Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Newbies Coming
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Really Kewl Pumpkin Faces to Have and Kewlness










First let me give you this website I use it at school for the kids when I taught Science
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000152
Look up his Halloween videos for kewl ideas....
Monday, June 8, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Make Your Own Halloween Cat Mask

Halloween Cat Mask
Materials and Tools:
plastic eye mask
foam from waffle mattress pad
razor blade/scissors
soldering iron
black and gold spray paint
Apoxie Sculpt as a base material (liquid latex)
paintbrush and sponge
spray glue
spray gloss sealer
purple, pink and silver nail polish
cardboard box
dust mask
black permanent marker
stapler
felt, elastic, ribbon
fabric glue
Steps:
1. Place a store-bought plastic mask onto a piece of foam from a waffle mattress pad. Trace the outline of the mask on the foam with a permanent black marker.
2. Sketch the eyes, nose, and mouth and face patterns on the foam.
3. Cut out the foam pieces. Sculpt each piece with scissors before gluing onto the plastic mask.
4. Glue the sculpted pieces on the mask with fabric glue.
5. With a soldering iron or wood burner, burn scroll and line patterns onto the foam. Wear a dust mask or respirator.
6. Coat the mask with spray adhesive.
7. Sponge on liquid latex with a scrap piece of foam. Wait for it to dry.
8. Coat the Halloween mask with spray adhesive again.
9. Wear a dust mask. Place the mask in a cardboard box. Spray paint the entire piece black. Allow to dry.
10. Mist the Halloween cat mask with gold spray paint.
11. Apply purple, pink and silver metallic fingernail polish to add highlights to the eyes, mouth and cheeks.
12. Spray a gloss sealer all over the mask.
13. Remove the existing elastic strap from the mask.
14. Staple white elastic to each side.
15. Tie a ribbon on one side, where the elastic is attached. The other side is tied when it is put on to wear. This is a decorative element to cover the elastic strap.
16. Cut felt to fit inside the cat mask for comfort.
17. Glue felt on the inside of the mask for a nice finished look for your Halloween cat mask.
Halloween Cat Mask designed by Lyn Marie Neuenfeldt from Milwaukee, Wis.
Ever since Lyn Marie’s grandfather took her to see a horror movie at the age of 5, monsters and monster masks have fascinated her. One time, she tried to cast a plaster mask on her brother, but he ended up in the emergency room with doctors removing the plaster from his face. She now happily works as a special effects artist in Milwaukee, specializing in monsters.
Website: www.mo42.com
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Extreme Pumpkin Carving


http://www.extremepumpkins.com/
This is a must see......


Creepy Witches' Fingers
Yield: 5 dozen
1 cup Butter, softened
1 cup Icing sugar (powdered sugar)
1 Egg
1 tsp Almond extract
1 tsp Vanilla
2 2/3 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking powder*
1 tsp Salt
3/4 cup Almonds, whole blanched
1 Tube red decorator gel
(optional, not pictured)
Gross everyone out with these creepy cookies.
In bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla. Beat in flour, baking soda*, and salt. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Working with one quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remainder refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoonful of dough into finger shape for each cookie. Press almond firmly into 1 end for nail. Squeeze in centre to create knuckle shape. (Accompanying picture showed long rolled shape with bulge at centre for knuckle; you puff it out rather than squeeze it in.) Using paring knife, make slashes in several places to form knuckle.
Place on lightly greased baking sheets; bake in 325F (160C) oven for 20-25 minutes or until pale golden. Let cool for 3 minutes. Lift up almond, squeeze red decorator gel onto nail bed and press almond back in place, so gel oozes out from underneath. You can also make slashes in the finger and fill them with "blood."
(ed. note - I opted not to go for the bloody effect as you can see in my picture above, and my guests were still grossed out! - Britta)
Remove from baking sheets and let cool on racks. Repeat with remaining dough.
(Collected by Bert Christensen, Toronto, Ontario)
*The recipe is reproduced above exactly as I found it, but please note the stars I added. I used baking powder for several years just fine, assuming the baking soda listed in the instructions was an error. However, when I moved to a new place with a different oven, my witches' fingers kept puffing during baking and not keeping any detail, which was disappointing! I finally realized that the dough was very similar to a Christmas cookie recipe I had, so I just used neither baking powder nor baking soda and had a more shortbread-like recipe that keeps the detail perfectly, since it has no leavening ingredient. I recommend that method as most reliable.
Saturday, May 30, 2009





Eerie Eyeballs
Yields approximately 9 dozen bite-sized eyeballs
3 oz (small box) lemon gelatin (can be sugar-free)
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup pineapple juice
8 oz cream cheese (can be lowfat/Neufchatel)
Dissolve lemon gelatin in 1 cup water in double boiler, add marshmallows and stir to melt. Remove from heat. Add pineapple juice and cream cheese. Beat until well blended. Cool slightly. If you have a truffle candy mold or round ice cube trays, spary them with non-stick cooking spray first, then pour the mixture in the molds and leave to set in the fridge. Otherwise pour into a deep ceramic dish and chill until thickened or firm enough for scooping into eyeballs. Using a melonballer, scoop full balls of the mixture and set aside for decoration. To decorate, use liquid food coloring and an old detail paintbrush and get creative. You will need black food coloring for the pupils. Also, if you are in a hurry, instead of painting the colored irises, you can carefully dip the ball in a small pool of food coloring to approximate the iris, but still paint on the pupils. Note: if you are using the melonballer method, you might need to add one package of plain gelatin to your mixture. The molds work fine with just the lemon gelatin to make gently squishy eyeballs.
For 1999, I found rubber ice cube trays that worked beautifully with much less waste than the melonballer technique. I sprayed the rubber trays with non-stick cooking spray beforehand like you would any gelatin mold, let the gelatin mixture sit in the refrigerator to set, then I was able to carefully pop the eyeballs out to paint them. Some of the eyeballs did break, and they do have one flat side, but that actually works, since then they don't roll around while you are trying to paint them. Since 2001 I have found that Wilton truffle candy molds are even better, since the swirl design on the top is the right size for the cornea shape on the eyeball. When using the truffle molds, one recipe makes about 9 dozen eyeballs - plenty for a party crowd!





