hold an ungodly amount of cheeseballs, it could also easily fit a human head or a small carcass.   

Now back when I was a kid, we had reasonable sized containers of cheeseballs. If you're wondering whatever happened to Planters Cheez Balls, you are not alone.  

The reason I've been dragging my feet about using this container was the big label.  I really dislike removing labels from plastic, they generally refuse to nicely peel off.  Glass containers are so wonderful by comparison.  Soak in a little hot water, peel off label, razor blade any remnants off, use a little oil (I like coconut oil, it makes my hands soft) on the remaining glue residue. 

On the other hand unless you have magical powers you aren't going to be able to razor blade plastic without scratching it.  Some plastic containers can't even handle a hot water soak without warping.   Even if they can take the heat, usually only the top layer of the label comes off  leaving behind all the adhesive still stuck to the bottle.  I think Goo Gone takes less elbow grease than natural oils when working with plastic, but I hate working with that stuff it's pretty harsh.  

Well I had an epiphany last week. This is not the quickest process, but very little effort is needed. I'm sure instead of letting things sit overnight, a few hours would do.  It was just convenient to do right before going to bed.  I soaked a rag in hot water and placed it over the label and let it sit overnight.  The next day I rubbed that top layer of label off and rubbed oil into the remaining adhesive.  Then I let that soak in overnight.  I rubbed off that remaining layer.  I used a little more oil to get any last bit of adhesive off and then wiped it down real good and cleaned it up with water and vinegar. 

Even though it took a couple of days, I spent very little time physically removing the label.  This was so simple I could kick myself for not thinking of it sooner.  I have used the same method since with some smaller containers I was avoiding and it works like a charm every time.  I fear plastic bottles no more.

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.