Good enough to eat?

There has been one Halloween craft I wanted to be sure and make during this season. It was a craft I'd seen a few photos of online: a donut pumpkin!

Some of you might know that I've been looking all season for the perfect, donut-shaped pumpkin so I could make this creation. This is easier said than done. There are a lot of different pumpkin shapes out there, and for the most part those shapes are not like that of a donut.

After much searching, I was very lucky to find a little pumpkin at Dollar Tree! I was extra lucky because I think it was accidentally packed in with a shipment of totally different pumpkins. I peeked into an unpacked cardboard box that the Dollar Tree employees hadn't gotten to yet. Inside were plenty of yellow and orange pumpkins with flowers coming out of the top. Floating around with all of them was this little guy:

Looking at the image on the side of the cardboard box, I could see that no green pumpkins were included in this shipment. And I never saw another one through the entire store! So, lucky me!

My first step was to spray paint the pumpkin white. It looked almost like stone or ceramic at that point.

Next, I painted more or less the top half of the pumpkin pink.

Then I coated the pink part with this clear, glittery paint called "Disco Crystal". I thought it gave the pink "frosting" a subtle, glazed look. You can see what the paint looks like here: FolkArt Disco Crystal You can get it cheaper than this with a Michaels coupon, etc. I've used this paint on so many projects! It's great for sticking loose glitter on crafts too.

Which is just what I did! Now things were starting to look yummy.

But I wasn't done yet! Time for sprinkles! The "sprinkles" are actually little lines of puffy paint. Yes, I still have puffy paint like you'd use on clothing back in the day. It stayed good since the early 90s!

Mmm... I know better than anyone that this is plastic, paint, and glitter, but I'm still wanting to eat this donut! Never mind that it also has a stem.

With any luck, I'll find some more donut-shaped pumpkins so I can make a few more of these. I'll have an eye out for more during my After Halloween Hauling!

Halloween Countdown 2018...

...begins tomorrow!

At Home Halloween

Do you guys have an At Home store? We got one recently and I think it's great! If you're not familiar with At Home, they carry mostly housewares. No matter what your decorating style is, I bet they carry it. They have stuff for people who are into rustic, country, modern, glitter, and glamour. They also have their Halloween stuff out! And strangely enough, Christmas. But we're not ready for Christmas yet, are we?

Nope.

Here are some photos of my favorite Halloween items from At Home...

The headless trick-or-treater? That's kind of weird when you think about it - "Just put the candy in my head". But this pumpkin pail reminds me of the one I used to trick-or-treat with.

Meow! This is my first time seeing a black skeleton critter. And how about that eye! I was considering maybe spray painting some of the (plastic) skeleton animals I've picked up lately. I don't think I'd go with black, though. They could even look cool in bright colors.

A close up of a cool spiderweb design on a lantern:

Creeping out of the ground!

A little floral design inspiration:

They had a lot of decorations with eyes. I thought that was pretty cool and mystical.

This eye has an Ancient Egyptian look to me. Like something on the wall of an Egyptian tomb. That's how I'm imagining it. And how cool is that spider hourglass next to it?

These eyes are on springs and stake into the ground. They'd be fun sticking out of the bushes or a large plant.

Cutesy pumpkins with eyes:

In further pastel pumpkins, donut pumpkins!

How about this creeper? Sometimes the simplest things are the most scary.

That's another creature's hand, by the way.

On a nearby shelf was this... ghost? doll? Whatever it was, it was walking the disturbing line for me. The more you stare at this, the more it stares back.

Here's something cute to clean that last one out of your brain:

More cuteness, in the form of vintage cat inspired trays:

I just noticed the heart-shaped eyes on this cat.

There was a sort of graveyard/party type display up. That's where I found these next three creatures. How cool are the hands on this pumpkin creature?

My favorite skulls, starting with an energized looking skull bust:

It might be hard to see what's going on here, but this is a skeleton spider with a pumpkin body, holding a monocle. How often do you see that?

A side view:

Not your average garden gnomes:

I love this pillow design!

They had several amazing pillows, like this one that looks inspired by a vintage postcard. I'm noticing now that it was postmarked as departing Transylvania on October 31.

And these pillows look like tickets to a haunted house, again on October 31. 😃

I'm going to end with the big inflatables. For the most part these were new to me. I had seen this Jaws last year, actually in someone's yard. You guys might remember the photos. This shark actually thrashes back and forth and his eyes glow red!

If you guys would like to see the At Home Halloween selection for yourselves, here's a link: If you've got it, haunt it

I have plenty of photos from Michaels to share next time!

MMMMuffins!

Made some muffins with the sugar pumpkin mush. I've made these 7 grain pumpkin chocolate muffins before and will again! After these cooled I was greedy and ate two. With my pumpkin tea. In my skeleton hand mug.

I didn't have much breakfast...really. The pumpkin pancakes have not happened.