Halloween Party Time!

In early October Jack begged me to have a halloween party and being one who loves putting a party together I said “of course!” and then as October 31st approached I was like ehhhhhhhhh. And then a couple days before Halloween my friends were like, “hey, didn’t you say you were having a Halloween party? We were planning on coming!” and so then I pulled a party together in two days.

A few of these snack ideas I’d had pinned for close to a decade, so it was fun to finally make them! I have appx 20 ghost bananas leftover so I think banana bread and banana smoothies are in my future, lol. I still can’t get over how cute the tangerine/celery pumpkins are. I think pretty much all of these snacks are over on my Autumn Pinterest board so if you want those details head over there!

DIY Coffin Charcuterie board

I was perusing halloween decor at Target and spotted a coffin shaped charcuterie board and immediately got the bug to make one for myself. Could I have bought it at target? Sure, but why buy something for 25 bucks when you can spend a week making one with scrap wood you have in your garage?

I had some nice Birch plywood leftover from a previous project sitting in my garage, so I started by cutting that into the shape of a coffin using my circular saw. The shape of a cofffin is just an elongated hexagon, and I sketched out one side of it till the shape felt right, then reflected that to the other side so that it was a symmetrical shape. The overall dimensions are shown below so you can replicate the exact measurements if you’d like. The size felt pretty ideal for a charcuterie board, but you could always make it smaller or bigger if you’re making your own!

Once It was cut out I gave it a quick sand, then finished it with edge banding. I wasn’t originally going to do this (I was planning to just paint the whole thing, but I need to test the edge banding out for another project, and it actually ended up making it look very nice and finished).

I then used my router to create little rounded channels as handles. I had planned on using some drawer pulls to make handles, but when I realized that the grain on one side made a very spooky looking face, I didn’t want the handle to get in the way of the spooky face, so I ended up using my router and a round bit to create the groove “handles”

I had planned on painting in black, but with the discovery of the face in the wood grain I pivoted and instead stained that side ebony so the spooky face remained. I painted the underside black, that way I could have it black or stained- best of both worlds. Since this isn’t something like a bowl, or something that knives will be used on, I finished it with Lacquer. Based on what I could find online, for this application that sounded like a fine food-safe finish once it’s dried and cured. (it’s also what I had on hand). But if you’re concerned about food safety, do you own research on what feels like the safest finish for you.

Once it was all dry and finished, it was time to load her up with tasty things! This is, of course, up to your own taste. You can make it a sweet-things board, a savory things board, whatever the heck you fancy. Since it’s a coffin shape, I made a simple skeleton shape out of the food (though I’ve see this done with a little plastic skeleton surrounded by the food, which is also super cute).

I filled my charcuterie board with:

Brie (cut into the shape of a skull)
Goat Cheese (sliced into a “spine”)
Candied Mango slices
Pear Slices
Blueberries
Blackberries
Figs
Meringue Cookies
Yogurt covered pretzels
Crackers
Pistachios
Salami
Prociutto
Tiny White pumpkins

There you go! If you don’t feel like tackling the DIY project, but still want to do a charcuterie board like this, there are a bunch of fun coffin-shaped boards out there like these ones on Etsy, or these ones on Amazon.

Season of the Witch

Y’all, I’m unreasonably proud of this little halloween porch. Gah! I don’t usually go full out on Halloween decor, I typically stick to more fall themed stuff— pumpkins and the like. But for some reason this year I felt like getting SPOOKY.

Last year’s monster door was super fun, especially with the door being pink, but after painting it chartreusey yellow, it felt like it wanted to be a spooky witch potion this year! With the door being a potion bottle, I kind of took that idea and ran with it for the rest of the porch, leaning heavy into the witch theme. So we hung some witch hats from the ceiling of the porch, made a witchy cauldron, and then a bunch of bottles filled with “potion” to finish things off.

The door was made with sheets of craft foam and foam core poster board. The eyes are cut out of white craft foam, then painted with the iris and the blood vessels, then I hot glued the pupils on, which are made of black craft foam. I used about five sheets of the white 6mm craft foam, one sheet of the 2mm black craft foam, one 20x30 white foam core board, and one 20x30 black foam core board.

The top where the bottle top shape is, was made out of foam core poster board, cut to form the negative space that make the door look like a bottle. Then I added the “witches brew” labels and attached everything with Command Strips.

I decided I wanted some witchy steam billowing out of the top of the bottle so I bought a few yards of white tulle, stapled half of it to the wall above the door, and then threaded some battery powered green twinkly lights through the tulle!

With the other half of the tulle, I put green Christmas lights in the bottom of the cauldron, then stuffed the tulle on top of it so it illuminates and looks like a frothing witch cauldron. On the opposite side of the door I salvaged some potion-y looking bottles from our recycling bin, and filled the clear ones with water mixed with green food coloring. Then I grabbed some of the crusty old squash vines that were left in our garden and wove them around everything.

Witch Hats | White Craft Foam | Black Craft Foam | White Foam Core Board | Black Foam Core Board | Witch Cauldron | Brown Bottles | Spooky fabric
Wood Lanterns | Green Christmas Lights | Battery Powered Green Fairy Lights

Jack(-o-lantern)'s First Halloween!

We didn’t do anything for last halloween, but this year Jack had a bunch of friends his age, and was the perfect age for his first trick-or-treating adventure! We all met up at one family’s house and walked to Proctor Treats where the kiddos got their buckets filled with candy. Afterwards we trekked back to the house, let the babes play in the living room and all us adults filled up on cheese, chili, and wine while trick-or-treaters came to the door.

Jack was pretty obsessed with pumpkins all fall, so naturally I figured a pumpkin costume would be apropos. It’s also a bit of a family tradition. My brother was a pumpkin one halloween when he was super young, and that same year I was a witch, so I decided to be a witch again, this time with Jack. I was pretty excited to find Jack’s entire costume at the thrift store one day, and my costume was entirely pulled from my own closet (though I did have to buy a $3 witch hat because I couldn’t find the one I got some years ago, probably got thrown out in our 2016 move). Having a library of wigs from my Burlesque dancing days does tend to come in handy now and then!