Halloween Sculpey Drink Stirrers

October 27, 2016October 26, 20162 Comments

Celebrate Halloween in style with these fun and festive Sculpey drink stirrers. Halloween is right around the corner people! If you are planning on drinking or serving drinks at your Halloween party have no fear because you still have time to make these silly and simple drink stirrers.

We are all about the easy and inexpensive crafts over here on Popcorn & Chocolate. So we’ve got all you last minute Halloweeners covered. If you are in the 21+ category, you can read on to learn how to make these halloween themed drink stirrers, and if you are not 21, maybe keep it to mocktails this year. For some fun for all ages, check out our Halloween bunting flags we made last year. Better yet, grab your friends invite them over to have a few spooky cocktails with these drink stirrers while you all make some bunting flags! That sounds like my kind of party 😉

In reality I’ll be home handing out candy to children hoping they don’t trip over the 10 pumpkins we all carved. We go a little pumpkin carving crazy over here. This year was no exception. Rose came over to my house and we carved 3 pumpkins each and then I kept on carving more when she left… between my mom, Rose, and I, we’ve got a total of 10 pumpkins. I think that’s some sort of record for us.

Better celebrate with a nice stiff drink! Speaking of drinks – are you ready to learn how to make these sculpted drink stirrers yet?? Keep reading to find out how to make these and for a list of some spooky halloween cocktails to stir up with your new drink stirrers!

Materials:

Sculpey
Drink stirrers
Hot glue
A drink to put them in

Instructions:

1.Start with a small chunk (about the size of a quarter) of whatever color Sculpey you want – I’ll be showing you the jack-o-lantern so I started with orange Sculpey.

2. Roll the Sculpey into a ball.

3. Taking the drink stirrer press it firmly into the Sculpey ball and twirl it around a little bit to loosen out the hole. Take the drink stirrer out.

4. Take some black Sculpey and roll out a thin piece to make the eyes and mouth. I used a tiny knife to cut small triangles for the eyes and a toothy mouth shape. Press these firmly onto the orange Sculpey ball.

5. Bake the Sculpey according to your package instructions (I believe it is usually 275°F per 1/4 inch thickness – since the ball was pretty thick this took about 30-40 minutes). Let cool.

6. Once the Sculpey is baked and cooled, take your hot glue gun and dab a bit of glue onto the tip of the drink stirrer and then put the Sculpey ball where you just dabbed. For some of them, we didn’t make our hole big enough so we had to use the flat end of the drink stirrer instead of the rounded ball end, which is fine, but it looks better the other way around. DO NOT FORCE the Sculpey onto the drink stirrer if it does not fit – it will break (my broken bone can attest to that).

7. Pop in your cocktail and stir away!

That’s another simple and easy (and fun!) Halloween craft for all you last minute decorators. We got you covered.

And here are some of our favorite halloween themed cocktails that you can put your new drink stirrer in!

Hallowine Sangria from The Seasoned Mom
Monster Mash from Freut Cake
Hocus Pocus from The Foodie Affair
Ginger Bourbon Cider from Hungry Girl por Vida
Dirt Cup Vodka from CGM Foodie Fridays

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe Halloween! Let us know in the comments below what you are doing this Halloween!

You can always just pin it for next year too 😉

Halloween Pumpkin Air Plant Holders

October 24, 2016October 21, 20162 Comments

As you might recall we are big plant people here at P&C, we are also big pumpkin people. Naturally, we like to decorate every inch of our house when the holidays come around (especially Halloween!), which means you certainly can’t neglect those plants you lugged from apartment to apartment for the past 2 years (we’ve moved a lot).

These cute little pumpkin air plant holders were the perfect thing to house said precious air plants and add a festive orange touch to our apartment. You can find out how to make these fun plaster pumpkin air plant holders over on Homedit.

What better way to showcase your plants than with fun jack-o-lantern pumpkins?? Let us know in the comments below if you end up making these silly guys and what you plan on doing for Halloween this year! We’d love to hear from you 🙂

To find the full instructions on how to make these pumpkin air plant holders click here.

Pool float Halloween costume | Popcorn & Chocolate

Flamingo and Swan Pool Float Costumes

October 12, 2016October 15, 20161 Comment

Learn how to make these simple and fun flamingo and swan pool floats for your Halloween costume!

This past summer Rose and I got a little obsessed with pool floats. We went to Cape Cod for a week towards the end of the summer, and we kept seeing people floating around in the ocean in giant swans and flamingos. We needed to be floating around in giant swans and flamingos too. However we didn’t have too many days left to enjoy the hot summer, so we didn’t know if it was worth driving 40 minutes away to buy some floaties.

Swan pool float costume | Popcorn & Chocolate

Long story short, on the last day we were there we decided to get some pool floats in hopes that we would be back to the Cape to enjoy them before the summer ended. We did not get back to the Cape. Our floats sit deflated in a sad pile on the floor, hidden away until next summer.

But, we couldn’t get over all those floaties. I just wanted to float in a giant flamingo! Isn’t that what every girl dreams of?? They were haunting us all over Instagram and Pinterest. That’s when the genius idea of making them for Halloween costumes popped into my head. What better way to spend Halloween then floating in a sea of candy!

These costumes are quick and fairly easy to make. Plus, you can customize yours to whatever pool float sparks your fancy – want to be a unicorn pool float? Make a unicorn pool float costume! Want to be a black swan? Be a black swan! I had my eye on the giant flamingo pool float so I had to go with that but let us know what pool float you would want to be in your wildest dreams.

Halloween pool float costume | Popcorn & Chocolate

If you’re a bird, I’m a bird!

Materials:

Fabric – Ours was
Beanie
Felt in black, white, and whatever beak color you want
Stuffing
Needle & Thread
Plain t-shirt or dress matching the colors of your hat and fabric

Instructions:

The hat:
1. Start by cutting out 2 circles in the black felt and 2 slightly smaller circles in the white felt for 2 eyes. Sew or hot glue the small white circle to the black circle.
2. Next, layer two pieces of black felt on top of each other and cut out a beak shape: Ours was sort of shaped like a long triangle with a curved hook at the end.
3. Keeping the two layers of black felt for the beak together, sew together the outer edges using a basic running stitch (refer to this post if you need instructions on a running stitch).
4. Flip the beak inside out and fill it with stuffing.
5. Sew on or hot glue the two eyes to your hat. Sew the beak onto the hat by splaying the outer edges down and use a running stitch.
The pool float:
1. Take your fabric and fold it in half along the longest edge (like a hot dog fold). Stitch the edges of your fabric together using a running stitch.
2. Flip the fabric inside out and stuff it with stuffing.
3. Take the two non-sewn edges of the float and layer one on top of the other and sew them together. You might need an extra set of hands to help hold the fabric in place.
Assemble the costume:
1. Throw on a t-shirt or dress matching the color of your pool float and hat and you are ready to go! Pro tip: Wear your shirt inside out or backwards like we did if you don’t have any without a print on it.

And now you are ready to float into a giant pile of candy!

Bonus costume – the swan looks oddly like Olaf from Frozen. Bonus points – if you can balance a pumpkin on your beak

Let us know in the comments below what you are planning on being this Halloween!

Thanks Tatertots & Jello for hosting!

Halloween bat choker | Popcorn & Chocolate

Simple Halloween Bat Choker

October 5, 2016October 4, 20161 Comment

Learn how to make this super simple Halloween bat choker to wear all throughout October!

Eek it’s Halloween month! Rose and I both love Halloween.. Or at least I do and I force my love for it on Rose every year. This year might be one of our first Halloween’s apart.. to be determined though as I’ve already planned our costumes for this year, might be hard to beat last years costumes though. Again, here I go forcing Rose to enjoy Halloween and hang out with me #frienshipgoals

All kidding aside this year we do have lots of Halloween goodies we are trying to get done. I’ve been covered in orange paint and little bat confetti all week working on different projects. I’ve also been wearing this bat choker all week to stay in the holiday cheer (not because I tied it on and can’t untie it…)

To make this lovely Halloween bat choker all you need is some felt and ribbon. Simple as simple can be (my favorite kind of craft)! Keep scrolling through to find the instructions on how to make this easy choker.

Materials:

Felt
Ribbon
Stencil

Instructions:

Find an image of a bat online and print and cut it out to use as a stencil. You can also draw a bat if you are good at that.. which I am not so I went with good ol’ Google.
Tape the stencil to your felt and then cut the felt around the stencil.
Cut two small slits in both the wings of the bat, but don’t cut all the way to the edge!
Thread the ribbon through the two holes you made.
Optional: if the string is showing over the top of the bats head you can put a small black stitch in the middle of the bat (where my finger is pointing below) to hold the string down.

Now tie the choker around your neck and you’ve got instant Halloween pride! Another option for tying it is to make sliding knots. This video explains how to do it. I think he does a clear job, though it takes him a little while to get started (about 2:00 he gets going). This would look cute layered with other chokers or you could just wear it plain like I did. You could even make the bat a different color to jazz things up.

Let us know in the comments below what you are looking forward to this Halloween!

What I Ate Wednesday: Halloween Edition

November 4, 2015November 4, 201515 Comments

Hello lovelies! I can’t believe Halloween is already over and now there is Christmas music playing and Christmas decorations everywhere. What happened to Thanksgiving, people?? I’m still not over Halloween yet.. I need some time to shamelessly eat all my leftover candy, which is pretty much the two entire bags we bought. We bought two huge bags full of candy thinking we would get trick or treaters but sadly we only got a handful. Also, at the last minute I decided to throw in some plastic eyeballs into the pile of candy to make it spooky and the few kids that did come just wanted those instead of the candy! So, long story short, we have most of our candy left that need to be eaten before we can even think about delving into Christmas candy. Life’s rough ay?

Anywhoooo since it was a holiday and all, I thought it would be fun to share a What I Ate Wednesday, Halloween edition.

Breakfast: A ~~bowl of poison~~ A green smoothie bowl with kale, bananas, orange, hemp seeds, and topped with blueberries and granola. I figured it would be a good idea to start the morning with something healthy and full of greens because I would inevitably be eating lots of candy later. We got these cute Halloween mugs at HomeGoods if anyone is wondering!

Lunch: More kale! A kale salad with leftover veggies roasted in a Mexican spice blend. I also had some chips and salsa on the side because you can’t have Mexican flavored things without chips and salsa!

Snack: A cup of tea with some graham crackers, peanut butter, and banana bits. This was a bit of a random snack but I had just woken up from a nap and was craving something sweet, hence the graham crackers. Usually I have this on a rice cake instead but gotta feed those cravings! Does anyone else crave sweets after napping?? Just me, okay…

Dinner: Homemade chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, and steamed veggies. This was such a deliciously nostalgic meal. Since it was Halloween and all, we decided to embrace our inner children and made some chicken nuggets for dinner. It was SO GOOD. I haven’t had chicken nuggets in foreverrrr. This plate was also covered in ketchup about 5 seconds after I took this picture..

Dessert: A grown ups version of Halloween: wine, leftover Halloween candy, and popcorn! After the couple of trick or treaters came and went, we settled down with some treats to watch a movie. Can you tell that I like Milky Ways??

Welp, there it is what I ate on Halloween. And, incase anyone was curious as to what we were for Halloween, here you go: We went as Ben and McKinley dressed in their zoot suit from Wet Hot American Summer: First Day Of Camp. I thought we pulled it off pretty well if I do say so myself. Of course, about 30 minutes later we put on our real zoot suits:

So, I want to hear, what did everyone else do on Halloween?

Did you dress up?

Have you seen Wet Hot American Summer??

Let us know below and we might give you some of our leftover candy!

As always, thanks to Jenn & Arman for hosting this What I Ate Wednesday party! Check out their sites for more delicious foods!

Happy Halloween: Candy Corn Popcorn

October 31, 2015October 3, 20166 Comments

Happy Halloween! Can you believe it’s already Halloween 2015?! And if you’re like us, then you’re currently wondering what you’re going to do with all that extra candy corn that you bought because it is oh so pretty but you really can’t eat that much of it.Plus you’re way too busy trying to finish all those Reese’s and Kit Kats that were “accidently” left over from trick-or-treaters….

We have just the treat for you that will use up all your leftover candy corn. This candy corn popcorn is the perfect after Halloween treat for grown ups (and kids!) to help you ease out of the Snickers and Reese’s sugar coma.

It is light, fluffy, and full of bits of candy corn! What isn’t to like??

Also, with all the new and wacky candy corn flavors they seemed to have out this year, you could really create quite the treat. Did anyone see the peanut butter candy corn that they were selling this year?? Am I the only one who has never seen that before?? If you tried it, please comment and let me know whether it was good or not! I really wanted to try it but didn’t feel like I should buy the entire bag before it is too late…

Anyways, so to help you use up those cute little candy corns you bought, we came up with this recipe for candy corn popcorn. It’s not too sweet and not too sticky and so so good!

Serves: 2 Time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

about 10-15 pieces of candy corn (or more to sprinkle in at the end)
1/3 cup popcorn kernels popped
1 Tablespoon hazelnut milk (we would have used unsweetened almond milk, but we already had the hazelnut milk open, but either would work)
1/2 Tablespoon virgin coconut oil
Wax paper

How to make:

Pop the popcorn using your method of choice (we used an air popper)
Line a baking sheet with wax paper and spread the popped popcorn over it. The wax paper is important because the melted candy corn will get stuck to anything else and be hard to toss together.
In a small pot on the stove, melt together the candy corn with the milk. Keep stirring occasionally (I used a spatula) until the mixture starts to bubble and look frothy. Then add the coconut oil.
Keep stirring until well incorporated – it will look oily around the edges but the orange candy corn mixture will be smooth looking (about 5 minutes)
Drizzle the mixture on the popcorn and start tossing immediately to incorporate. Use a bowl and a spatula or two spatulas at first since the melted candy corn will be hot!
Sprinkle extra broken up candy corn pieces in for good measure!

Enjoy!

Halloween Bunting Flags

October 28, 2015September 29, 201619 Comments

Oh my goodness Halloween is THIS weekend! Are you excited?? Do you have a costume? Have you decorated your house? We are currently in the midst of getting our apartment and costumes ready for a Halloween party on Friday. A little last minute scrambling will definitely be in order.

Speaking of last minute we have a wonderfully easy craft for you to help prepare your house for little trick or treaters or just add some Halloween whimsy to your home, if you haven’t done so already. Or, if you are like us and decided to carve pumpkins a few weeks too early and they are now growing things too scary to expose to innocent children out trick or treating, this quick and easy Halloween bunting flag diy will add a festive flair to a pumpkin-less porch. And hopefully distract everyone from the pile of stinky black moldy pumpkin in the corner..

For this project, all you will need is construction paper, scissors, glue, and some string to hang the flags with.

We made a triangle stencil just using a ruler and a good eye to trace for the base of the flags. Then we traced the triangle stencil onto whatever color background we wanted for the face (i.e. green for the witch, orange for the pumpkin). Now is the fun part! Cut out eyes and noses and teeth and hats and clothes and everything you can think of to dress up your little flags. For the witch I cut out some eyes out of white paper, a nose out of green paper, some lips out of red paper, and a black hat. I then just glued each of these pieces onto the green triangle.

To hang the flags we just used some plain embroidery string and some little tiny clothespins we found at Target last year. We taped the corners of the string to the wall and then arranged the characters to our liking! You could also glue a small bit of string to the tops of each of the flags to hang them as well.

That is all you have to do to make these cute little Halloween flags! You can really get creative with these guys too – choose your favorite Halloween characters and have at it! Or, you could just do a bunch of spooky witches, it’s really up to you and your imagination!

Chances are you already have all the materials you need at home to make these bunting flags. So what are you waiting for?! Go make these adorable Halloween bunting flags and hang them up so kids can come-a-ringing for candy and not a pile of moldy pumpkin.

These two went to….

THIS!

Yep, I think the bunting flags are far more appealing than those rotting pumpkins. Best get a crafting!

Scarecrow and Tin Man Halloween Costume Ideas

October 24, 2015October 24, 201517 Comments

Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday. One of the best parts about Halloween, aside from all the free candy, is that everyone dresses up as something scary or something funny or something clever. It’s exciting to look out your window and see a witch and a cow walking down the street together.I’m one of those people that starts planning for my costume wayyy in advance. I can’t help it! If I see a good idea I just make a note of it and start figuring out how I could make that work as a costume. Like I said, I really love Halloween.Through my many years of costumes, one of my favorites was a scarecrow. It was a little bit spooky a little bit girly and a lot a bit fun.Rose and I had decided to dress up as a duo costume and since I really wanted to be a scarecrow she came up with the tin man to accompany me. It worked out great and was super easy to find bits and pieces for.

This was just last year when we hosted a Halloween party. We had made a lot of different DIY’s for the party so if you need some inspiration for some decorations go check them out. You can also take a look at what the whole place looked like when everything was finished. Here are some of the DIYs:

You can also check out our pumpkin carving post from this year and last year for some fun pumpkin carving ideas!

For the Scarecrow what you will need is a plaid shirt, either a tutu like me or overalls, some straw, boots, and a hat. To do the scarecrow makeup I made a square patch on my nose with a dark blush (face paint would work too) and then taking a brown eyeliner I lined the square and made cross hatch marks around it. For the smile use the same brown eyeliner and make two large lines from your mouth up to your cheeks and again make cross-hatch marks all the way up the big line.

For the tin man costume what you will need is a grey dress, grey leggings or tights, a hat or funnel, an axe, and some neutral shoes. For the tin man costume Rose made a similar grey/silver square on her nose. She also put on silver eye-shadow.

And that is all we did! It was super easy to put together these costumes and chances are you already have bits and pieces at home. You could go as a duo like us or choose your favorite and dress up as them or even rope some more of your friends in and get Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion too!

Halloween is so much fun but it shouldn’t involve spending a lot or laboring over one costume just for one night. These costumes were simple and easy to make, which is what I love because then you have more time to freak your dog out!

Halloween Pumpkin Carving

October 21, 2015October 20, 20152 Comments

One of my all time favorite fall time activities is pumpkin carving. I can remember carving pumpkins ever since I was a wee little one. My whole family gets really into it each year and we end up buying a ton of pumpkins just to carve. We use the Pumpkin Masters carving patterns to make our jack-o-lanterns. These patterns really make our otherwise plain pumpkins into great pumpkin masterpieces. I think I would still be doing the two triangle eyes and zig-zag mouth if I didn’t have these patterns to go of off (not that there is anything wrong with a classic pumpkin!) My family has a stockpile of older carving stencils because some of the best patterns are in their older books.

My mom stuck to a witch theme this year

This past weekend, Rose and I made a trip up to New Hampshire in part to see the gorgeous fall foliage but also in a bigger part to carve pumpkins! My mom had about 12 pumpkins waiting for us when we arrived. Here are the lovely and spooky jack-o-lanterns that we made:

My creations for this year

It was so hard to choose which pattern to use because my family has so many good ones!

Rose’s creations!

Now hopefully they will just last until Halloween…

Tell us: do you like to carve pumpkins for Halloween?

Do you use the carving patterns or free hand it?

Which is your favorite pumpkin we carved?? (don’t worry, you won’t offend anyone 🙂 )

Melting Witch Chia Seed Pudding Treats

October 17, 2015October 3, 201613 Comments

Today, in honor of Halloween we have a deliciously spooky treat to get you in the Halloween spirit. We have created melting witch chia seed puddings!

“I’m meltingggg” That’s what this witch is saying and what ran through my head the entire time we were creating this melting witch pots. Does anyone else remember that scene from the Wizard of Oz?

These Halloween treats were inspired in part by the melting witch and also in part to create a healthier version of the pudding gravestones I’ve seen posted on Pinterest. I love the idea of having a little Halloween treat that is also healthy and a little bit spooky.

Once I spotted these witch legs I knew they would be a perfect addition to the melting witch pot. These hats would have been really cool too. But you could also make a little witch hat out of an Oreo and a Hershey’s kiss.

Ingredients:

Makes 4

1/4 cup chia seeds
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon maple syrup or honey or sweetener of choice

For a flavored chia seed pudding add:

1 teaspoon of matcha to make a green melting witch OR 1 tablespoon of PB2 to make a brown melting witch

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and then scoop into mason jars and put in the fridge overnight. To serve, add an extra sprinkle of matcha or PB2 to the tops of the pudding and then stick the pretzel legs in!

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Tag: Halloween

Halloween Sculpey Drink Stirrers

Materials:

Instructions:

Like this:

Halloween Pumpkin Air Plant Holders

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Flamingo and Swan Pool Float Costumes

Learn how to make these simple and fun flamingo and swan pool floats for your Halloween costume!

Materials:

Instructions:

Like this:

Simple Halloween Bat Choker

Learn how to make this super simple Halloween bat choker to wear all throughout October!

Materials:

Instructions:

Like this:

What I Ate Wednesday: Halloween Edition

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Happy Halloween: Candy Corn Popcorn

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Halloween Bunting Flags

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Scarecrow and Tin Man Halloween Costume Ideas

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Halloween Pumpkin Carving

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Melting Witch Chia Seed Pudding Treats

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Learn how to make these simple and fun flamingo and swan pool floats for your Halloween costume!

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Learn how to make this super simple Halloween bat choker to wear all throughout October!

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