Spookables and Cuties

Happy Halloween everyone!! Last Friday my family hosted our annual Halloween party, and it was so much fun! And you know what that means...Creepy goodies were to be made. Actually, they were more on the cute side. Let me just make a confession right here, right now- I hate Halloween. I'm the BIGGEST scaredy-cat. Like, EVER. Scary movies? I don't watch them. I hate being scared. I don't even like the TRAILERS for scary movies. And don't even get me STARTED on zombies (More on that here). So, Halloween? Yeah...it's at the bottom of my favorite holiday list. So, when party time rolls around, I always try to steer my mom (who, of course, is the boss around here) to cuter treats rather than gross/creepy ones. So, my mom found some Jack-O-Lantern cookies that she fell in love with in a Halloween Country Living book that WEREN'T creepy, and the rest was history. Halloween party favors for over 40 people? Challenge freakin' accepted.

Here they are. As you can see I had a lot of fun with the faces. Which is surprising, because as some of you know, I have OCD. And if you don't know, Hi, I'm Britt, and I have OCD. You'll notice with my other goodies that I tend to make them as uniform as possible. So when I started making the faces on these, I imagined I was going to have an aneurysm before I was done. Surprisingly, once I got started, I came to accept that each pumpkin needed their own personality. Maybe this means that I'm on the right track to not being crazy? Pfft, yeah, probably not.

This little guy here I made special for my boyfriend Broc. As you'll remember from previous posts, he's...how shall I say it? Nerdy (It's ok, I can say it. I'm nerdy too). So I decided to leave a little surprise on his pumpkin for him to find.

Anybody see it? Anybody? How about any Lost fans? Look real close...you should be able to see certain numbers.....No? Well Broc saw them, and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. Seriously, he LOVES Lost (if you see him, do NOT bring up Lost unless you're ready for a nice long discussion about how awesome it is). It's the little things. And that's why I love doing this stuff for people.

Have a Happy Halloween, everybody!! Stay safe!

Luau Cupcakes!

Have you ever seen a how-to on Pinterest and thought, "I could totally do that!!"? I only think this, like, ALL the time. How about this: you think this, then TRY it, and it turns out just...meh...? That's the experience I had with these babies right here:

Allow me to introduce...my luau cupcakes! Well...kinda. I mean...You can see where I was trying to go with this, right?? Ok, so, as always, I found a tutorial on Pinterest to make pretty flowers out of fruit rollups. Check it out here, because the originals are gorgeous and the tutorial is actually pretty cool. WELL, my mom had planned a luau day for the daycare kids, so I seized the opportunity to try out these flowers, because, well...I think they kind of look like the flowers on those plastic leis. You see? The concept is there, it's just the execution didn't exactly go as planned. Fruit rollups? Yeah...they're a bit on the sticky side. And the uncooperative side, as it turns out.

Anyway, on to the cupcake portion. What flavor is more luau-ish than pineapple? None, that's right. Except for maybe coconut. So, remember when I told you in my last post that I'm a sucker for easy?? These cupcakes are the epitome of easy. I don't think I've made easier ones. All it takes is a box of yellow cake mix and a can of crushed pineapple. No, really, that's it. I know, too easy to be true, right? Wrong! And the frosting is just as easy!! Cream cheese and marshmallow fluff, I kid you not. You can find the full recipe here, and you'll notice that the original recipe calls for crushed pineapple in the frosting too. These cupcakes were for a bunch of three-year olds- do you really think they would've eaten the frosting with pineapple chunks in them? We have a hard time getting one of our girls to eat chicken, for god's sake.

So please, go try these yourself! They're so easy, and REALLY yummy. And this is coming from someone who does NOT like pineapple, so you can't go wrong!! And if you try out the fruit rollup flowers, give me some feedback as to how they turn out! I always love new and/or better ways to do things!!