Halloween Recipes

I love creative recipe ideas for Halloween. These are perfect for Halloween parties or just to try out for fun.







The recipes of the above photos are all at the Betty Crocker flickr page. I love how food can be a piece of art.



The recipe for this cute tombstone cookie is from Gross Halloween Recipes.





I don't have recipes for the two above photos, but you can use them for inspiration of decorating cookies or cupcakes.



This recipe is from Taste of Home. It's a good non dessert/healthy one.




I made this pumpkin walnut bread without walnuts and it was really good. It's also vegan. You can try it yourself with the recipe from the Joy the Baker blog.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween! Do you have any fun Halloween recipes?

Pumpkin Shaped Journal for BEST Contest

I made this cute pumpkin shaped journal for a Halloween contest for the Bookbinding Etsy street Team:







The journal is made of two sides of a pumpkin and when you open it up, it forms a full pumpkin. It uses orange paper on the inside and coptic stitched together using orange thread.

The contest I'm entering is called the BEST Zombie Award 2010. I've seen contests on the bookbinding team before, but this is my first time entering. The theme is Halloween. I love how creative everyone is with bookbinding and wanted to try entering myself.

You can vote on the Bookbinding Team poll. Just click "Pumpkin Journal" in the poll. It would help if you could vote and maybe post on twitter/your blog about it. Thanks for any votes! :)

Pumpkin Carving

I love pumpkin carving for Halloween. It's a great chance to be creative. I'm always impressed by really artistic pumpkins. Here's some pumpkin carving inspiration I've found:







You can get tips on carving pumpkins here. I'm still trying to decide what I want to carve on my pumpkin this year. Do you have any tips for pumpkin carving? Do you carve pumpkins for Halloween?

Halloween Nail Ideas

Halloween is the perfect time to play with your nails and do nail art. They can really add to your costume and complete your look. This website has a lot of good ideas:


















For tips on how to do nail art, see this article. Have you ever painted your nails using nail art? Are you planning on doing your nails for Halloween?

Halloween Costume Ideas

This is the first in a series of Halloween posts I'll be doing. This post is about costume ideas. There's a lot of good costumes sold on Etsy if you just search "halloween costumes" or "costumes" in the Search bar. I think with Halloween costumes, you can be creative with clothes you already have to create costumes. Here's some ideas I have:

I think leggings are perfect for Halloween. These leggings with animal themes - leopard, spider and peacock - can easily be part of a costume and they're not too expensive to buy if you don't have them

For example, for a spider costume, you can just add a black dress to spider leggings. For a leopard costume, all you have to do is add a leopard print shirt or dress and some leopard ears or a leopard headband.

Head pieces can really make the costume. I like these leopard ears clips from Bronze Papillon and this zebra headband from Bella Headbands:





Old dresses are really good for costumes especially with the right accessories, hair and makeup. You could just add fairy wings to a dress to be a fairy or a crown to be a princess or prom queen. You could also be Disney princesses. For example, a yellow dress would be perfect to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast and a light blue dress would be good for Cinderella.





Check back soon for makeup and nail ideas. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, what are you going to be this year?

Halloween Items

It's not too late to buy Halloween items and it's also a good time to start buying Thanksgiving items. I made a Halloween section with autumn and Halloween themed items in my shop. I didn't make any new Halloween items this year because I figured I'd wait until my older ones sell. Here's a few items:

Pet Lovers Black Cat Halloween Greeting Card



Pumpkin Carriage Shimmer Greeting Card



Pumpkin and Vines Thanksgiving Greeting Card



Halloween Bat Greeting Card



Do you usually go shopping or buy cards for Halloween? I'm going to do a series of post up until Halloween on costume ideas, decorative ideas and things like that. Tell me if there's anything in particular you want to see!

22nd Birthday

It was my 22nd birthday on October 4th. This was my birthday cake my mom made me. It was homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting:



My mom made me a stuffed animal cat that's supposed to look like my cat, Luna.



I got a bunch of Lush items. Lush is an all organic company that makes soaps and bath things. It reminds me a lot of the sort of bath stuff I see on Etsy. I don't usually like soap products from stores, but I like this company and everything smells so good:



I also got this cute flower candle:



I also got a few other things, like a drawing from my sister and a Nick Hornby book. I didn't get any items from Etsy this year, but I thought the things I got were kind of crafty and worth sharing. I can't believe I'm 22 already. It felt like my last year went by really fast, but I also did a lot during that time. Do any of you have a birthday coming up? What do you want for your birthday this year?

Photography Updates

I've been doing a 365 project all year where I'm taking photos of a meal I've eaten every day for a year. I'm a little behind posting photos up, but here's some recent updates:











You can see the whole project on my Flickr. I'm also trying to get my photos from this summer (in New York City and at some concerts I went to) up on my Flickr.

Also, there's this project called Worldwide Moment that I participate in every year. People from all over the world take a photograph at the same time. This year it's on 10-10-10 (tomorrow) at 10:10AM UTC Time. You can go here and see what time that is in your time zone. I've participated for 2 years now and it's always fun to do and see how everyone's photos come out. You can find out more and pledge to participate on their website.