Happy Halloween Everyone! :)
I hope everyone has had a very spooky and fun Halloween, or just a nice Tuesday! :) These are my pumpkins this year, The Oogie Boogie Man, Nosferatu and King Kong. I think they turned out pretty well!! I got inspired to do Nosferatu from Michael at Scribble Picnic, who drew a nice scary Nosferatu for his Inktober drawing challenge! Speaking of that, this week's Scribble Picnic theme is "Toy!".
Since it's still Halloween, I was thinking about all the creepy looking toys out there! :)) I remember some Jack in the Boxes being quite scary when I was a kid, I certainly wouldn't want this as a toy! (check out the above link to see other people's versions of the theme, or to join!)
Because of the crazy Nor'easter wind storm we've had the last few days, I stuck to decorating inside. And I only decorated our "breakfast bar". With the 5 dogs, I barely had time to hang my skeletons lol!
For lunch I made a Nacho Cheese Dip Graveyard with fun-shaped baked tortillas. The tortillas kept sinking on me, so I had to put them all around the sides. (I posted the recipe I used, but added half a bottle of salsa)
I made Jack O' Lantern Cocktails. Isn't the garnish cool? It's an orange juice drink with some brandy and Grand Marnier. Delish! Made us slightly drowsy while we watched The Mummy with Christopher Lee!
And for dinner, I made some pizzas, a pumpkin-shaped bacon pizza...
...and a ghost-shaped chicken pizza with Gruyere cheese sauce - ooh yeah! :)
We had some sparkling wine and I added some vampire teeth for fun!
Dessert was Pumpkin Cheesecake...it was very good but we didn't really taste the pumpkin in it! I'll try another recipe next time. Now I'm off to bed to watch the Three Stooges in 3D (yes, we have the glasses lol!)...and our yearly tradition of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein! Nighty night! :)
Okay.....you are definitely and ARTIST!!! Those pumpkins are beautiful....how do you do that? Do you trace or draw them on there first? When my kids were little I had a hard time just doing the regular jack o' lantern face! LOL! My daughter the art teacher really gets into too. One year she carved 12! That was BK (before kids). I have a ceramic jack o' lantern now that has an electric light in it that I put in the window. My Aunt made it years ago. I miss the roasted pumpkin seeds though.
ReplyDeleteYour decorations are awesome and all the special Halloween dishes and drinks look wonderful and tasty too!
I really didn't get to celebrate too much as between the Trick or Treaters and the grands calling to tell me all about their 'adventures'.....there was no movie or special food other than I had made brat and cheddar soup the day before which is pretty 'special' in my book! LOL! It was a great Halloween here weather wise and about 9:00 p.m. it started raining and still today so now it's just plain cozy. What a great celebration you 2 had! I wish I could have been there to partake! Oh, I love Young Frankenstein....a classic for sure!
you two sure know how to have fun! glad you had a good one!
ReplyDeleteLove your jack-o-lanterns! And your very creative food and drinks!
ReplyDeleteWhat fun at your place! Your jack-o-lanterns are amazing. And the food and drinks. OHMYGOSH... You are quite the artist, Rain. You really know how to celebrate. Your breakfast bar is spooktacular :) I love all your artwork, too. Good stuff! I always enjoy your blog posts.
ReplyDeleteRain, your many, many talents abound! Those carved pumpkins are works of art. (I can barely manage to carve triangular eyes, nose and a lopsided grinning mouth with maybe one tooth!)
ReplyDeleteYour "toy" painting brings back memories of those jack-in-the-box pop up toys that scared so many little ones. Curious that what was created as a child's toy often brought tears and wails to children. I may well be reading something into your painting, but I don't get a happy feeling from it. (Enough of the maudlin stuff.) You are a truly talented, creative artist!!
I’m all for the Halloween cocktails and dessert. We had cheese and crackers and got up every two minutes to answer the door for all the little gremlins in the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI love your pumpkins.
This year Halloween went over our heads. The husband wants to be more festive next year; he said his co-worker carved 17 pumpkins last weekend for the holiday. Your cheesecake looks wonderful! Sorry it wasn't pumpkiny enough for you.
ReplyDeleteI'll have a Jack-O-Lantern cocktail please. Notice how I skipped right to the alcohol? hehe
ReplyDeleteI LOVE your carved pumpkins...definitely works of art...even down to the food. And, of course, you have to watch scary movies on Halloween, don't you? We planned to but the Trick-or-Treaters were quite a distraction (love them) so we watched some Charmed episodes instead. I have the series on DVD.
It sounds like you had a lovely night. :)
LOVE Nosferatu! The very old movie with him in it is my favorite! You did well - from the decs to the food! You could have a great decorating talent!
ReplyDeleteGreat job with Nosferatu! Your pumpkins are fantastic as is your Halloween food, fun fun fun!
ReplyDeleteAwesome pumpkins!! The toys I always thought were creepy are the cymbal monkeys. I am pretty sure it was thanks to a short story by Stephen King as well as them just looking creepy in general.
ReplyDeleteI admire you....you do all those thing for you and your fellow! And the dogs and cats too! haha....I love the extra steps you take with the meals! I love it all.
ReplyDeleteWow! You really get into the holiday - how fun. I love your decorations and your Jack-in-the Box is appropriately scary. Happy Halloween!
ReplyDeleteHow fun that you do things so special. Nancy
ReplyDeleteThis is my first holiday with you and I am overwhelmed ... I can't wait to see what you do for Christmas :) I used to do the fancy Jack o lanterns and big Halloween celebrations, but since my kids and grandkids are grown it isn't as much fun anymore. We didn't do much to celebrate other then hand out candy to the kids and shove the dog in the bedroom so she wouldn't eat them (the kids I mean, not the candy ... she doesn't even try for the candy, but the Halloween costumes on the kids puts her in her protective mindset :0 I love the Jack in the Box too ... so clever and definitely in keeping with the spooky season. Another great post, Rain ...
ReplyDeleteAndrea @ From the Sol
You two really know how to have fun! I will have to get back to pumpkin carving next year - yours are fabulous!
ReplyDeleteWOW you know how to celebrate!
ReplyDeleteEvery thing looks fabulous and yummy. yum yum.
Rain, it's quite clear to me that I need to move in right away! Your pumpkin carving skills are Food Network or competition ready!!!! How long did it take you to do those works of art? Also, I adore Nachos, so that looks like a fun treat. You went way back to enjoy that version of the Mummy and I bet it was a wonderful way to enjoy the evening! Hugs...and kudos! RO
ReplyDeleteThank you Sam! :) Yes! I have stencils that I usually try to find for free online, if not, there is a website called Zombie Pumpkins where you can buy them to print. That's where I find the more complicated ones. I cut out the stencil than draw it on the pumpkin and carve away! Though I don't have the proper tools at all, those are on my wish list! Twelve??? I did FIVE last year and my arms were killing me! We did have a lot of fun and the food was great. :) We had nice grim weather too :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Joyce :) I hope you had a fun evening too!
ReplyDeleteThanks Debra :) The food and drinks were the highlight for me :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Martha :) Doing all the food and drinks was so much fun. It's hard to find original ideas though, I hope next year I'll have a little more time for planning...whether we have 3 or 5 dogs!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Mama Pea :) No, that jack-in-the-box doesn't give off a good vibe, and you're very observant because that was done on purpose. Just more self-therapy I guess! :) The pumpkin carving...it just takes a good stencil and patience...which, by the third one, I lack! I start with the hardest ones, knowing I'll be pooped by the last one! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Starting Over :) I was thinking of a kind of cheese and appetizer dinner, then I saw those pizza images and wanted to make those! We had no kids come by, this is more of a retirement village. Any kids are usually bused over to the church for a party.
ReplyDeleteThanks Stefanie :) I'm not sure why the pumpkin flavour didn't come through, but I won't give up. :) It's still good, actually I had to put half in the freezer, it's very filling! Your hubby's co-worker is DETERMINED...seventeen pumpkins is quite insane to me lol...all in one shot? That must have taken so long! If I had the right tools, I'd probably get them done quicker! I tried using a Dremel but everything was orange after, it was a messy job!
ReplyDeleteLol Serena, the cocktails were really good! :) I felt like making more, but I'm a lightweight when it comes to spirits. I'm glad you had a witchy night :) I never saw that show, just a few episodes, I'm a big fan of Supernatural, love that show, it's quite spooky! :) I should download the series.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dianna :) It was fun to carve those patterns. I found them on Zombie Pumpkins and a whole new world of interesting designs is now open to me!! I need better knifes though. Something really thin would be good for detail work, I was using toothpicks at one point and they kept breaking!
ReplyDeleteThanks Christine :) It was really a fun night! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Jenn :) Oh yes, the "Monkey Shines" monkey...now that creeped me out and I nearly painted it!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Pam :) I guess I just want to enjoy every moment and every chance I get, I celebrate and do "themed" foods! Alex and I are such homebodies, we rarely go out, so doing all this stuff at home makes dinners really fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks Lorraine :) I had a similar toy when I was younger, not as creepy as that clown though, but it scared me when I was a kid!
ReplyDeleteThanks Nancy :) It was a lot of fun :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Andrea :) What a nice comment!! I hope you enjoy our Christmas too! :) If we had kids coming on Halloween, we'd have to lock up the dogs too...they get overexcited when they hear any kind of knock on the door, or voices outside! It would have been constant barking!
ReplyDeleteThanks Susan :) I hope you get back into pumpkin carving! I've done it for so many years and I really love it, I guess it's like a hobby.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tammie Lee :) I hope you had a nice Halloween too! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks RO :) Come on down! :) I think the three pumpkins took a good 2 hours...I managed to watch The Great Pumpkin and 6-7 Simpsons Halloween episodes while I carved! Any movie with Christopher Lee is bound to be a good one! The Mummy was great, of course Peter Cushing was in it too, and we're big fans of his work. It was a great scary evening! :) Fun too!
ReplyDeleteWow! You do it up right, Rain. Those pumpkins are spectacular, I always just cut faces on ours with a butcher knife, nothing so sleek as that!
ReplyDeleteI can see why Halloween is special when you cook up such good treats and go to so much trouble. That pizza sure looked good!
I always get hungry when you post all those good pictures of food.
Thanks Harry! :) I really do have a lot of fun on Halloween, all holidays actually! The treats are fun and I know that Alex loves all the efforts I put into it too. I'm glad you get hungry, because that tells me I'm posting good photos of the food I'm making! And trust me, they taste just as good :)
ReplyDeleteRain, I love your pumpkins and your jack in the box was actually a toy I was considering doing too. They can be so scary. Actually, as I am quite jumpy, they are always scary even when cute to me. This one in particular that you have depicted would definitely remain hidden away somewhere. Lol. Well done!
ReplyDeleteLike Andrea wrote above, this is our first holiday with you online and so love how much you are in to it. So hope you are for the Christmas season too!?!
Your nacho cheese graveyard certainly gives new meaning to a "sunken" graveyard, doesn't it?
I really though had to chuckle at this: "With the 5 dogs, I barely had time to hang my skeletons lol!"
-I was thinking at first, "why would you hang a skeleton? Aren't they already dead?!" lol. I can be dense sometimes I suppose. Hahhahaha.
Clever how you kept the decoration to indoor and bet you are glad now that we move into Thxigving not to have to worry about venturing outside to take down all that decor.
Your Nosferatu pumpkin was way better than my illo, I'll have you know but love that it inspired you for the pumpkin template. :) I suspect it was the only one there.
ReplyDeleteThanks Michael :) Not only do I have a fear of those ventriloquist dummies...clowns can give me the heebie-jeebies too! Especially when they pop out of nowhere, like that Jack In The Box!!! LOL that's funny about the skeletons! Oh yes, I'm very much into Christmas...the whole Yuletide season in fact! I try to make every holiday special, Alex and I are homebodies and we don't really enjoy being out and social so making those days a big celebration makes things a lot of fun around here. :) I'm glad you liked my Nosferatu!
ReplyDeleteI don't decorate much for Halloween, preferring to just keep with Fall decorations that transition to Thanksgiving. But I do appreciate your talent shown with carving those jack-o-lanterns. Nicely done! Guess I"m in the minority with jack-in-the-boxes. I remember playing with one for great lengths of time, seeing if I could tell at just the right spot in the tune when the brightly colored, happy clown would pop up!
ReplyDeleteThank you Jolene :) We have our Thanksgiving in mid-October so I keep those up as well, just add the spooky stuff for a few days around Halloween, it's a lot of fun for me! And I find it a challenge to do the pumpkin carving too, I try to outdo myself each year! I think it's great that you loved your jack in the box!! I was a very jumpy kid, so it wasn't a good toy for me! :)
ReplyDeleteGlad to see u had a fun halloween xx
ReplyDelete