Candy Corn-o-copia

Halloween’s almost here, with its tricks and its treats

The goblins and witches will take to the streets,

The hauntings are coming, and soon, I might add,

And the whole crafting world has gone candy corn mad!

On every link party and every blog hop

Are dozen of crafters who ask you to stop

And see what they’ve made for Halloween night,

And on every list, it’s all the same sight!

No witches! No goblins! No black cats or ghosts!

It seems that what all crafters love most

Are those small little snacks with the bright-colored stripes,

They’ve been added to crafts of every type!

There’s banners and bunting

 

And various wreaths

 

And candy corn bags for Halloween treats

Candy corn tutus for young ballet stars,

 

Candy corn cookies and fun candy jars,

Make them from burlap! Make them from wood!

  

Make them from traffic cones you’d use, if you could.

 

Make sweaters for pets! Make candy corn trees!

 

Make earrings or costumes for tiny babies!

There's plenty to choose from, so go take your pick -

And make a great candy corn treat (or a trick)!

Cupcake Birthday Banner

Just got back from EPCOT's 15th Annual Food and Wine Festival. It was absolutely spectacular! If you ever get the chance to go, do it! And now I'm back for a week before leaving for Seattle. I should be working on my midterms right now, but hey, a few more minutes won't make that much of a difference, right?

It's my birthday next week (Oct 27) and I'm in a celebratory mood, so here's an adorable birthday cupcake banner from SomethingFromCassie - and the best part is that you get a cupcake without the calories (naturally, after stuffing my face all around EPCOT, I'm now on a diet). Delicious!

Halloween Costume Roundup

Most little girls want to be princesses for Halloween. Not me. I wanted to be food. Sometimes it was ugly (I was a grape one year. Not a bunch of grapes - just one. It was a bad year), and sometimes it was a home run - my favorite costume I ever had was a doughnut. I wish I could find pictures of it, but I haven't seen any. We took a giant inner tube (the pool toy) and painted chocolate frosting on the top and dripping down the sides. Then we hot-glue-gunned huge, colorful plastic beads on top as "sprinkles." Ah, memories. It was made even better by the fact that I was a pretty chubby little kid.

So if you (or your kids) are like me and you want a food costume, you've come to the right place! Here's a roundup of some of the best food costume tutorials I could find. Enjoy!



A cute popcorn costume from Kaboose



One of the best ice cream cone costumes I've seen (and believe me, I've seen a lot) from Better Homes and Gardens.



A ham and cheese sandwich from Disney Family Fun (if you're ever looking for kid crafts, this is one of the ultimate sites).



Cupcake from Lemon Tree Creations (click through for pictures of her daughter. All together now - aaawwww!)


Sushi hats from Craftzine.




Broccoli from Better Homes and Gardens (though I have to say, what kid wants to go as broccoli, especially on a night devoted to candy?)



Fried egg from Food Network (they have several good ones, so go check them out).



Ending on a sweet note - cupcake from Food Network.

Got any more? Let me know in the comments!

Cupcake Wrapper Halloween Wreath

The latest new food-craft fad: cupcake wrappers! I've seen several things made with them, and it's a great idea - they're cheap, flexible, and they come in all kinds of different colors and prints for all holidays. Here's a wreath made out of wrappers from The Swell Life. The only caveat I give is this - beware of rain! If you have a ledge or awning over your front door, it's fine, but if not, you might want to coat it with Mod Podge or something so that it won't get ruined if it rains.

Pie Contest Recipe Collage

The LSAT's over - hooray! And tomorrow midterms hit like a tidal wave. Oh well. The only really bad thing about being so busy is that I don't have much time to craft. But then, considering how much money I spend on crafts, maybe that's a good thing.

So a while back, Mom had suggested that I do a recipe collage, made up of the containers of the ingredients and the recipe. I'd been waiting for one to do, and I finally got a good one: my pie! A few weeks ago, the fair came to town. I'd always wanted to enter a pie contest - I'd love to start baking competitively - and so I entered. It's my first recipe/cooking contest, and it's an original recipe. When I was turning it in, I even got interviewed by a reporter from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (the biggest paper in Georgia)! She even mentioned the blog (not that I think it helped much with the readership...oh well). I didn't win (shoot, I didn't even place) but I've got pictures from the fair, the recipe, the ingredients, the newspaper clipping, scrapbook paper, and lots of dimensional stickers. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, although I didn't mean for it to be so monochromatic (or dichromatic, as the case may be). Everything looks red, with a fair amount of yellow.

All the stuff, ready to get started. I have to say, this project cost a little more than I thought it would, but I've got tons of stuff left over that I can use on other projects.

I like working on the floor because I have a lot of space. The bad thing is that it starts to hurt after a few hours.



The finished product! It doesn't look the way I thought it would, but I do like it. The other girl in the pictures is my friend Bekah, who went to the fair with me. I have no clue where I'm going to hang it - there's no space left in our kitchen. We'll find somewhere - a task for another day. Goodnight!

Tea Towel Cupcakes

Saturday keeps getting closer and I keep getting more and more nervous...oh well, at least it will be over soon. And what better way to ease your stress than with a cupcake? Of course, I'm on a diet, so these will do for now. They're towel cupcakes for housewarming gifts, from yoonie-at-home. She's posted a full tutorial on how to make them - I bet you could experiment with colors and patterned tea towels. Maybe polka dots would look like sprinkles?

Halloween Wreath

Ah, Halloween. My favorite holiday. And the best part, of course, is the candy. Craft-o-Maniac made this great candy wreath and as soon as I have free time again I'm going to make one, too. My only issue is keeping the candy preserved - I don't want bugs flying around it. And do you have to throw it away after just one year to keep it from spoiling? Hmm, maybe there's a way to shellac it or something to preserve it. Any suggestions?