The marvelous xJane recently pointed me to this post about “Bedrock Bones,” a line of hairties, necklaces, and other accessories that look like brightly-colored bones. She lamented that they don’t seem to be available in the US, which most likely is partly due to the fact that they’re all handmade (here’s the artist’s Facebook page) and partly because New Zealand is apparently beyond the grasping clutches of Hanna-Barbera’s legal department.

Fortunately all is not lost, since these should be easy to DIY.

At first glance I thought that the bones were made of hard rubber, but I suspect that instead they’re molded out of polymer clay. The shape of the bone is simple enough that even a beginner should be able to make something similar. You can search for “polymer clay tutorials” for tips on working with the clay, making holes for stringing (which you’ll need if you make a necklace), and so on. I couldn’t find any photos of the hair ties that showed how the elastic was attached, but it doesn’t look like it’s actually baked into the clay. A couple of sites on making clay hair accessories suggest attaching the elastic with a bit of hot glue, which should work well.

If you aren’t up to sculpting your own, you might try spray-painting little Halloween prop bones with plastic-safe paint and stringing them on a necklace or attaching them to a hair clip. I have to admit, though, that I’m much more taken with the shape of the Bedrock line, so taking the trouble to make them out of clay would probably be worth it.

These would be a cute stocking-stuffer, and would also be attractive as toppers for gift packages.

Thanks, xJane!

I tend to find recipes created by food companies largely suspect, because they so often seem engineered toward using their own products with a tasty result being somewhat secondary. So it is with these Voodough Dolls: Perhaps it’s just me, but a dessert that consists of a thin piece of cookie, a giant wad of marshmallow, and vanilla frosting is the sort of dessert that is likely to remind me that restraint is a virtue.

However, I love both the name and the idea, and it would be splendidly easy to make a much more appealing version. This is nothing but six cylinders, and there are one heck of a lot of cylindrical desserts.

In its simplest form, perhaps as part of a buffet for a child’s party, you could simply use whatever your local snack-size version of a Swiss Roll is. I think I’d also use gumdrops instead of taffy balls for the pin heads, since then you could easily make a lot of them for extra decoration.

For a larger and more adult take on the same idea, any jelly-roll type dessert would work well. In particular, a Buche de Noel version would be an extremely unique centerpiece for a holiday party. Use larger cocktail-type toothpicks for the pins, and top them with chocolate truffle or maraschino cherry pin heads.

You could also do a savory rendition, perhaps with pate or cheese logs, and use olives to top the toothpick pins. And, of course, to be really true to the name, the whole thing could be made of bread.

With the winter holidays galloping up, this is a great time to try something weirdly festive. I may bring a cinnamon-roll take on this in to the office some morning; my co-workers haven’t been giving me a sufficiently wide berth lately.

(via Creepy Cupcakes)

I recently ran across this neat T-shirt featuring a skull made of triangles, and although it’s great as a shirt it strikes me that the same idea could also be adapted to other media.

In particular, I think this would work well as a quilt. Quilts made from triangles (there’s a good primer here) are nearly as easy as those made from plain squares, which makes them a splendid project for beginners. Depending upon your skill and ambition, you could make a quilt with a different-colored skull in each block, or you could simply do one large skull which fills the center of the space. You can also choose whether to do the skull(s) in one solid color or use a mix of shades as shown here.

The nice thing about triangles (or plain squares) is that they’re easy to scale up or down. If you don’t feel up to tackling a whole quilt, a smaller skull would look great on a wall hanging, throw pillow, tote bag, or item of clothing.

Hell Pizza in New Zealand has a reputation for being somewhat…irreverent…in their advertising. Last spring they had a promotion for “Hell Cross Buns,” with the image at left, as part of their Easter campaign.

It struck me at the time that the cute little pentacle buns would be fun to do at home, but since my first effort didn’t turn out properly (because I am stupid; see below), and I haven’t gotten around to a second attempt, and I’m really sick of looking at this thing in my drafts folder, I’m just going to toss it out here and let you guys run with it.

My problem was with the pentacle. From a quick glance at the ad photo, I assumed that the design was slashed into the top of the risen dough with a bread lame. However, hot cross bun dough doesn’t score cleanly, and the results could euphemistically be called “lopsided.”

Now that I’m looking at the picture again, though, I’m thinking that the design was just drawn on with flour paste, which is how the cross on traditional buns are made. Way to outsmart myself.

Anyway, hot cross buns are a good introduction to bread-baking because the dough is easy to handle and is pretty forgiving (if you don’t like the recipe linked above, The Google has plenty more). The pentacles can be drawn on with flour paste before baking or with icing after they cool.

If you like the idea of an incised design, try using a dough that slashes more cleanly (such as sourdough) and make one large loaf instead of messing around with a zillion little buns.

Either way, these would be a fun addition to a Halloween party spread, or just to slip in the breadbasket to mess with the in-laws.

Marshmallows are one of those candies that seem like they’d be much harder to make than they really are. Chocolate-dipping anything increases its Fanciness Quotient exponentially. Therefore, chocolate-dipped homemade marshmallows belong to that splendid pantheon of projects that look like they took much more time and effort than they actually did. My favorite!

Even better, all you have to do is drop in a little food coloring and they’re suddenly all gussied up for Halloween.

Ingredients

2 T plus 2-1/2 tsp unflavored gelatin (about 3-1/2 envelopes)
1 C cold water, divided
2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
2 large egg whites*
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract or about 2 tsp flavored extract such as mint, orange, etc. (choose something that pairs well with chocolate)
Paste (preferable) or gel food coloring. (Using liquid coloring for anything but the lightest tint will add too much liquid to the mixture and the marshmallows won’t be as poofy.) I used orange, but green, red, or black are other possibilities.

8 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

Edible decorations: Candy corn, chopped nuts, crushed butterscotch candies, shredded coconut (shake with a little food coloring to tint), cake sprinkles, etc.

*The original recipe at Gourmet suggests using reconstituted powdered whites if you’re really concerned about food safety, but I think the whites are heated enough by the sugar syrup that this probably isn’t necessary.

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I’ve been sort of peripherally aware of the idea of making “witch hats” by sticking a chocolate kiss on top of a chocolate-covered cookie, but I hadn’t given them much thought until the fantabulous Jessica sent me this photo of cookies with teensy icing buckles. That upped the Cuteness Factor by about 1000%, so I decided to monkey with the concept a little further.

You will need:

• Cookies with at least one flat, chocolate-covered side; I used Keebler “Fudge Stripes” turned upside-down.
• Chocolate kisses; I used plain Hershey’s kisses, but the striped “Hugs” would also be cute.
• Frosting. You can make this from scratch, but that kind of defeats the whole “easy, no-bake” thing. Individual decorating tubes can be expensive; I just used white canned cake frosting and colored it with some gel food coloring I had on hand.
• M&Ms or other little round chocolate candies, if you want to add spiders.

To make the hats, pipe a little frosting in the center of each cookie (if the cookie has a hole in the center, pipe around the hole). Stick a kiss in the middle; I like to use enough frosting that a little bit gooshes out around the edges to make a “hat band.” In its simplest form, you are now done.

If you want to get fancier, pipe two thin oval-ish shapes on the kiss and two lines on the hat to make a decorative bow. I found that the frosting tended to warm up after a while, making it thinner and harder to control, so I periodically stuck the piping bag in the freezer for a few minutes to firm it back up.

For extra decoration, add a spider by sticking an M&M to the hat brim with a little frosting and then piping on legs. Here’s where a very thin round tip would come in handy; I didn’t have one on hand, and just snipping the end off a disposable icing bag resulted in–depending on the size of the hole–legs that were either a bit too big or a bit too thin and ribbony for my taste. (Fortunately, even the mistakes taste just fine.)

These are super-easy to make, so they’re not only a quick and attractive addition to a Halloween party, they’re a great project for kids.

(Thanks to Jessica for the suggestion!)

This is my favorite kind of project: Something where the results look like you spent way more time and energy than you actually did.

Over at The Crafty Nest there’s a lovely tutorial for making Halloween-themed “jar cookies.” In addition to a recipe and instructions, there’s also packaging suggestions and free downloadable labels.

A jar of these would be a great last-minute hostess gift, and the assembly is simple enough to be a good project for kids. They’d also be easy and inexpensive to make in quantity as party or wedding favors.

If the M&M recipe isn’t really your thing, just search “jar cookie recipes” for lots of other varieties, from cranberry-oatmeal to gingerbread to butterscotch chip. You could also substitute hot cocoa or soup mix if you prefer.

Add a scrap of Halloween-print fabric tied with ribbon or raffia and you’ve got a perfect, fast gift.

(via Cult of the Great Pumpkin)

I recently happened upon a comment in a quilting forum where someone mentioned quilts made from tombstone rubbings. Intrigued, I did a bit of looking and discovered that grave-rubbing quilts are very definitely a thing, and they are very definitely made of awesome.

It looks like one of the main creators of this sort of quilt is fiber artist Susan Lenz. She’s got a whole blog devoted to the quilts and other items she makes with the rubbings, often incorporating lace, linen and other vintage fabrics as well. (A few of her items are also featured in a gallery here.)

I had initially thought that she used some sort of transfer method to copy paper rubbings onto fabric, but from her descriptions it instead appears that she makes the rubbings directly on the fabric (often silk) using crayons. She then hand- or machine-embroiders parts of the design and often appliques it to a sturdier base fabric.

I love everything about this. I’m immensely taken with the soft, muted colors of her work and with the wonderful designs she finds on old gravestones. The pieces look marvelously old-fashioned and are charming rather than macabre.

If you’d like to try your hand at something similar, the Association for Gravestone Studies has a very nice article on making gravestone rubbings. You can get fabric crayons at craft stores or online. Thin silk is available at many craft stores, but my favorite place to get it is Dharma Trading; they have a great variety and they’re surprisingly cheap.

If you don’t want to commit to creating a quilt or other large piece, a single small rubbing would look splendid on a piece of clothing: Depending on the clothing you could either do the rubbing directly on the fabric (like this gorgeous linen christening gown) or do it on thin silk and then applique it in place.

I love visiting old graveyards anyway, and this project has given me a brand-new reason to plan an excursion.

How adorable is this?

i am baker has easy instructions for making individual jar cakes with spiders or spooky messages baked inside, topped off with wonderful chocolate spiderweb lids.

She piped chocolate cake batter on the inside of the jars to make the spiders, but I suspect that you could use melted chocolate as well; piping it on and then chilling for a few minutes to harden should firm it up enough that it’ll stay in place when the cake batter is poured in.

I’m particularly taken with the snug-fitting spiderweb lids. I’ve made chocolate spiderwebs by piping them onto parchment paper–they’re a cute decoration for ice cream–but I had never considered fitting the parchment over a jar to make the edges curve. The same method could be used to create spidery little toppers for all sorts of things.

These would be perfect desserts for a Halloween party. They’re easy to turn out in quantity, and they should keep, covered, for a few days if you want to make them in advance (for a grown-up dessert, add a tablespoon or so of rum, brandy, or your favorite liqueur before covering; storing them for a day or two will make them even better). They’re also kid-friendly enough that decorating the inside of the jars might be a fun party activity; take the embellished jars, pour in prepared cake batter, and present each partygoer with their individual cake (with premade lids) as a party favor at the end of the evening.

(via CRAFT)

If you planted pumpkins (and you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) they should be ready to harvest pretty soon. If you’ve got more than you need for jack-o’-lanterns, a fun and tasty way to use the extras is to serve stew in a pumpkin shell.

Obviously, the best pumpkins to cook with are the kinds meant for cooking, such as Cinderella, cheese, or sugar varieties. A home-grown field pumpkin (which is the kind usually used for jack-o’-lanterns) would probably also have enough flavor to be worthwhile, but a commercially-grown one is going to be pretty bland. If that’s the only kind you can find, you may want to skip cooking the pumpkin and just use it as a serving container instead of part of the meal (put it on a baking sheet and warm it in a 200F oven for about 20 minutes before putting the stew in it).

For the Pumpkin:

10-lb (approx.) pumpkin with no soft spots
2 Tbsp melted butter
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375F.

Rinse any surface dirt off of pumpkin. Cut a lid in the top as you would for a jack-o’-lantern, angling the sides in a bit to keep it from falling in. Scrape out the seeds (save for toasting) and guts, making sure to get rid of any stringy bits.

If you want to get fancy, you can “carve” a face on the side by scraping features very shallowly into the skin. Make sure not to poke any deep holes. (You can also incise a pretty pattern if a jack-o’-lantern face isn’t your thing.)

Brush the insides of the pumpkin with the melted butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put the lid back on and place it on a sturdy baking sheet. Bake about 45-60 minutes or until just tender when pierced with a fork (remove the lid and poke it on the inside to avoid marring the skin).

You can also use smaller pumpkins as individual bowls if you prefer; prepare as for the large pumpkin but reduce the baking time to 20-30 minutes.

You can bake the pumpkin(s) whilst the stew is cooking, or do it a few hours in advance and re-warm it in a 350F oven for 20 minutes.

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