Halloween Mice

Before I put away my witches hat and boots, I have one final Halloween tutorial til next year. It was an awesome Halloween and thank all of you for celebrating it with me.

My Aunt Marion, my Mother-In-Law's sister, made these. I had a fit over them, they are the cutest thing...I had to hide some so that I could take some pics in the day time. Well, they were "hiding" in the microwave, (I know, I should have hid them in the fridge) and Katie made some pop corn and melted them some. She tried to put them back together. She did a good enough job so you can at least get the idea of how cute they are. Just a little out of shape...

Halloween Mice Recipe
You will need:
Cherry's (with stem)
Hershey Kisses
Sliced Almonds
Chocolate (I guess you could use bark chocolate or any kind you can melt)

Dip Cherry's in melted chocolate, put 2 almond slices as ears, stick Kiss on it...you may need to put a little choc between the almonds and Kiss to make it stick.
Easy recipe that is so cute!

Halloween Tree & Halloween Wreath

I got this idea from a craft book. The craft called for a pot painted black with chalk paint. You could paint it orange, black or anyhow you want to. I did not paint these pots...I got them at Dollar General a few Halloweens ago. They were so cute that I couldn't resist using them for this...
These are my modified instructions:

You will need...
a Pot painted Halloweeny
Floral foam
a small spooky tree branch painted black (you can also use spray adhesive and glitter to give it have a little shine)
Halloween Trinkets
Green, Orange or Purple Yarn or Spider Web Cotton
Plastic Spiders (especially if you use Spider Web)
Black confetti
Black spray paint
Glue Gun

Glue Gun the floral foam in the pot. Stick the painted branch in the pot...hot glue the black confetti on the foam. Decorate the tree with yarn, spider webs, trinkets...let your imagination run wild!
Halloween Wreath

Indoor Halloween Haunt "How-Tos"

Katie and Scout posing in front of the "haunted foyer"!

A few years ago I found the directions online on how to make this Mummy. The trick is suckering someone into letting you wrap them with tape. Patrick allowed me to do this to him but said he would never do it again! I guess it is a tight squeeze and kinda hard to cut around the joints...I may have nicked him a little bit cutting him apart!:-) But I now have his 13 year old body forever!LOL

THE MUMMY

You will need some old clothes that you can cut
Lots of masking tape
Styrofoam Head http://www.kc-store-fixtures.com/displays-styrofoam_heads.php
Gauze or ripped up white sheet
Brown, Black or Gray Spray Paint
Tea or coffee (optional)
Old Socks
Old Gloves
Note: You don't have to have the socks and gloves but it is much easier to stuff them than to try to tape around fingers and feet!

Soak your gauze or sheets in tea bags or old coffee to give it that "century old look".
Dig out the eyes and mouth on your Styrofoam head...you can paint it with regular paint if you want it to have a melted spooky look or buy "model car spray paint" at the craft store if you don't want it to melt it. I used regular paint because I think it looked scarier with it melted looking.

Get your sucker, I mean "model" to put on an old pair of clothes. Start taping all around their body...arms, legs, torso...everything but head, hands and feet. Once you have them all taped up, cut a slit down the back, back of arms and back of legs. Cut the clothes with the tape. The clothes will stay with the tape in the mold. After you get the mold off, stuff it with newspaper or grocery bags to give it a life-like shape. Tape the Styrofoam head to the body. Stuff your gloves and feet and tape around them before taping them to the body.

I painted my body Brown but you could use whatever color you wanted to. After it dries just wrap the gauze around the body to look like a Mummy.

He looks like a real person sitting at my dining room table.

The Glitter Bones recipe came from the Martha Stewart web site. It is a very easy craft.

GLITTER BONES

Bag of Bones

Elmer's Glue or Decoupage Glue

Very Fine Glitter and Regular Glitter

Coat the bones with glue and sprinkle the fine glitter first then the regular glitter all over every nook and cranny. Place on a cake plate or serving platter...dig in!

Outdoor Halloween Haunt "How-tos"

I made the tombstone out of a boogie board on clearance. You take the outer-plastic layer off to expose the Styrofoam. Etch epitaph with a craft knife. Spray paint with Kiltz. I sprayed this one silver with black words and then sprayed it with water to give it an old affect. (the black paint was craft paint applied with a sponge brush) The hand is just a house-hold rubber glove stuffed with cotton and newspaper, painted with a little red paint for blood and a shish-kabob to stick it in the ground.

The Grim Reaper is a Scream mask on an old beach umbrella pole and two sticks taped together crossways for the shoulders.

The Flying Ghost is a Styrofoam skull on a wire coat hanger and ripped up sheets. It is hanging on an old branch that me and the kids went in the woods and found. You'd be surprised the things you can find all around you that you can use to make "hauntings":-)

This is my Dead Man in the Coffin. I started not to post this picture because it is tearing apart. Being up in the attic heat, plus "someone" placed the Christmas Tree on top of it, was a little too much for the old ghoul. But I did want to give you an idea of the poor dudes former glory. I made the coffin out of cardboard. Glue guns or tape just can't hold up against our scorching summer heat down here on the coast. I made it a couple of years ago for a little Haunted House our neighborhood had. Hopefully I can piece it back together for this years haunt.

You have to admit that he is pretty darn creepy!! Last year I put it in my dining room and the cat would get in there and snuggle with the corpse. It would be so scary when you'd catch something "moving" out of the corner of you eye!!LOL

Brady loves the "dead man"! Poor kid ain't ever gonna be afraid of anything!!

Cemetary Fence

I had been waiting on this stuff to go on sale all summer! In August it was 50% off so I bought 4. 2 weeks later it was 70% off so I bought a couple more. On Monday, Dollar General had it 90% off! I was so disappointed that they only had 1 leftover. I would have bought up all they had and made up my entire yard if they would have had more! Maybe it's best they didn't!:-) I do tend to go a little overboard when it comes to Halloween! This was a very simple Halloween decoration. All I did was spray it black with some matte black spray paint. Some of it chipped off a little but that doesn't matter. You want it to have that "aged look" anyway.

I glue-gunned peat-moss around and on the fence to give it a more "spooky" feel.