Happy Halloween 2012! + Halloween Safety Tips

HomeSeasons would like to wish everyone a Happy Halloween 2012!

We hope everyone has a great time celebrating this fun holiday with family and friends! Enjoy all the ghoulish festivities and scrumptious treats! Get all decked out in your costume and go trick or treating with the kids and family!

But one thing to be sure of, stay safe this Halloween! Here are some Halloween safety tips:

• if you’re wearing a dark costume, be sure to wear reflectors
• when driving, be extra aware of children that may run out into the street
• stay on the sidewalk and cross carefully at designated crosswalks
• only eat unwrapped candy and treats from friends and family you know
• take notice of lit jack-o-lanterns and keep them away from flammable costumes and pets
• trick or treat in groups
• do not stop at dark/unlit houses
• do not take rides from strangers
• for adults: do not drink and drive, always designate a driver
• have fun responsibly

Again, we hope everyone has a fun time celebrating Halloween this year. Will you be out trick or treating? Or staying in to pass out candy? Share with us in the comments below your plans for tonight!

Ghostly Halloween Treats

BOO! The ghosts are ready to infiltrate your snack trays for Halloween. Many things can be made into ghostly Halloween snacks with a little imagination and elbow grease (not literally)!

Today’s post is going to share with you some fun Halloween treats made into spooky ghost shapes! We found these from various places on the internet and thought it’s be fun to share with everyone! Click on the image/link for more information.

From BBC Food Recipes

Make ghostly cupcakes with white buttercream!

From Cutest Food

Little cake pops can be made into boolicious ghosts!

From Cute Food For Kids

Treat bags are perfect for Halloween. Fill them up with marshmallows for cute ghost treats!

From Buzz Patrol

Mozzarella ghost pizza, complete with olive spiders!

From American Profile

Create ghostly Nutter Butters with melted white chocolate and sprinkle eyes!

What are some of your favorite ghostly Halloween treats? Will you be serving any tomorrow for Halloween? Share with us picture in the comments below! These snacks are so cute and we can’t wait to make some!

Halloween Mantle Home Decor

Decorating for Halloween can be a daunting task, especially when we don’t have enough decorating space! We need to make use of every single available spot we have when we decorate for the holidays. One area that has become a hot spot for holiday decorating is the mantle. Long gone are the days when the mantle is solely used for family pictures that we don’t have space for anywhere else.

In the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in holiday mantle decorating. Mantle decorating is not only for Christmas though, it’s gaining momentum for Halloween, as well! Today’s post will feature a few of our favorite Halloween mantles from the internet that will definitely inspire you.

From Today’s Mama/Pottery Barn

Still want to display your family photos? Try a wall mounted frame with an asymmetrical layout.

From Coupon Album

A simple decorated mantle is perfect for smaller apartments.

From Crap I’ve Made

Don’t be afraid to add a little color to the mantle. Some other great colors are purple and hot pink, and green.

From His Sugar Plum

If your home already has a black and white mantle, try sticking with the same theme and create a monochromatic scene! Silver looks great with black and white, and doesn’t throw off the theme.

Will you be decorating your mantle this Halloween? We think the idea is great for apartments with small spaces, but still want to create a focal point in the room. The mantle is perfect for hanging off little embellishments and putting skulls and pumpkins. Just be careful of hanging paper embellishments, especially if the fireplace is going!

Share with us your favorite Halloween mantles in a comment below. If you decorated one for Halloween, please let us know! Halloween is in 2 days!

Chic Halloween DIY Glitter Skulls

For those of you who want to go the chic Halloween home decor route instead of scary this year, today’s post is made for you!

It isn’t Halloween until we surround ourselves with spooky skulls. Skulls are pretty scary on its own! However, with a little bit of DIY craftiness, we can turn them into chic glitter pieces with a few supplies easily found from the craft store. Keep reading for instructions and ideas!

From Babble

Supplies:

• plastic or foam skull
• glitter (any color of your choice)
• mod podge
• sponge paintbrush
• paper plate

From HomeSeasons

On a covered surface, prepare all your supplies. Cover the skull in a light layer of mod podge with the sponge paintbrush. Sprinkle the glitter to cover all of the skull (make sure to get into the hollows of the eyes and the nose), using the plate to catch the glitter. Pat the glitter on to make sure it sticks. Let dry for 15-30 mins (or until dry to the touch). If there are any spots you missed, add a little more mod podge on the area and re-glitter and let dry again.

Once completely dried, cover the whole skull with a thin layer of mod podge. This thin layer minimized glitter fallout from the skull. As much as we love glitter, we don’t want it all over our house! Let completely dry for at least a few hours.

The possibilities to this project are endless! Here are some more ideas on different designs and patterns for your glitter skull:

• ombre pattern – do one section at a time and create a gradient fade on the skull with different shades of the same color glitter
• sugar skull design – draw a pattern on your skull for a sugar skull design and work on one feature at a time. Use a smaller paintbrush for the initial mod podge application and glitter one color at a time.
• a display of multicolored skulls – cover a few skulls in different colored glitter according to your Halloween color theme and display them on a shelf or as a centerpiece for a table

We think this project is a quick and easy idea to try with the family, and make great gifts! What other ideas can you think of for glitter skulls? Share with us in the comments below!

Back to School: Creative Lunches & Bento Boxes

Many kids have already started going back to school. What I remember most about elementary school (many, many years ago..) were those times when my mom would surprise me with a packed lunch. It didn’t matter if it was a turkey sandwich or the much coveted Lunchables, I was always excited to see what it was.

However, the ordinary packed lunch has since evolved into an artform. This creative way of lunching comes straight to us from Japan, and is now seen in many countries (and cafeterias around the globe). Many Japanese children bring elaborately decorated lunches (known as bento boxes) to school. Talk about exciting! In today’s post, I’m going to share with everyone some of the most creative lunch and bento boxes we found!

 

From La Carmina

From Piculous

From Hardy Mika

From Lunchville

From Toxel

From Foodies Unite

From Bento Central

From Kid Independent

These look too good to eat! Imagine the surprise in your kid’s eyes when they open their lunch and find one of these! We especially love all the cute egg designs. Which one is your favorite? Share with us below!

Happy Halloween, Everyone!

Halloween is finally here!

With Halloween on a Monday this year, I’m sure everyone had a bunch of fun Halloween plans this past weekend. What were some of your most memorable moments this weekend? Did you take a haunted hayride through the spooky forest? What about going through a corn maze in the dark? Did you find yourself wandering alone in a haunted house? Let us know! We want to know all the fun activities that people plan for Halloween!

For those of you who will be trick-or-treating tonight, please stay safe! Check out our blog post on Halloween safety!

Also, please share with us how YOU decorated your home for Halloween! We would love to be inspired for next year!

Again, Happy Halloween, everyone!

 

 

Fun Foods Inspired By Halloween Candy Corn

3 more days until Halloween!

Candy corn is a yummy three-toned sweet that was invented in the 1880s by George Renninger of the Wunderlee Candy Company based in Philadelphia. These little triangular candies are a long standing Halloween tradition. When you think of traditional Halloween candies, candy corn is definitely one that comes to mind. However, a person can only eat so many candy corns until they start to feel nauseous. So how do we get our candy corn fix without over-indulging in candy? Candy corn inspired foods! In today’s post, I’m going to share some fun food picture inspirations I gathered from the internet all full of foods made to look like candy corn! Also, check out the post we made earlier this year about candy corn jello!

 

I am definitely most excited to try baking a candy corn pizza. It has all the features of a candy corn, minus all the sugar! Which of these candy corn foods will you try to recreate? Let us know! Do you prefer the savory or the sweet treats?

 

Halloween DIY Blood Dripping Candles

4 more days until Halloween!

To create an extra spine tingling Halloween decorations display, good lighting is key. What is more spooky than flickering candlelight? (Probably the dark, but that’s for a different blog post)! Today’s post will teach everyone how to DIY two different types of blood dripping candles for Halloween! Not only do they help illuminate the night for all your guests and trick-o-treaters, they also serve double duty as scary Halloween decorations!

 

 

1. The easy-peasy blood dripping candle

Supplies:

• Long taper white candles
• candle holders
• A blood-red candle (any shape or size)
• A flame
• newspaper

To create the easy version of blood dripping candles, all  you need will be the supplies above. Cover your work area with newspaper. Place the long taper white candles in their candle holders. With a flame, light up the red candle until the wax forms a pool. CAREFULLY drip the red wax over the white candles from the top until you have reached the desired amount of bloodiness.

2. The non easy-peasy blood gushing candle

Supplies:

• long taper red candles
• candle holder
• microwaveable soy wax (white)
• wax paper
• microwave

This blood gushing candle is a little more difficult to make but the results are also a little more cool. On a long piece of wax paper, pour on the white microwaveable soy wax in a rectangular formation as long as the candle. Place the wax in the microwave for the amount of time specified on the package.

Take out the white wax from the microwave and place the red taper candle on the wax and roll (kind of like you’re making sushi!) Smooth out the surface of the wax with the wax paper and place in the microwave for another 15-25  seconds just so that the white wax starts to meld around the red candle. Repeat the process until you have reached the smoothness you desire on the candle.

When you are ready to light your candle, be sure to put it on a candle holder to hold the melting wax. The red wax will gush out when melted and create a bleeding effect!

**Both of these projects are best done by adults, as they do require working with flames and electrical appliances!**

Let us know if you decide to try this idea out. Which candle do you prefer? Please share with us below!