Coffin Hopping: How to Scare the Neighborhood Children

It's that time of year again...Yeah, baby! Zombies are coming, as well as vampires and werewolves, witches, ghosts, ghouls, demons and devils (and some pretty things, too, but those aren't nearly so much fun, are they?) In honor of the upcoming holiday, I've joined the Coffin Hop Web Tour again this year. In case you hadn't noticed by all the badges and banners...credit to atrtink for those, obvs I couldn't do something that cool...this is a huge event with artists and authors giving away hundreds of prizes on their sights. So hop on over to the list of horror authors and join us for some scartitivites.
 
As my family debated Halloween costumes this year, I got to thinking about the trendiness that Halloween has taken on. And more generally, the fall season. As soon as October begins, everyone is clamoring to post the first colored leaf photo, Tweeting about their pumpkin spice lattes (#PSL, of course) and instagramming pics of their newly dusted off Ugg boots and flannels. (Don't be offended, I'm poking fun at myself here, too). Fall is the hot new season, and it has been for several years now. Poor summer. So neglected.

When I was a kid, I don't remember adults dressing for Halloween. Perhaps my mom would find an old black skirt and a turtleneck, top it off with a straw hat, and call herself a witch, but the adult costumes were always kept to a minimum, made up of things they already had in the closet. Nowadays, Halloween is an all-ages event, with adult participation and enthusiasm (at least) as high as the kids'.

If you're not going to a party but stuck handing out candy, and you still want to dress up, consider scaring the neighborhood children. Oh yes. It might take a little more work than grabbing something off the shelf, but with the right makeup, face paint, and even items out of your closet, you can piece together a grim and gruesome costume.

You can go above and beyond and spend lots of money, but if you're like me, finances are tight this time of year with the holidays coming up. Zombies are still hot this year, as they have been for the past five or so years, and talk about a cheap and easy costume. Got an old t-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans and some dirt outside your house? All you need is some fake blood and maybe a makeup kit if you want to smear some white and black on your face. Smear the blood around your mouth, grime up your clothes a bit, dribble fake blood down the front of your shirt. Smudge some makeup (Halloween makeup or just regular old eyeliner) around your eyes, then go wait on your lawn. It's even better if you have a whole family or some friends willing to join you in this endeavor. When the kiddos start coming along your walk, begin lurching towards them (someone should also fall and army crawl, that's always a good one) growling and expressing your general desire for brains. If you want to go above and beyond, you could even make a few quick "coffins" out of scrap wood or pallets and have a couple people pop up out of those for effect. Then, watch the neighborhood kids scream in terror...just don't expect to be popular with the neighborhood parents!

 In case you were wondering, I still haven't decided on a costume, but I will definitely be in costume come Halloween night. Until then, I'll be hopping around reading scary stories on some of the author blogs over at the Coffin Hop, as well as giving away free copies of my own books. For the five days before Halloween, The Superiors will be free on Amazon, so pick it up if you like dark vampire stories (no explicit sex). And if you want to read the second book or third, I'll be giving away copies to Coffin Hoppers exclusively. The first person to comment each day this week will receive a free ecopy of any of my books. Just leave your name and contact info (email, twitter handle, fb, etc) and I'll get you a free copy.

Thanks for hopping in my coffin with me.

Edit: for length and relevance to topic.

Disaster Chef: Sweet Potato Casserole (Project Pinterest)

This casserole was all over Pinterest around Thanksgiving, and we had lots of sweet potatoes, so inevitably I found it a perfect match. Apparently so did my sisters--they both made it for their own Thanksgiving dinners.

I was making this for my husband's family, and since you just never know about internet recipes, I made a test run the day before. I made the gluten-free recipe that day, using our own sweet potatoes and xylitol instead of sugar. It turned out a little weird on the top--the xylitol didn't melt and it looked kind of floury on the top instead of all gooey and melty how it looks in the picture on Frugal Freebies blog. Here is their recipe. For her gluten-free version, check out her blog.

Conventional Version
4 Cups Mashed Sweet Potatoes ($2.00)
3/4 cup white sugar ($.40)-->I used only 1/2
1/4 cup melted butter (I used salted) ($.25)
1/3 cup milk ($.25)
2 beaten eggs ($.30)
1 tsp vanilla ($.10)

 topping
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces ($.25)
1/2 cup flour ($.25)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar ($.40)
1 Cup Pecans ($3.00)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Combine the mashed sweet potatoes, sugar, melted butter, eggs, milk and vanilla in a medium bowl and mix with a spoon and pour into an 11 x 7 x 1.5 casserole dish (I never grease it- but I doubt to would hurt if you wanted to). Set aside.
Cut cold butter into flour and brown sugar until it has the consistency of small peas. Add in pecans and stir to combine. This has a crumble topping type consistency.
Sprinkle the topping onto the sweet potato mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Cool for few minutes and then serve.
Serves 8-10 depending on portion.

I made it the regular way on Thanksgiving at the in-laws. I cut the sugar some because the sweet potatoes were already so sweet. But otherwise I followed the recipe. Again, the top never melted or got gooey how it looks in the picture. It was more crumbly than gooey. It was sort of ugly, honestly, and not that many people ate it, though the people who did gave me a few compliments.

I really like sweet potato casserole, and this was my first shot at it. I will try again next year, but with a different recipe.

Recipe: 2.5 out of 5 spoons

Prep & instructions: good, though it does not look like the picture

Scrappy Sunday: Challenge overload! (Don't Fall)

This one is going to have a lot of links…

 

 

This was a challenge for Scrap Our Stash this month. The challenge was to use only 6x6 paper pads for the patterned paper (except for the background, of course), and to use at least 6 of one type of embellishment. I used two 6x6 pads and 7 leaves, which I have had in my stash for about 5 years, and I’ve only used maybe 1 or 2 in all that time. I was tempted to throw the whole lot on there, but I stuck to just 7.

 

I also looked around for a good sketch and found the perfect one at Chic Tags (above)!

  

I also combined with several other challenges…

Boy Meets Girl fall layout using only boy photos

Chic tags sketch challenge

Scrapbook.com challenges:

Hoarders Challenge

All boy challenge
Share & Win Challenge

Scrappy Sunday: Scrap Our Stash Challenge

Alright, here's another challenge from Scrap Our Stash. This was a sketch challenge, with the added condition to add chipboard to the layout. I also designed this for Outlaw Women's Scrapbook Emporium September challenge to use fall colors.
The Sketch Challenge.
The Color Challenge.
The Sketch.

My page:

The supplies:
Patterned paper, cardstock, craft cardstock from packaging, Sharpie, chipboard title and leaves by The Paper Studio, metal leaf brad

Scrappy Sunday: Gratitude (November Journal Cover)

Back with another pagemaps challenge. This one was really great.

Here is the sketch:

And here's my take on it. I used it for my November journal cover.

Ten Things I Love About You

Okay, so...It's fall, officially and in every other sense. And everyone knows fall is the best season. Obviously.

In honor of my favorite season, and my favorite month, I've made a list to prove why fall is once and for all the best season ever.

1. Jeans, glorious Jeans!

2. Not one, but two, holidays. One for family (Thanksgiving) and one for troublemaking wholesome fun with friends.

3. That would be Halloween, if you hadn't figured that out. Actually, number 3 is an extension of number 2, but come on, Halloween deserves its own number. Candy, Costumes, Carving.

4. Pumpkin patches. No matter how old you are, these things are fun. And local. And you get to pick a pumpkin for that carving I mentioned above, and support your local growers (unless your patch gets their pumpkins from Mexico, and then you can support growers in another country).

5. Um, leaves. Hello, what fun would it be if you had to call it autumn all the time and not fall? Falling leaves make fall.

6. Lighting the fire again. My house smells like wood smoke again...yay! Bonfires outside are good, too. Just don't let your costume catch on fire. Those synthetics go fast. You don't want to be the naked guy (or girl) with a scorched bum. And frankly, probably no one else wants you to be either.

7. The end of the heat-wave we call summer down here in the South. That's right, South with a capital S. When the summer temps are over 110 degrees for a week straight, you have one thing to look forward to. Fall. Unless you have a pool, and then you probably don't care. And also, you should invite me over.

8. Goodbye, bugs. Now I know lots of people who don't know the irritation of a mosquito hovering next to your ear for months at a time, but it's really annoying. Just trust me on that. And we won't even get into the other friendly neighborhood bugs who think they'll try out being little itchy Draculas for half the year. And how do we deal with bloodsuckers?

9. Changing my wardrobe. Even if I only buy one new sweater, it's worth it. I'm tired of all my summer clothes by now...ready to switch back into cozy winter mode.

10. What's number 10? Football? New Sam Adam's seasonal flavor? Halloween again? Rocky Horror Picture Show? Thriller playing on the radio? Octoberfest? Haunted Houses? Austin City Limits? I can't pick just one. And I'm sure I've left out about 10 more reasons why this month and this season 'totally rock, dude!' Oh, yeah, that was in honor of all the college students swarming back into town. Yep. That's good, too.