recommendation: more halloween decorations!

boo! its halloween and now that I have a little time on my hands, I decided to get into it this year. you already saw my front door display, I also got some cheap leaf bags at big lots (3 for $1.99) that are decorated as a pumpkin, Frankenstein and a ghost. they are supposed to glow in the dark but as they were cheap, they won't work. but trick-or-treating in ann arbor is while its still fairly light out from 5pm - 7pm, so I think kids will get the point.

speaking of not working, i also tried two new recipes. obviously both are from pinterest, no surprise there. the thing i'm finding with pinterest is that it LOOKS pretty, but it doesn't always taste pretty. pinterest is eye candy - not tried and true recipes, not must try or tastes great, but if it looks pretty, it gets repinned. sometimes its ok, you can get away with that, but today I tried making cheesecake brownies - my first attempt at making anything cheesecake (I'm not a cream cheese fan. if you are thinking what do i put on my bagel, its butter). It was a total flop. Perhaps it was because I was following two recipes 1) the girl who ate everything's scream cheese brownies 2. Betty Crocker Scream Cheese Swirl Brownies instead of just one. But I followed instructions. I think I over baked it - edges were hard as a rock, middle was flaking apart as I cut it. I tried but in the end, it went to the trash bin. I think these recipes were user error though, not the recipe itself.

My second pinterest recipe was lemon sugar cookies in the shape of candy corn from Kathie Cooks. I hate candy corn but think it looks awfully cute. They were a little dry so I cooked the second and third sheets a little less and they are pretty decent. I mean, I secretly ate 3 in a row, so obviously they are edible and maybe even yummy. They turned out so much tinier than I thought, but it ended up being perfect because I stuck them in a mason jar and they look adorable! These are for my hubby to take to work - they are having a bake off. This recipe is no winner but the cuteness factor is there so I'm ok with not getting a prize. (now seems like a good time to mention that I won the cake contest in elementary school 1st - 5th grade. i'm not really bragging, i'm just stating cold hard facts here. this is also the reason why I'm ok not winning future bake offs, because I've already proved my awesomeness. here is also where i thank my mom because she pretty much did all the work, i just decorated the cakes.)

My victory of the night was my pumpkin carving session. We picked up a pumpkin at a pumpkin farm up north, as seen in my pumpkin display picture, its big and orange but what you may not be able to see is the detail around the handle of it, there are little curly cue wispy branches and they are cute and magical and I didn't want to cut the top open so I even thought about not carving it. But I really wanted to try out the Martha Stewart polka dot pumpkin, so I went to the tutorial and... she carves the bottom out - how perfect!!! It was actually quite easy, no different from taking the top off. So my top stayed intact, I used a power drill... because any excuse to get a tool in my hand makes me feel like a good homeowner. Same with the hubby, he practically walks around with a screw driver and hammer in his pocket. He's becoming quite handy! OK but anyway, I used a power drill, the 1/4 and 3/16 bits, drilled holes down the "seams" of the pumpkin, and ta-da! A beautiful polka dot pumpkin that I just l.o.v.e.

the other thing that turned out great, was my milk jug project inspired by blogger eighteen25. My mom and mother-in-law donated most of my jugs as we don't consume very much milk (apple cider jugs work too!). They were easy to make, I finished in less than an hour, and I think they are going to look adorable lined up against our garage door! the trick is using christmas lights instead of candles to light them up.

Can't wait to get trick-or-treaters tonight. Hope it stops raining. Happy Halloween!!!