Halloween spooky goings on
I love Halloween almost as much as Christmas. The air is changing - some leaves have already started to fall in the front garden which heralds the start of my most favourite seasons . I can think of nothing nicer than the wind howling outside while I'm safe and warm inside with candles flickering and a nice cosy throw over me too keep me snug.
I'm looking forward to decorating the house again, I decided last year that I didn't want to go over the top with colour so I started collecting little bits and pieces that looked old.
My plan was to hold a small party as our house isn't the biggest .
I found a plain coloured witches cardboard hat in hobby craft for £5.00 which resembled the sorting hat from Harry Potter, so I set about painting it. I bought some acrylic paints from the range and set about painting it up layering on the colour it was quite easy I just kept going adding darker and lighter tones until I was happy with it. The spell book was an old scrapbook album that had gone a bit frayed, I purchased some mod lodge and layered up dampened pieces of kitchen roll over the cover which gave it a rather distressed wrinkled old look. I was so pleased with my attempt . It can be doubled up now as a scrapbook as I add photos and other spooky things to it over the coming years.
I wanted a bird cage but having trawled through eBay I couldn't find anything old and vintage that didn't cost a small fortune , I came across this one in dunelm for £10 it was perfect in size and that the colour was black, the only problem was that it just didn't look old or distressed. I hunted around in the shed and found some spray paint I can't remember if it was white or Grey, but I took the plunge and sprayed parts of it and then went around the edges with some wire wool scuffing it up. It looked pretty good once it was done. Of course a bird cage needs a bird so I found this raven who We named Dimetri. I'd been collecting jars and downloaded some free Harry Potter spell labels to label them up with. I love the use of glass and the reflective elements especially with candles.
And where would Halloween be without some bats, very simply done with black card and thin wire sandwiched between the two pieces, add some stripped twig branches out the garden wind the wire around and you have flying bats.
I absolutely love how this turned out - I got a couple of the spiders in plain cardboard from hobby craft in the sale. I covered them with a couple of coats of acrylic paint and added black gems for the eyes after googling and shuddering at the images of spiders. Lots of webs and life like imitation spiders finished the look. I bought a roll of bricked paper and tore it so it looked like the plaster had come off the walls .the clock was a great find in tk maxx i love it, we've had it up all year around as it blended in so well with Christmas and our decor.
I used some torn black net for the curtains and dried out some roses to go in a vase. The owl candle holder was a great find in tk maxx. I also found some old keys so hung those on the door and the curtain hook.
The hallway had a little makeover i found a case in tk maxx so this was perfect for housing treats for the trick and treaters. We found some black webbing so youngest son decorated around the hat and case. For the treats we wrapped up 5 chocolates in orange and black tissue paper and popped it next to a clear jar filled with some dirt and escaping snakes.
The fab thing about decorating with webs and spiders is you don't have to polish so you can get a more authentic look. some of the spiders i used were so life like it was hard to tell if they were real or not. I found some old ink pots a few years back on ebay, I bought some black feathers this year to use as quills.
I kept the food pretty simple . I made a huge chili and served it with tortillas.
I made a homemade pizza with a spicy tomato base which was topped with fresh mozzarella , roasted red peppers and prosciutto.
The baguettes were freshly baked and served with an assortment of cheeses and spiders and washed down with some blood red tawny owl port.
The cookies were made from recipe that i found on the internet, Th chunks of chocolate in the cookies were supposed to resemble Spiders as you were supposed to draw out legs from the chocolate, mine didn't quite go to plan so they ended up as flies.
I wrapped some king prawns in smoked bacon and brushed them with a garlic and lime butter and then grilled them until the prawns were pink. The dip is creme fraiche, garlic, coriander , lime juice and chili all mixed together.
All party's need a tipple and these Craig Davids go down a treat. I bought some syringes from eBay and filled them with a shot of tequila followed by a shot of pineapple. They are delicious but the floor is very unforgiving....
Finally my friend Julie Greatbanks made this amazing Halloween cake which doubled up as an anniversary cake for my parents.
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