Halloween FUN!

Last year at work the girls in the Finance/Admin department decided we should do a little work Halloween party & potluck!  There was a contest for best costume, and best decorated desk.  My competitive spirit was all down for this!

I'll start with my desk decorating:

I was originally made some bloody handprint window clings out of white glue but didn't like they way they turned out, so I threw them out and ended up painting my hands with red acrylic paint and smearing them on my cubicle window (SO much fun, by the way!)

(attempt at glue window clings)

I found caution tape at the dollarstore to put all over the exterior of my cube.

Because my boss is not the type to participate, I expanded my decorating onto his cubicle too.  :)  I picked up this Styrofoam tomb stone at the dollarstore.  I had considered a chalk outline and toilet paper decorating for my boss's desk, but I didn't have time.  Maybe next year!

I made a stained bloody curtain out of what I had around the house.  I coffee stained a white piece of fabric, and then used my scrapbooking spray ink to add some "blood"

(Curtain drying in the bath tub!)

I found some severed fingers and random eyeballs and brains at the dollarstore.  I floated some things in jars of colored water (Tip: neon food coloring made for great colors here!)

Some of them I drilled holes in and put on my Christmas lights

And then some were just placed around :)

The potluck was extremely successful! People brought what they said they would, we had a good mix of things, and it was all so tasty!  Some people even got really into it!

Spider dip!

Witch fingers

Jello brain!!

Thanks for checking out my Halloween hauntings, hope you got some fun ideas for decorating and food!

I can't wait to do my desk this year! 

     

 

Individual Pumpkin Cheesecakes

I just realized I haven't blogged in a whole month! Wow.  I've still been crafty, just busy! Now that september is over I feel it's time to bring on the fall/halloween posts I prepared last year! 

For our work Halloween party, we had a potluck.  I love bringing desserts, and I wanted to be festive, so mini pumpkin cheesecake it was.  Now at that time I had just started trying to eat gluten free and I couldn't find a good recipe for this.  I ended up blending about 3 recipes together and this is what I came up with.  It turned out fantastically and I would definitely make it again!

What you'll need:

12 or 24      premade gingersnaps about the size of the bottom of a muffin tin (if you want/need, GF)

3                  eggs

1 8oz pkg   cream cheese (softened)

3 Tbsp        sugar (or substitute of choice)

1/2 can       pumpkin (the recipe I used didn't specify can size, but as far as I know, they really one come in one size - BIG)

1 tsp           vanilla

2 tsp           cinnamon

1 tsp           ginger

1/2 tsp        nutmeg

1/4 tsp        salt

Whipped cream/whipped topping of choice

What to do:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2) The recipe I started with was all "crush cookies and add butter..." blah blah blah.  By the time I got my costume and office decorating stuff together, I had NO interest in actually making crust for these little guys.  I soon realized that one cookie = the size of the bottom of the muffin tin.  WIN! 

Place one cookie in the bottom of each lined muffin cup.  The cool thing is the cookie gets all soft from the cream cheese mixture on top of it! They turn out perfect!

3) Mix your eggs, cream cheese, sugar, pumpkin, vanilla, spices and salt in a blender.  At the time I didn't have a blender & used a hand mixer.  This worked alright too.

4) Pour the mixture into the muffin cups. (excuse the dirty stove - it had been a long night of pumpking carving, seed roasting and desk decoration crafting!)

5) Bake until knife inserted comes out clean (I'm sorry I don't have a time for you - when I make them again I'll update this!)

6) Let cool.  They can refrigerate overnight if you need.  

7) Top with whipped cream & serve!

             

$5 of Decorating Fun

Once every year I get to remind my boss how "old" he is (old in quotation marks because he's only 4 years older than I am, and neither of us are actually old) I like to do this by decorating his cubicle for his birthday. 

This year I spent a total of $5 at the dollar store, and produced fairly good results - and that included a card!

This banner was left over from last year...but you can't go wrong with one of these!

I decided against the Disney Princess theme and went with something slightly less emasculating and less obnoxious - hockey theme!

I found a package of Canadian hockey team napkins - perfect!

I also picked up some streamers, balloons and tissue paper!  Streamers and balloons are pretty obvious as to what to do with them, but the tissue paper I took one sheet at a time and grabbed it by the middle and stuck it in random crevices...like between his monitors.

So for not very much money, I was able to decorate the cubicle and still have plenty left over! 

Work Anniversary Cake

This year was my company's 4th anniversary.  It happens to fall on Valentines day, so the girls at the office decided to have a bit of a party/BBQ.

I can't turn down the opportunity to make desserts, so I offered to make a cake!

Since I pinned these cute little discs here, I wanted to make some.

Source: somewhatsimple.com via Jill on Pinterest

I soon discovered that

1) I was too lazy to do the whole sugar disc thing

2) I really didn't want to buy food markers

For the cake, my original idea was to make a stencil of our logo, and then use those spray cans to "paint" it on fondant.  As I read more reviews about the sprays, the less I wanted to use them (apparently the black is extra terrible!)

I did however discover that you can 'paint' fondant with gel colors mixed with a little vodka.  This sounded like a good plan seeing as how

1) I have some gel colors

2) I will use gel colors again

3) Gel colors are cheap

WIN.

So that's what I did.

As to solve my lazy problem...  I was searching for my piping bags, and what do I find?! White candy melts. "Hmmm" she things "these are about the right size and colour..."

I outlined them with a fine paint brush first...

Then I filled them in with colour

The ended up looking pretty good.

Each cupcake had a green liner (should have doubled them up so that they actually looked green!), white buttercream pipped on with a large tip, one candy disc with logo, and a sprinkle of course sugar (BULK BARN!!) for some sparkle!

The cake I just painted with gel colours in a similar fashion!  I did have a printed copy of what I wanted to put on it, and traced it out with a toothpick first.  Luckily my company has a really easy logo!

Painting with gel colours was fun and SUPER easy.  I would most definitely do it again, and recommend it to anyone looking for a new way to get an image on a cake!

Cheese Platter Goodness

This year for new years was probably one of the best in recent history, and we kept it pretty low key, just me (& Adam), Amy & her hubby Landon, and my sister Leslie & her hubby Tyler.  We had delicious food and drinks and played Cards Against Humanity until 3am!?!?!?

Anyway, Leslie already blogged about our new years in a timely fashion, so check it out here.

I did want to share the cheese platter I made with you though.  I based it off of this Martha Stewart advice that I pinned

Source: everydayfoodblog.marthastewart.com via Jill on Pinterest

So as a serving tray I actually used the brand new pizza stone that we got from Adam's parents for Christmas!

On here we have (starting at the top, and working clockwise) prosciutto, Boursin (delicious & creamy...if you've never had it, I recommend - just do not look at the nutritional information if you'd like to enjoy it!), small bowl of mixed nuts, sundried tomato & herb havarti, chorizo salami, and gouda (possibly smoked gouda, I can't remember) and in the middle a small bowl of olives.

Adam and I were a little ambitious in our shopping and had also gotten some maple candied salmon and baguette which you can see on a plate just behind the meat and cheese platter.

I was also in a pretty tray-ish mood and made a fruit platter, I think I made the dip from a pin... but I can't seem to find it :(

Thanks for checking out our good eats! 

http://todayscreativeblog.net/

Bachelorette Party {shirts}

For my sister's Bachelorette party I couldn't just buy pre-made shirts, and because my crafty pride tends to get in the way, I decided that just designing them ( and having them made somewhere else) wasn't good enough either.  I had to do it all.  Ten bridal tank tops.  Doesn't sound to bad, until you find your inspiration picture and decide you should try to use what you have on hand.

I thought this was fun, and not trashy.  So I went with it!

Using my Silhouette SD I cut out the stencils for all the lettering, purchased a martini shape from the silhouette online store, and ta-da!

I decided to stencil the back too, using either "maid of honour" "bridesmaid" or "bride" and then a number, so that they were sports-jersey-esque!

Using my Silhouette I cut everything out of vinyl. That part wasn't bad.

I had white fabric paint on hand, but mixed up the pink using fabric paint medium.  If you don't have this stuff you should - you can instantly turn any acrylic paint into fabric paint! Whoot!

I painted these in 2 stages.  After the first part was dry, I peeled off more vinyl on the numbers and put the missing part back over top. **don't forget to put something in between the shirt so that it doesn't bleed through!**

I don't have a pic with this part all painted, but I think you get the idea!

I outlined the number with some silver glitter fabric paint just because on some of the shirts the paint bled under the vinyl.

Using the same kind of process I did the fronts

Ta-Da! I don't have pics of ALL ten, but again, I think you get the idea!

They might have taken over my house for a while!

The girls super loved the shirts and donned them when we got back to the hotel. We were going to head out clubbin' but it ended up being a fairly chill night at the hotel which was good too!

The bridal party ended up wearing them again when we went to go get manicures the day before the wedding which was a great idea! 

My sister loved her shirt...

If I did something like this again, I would probably just buy Silhouette iron on vinyl and be done with it (or not make so many...or maybe make a party out of making shirts, lol)

Back at the hotel we had a bit of a game where everyone brought Leslie a little something naughty and she had to guess who gave it to her!

The "gifts" included gummy panties, cop set, and whipped cream, to name a few!

Now if you look real close, what does that say...?

YUP! Law EMforcement.  LOL  I guess that's what I get for stopping at the dollar store!

The last note worthy item of the night was the drunken gummy bears.  Or I guess I will call it my drunken gummy bear FAIL!

It looked simple enough - gummy bears, vodka, let sit.  I thought I could handle that.

However when you leave your gummy vodka bears in a trunk on a hot afternoon they become gelatinous mess bears!

We poured out the goo and they resolidified and made not bad jello-like shooters, so not quite all was lost!