Vintage Halloween

Inspired by Kimberly Kwan's vintage Halloween post, I decided to share a few pictures of me as a child dressed up for Halloween. I'm in the polka dots in the first two. Man I would love to still have those hats:) As you can see from my posts the last several days, I am a *huge* fan of the holiday! Growing up, I had a neighbor that really went all out and definitely instilled the love of all things Halloween in me:) She would transform her garage into a haunted house and had a party every year. I looked forward to it all year long. It was fabulous! It took many years just to get the courage to wander through. I loved the anticipation of what lay ahead. She really made the holiday memorable, while not being gory or too scary. It was good old fashioned Halloween fun:) I always said, "I am going to be the neighborhood Hallowe'en lady!" So, here I am!

Of course I had to share a couple of my two little gouls:)

Tonight is the night

When dead leaves fly

Like witches on switches

Across the sky

And gnomes & trolls

Creep out of holes

Mossy & green

Tonight is the night

When the leaves make a sound

Like a gnome in his home

Under the ground

And elf & sprite

Flit through the night

On a moony sheen

Tonight is the night

When pumpkins stare

Through leaves & sheaves

Everywhere!

When ghoul & ghost

And goblin host

Dance round their

Queen

It's Hallowe'en

Harry Behn~1944

Party time!

Great fun was had by all at our annual Hallowe'en party yesterday! Wewh:) Here's Joe and I decked out in our Morticia and Gomez Addams get-ups. I'm going to try to take come pictures of the kids in their costumes in the next fews days. They weren't cooperating for the camera yesterday:)
I made carmel corn and cheesecake for the first time and they both turned out great!
The carmel corn recipe I got here. It's very, very yummy and has chocolate drizzled on top!!

The cheesecake recipe is from Martha Stewart's everyday FOOD magazine. I've gotten a few issues of this magazine because I was a subscriber to her KIDS magazine (and *loved* it!) and sadly it went out of publication, so this was our compensation. Glad I got a good recipe out of it, at least.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
For crust:
20 chocolate wafer cookies
2 tbls. sugar
4 tbls. butter, melted

For filling:
2 pkgs. (8 oz. each) bar cream cheese
1 c. sugar
1 c. canned solid-pack pumpkin puree
3 large eggs
3 tbls. all-purpose flour
1 tea. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tea. salt
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom and sides of 8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Leaving an overahang on all sides.

Blend cookies with sugar until finely ground, add butter and pulse until moistened. Transfer crumb mixture to prepared pan, and press gently into bottom. Bake until fragrant and slightly firm, 12 to 15 min. Set aside to cool.

Mix cream cheese in bowl until smooth. Add sugar, pumpkin puree, eggs, flour, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Mix to combine. Set aside.

Chocolate in microwave safe bowl. Microwave in 30 sec. increments, stirring between each, until melted. Add 1 c. pumpkin mixture, stir to combine. Set aside.

Pour remaining pumpkin mixture in prepared pan, over crust. Drop dollops of chocolate mixture onto pumpkin mixture, swirl to marble. Bake until cheesecake is set and jiggles slightly when gently shaken. 40 to 50 min.

Cool in pan. Cover, chill until firm, at least 2 hours. Using overhang, transfer bars to work surface. With knife dipped in water, cut into 16 squares. Serve. YUM!

Hallowe'en is almost here!

Halloween- by Mary Jane Carr

Witches flying past on broomsticks,

Black cats leaping here and there,

White-robed spooks on every corner,

Mournful moaning in the air,

Goblins peering out of windows,

Spirit-things that rap and run-

But don't be scared-it's just October,

Having one last hour of fun!

The final preparations are underway for my annual Halloween party this Saturday. I thought you may want to take a peek inside my "haunted" house:) Ok, so I sold this one to Ann(i)e (above), but I still love it and can't wait to see where she put it in her house.

At ease....

It felt right for these pages to have a nice, easy feel to them for my relaxed layout. I was inspired by Gen's circle layouts here and love how they look with this paper. I'm not thrilled with this picture, but I thought it was appropriate showing me eating a s'more straight from the campfire. Doesn't get much better than that:) My journaling talks about how I try to make make many moments of each day relaxing. It may be just stopping to take a breath or indulging in a little treat! I want my home to be my ultimate place for relaxation. I love interior design that has a warm, natural feel to it.
There's nothing like surrounding yourself with things you love to make you feel at ease.

Scared....

The latest mood for Shimelle's class is *~scared~*. Doing some free writing on a Sunday morning, you never know what's going to come up! I picked this paper because to me it really represented how my mind feels when I start to get reeling from worrying about something. It's just kind-of buzzing all over the place.

I wrote about how fear stems from not having control. Not knowing what may happen in the future and getting scared and worried about things. It's hard to wrap my mind around all that's unknown and I begin to feel unsettled and scared. I have a picture of my son and some journaling about how I could waste my life worrying about him and his Autism, but why!? I allow myself to feel the ever-varying emotions about this, but to not get stuck. Instead of being scared about his future, concentrate on the present. I strive to live each moment to the fullest, then I am free of fear.

Wewh, that was pretty heavy. Now I look forward to the next two emotions of creative and relaxed. Have a great Sunday!

Excited...

The latest mood for Shimelle's class is excited. When thinking about what gets me excited, I realized that getting excited for me goes hand in hand with being inspired. Kind of a fun realization for me:) I was so pleased to be able to use the ribbon that my friend Ginger gave me for my birthday. I've been waiting for just the right project. Love it!

Today I also made a journal to bring to Silver Bella to add pictures, ephemera, autographes and whatever to while I'm there. It's less than 2 weeks away now. I'm getting very excited!! I made my book entirely with the new Basic Grey Fruitcake line. It is beyond yummy!

Melancholy

The next mood we're working with for Shimelle's online class is sad. I actually tweaked it a bit to melancholy. I have pondered this word all my life, so I thought I'd go a bit deeper with it. As I explain here, it goes way back... I didn't intend to have purple hair in the picture. I printed it in black and white and my black is running out. Kind of one of those pleasant "mistakes".


I also added "10 things" to represent the 10 moods we will be working on for my cover. I'm using a fun 5x7" Making Memories "cheeky" album for this project.