Tricks for Treats

Well, I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween. We had a nice time with our three little munchkins despite possible cancellation. Many towns and cities in our state have cancelled or postponed Halloween as a result of Hurricane Sandy, but luckily our particular neighborhood felt very little effects...however, if you drove 20 minutes in either direction, you could come about many downed trees and debris that washed ashore from the high ocean surges and some homes with damage along the shore. We lucked out, thankfully, and Halloween went on. One of my children still hasn't been back to school, but all 3 participated in events at the preschool my son attends. We also went to a trunk-or-treat at the community center and did some door-to-door trick-or-treating nearby. This year, I opted for a few DIY projects instead of spending a butt load of money on costumes and treats. And I was rather pleased with the effort and savings.

Since my son still had school (and I'm still planning on sending treats with my daughter once she goes back to school), I decided to put together little treat bags for the children and their classmates. I bought two of those large tubs of cheese balls.They are light and tasty and it's a little different from your typical candy treats. I already had little clear baggies and made my own labels on Photoshop Elements that I just printed out here at home. The end result was 40 bags of Pumpkin Poop. Total cost just over $10.

Kind of at the last minute, I also decided to search for a costume for the baby. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend too much money on it seeing as he can't even go trick-or-treating or was even really seen by anyone since he slept in his stroller as we walked around, but it is his very first Halloween and I just felt guilty about not doing a little something. I searched online for costumes on sale at the last minute and decided to search for DIY options as well. I came across the cutest thing I had ever seen - a sushi! Luckily I had a white onesie that barely even fits the poor kid anymore and an orange one that definitely doesn't fit him anymore. I found a stencil for a shrimp from Martha Stewart and instead of just doing a 1-dimensional felt shrimp, I sewed together 2 pieces of the template and stuffed it with some pillow fluff I already had making a super cute 3D version from the old orange outfit. My husband also had some black Gorilla Tape lying around so he helped me make a "belt" out of it to act as the nori. I also had some green felt from previous projects that I cut up to look like the green plastic stuff that they use to separate the sushi from the ginger and wasabi in bentos. It didn't cost me anything since I used stuff I already had around the house and this was my end result:

He looks good enough to eat!!! Finally, I came across a purple witch costume on Pinterest and it dawned on me that 1) my daughter looooves the color purple, 2) I had purchased a purple witch's broom on clearance last Halloween and 3) we already had a good amount of the attire that was pictured (black and white striped leggings, a black top, and purple tutu). All we had to buy was a hat and we found a cute purple witch's hat headband and put everything together. We added a second sheer black tutu for a little extra body and she had some purple boots (not quite the same color purple as the rest of her costume, but whatever...she didn't really care). Her costume ended up being about $10 as well. The only store bought costume we actually did buy was for my other son. We went with a monster from Old Navy, which turned out to be fitting since he was introduced to and fell in love with Monsters, Inc. the movie.

So easy and so fun...we had a great time. Just thought I'd share our little tricks for treats. I'm feeling rather Martha Stewart-esque! :) Hope everyone out there in the blog world did and were safe as well!

Happy November!!