Mod Podge Halloween Plate and Halloween Party Ideas

     This past weekend my partner Brian and I invited some family members over for a Halloween party.  I've wanted to have a Halloween party for some time now, but never have been able to, so I was glad to finally host one.  This post includes instructions on how to make one of the crafts I made for my party, the Halloween egg platter, but also some ideas for party snacks, food related crafts, indoor and outdoor decor, and activities for your party.

Halloween Plate

Materials:

*Plate

*Halloween paper napkin

*Mod Podge

*Paintbrush

*Scissors

Directions:

*Trim napkin to fit the bottom of the plate.

*Apply a thin coat of Mod Podge to the backside of the plate and then stick on the napkin.  Let dry.

*Once dry, apply a thin coat of Mod Podge over the napkin to seal it.  Let dry.  The plate should be hand washable, but I wouldn't recommend submerging it in water if possible and I also doubt it would fare well in a dishwasher.

Halloween Party Snacks and Food Related Crafts

     Serve your guests these deviled eggs that will keep an eye on them.  Just make deviled eggs as you usually would (or use Brian's recipe, given below) and then cut up a few olives into thin slices and use those for the pupils of the eyes.  Also, if you're interested in making your own witch costume, here's how I made the one I'm wearing in the photo.

Brian's Deviled Eggs

Ingredients:

*1 dozen eggs

*5 tbsp mayonnaise

*1 tsp mustard

*Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

*Place eggs in a pot of water and bring to a roaring boil.

*Once boiling, turn the heat down some and cook for 20 minutes.

*Take eggs off the stove and drain the water.  Set aside to cool.

*Once cool, cut the eggs in half and scoop the yolks out into a blender.  Add the mayo, mustard, salt, and pepper and blend until smooth.

*Scrape the yolk mixture into a sealable plastic bag and cut off one of the corners.  Squeeze the mix into the egg whites through the hole in the corner.

     These cemetery cupcakes/cake are easy to make and delicious.  Brian used a devil's food cake mix and his vanilla icing recipe (can be found in this blog post) with some added green food coloring to make it look like grass.  Mys sister Katie and I used ground up Newman's O's (which Brian ground in the blender) for the dirt and chocolate orange Milano cookies for the tombstones.  Like the cupcake stand?  Here are the directions for how to make it.

     Here's the snack table setup we had at the party.  Brian's mom made the witch's brooms by poking pretzels into peanut butter cups.  The gray thing in the very back, which is mostly hidden behind the food, is holding food picks, which we used to skewer cheese cubes.  The directions are here.  Also, if you like the tablecloth, here's how I made it.

     This is what I did for the table setup.  Here's how to make the goblets.  I plan to write about the coasters (which you can't see very well here) in a forthcoming post.

Indoor Decor

     Here are some simple DIY decorations.  Directions for the Halloween curtain are here.  Here's how to make the creepy dolls.  I made the tablecloth using basic tie dyeing techniques described here.  The morphing holographic photos came from Dollar Tree and Rite Aid, but I wrote about how you can make them look nicer here (even though it isn't mentioned in the post title).

     Some more decorations.  The little figurines and light up haunted grove my mom gave me years ago.  The Halloween tree with the ornaments I made and I also made the potion bottles.  Although I didn't include photos here, for the party I also put up my felt sleepy bat, my Halloween fuse bead magnets, and my Halloween banner.

Outdoor Decor

     Now for some outdoor decorating ideas.  I got the eyeball path markers from Kmart.  They light up and play spooky sounds when someone walks near them.  Two of the foam tombstones I made, and you can find directions for them here, while two came from Dollar Tree and I forget where the two little ones came from.

     And a few more outdoor decorations.  This spooky eyeball wreath I made also glows in the dark (directions here).  I printed the door hanger from Family Fun's website years ago, but I can't seem to find the link for it anymore.

Activities

     Looking for some ideas for activities for your party?  We had a Yankee swap at ours.  I used the mini paper witch hats I made a few weeks ago and either hid a little gift under them or adhered a piece of painter's tape to the bottom with a number on it.  Each number corresponded to a particular gift that was too large to fit under one of the hats.  Brian's mom got a bookmark that I made from the swap, as did Brian's sister Alissa.  It wasn't one of these monster ones, but these are pretty popular and they're Halloween related, so I figured I would link to it to give an idea of a possible bookmark you could make.

     My brother Adam got a photo of a giant pink dinosaur skeleton (the one by Perry's Nut House in Belfast),  It can be fun to have some gag gifts, as long as your participants are good sports.

     My dad got a pom pom pal I made.  I also got one, but I gave it to Katie because she had to miss the party for work.

     Brian (who is wearing the vampire cape I made for Halloween last year) ended up with some plastic Halloween rings.  Alissa's boyfriend Kyle ended up with some Halloween earrings and mom got some fall leaf ones that I made by punching leaf shapes out of patterned cardstock and adding ear wires to them.  We had two additional gifts left over at the end, a bookmark that mom got and some googly eyed thumbtacks (just take thumbtacks and glue googly eyes to them) that Alissa received.

     For our other activity, we made caramel apples.  Not exactly picturesque, but they're tasty nonetheless.  Well, that's all for now.  I hope you've enjoyed this blog post and I hope that it has given you plenty of ideas for your own Halloween party!  If you are hosting a party of your own, I'd love to hear what your ideas are/how it goes in the comments below.

Sharpie Mugs + Brownie in a Mug Recipe

     Here is a craft and a recipe in one blog post.  I don't usually post recipes because my cooking skills extend only as far as making spaghetti, but sometimes Brian will come up with something awesome that I can't help but share.  One day Brian came across a brownie recipe that you cook by microwaving in a mug.  We tried out the recipe and it was okay, but not amazing, so Brian used his baking prowess to concoct his own version, which came out wonderfully.  I wanted some way to showcase Brian's delicious recipe on my blog and so I searched the internet for mug decorating ideas, which is how I found out about Sharpie mugs.
     Since Brian and I are both math grad students, I decided to decorate our mugs with math jokes.  If you're not interested in advanced math, feel free to skip ahead to the next section, but I figured I would share the jokes so that any mathematicians in my audience could perhaps get a chuckle.  One reads, "You may be a mathematician if, when being interrogated as a suspect by the police and asked to prove your innocence, you begin by saying, 'Assume, to the contrary, that I'm guilty . . .' (at which point you are arrested)."  The other says, "You may be a mathematician if you know the Greek alphabet, but not a word of Greek" and includes some Greek letters that I find myself using often at the bottom.

Sharpie Mugs

     I found this craft here and have included my own, slightly modified version of the directions below.

Materials:
*Plain mugs
*Oil based paint markers (such as the ones by Sharpie)
*Baking sheet
*Pen
*Pencil
*Printer paper
*Scissors
*Painter's tape

Directions:
*Pick up a solid colored mug.  Thrift stores and dollar stores are great places to find plain mugs for low prices.  I ended up getting mine from Goodwill for a dollar each.
*Rinse off your mug to remove any dirt or other grime that could prevent the paint from sticking to the mug.  Isopropyl alcohol is recommended as a cleaning agent, although I did not try this.
*Cut a sheet of white printer paper down to the size you would like your design to be and sketch out your design in pen or pencil.
*Once you have your design ready, shade in the back side of the piece of paper with pencil, such as pictured below:

*Tape your design to your mug using painter's tape, making sure not to cover up any part of your design with tape:

*Carefully trace over your design with a pen or pencil.  Once you've finished, peel off the paper and tape and beneath your design should show up lightly in pencil, such as in the picture below:

*Trace the pencil lines with your oil based paint marker.
*Let your mug dry for 24 hours.
*Place the mug on a cookie sheet and pop it into the oven and turn the oven to 425 degrees.  By placing the mug in the oven while it is heating, you reduce the likelihood that the mug will break due to a temperature differential.
*Once the oven finishes preheating, bake the mug for 30 minutes.  When 30 minutes is up, turn off the oven.  Leave the mug inside the oven while it cools.  This again makes it less likely to break.
*As soon as the mug is cool, it's ready to use.  To increase the longevity of your mug, I recommend hand washing it when you're done rather than using a dishwasher.

Brownie in a Mug

Ingredients:
* 3 tbsp hot cocoa powder
*2 tbsp flower
*1/4 tsp vanilla
*1 tbsp oil
*2 tbsp water
*Optional: vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles, or other toppings

Directions:
*Combine flour and hot cocoa mix in a mug.
*Add vanilla, oil, and water.  Mix until smooth.
*Cook in the microwave for about 1 minute and 40 seconds.  It should look something like this when it's finished:

*Let cool for a couple of minutes, as the brownie can be very hot.
*Top with ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles, or other favorite brownie toppings and enjoy :)

Easy Crayon Tablecloth and Melted Crayon Art Cake

    Here's another set of ideas for a rainbow crayon themed party.  If you haven't seen these yet and are looking for rainbow crayon decoration ideas, check out my melted crayon heart garland, my melted crayon decorative bowls, and my melted crayon art.  Next week I'll have the last of my rainbow crayon party ideas, and the week after I'll post a fun photo craft, so stay tuned!

Crayon Tablecloth



Materials:
*Plastic tablecloth
*Cardstock
*Color printer
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Enlarge the crayon templates below to the desired size and print them onto cardstock.
*Cut out the crayon shapes and glue them to your tablecloth.

Melted Crayon Art Cake

     I don't usually blog about food, but I thought this cake decorating idea was to neat not to share.  I came across the melted crayon cake idea online and thought it would work well with the theme for my party, so when Brian was making my cake I asked him if he could frost it to look like melted crayon art.  I'm including some directions on how to decorate the cake, plus Brian's icing recipe.

Cake decorating materials:

*Icing recipe and ingredients

*Food coloring

*Plastic sandwich bags

Cake decorating directions:

*Prepare a batch of your preferred icing recipe and ice the cake as you would normally, then make a second batch, using perhaps a little less liquid than what the recipe calls for (Brian found that when he added the food coloring, the icing became a bit runny.  You can always add a bit more liquid if the icing turns out to be too dry after adding the food coloring).

*Separate the icing into plastic sandwich bags, as many as you would like to have colors on your cake.

*Add a few drops of food coloring to one of the bags.  Massage the bag with your fingers until the icing is a consistent color.  Add more food coloring if the color is not as dark as what you're looking for.

*Repeat for the other colors.

*Cut off the bottom corner of the sandwich bag.  The larger a chunk you cut out of the corner, the thicker your melted crayon lines will be.

*Squeeze icing onto the side of the cake.

Brian's icing recipe:

Ingredients:

*1/2 cup butter

*1 pound confectioner's sugar

*1/4 cup milk

*1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

*Cream butter and 2 cups of confectioner's sugar together.

*Add vanilla and milk.

*Add remaining sugar gradually until icing reaches its desired consistency.