Halloween - Costumes & Party #1

 

 

 

Happy Halloween!! Okay, so it's not quite Halloween night, but we went to a Halloween party today and the boys wore their costumes, so I'm feeling quite Halloween-y. K wanted to be a "yellow dinosaur with green spikes" and I thought that T would make quite a cute little bluebird. So, that is exactly what I made them for their costumes. I won't go into the detail about making their costumes in this post because it is already bound to be quite lengthy (and very full of photos), but hopefully I will post about that next week sometime.

 

For K's costume, I couldn't find a yellow sweatsuit that was a reasonable price and with nothing on it, so I made the whole thing. I didn't have a hoodie pattern, so I just used a regular shirt pattern and then made a hood pattern using one of his hooded jackets. It worked surprisingly well.

 

The tail is the same one I made for a friend's little boy years ago - I think it was actually prior to the blog, so there is no evidence of it on here. Because I had made the same one before, however, it was very quick to sew up.

I adore how he looks from behind. Eeek!

I saw a set of bird wings ages ago and fell in love with them. I have wanted to make a pair ever since. So for T's costume, I just made some adjustments to the original and I love how they turned out! I also made him the little beanie and his black leggings. The white onesie was already in his closet.

Today's party was at our friends' house and I opted to bring a cake. Again, my inspiration came from a cake I saw just before K's first birthday and have been wanting to make one ever since.

I started with my standard vanilla cake recipe, but I dyed the batter orange.

My mom had given me these little silicon molds to bake cake balls with, thus eliminating the steps of crumbling a cake, making extra frosting, and forming balls. The only downside was that I was unsure of how full to fill the molds, so mine ended up being a tad flat on one end. It wasn't a big deal as they were just the eyes of the monster, and I suspect that with a bit of trial and error they would form lovely balls.

Then I melted some chocolate and piped out pupils and a mouth.

Then I dipped the cake balls in melted white chocolate and pressed a pupil on each one. They were then put into the refrigerator and the eye lids were added with red chocolate melts. (No photos of this process, but it is pretty self explanatory I think.) Once the eyeballs were ready, I got to mixing the frosting. I wanted to use a cream cheese frosting, but I also wanted the inside of the cake to be orange and black layers, so using extra dark cocoa powder, I made a chocolate cream cheese frosting.

It turned out a very deep shade of brown, very close to black - perfect!

Along with the eyeballs, I was able to bake up two full cakes. I sliced each in half horizontally and got to frosting and stacking.

I love how the colors turn out!

Yum! Four layers of chocolate and vanilla deliciousness!

After the crumb coat, I put a thicker layer of regular cream cheese frosting on and then using the flat edge of a spatula, I hit the frosting lightly, pulling up some of it as I went across the top and then all around the sides.

It turned out exactly how I had hoped. Lucky!! I was obviously going for a bit of a fur look.

I took it to the party and stuck the eyeballs in. The other moms made foods for lunch and we had a lovely party.

 

The kids were begging to eat the cake, but we waited for quite a while after finishing lunch because one more little guest was to come. As soon as she arrived, the older girls started chanting for the cake. It was adorable!

 

 

The kids are all old enough now to sit at a table by themselves. It is so crazy to me how quickly time has passed. These little kiddos all eat on their own!

After eating, the kids played for a bit and then we got out a pin-the-nose-and-mouth on the Jack-o-lantern game. I made the Jack-o-lantern last night. Clearly it was very simple to make. I just cut out a piece of orange paper in the shape of a pumpkin and drew some vertical lines in orange, then I colored on two eyes. I added a little stem and covered the whole thing in clear tape. For the game, we just put it on the floor, covered the kids eyes with a handkerchief and let them put the nose and mouth down.

K killed it. We think he might have been able to see, but we aren't sure... Once each kid finished, they were given a little candy necklace made by the host mom. The necklaces were so super cute and all of the kids were so excited about them. If I have time before Friday's party, I might make a few up myself.

 

T was a huge hit at the party, particularly with the older girls. Princess Ariel couldn't get enough of him and kept holding him,

 

 

playing with him,

 

holding toys up for him to look at,

and of course smooshing his little face. Who can resist fat little baby cheeks?!

No one!!!