Hallowe'en

I love October. The weather is great (meaning you can do what you want and wear what you want), I have my birthday (which I still consider a good thing) and it's Hallowe'en, possibly my favourite festival of the year. Of course while I was off enjoying October, I wasn't blogging. Sorry. I'll try to do better. Oh and sorry if you're friends with me on Facebook; you've probably seen all these photos before...

The Saturday before Hallowe'en was the big costume party that I always look forward to. I love fancy dress. Usually I aim for either 'scary' or 'in some way attractive' (or as some put it 'Why aren't you wearing a short skirt this year?'). This year though, it was all comedy. Can you find me?

It was quite a straightforward and cheap costume to put together, but of course I had to do it the hard way. I didn't have a striped shirt so I bought a cheap white long-sleeved T-shirt and stuck red insulating tape to it. I thought that the tape would have enough stretch in it; it didn't. When I first put on the shirt, I couldn't breathe. It felt like a boa constrictor-induced heart attack. I had H peel off the tape in the tight areas (OK, chest and hips...) and reapply it. If you try doing this, I recommend having someone stick the tape on while you are wearing the shirt.

The glasses came from the 100yen shop. Jeans and boots, model's own. For the hat I tested out my new knitting skills! Found a simple pattern online, altered it a bit and got some wool from, yup, the 100yen shop. Made a lovely big pom-pom too, and got it all finished just in time!

Anyway, the party was great fun as always, with lots of people, lots of great costumes and birthday cake for me and Lisa :-)

Digging into the birthday cake

Back at home, the boys did a few little Hallowe'en themed activities. Here they are at work...

OK, T's not really doing Hallowe'en things there. He's colouring in (read 'scribbling on') a panda, despite K pointing out that a black and white picture of a panda doesn't need colouring. K though was well into the spirit of it all, wearing last year's skeleton suit and, yes, the Wally hat.

First we did Jack-o'-lanterns. I printed out some outlines and K added a face to his before colouring it all in. He wasn't at all interested in colouring until quite recently but now he's become quite good at it. I was impressed that he stuck with it and coloured the whole thing in. T scribbled a bit on his, and then stuck on some features I cut from black paper.

Another day, we made bats. I drew around K and T's hands, and K cut out the shapes before taping them to a covered toilet roll tube. Then K added some features, and I hung them from the ceiling. We were all pleased with how they came out, and I foresee more toilet roll tube-based crafts in our future...

On Hallowe'en itself we didn't really do anything special, but I did put on my witch's hat and cloak for dinner, while K wore his skeleton suit again. Then I surprised the boys with these desserts:

They were pretty easy to make: hollow out some large oranges (that was the hardest part) and fill with jelly. When the jelly has set, it's surprisingly easy to cut away a face.

T had never had jelly before, and certainly not served like this! He went from intrigued...

...to enthusiastic eating...

...and finally scooped out every last bit of jelly himself, long after everyone else had left the table.

Hope you enjoyed Hallowe'en too!