October Life Update Part 2: Happy Halloween!

Hi readers and happy Halloween to everyone! 

So, it's fallen on a Monday this year, which is pretty cool cause I get to share Halloween on the actual night! Also, though it does mean that I've had to get ahead writing this because I've plans and I'm just so busy right now. Which is good, but also not so good. Anyway, in to this post. So the Jack O'Lantern above is my tester one. I wanted something real simple and quick, which this tree was, but I know it's a bit messing because I had to hurry making it. 

I made this on Thursday because my brother who's just moved out wanted pumpkin pie, which he would have missed out on as he moved on Friday. I'm super going to miss him as we get on great and he's moving far away. Well, about 5-6 hours drive away to Southampton which is past London and we live in Manchester. So, he wanted pumpkin pie and then it seemed a waste to let the outside go to waste, so I used it for practice.

Also, I've been having a go at taking some better photos. So hopefully that'll be useful. So this year I've three pumpkins, which I think is like the max I've every had. I've not carved all three though. I've only every done two. The third one was craved by the new man in my life. We've still just dating at the moment, but things are progressing. This was the first time he's carved a pumpkin! It was actually great fun doing it together. 

Here's the pumpkins before carving.       

This one's mine and I decided to go with a Count Dracula face, but I didn't get it right. So it kind of looks like a weird face. 

This one is my date's. He went with a really scary face. We also switched out a candle for this light up balloon which made his even more creepy.

I think it all went well and they turned out pretty good. I just love shopping in October and all the Halloween stuff really attracts me. I've tried hard not to spend as much money as I normally do, but I think I've not been able to stick to that! The first thing I brought for Halloween was actually this baby werewolf plush soft toy. He's from Build-A-Bear and I just fell in love with him so much! He's so fluffy and I find holding him real calming. Which has been great for my anxiety problem. I could have brought this little ripped up blue denim jacket for him, but then he'd also need pants. I do kind of like him the way he is, but maybe I might make him clothes at some point - be a lot cheaper! 

I treated myself to another bear from Spiral.com this year too. Last year, I got the vampire Vlad and this year I got the grim reaper teddy. They also have a cat with bat wings which I might get next year. These two look so cute together though! Also, they match what my date and I dressed up as, which was a little strange! 

  

I always love all the different cups, mugs, goblets, jars etc that the shops sell and you can get. I don't actually have many myself as I don't use them, surprisingly! However, that changed when I got the purple plastic bat sippy cup! I totally love it and I don't think there's a day gone by since I got it about three weeks ago now that I've not used it! The bats have googly eyes on and it's actually a really big almost a pint I'd say in size. Now, the mason jars. They are huge in America and seem to be growing in popularity here in the UK. I got the white one which has like Witch's drink on it first and then brought the orange for my date to have. So we'd be kinda matching, which I thought was cute. The fourth glass was actually the first I brought and I was thinking of using it more of a tea light holder or maybe a little vase. 

I am a massive fan of candles as most of you know. But we don't get many autumn/pumpkin scented candles here. So when I see one I always end up getting it. I found this abandoned on a side shelf of Halloween masks and though I tried to find some more, I couldn't. I smells great though. I also got the new Yankee Candles scent which was called Forbidden Apple. Which smells awesome, but I do feel let down by it because apple is one of my favorite smells and I have a big Granny Smith scented Yankee candle which smells almost the same to me. I've got a caramel/candied apple too.

Okay, so this year for the trick or treaters I just got a big bag of 'monster' sweets/candy. I made goodie bags last year and ran out, so this year I'm just going with this. I've a sweet tooth but Halloween sweets just appeal to me even more. My favorites are the Chewits fangs, but I can only get them from one shop for some reason! But they are so good. 

My mum actually brought me the Twinkies - we don't have them in the UK and only certain shops - American themed sweet shops have them. But we found these in the world food aisle in a supermarket and I just knew I had to give them a try! They are brought out for the new ghost buster movie, but I guess the supermarket was like they are Halloween-y. They are key lime flavor which is like one of my favourite things, but you can't actually buy a key lime pie or anything else that flavor here. No idea why, I'd love that to change! 

Then there's a packet of witch's fingers which are peanut butter and strawberry jam centered- so tasty. And a big box of fancy chocolates. These are so good and just I could eat them all. My mum originally thought I'd give them out to the kids, but they are too good for that and too cute! 

Halloween fancy chocolates.

I've actually brought a lot of table clothes this year. I got three. Though one I'm actually using as a veil for my costume though! That was the first and it's actually the cloth I used for the table to take this photos with. The second cloth is the colorful plastic one. Even though I'm not having a party and don't need to cover a food table, I thought this would be great for actually going on the table/s outside were the pumpkins are to be displayed. The second cloth is the sliver bat one and that actually has a runner with it too. It was expensive but I love the fabric! Then I got so spider cobwebs as I really need some more that were not white or black.   

 Today, has been really crazy. Had to carve the pumpkins and decorate the house. Luckily, I'd got a few things out of the attic for that, but I think the big box of stuff is under my bed somewhere and I didn't have time to get that. Anyway, the front of the house looks pretty good. It's kinda the same how I had it last year I think. I wanted to get like some gravestones and them dotted around the front lawn bit, but I didn't have the money. I also saw some more skeleton creatures - rats, ravens, spiders, but I couldn't find any when I went back for them. It looks the part anyway.

We put up the decorations up first thing and then we carved the pumpkins. This is how the display looked this year. 

Then finally there's us in our costumes. I went as a vampire bride and he was a grim reaper.

And I just have to show you my dad's costume! This was the one he made last year, but it's still so awesome. My mum and I helped him make it.

We decided to go to a local ghost walk tonight and though we didn't see any ghosts it was fun, and I learnt a little about the town I live in. We walked though the graveyard too and I took some creepy photos.

On Saturday evening, My date and I went into Manchester for a meal to celebrate my new job! I'm now a causal receptionist at the youth center. I've been volunteering on reception for the last 8 months and then this job came up and I totally aced the interview. So we went out to celebrate that. Also, Manchester was dressed for Halloween and there were a few different events on, but I think we must have missed them. Still though, I love the paper pumpkin lanterns in the trees and the gate was pretty cool. The town hall was lit up green, but you couldn't get there because they are busy putting up Christmas stuff and yes that is a big inflated Santa in the background!

Lastly, and I know it's not really got anything to do with Halloween, but I wanted to share this awesome wool I found. It was really cheap and I'm going to knit a nice woolly scarf with it!

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone has had a fun night! See you all next week!

It's HALLOWEEN!

Hey readers,

Time is so against me today and I already know that this blog post isn't going to be going up until very late night tonight. I've to leave in like 20 mins to go to play DD. It's the first game of the new season tonight -how very fitting!- and I as I don't know how long the new style of play and the new rules are going to take I don't know when I'll be home. But we'll see!

Above is my pumpkin for this year! He's an awesome fire dragon. And yeah some inspiration did come from DD! but I like my pumpkins to be different. He took awhile to make, I started at 7pm and finished about 11.15pm. The design was pretty easy, though the tips of the flames were a bit tricky. I also accident put a hole in the pumpkin when scooping it out. Luckily, it was in an area I needed to cut out, but once I started that I found that the hole had created a crack right across the pumpkin! That was really upsetting and give me some difficulties in carving out the wings. But he does look pretty cool.

Back from a very good DD night. And there's been no tricker or treaters so all the chocolate and left over biscuits for me! Though I've got blueberry muffins for tomorrow as well. I saw a few people dressed up and having nights out. Manchester was it's normal busy self and the weather is so awful all rainny, windy and cold. It feel like winter already!

Back to Halloween anyways. I still think that it's not as big in Europe as it is in the States. In Britian we do have all the shops selling tons of Halloween releated stuff a month in advance, a few people throw parties, schools and clubs get creative. But when you go out on Halloween nights, the streets that should be full of tricker or treaters and the houses that should have pumpkins and garden displays,just are not. There'll only be a handful of kids for every few streets and even less houses displaying pumpkins. I'm still not sure why this is so, maybe the stigma of Halloween is still clinging? Maybe unlike Christmas this is holiday that people just can't get into? For whatever the reason, I still think it's a shame.

 

My Favourite Halloween recipes

Pumpkin Pie

I follow a traditional family recipe for this and it's not a normal 'pie' it's more like a cheese cake. But it's still amazing!

500gm Pumpkin - cooked (Steam it for about 30-40 mins)

2 packets of ginger snaps

100gms melted butter

1 digestives

Tablespoon of Mixed spice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg

3 eggs

200gm caster sugar

100gm brown sugar

500ml double cream

 

Break up biscuits with rolling pin and then spreed into glass baking dish and mix with the butter. Set to cool.

Then mix all the other ingredients together beside from the cream. Add in cool pumpkin, mix and then add cream. Mix some more and pour over biscuit base. Then in preheated oven at 180 degrees, put it in for 15-20 mins and then turn down oven to 160 degrees and cook for 40 mins. Set aside for an hour or so. Then serve warm or cold with cream.

So awesome.  

 

Halloweenie ginger cookies

Basic gingerbread men mixture, but add in mixed spice, Cinnamon and nutmeg. Then use Halloween shape cookie cutters and a range of icing pens to decorate. I got sprinkles and ghost/bat sugar shapes. 

Crumble gravestone cookies

So simple to make just basic butter cookies and then cut into 'headstone' like shapes. Using icing pens to decorate. I love making mine all individual and write fake epitaphs on them.

There's tons of other Halloween recipes out there like the chocolate moose graveyard and the chocolate fudge spider cake I made last year. I think that's why I really like this time of year, because there's so much good cooking to be done!

Also the traddtional scary movie night. I'm having mine with my boyfriend tomorrow, as I've been playing DD tonight and baking for all the afternoon. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a classic must watch! I've also got Interview With a Vampire and Queen of the Damned. Should be fun.
As for me, I wish you all a Happy Halloween!



It's Halloween!!!!!!

Hey everyone, It's Halloween! :) and this is my choice of pumpkin design this year. 'The Headless Horseman Rides Again!' :) pretty awesome, hey? I love Halloween its my fav day. I know there are many reasons behind this and it links to the traditions and history of the actually event and day. To go and look them up in books or the internet though gives mix results. So to link with my love for Halloween, I thought I'd write this post about what it means to me and include some of the stuff I know.
On Halloween night at Midnight it's believed that the veils between this world and the spirit world reach there thinnest. This means that lots of spirits can pass between the two different plains some good and bad. So ghost activity is said to be at its highest during this time. So the traditions of pumpkins? In Britain it use to be other squash vegetables and then pumpkins came over from the USA and they were easier to carve. The idea behind carving and making a scare face is actually to ward off the bad spirits from entering your house. You place the pumpkin outside or in a front window in order to do this. The pumpkin is then light up by a candle and it is this light that attracts family and friends who have passed on back to visit you. Of course now a days, people don't just carve scary faces, the idea of carving different things has taken off in a big way specially in the States, where they do go all out for Halloween, much more then we do in Britain! Though you still find that many pumpkins get carved with subjects that link to Halloween.

This is the second pumpkin I carved - Grim Fright Night It's a grim reaper in a graveyard. Oh, it's midnight! Let's see if anything creepy happens! So why is a carved pumpkin called a Jack O' Lantern? This cames from an Irish legend about a man called Jack, who couldn't get into Heaven or Hell, so instead he had to walk around with just a lantern till judgment day arrives.
Okay, next is the dressing up part, people started to believe that by wearing masks and dressing up they could pertained to be spirit whilst going about their business at night, thus no harm would come to them. The idea of Trick or Treating came about because of another event which was celebrate close to Halloween and that was Souling. Where people went around asking for soul cakes and in return they would pray for the departed relatives. This is also connected with Mischief Night, which has kinda merged with Halloween now. Boys would go out and cause Mischief, but they would also knock on door and ask for treats in order to behave, so that's where the whole Trick Or Treat thing has come from possibly.

Me and my 3 best friends dressed up.

One of the games that is traditional played is Apple Bobbing. Apples are placed into a large bowl filled with water and just using your teeth you have to grab an apple. It is said that this came about because of the Roman tradition of celebrating one of their Gods who was connected to apples about this time. In fact it seems lots of religions and countries celebrated simlaire events about the same time, most of these had to do with remembering the dead like the Roman Catholic All Saints' Day and All Souls day, (Which got the name of All Hallow's Eve which then become Hallow'een) Mexico and their Day Of The Dead. There has also been links to Celt and Pagan festivals. So yeah, Halloween has no clear beginnings.

So that's something of a history then. :) I always stay up past midnight on Halloween, just because its something I have always been drawn to do. It's like I'm waiting to see if any ghost come for a visit. Nothing has happened so far, though I got sticky stuff on my keyboard thanks to a midnight snack attack! Anyways that's all for tonight and I'll be back tomorrow.

Halloween trick or treats?

(My pumpkin this year)

Yeah! It's Halloween! Though I've been celebrating since Wednesday, that was the night of our party-due to the issues with the other nights. Anyway, a lot seems to have happened since I last typed and its only been 10 days. I've lots of photos as well, so I'll be posting them as I go along. 

So the set up for my party went on for 3 days before hand, because we had to turn the house into a giant spiders den with lots of black cobwebs and candles for light. We carved the pumpkins on Tuesday, which took an age- as you can see. Then on Wednesday I made pumpkin pie and a sponge cake.

 Then it was party time! We made a rule that everyone had to come as a movie, TV, anime character and anyone who didn't turn up as such had to take off an item of clothing and run down the road screaming little green men are chasing me! Luckily, everyone turned up in a good costume and we had a good time.

 

Then on Thursday I had booked my ticket to go and see the Poet Laureate- Carol Ann Duffy and Billy Collins who's sort of the USA PL. I'm not really into poetry but this seemed like a once in a life time thing and it was free as well! So I went along and saw them both read out some of their poems and then I brought some books and got them signed! I seem to be building up a collection of signed books now.  That was a good experience.

 On Friday I went on a field trip with creative writing fiction. We went to the Williamson Tunnels in Liverpool for the afternoon. It is meant to be the inspiration for our next short story, but the small area of tunnel we were shown didn't hold much inspiration, though the information the guide give us did. I heard that many people were disappointed in the trip, having no doubt built up the same expectations I did and then had then crushed on arrival. Thing was it would have been nice to spend more time down there and to explore other sections, though I know how dangerous it could be, also the fact that the tunnels were built for nothing and had no real sense of history was a down side. I think what made the tunnels most interesting to me was the fact that they were setting up for Halloween and that added a whole different face to the tunnels. I'm not sure about ideas either, because I already had one, but it seems like it's been done a billion times already. Still shall have to see how it goes.

Lastly, I'm waiting for the trick or treaters now, its almost time for them to start showing up at the door. Some how though I think my dog has given up on them already! Still I shall light my pumpkin and see if anything decides to visit me. Happy Halloween!

Halloween plans

(Me and my housemates)

Hi, not wrote again in awhile but I've been mega busy with uni stuff and friends and there's no slowing down in sight of these things. I went to a 21st on Monday, which was okay, but didn't like the restaurant, they made us wait for food too long and I had a killer headache, so no drinking for me! The after party didn't work out much better and though I had a good time it was difficult because I felt so ill.

I'm better now, though I'm running short of money, which doesn't help with Halloween just around the corner and my party next Wednesday. Its' set to be good though and today I'm going to practise making my sponge cake in the oven and I've already tidied my room and vacuumed the house. Still have some homework for tomorrow to do and so need some more sleep. I'm home alone right now so I'm doing some clothes washing and listening to loud music.

(The 21st meal)

Not a lot of interesting stuff has been going on really, just been ill- this cold is still within me-and been doing boring uni work and having no time to work on my own novel, which is slowly killing me inside. There really is not enough time to get everything done and I'd love a 25 hour day, that added hour could be mega useful for me. I do have to be thankful that my housemates are getting on and that there has been no issues, beside from the fact one believes he can live on takeout food for the rest of the year!

Anyway with the house tidied, the Halloween decs can start going up on Monday and I've been planning my pumpkin pie- already got a pumpkin and some spices-need to get the recipe from my mum and then I can make that on Wednesday morning. Good job I've no essays due in till 10th November and I'm off wed and Thursday. Excited about that now! Better go do my homework before I get the Halloween box out again!

(Me and in some of my Halloween costume)