Halloween Messy Play

We had our Halloween Messy play session on Monday, with the weather being very wet we were quite busy! So much so i didn't get chance to take many pics.

Lots of fun was had by all & I know its a bit late for sharing Halloween ideas, but could be good for next year....

Bottle Ghosts

Decorating Pumpkins & using scissors to cut features

Spiders & Webs

Orange Jelly & Pumpkin Seeds

Sensory box

Orange & Blackish Spaghetti

Play dough Station & 1/2 a pic of the soft toy pool!

Floor Painting

When we got home I had lots of toys which needed a wash so I set the boys up with a bowl of soapy water & got them to give me a hand. They enjoyed this as much as our Lego wash & yes they did need a change of clothes after!

x Jo x

Happy Halloween....

2013

 Happy Halloween ... I thought I would share our pumpkin(s) carving effort with you. This year (above) I ended up buying 6 pumpkins, 3 of which were big enough for carving & stacked so well I just had to make a pumpkin tower. After searching pintrest & goggle we decided that the traditional look would be best. I'm really pleased with the results, I used a dry wipe pen to draw on the faces & used a kit from the £1 shop with 2 great knives to cut it out. I then used a permanent marker to highlight some of the features so it looks god in day-light as well, as we will be taking it to Josephs party.

As I wasn't blogging this time last year here are our previous pumpkins...

2012

2011

2010

x Jo x

P.s Sorry about the mess in the background of some of the pics, you can tell i took them before I'd started blogging!

Halloween Crafts & Sensory Fun

Following on from our Top 20 Halloween Crafts & Messy Play Ideas post we have been getting everything ready for our 1/2 term group messy play session. We've decided to make bottle ghosts, spider webs, & spiders. We will also decorate some paper pumpkins but I'm yet to prep for this! 

I'm collecting & washing lots of bottles ready for our ghosts. We will be filling them with cotton wool then sticking on eyes & mouths that I've cut out of sticky back felt. I'm also saving our milk bottles to make ghost decorations for Josephs party, by drawing on the face with a permanent marker pen.

 We have lots of wool scraps here courtesy of the boys Grandma, so a paper plate spider web was a great way to use some up! I've got a stack of paper plates (large & small) which I have punched lots of holes in, ready for a length of wool to be tied on & threaded around to make a web. These webs look great with small plastic spiders, but i thought the kids would like to make a spider. I love this spider from Red Ted Art so to make our spiders we will be making the body from a ball of black paper (mine was A5). The legs are made from 2 pipe cleaners in 1/2, twisting all 4 pieces together & taping on underneath. I then glued some googly eyes on & decorated with some glitter glue. He looks really cute sat on a small pumpkin, which is where he is living for now :-)

Daniel (3) has been helping me get our sensory box ready for the session as well. We started out by raiding the cupboard for all the lentils, & split peas etc we used to make our Dinosaurs back in the summer, we then added a couple of packs of soup & broth mix that we picked up reduced to clear. In total our box has nearly 2kg of dried goods to make the base. We then added our collection of spiders, bugs, snakes & a small witch. We found these cute mini pumpkin buckets & eyeballs in a £ shop. I then added some co-ordinating pom poms as the boys love these & later on some scoops. Daniel has had lots of fun testing out this box for me! 

Really looking forward to both the messy play session & Josephs birthday party. However my house (&head) is full of to buy/make/do/cook lists, so will be relieved once I have pulled it all off!

x Jo x

Pumpkin Cupcakes

So as Joseph has requested cupcakes for his upcoming Halloween birthday party, I thought I should test out a few recipes. Using the Libby's tinned pumpkin puree that I found in Waitrose, I first tried this recipe here, it really helps to have a set of American measuring cups when using US recipes, I found mine on e-bay. These turned out well, but was defiantly a muffin recipe, I don't think they would have worked very well iced. I made this 1st batch the day before the Macmillan coffee morning at school so was thrilled (its the little things) to be able to use this idea I had pinned ages ago of threading ribbon through a hole punched paper plate.

I then tried this recipe which uses half the amount of pumpkin, this will be the recipe I will use for Josephs party as it has a much lighter more cakey texture. I really must concentrate more when baking as I managed to make this batch & put it in the cases without the eggs! I ended up scooping it back into the bowl, binning the cases, adding the egg & using new cases..

Later that day I made a couple of batches of icing for the cakes. I managed to mess up both the butter cream & the cream cheese frosting, somehow they ended up runny! I think I used too much water in the butter cream & I'm assuming that light cream cheese doesn't work! On the plus side i made a second batch of butter cream using the recipe on the back & just adding a tiny bit of milk & it turned out much better (the pink one). I think with enough sprinkles on top they will be passable for the party...

x Jo x

Pumpkin Sun Catcher Craft

After I wrote about these cool Halloween sun catchers in my Top 20 Halloween Messy Play & Craft Ideas post, The boys & I were inspired to make some pumpkin decorations ready for Halloween & Joseph's (5th) Birthday party. 

We had used up all our black card however I found a large piece of orange ( just smaller than a3). So while Joseph was at school Daniel (3) & I got busy getting everything ready. I set Daniel the task of cutting up some orange, red & yellow tissue paper, he is always more than happy to practise his scissor skills! While he was doing that I cut the orange card out in to a pumpkin shape then cut it again 2-3 cm inside. Out of the one piece of card I managed to get 4 pumpkin shapes & 2 smaller solid pumpkin shapes. I then used an off cut of some green card to cut out some stalks. Next came the difficult bit of sticking each pumpkin shape on to some sticky back plastic (aka, book covering or contact paper). Once done I re-applied the backing ready for later.

Once Joseph was home from school the boys had lots of fun decorating their pumpkins. It was a great way of sticking without any mess & they loved it. Once they had finished I applied some more sticky back plastic on the other side to seal in the tissue paper. You could also add a face to your pumpkin before sealing it.

These can be used anywhere but look amazing with light shining through on a window. We've put them up on our lounge window for now, as our neighbours would think I was crazy for putting up Halloween decorations so early! Nearer to the date they will go up on the Kitchen window & then after we will use them as decorations for Joseph's birthday.

At the weekend we used the 2  solid pumpkins & the remaining tissue squares to make these mini pumpkins. To save too much mess I squeezed the glue directly on the card & let the boys spread it around with a glue stick. Apparently Joseph thinks pumpkins have to look angry & that involves a frown! Daniel copied but his (on top) just looks sad...

x Jo x

For more Halloween fun check out my:

Top 20 Halloween Messy Play & Craft Ideas
Top 20 Halloween Party Food Ideas
Halloween Pintrest Board

Top 20 Halloween Party Food Ideas

So following on from my 'Top 20 Halloween Messy Play & Craft Ideas' post, I'm now thinking about what food to make for Joseph's Halloween birthday party...

Joseph has requested cupcakes & now I have located tinned pumpkin here in the UK (waitrose), I'm thinking that pumpkin cake it will be... just need to work out how to decorate them!

 

Spiced Pumpkin Muffins - Stylist.co.uk

Oreo Owl Cupcakes -One Charming Party

Monster Cupcakes - The Decorated Cookie

And for some party food...

Satsuma Pumpkins - The Old Green Cupboard

Banana Ghosts & Satsumas

Strawberry Ghosts

Mini Witch Hats - Mummy Mishaps

Frankinstein Pudding Cups - A Turtles Life For Me

Ghost Jelly - Party Blue Prints Blog

Vampire Gingerbread - The Glass Eye

Olive Spider Eggs

Spider Crackers - Thrifty Fun

Hot Dog Mummys

Mummy Pizza's

Cheese Balls = Pumpkin Poop!

Marshmallows = Ghost Poop!

Mousse Filled Witches Hats - The Crazy Kitchen

Rice Crispie Frankensteins

Ghost Biscuits - Nicholes Treats

Mummy Juices

Just need to find time to make it all ....

x Jo x

Top 20 Halloween Messy Play & Craft Ideas..

Joseph has always liked Halloween & as his birthday is just a few days later, he has asked for a Halloween party. He will be 5 this year & as he has enjoyed our group messy play sessions so much over the summer we will be having a messy Halloween party! I don't want anything that will stain as I don't want to ruin anyone's costumes! I'm also running another group messy play session in October half term so will be using lots of the same ideas. 

Shaving Foam - The Iowa Farmers's Wife

Spider Play Dough -Taming The Goblin

Halloween Coloured Rice - Play Through The Day

Green Spaghetti - Growing A Jewelled Rose

Pumpkin Gloop - Growing A Jewelled Rose

Spooky Jelly Play - Nurture Store

Lentil Sensory Box - Creative Playhouse

Orange & Black Water Beads - Le Baby Bakery

Spider Web Threading - There's Just One Mommy

Cotton Wool Ghost Bottles - No Time For Flash Cards

Lentil Pumpkin Craft - Crack Of Dawn Crafts

Paper Bag Ghost Puppets - Fab Mums

Loo Roll Bats - La-Dee-Da Creations

Loo Roll Monsters - Happy Hooligans

Tissue Paper Window Decoration - Jennifer's little World

Pine Cone Owls - Lady Sandra

Bottle Top Spider - Craft Town

Paper Plate Witch - Ziggity Zoom

Cotton Wool Ghost - 366 Days Of Pintrest

Cotton Bud (Q-Tip) Skeleton - Pilish The Stars

If you are looking for more Halloween ideas take a look at my Halloween Pintrest board. I have still got to gather some ideas for food & decorations so keep a look out for another post soon...

x Jo x