Happy Halloween!

For this Halloween, I went the inexpensive route (we're trying to save some money this year). I think my whole costume cost me $5. I decided I was going to be a zombie because I had never really been anything ghoulish before, but I found suggestions that I should be a zombie with a theme. So I chose to be "school-girl zombie!" I ripped up a skirt and button down shirt I haven't worn in years, and are, in fact, a bit too large for me. I painted them up with slashes of green and brown and red acrylic paints I bought at Wal-Mart to make salt-dough Christmas ornaments last year (that did not turn out so well...) but have come in handy for so many other things! I dusted the skirt with flour to simulate grave dust.

I bought a cheap pair of fishnets and three tubes of costume make-up at Wal-Mart (hence the $5). I went a little wild with the blood, but it was fun. I dusted over the make-up with regular cosmetics and flour down my arms and over my neck and chest to set the cream. Stuck a few strands of faux grass nipped from a vase display to stick in my hair, which I also dusted with flour. When I got to the party, my brother and sister in law had some fake cockroaches, so I slipped them in my fishnets to make them look like they were crawling up my legs for extra creep factor.

I made myself a prop leg to carry around. I filled an old sock with crumpled paper bags, a pickle jar, and half a Tim Horton's coffee cup painted red and stuffed at the top with red-painted polyfil (the fluff you find in plushies). Then I glued a milk cap and a piece of Styrofoam to be the bones. I stuck bits of rice and black beads for maggots and spiders and carried my leg around for a little zombie snack piece. 

I made three dishes to bring to the party. I tried my hand at making brain cupcakes with butter-cream frosting, but only had enough for half the cupcakes and the brains were squished by the saran wrap by the time they made the journey anyway. They were drizzled with maraschino cherry juice. The other cupcakes I decorated as "innards" with red cake frosting, bits of licorice, and topped with a maraschino cherry. I drizzled some red food coloring on caramel apple rice cakes (dried brain slices) and laced them with shoestring licorice (spiced tendon strings). Then I made deviled eggs and colored the filling with green, purple, and orange food coloring (and left part of the batch yellow). I topped each one with a black or green olive slice for an eye with a dash of pimento for a pupil and called it "Eye of Newt." I also happened upon "body part" gummy candies and filled our cauldron with gummy eyeballs, ears, and teeth!

My in-law siblings had a slaughterhouse theme going and it looked amazing. They made some BBQ "bat" wings, (crisped flesh) chips with (guts) salsa, vegetables (because even monsters need their vitamins), and spider cookies and puffed wheat bars. We had FANG-gria (sangria) to drink!