November 2011 – Page 5 of 5 – A Well Crafted Party

Real Party: Costumes & Cocktails The Costumes

November 2, 2011 No Comments A Well Crafted Party

I’m not in the camp of “dressing up on Halloween is just for the kids.”
Now.. trick or treating is certainly only for the kiddos.

But, I LOVE dressing up for Halloween (or any occasion really).

I enjoy the planning of the outfit, the making of the outfit and then seeing everyone’s outfits!

Every Halloween we have an overwhelmingly awesome amount of people dressing up for the occasion in really amazing costumes. (Check out last year’s response to the Alice in Wonderland theme!)
This year we also had a costume contest!

Check out some of the costumes we had in attendance:
(This is only a smattering of the amazing costumes we got…
it would be a terribly long post if I put up everyone’s amazing costumes!)

Me as a clown (I’m pretty proud that I managed to make that costume!)
My husband as a ring leader and my son the lion!

I made my dress but bought a wig, horn, and white gloves to make my costume. For my husband’s costume we bought a wig, hat, and whip. And, my son wore a lion costume that I purchased from Costumes4Less.

One party-goer decided to go as my son for Halloween!

(His crying baby face was the best.)

Beetlejuice and Lydia (don’t they look amazing!)

The Addams Family— Wednesday even won for Best Overall Costume.

I loved this one… “The Drowning Girl” by Roy Lichtenstein

A Blind Ref

We also had a Mr. Plum, Lana from Archer, Ricky & Lucky Ricardo, Coach McGurk from Home Movies, Border Patrol…. and so many more!

Such a fun night!
Check out the decorations and food from the party as well.

* Some of the above links are affiliate links. Purchases made from affiliate links help support the blogger that posted them. While this is a for profit blog I do not promote products that I have not used and liked. I have purchased items before with Costumes4Less and THEN I became an affiliate. For more information on my advertising policies please see my policies page.

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Real Party: Costumes & Cocktails Food

November 2, 2011 2 Comments Uncategorized

Thank you to all of you lovely readers who are still putting up with Halloween posts from me… I’m currently working on a ton of fall goodies for future posts. But, I wanted to cover our Halloween party before flying into the rest of Fall.

I really enjoy food. I enjoy making food. I enjoy buying food. And, I certainly enjoy EATING food.

I also really enjoy styling food for a party!

Halloween is probably one of my favorite holidays for really getting creative with food.

This year was no exception.

The Savory!

The centerpiece of the food table had to be the “Off with his Head Cold Cuts Platter.”

(Idea borrowed from Brooklyn Limestone’s party “Carnevil” featured on Hostessblog.com)

So gross, yet so good!

The “Frog Pate” was actually a mixture of spinach, cream cheese and red pepper flakes dished into phyllo dough cups. These did not last long!

I got the idea for Sinister Salsa from Martha… but, I threw my own spin on it by throwing together diced avocado (3) with 1 can of rotel and 1 can of black beans. It was chunky, spicy, and delish!

Kidney stones have always been a hit and probably the simplest thing I put out…

Ikea meatballs served with their lingonberry sauce!

I tried to let everyone enjoy their veggies as well so I created a “Creepy Crudite” platter in a large caldron. If you can’t tell I was going for a creepy green, white and yellow color scheme. I thought it looked vaguely eery while still allowing me some fun veggies. I served with a simple spinach dip.

For the savory side of things I also served Rest in Peas, a Decaying Cheese Platter and a Petrified Cheese Log. We didn’t have much in the way of leftovers the next day!

The Sweets!

Halloween is all about the candy, right? I usually make one or two treats and then buy a bunch of candy that people can take home and then I end up with a ton of leftover candy. This year I thought it would be nice to make all of the sweets and see if we had as much left over…

and, thankfully, most of it was taken!

“To the Grave Cupcakes” were chocolate cupcakes with a fudge frosting covered in cookie crumbs to look like dirt. Each cupcake had a tiny shortbread grave and a gummy worm sticking out of it.

I tried my hand at making caramels for the first time and I think they came out pretty tasty!

I used the Sea Salt Caramel recipe from Delish.com.

I also made the following:

Apple Chips for snacking

Spiced Pumpkin Seeds for snacking

Brain Cupcakes (although, I just used the decorating tips and served Strawberry cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream frosting)

Peanut Butter & Pretzel Truffles

Transylvania Truffles

Tiny Pumpkin Pies

It was a busy couple days in the kitchen… but, I was more than pleased with the spread!

I hope some of these items inspire you for your next Halloween party.

Check out the Costumes & Cocktails Decorations post from yesterday to see more about this party! And, check back later today to see the fun costumes everyone wore.

A Well Crafted Party

Real Party: Costumes &Cocktails Decorations

November 1, 2011 2 Comments A Well Crafted Party

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween weekend!

We sure did. We had a party on Saturday, a lazy Sunday and then a walk with the little in costume and passing out candy on Monday. It was a fun first Halloween with our little guy.

I know most people are ready for all the Halloween posts to be over… but, I couldn’t wait til next year to post the review and pictures of our annual Halloween party. I’ll wait til next year to post tutorials for all the fun DIY projects in the party… but, for now I’ll post the party pictures!

Our theme this year was Costumes & Cocktails: a traditional creepy Halloween with black, white and orange color scheme; costume contest; and a full bar for fun cocktails.

The Decorations

One of the biggest focal points of the party was the giant spider wall and egg sacs.

It was certainly creepy!

I created the paper goods using free fonts from Dafont.Com* and Illustrator. I put the food labels inside sets of vampire fangs and painted the tips of the fangs red. I got the idea from the interwebs.* But, I reworked the tutorial to fit my needs and supplies.

(*See DIY information below for links)

We cleared out our TV cabinet and made it into a bar for the evening. The bar was topped with liquor, filled with mixers and garnishes and had a selection of glassware on the bottom level. Everything was covered in spider web! I also painted the doors of the cabinet with chalkboard paint and added some fun Halloween martini recipes in chalk.

Well, we didn’t grab pictures of the sheet covered furniture or some of the other small decorations that were throughout the party. The lighting was fun for a party, but terrible for blog photography! But, you get the idea. Check back later this week for a post on the creepy food and awesome costumes!

DIY information:

Martha Stewart Tutorial for Spider Egg Sacs

Martha Stewart Tutorial for Creepy Crepe Curtains

Katie Does Fang Placecard Holder Tutorial

Dafont.com fonts used: Moonlight Shadow by David Kerkhoff, KR Boo Lane by Kat’s Fun Fonts and Spider’s Club by Manfred Klein