Happy Halloween!

I like this time of year. Leaves are changing into colorful fall colors and Halloween is here with all of it's candy galore. Yum! Along with those sugary goodness, comes the office goodies, and department potlucks. Maybe it's weird, but I kind of like those department potlucks, mostly because you get to try all sorts of different recipes and they're always so good. So, obviously, today we had our department Halloween potluck party. :-) Since it was to celebrate Halloween, the idea was to bring our favorite scary food. As a result, lots of creativity ensued. We had dirt, green goblin goo, graveyard brownies, eyeballs, and lots of other stuff.

I decided to bring Harry Potter themed stuff that I found online. I couldn't decide on what to bring, so I brought a couple of things. Here's what I brought

• Cockroach Clusters
• Acid Pops & Blood Pops
• Parchment Scrolls
• Butterbeer

Recipes.

Cockroach Clusters

• Semi-sweet or Dark or Milk chocolate (whichever you want)
• condense milk
• Chow mein Noodles

Melt the chocolate with a little condense milk in the microwave in 10 sec intervals mixing after each interval til it's melted and smooth. Throw the chow mein noodles in, and spoon out onto wax or parchment paper then just let harden.

Acid Pops

• Sour Blow Pops
• Pop Rocks
• Wax Paper

Unwrap the blow pops, spray lightly with water, let dry just a bit, then sprinkle pop rocks on, and wrap the pops in wax paper. I would do these as close to serving time as possible tho, because the pop rocks will loose it's pop-piness after contact with some water.

The Blood Pops were from the store, Harry Potter special Blood Pops.

Parchment Scrolls

I grabbed this from the pillsbury website. Easy recipe that has pretty much 3 ingredients. Crescent rolls, pesto, and roasted bell pepper. Here's the link to the recipe.

http://www.pillsbury.com/Recipes/ShowRecipe.aspx?rid=9959

Butterbeer

• Cream soda
• butterscotch ice cream syrup

Put about a cup of the cream soda in a glass, and several spoons of the butterscotch into the glass. Stir til the butterscotch has dissolved into the soda. Once dissolved, slowly add it back into the soda.

So, I hope you enjoy the Harry Potter foods, and have a great and fun Halloween!

Simple to Sew Cinch Bag

During the weekend, I made this cinch bag that I'm planning on using as a gift bag for one of the scarves that I made. This bag is super simple to make, even with my lack of sewing abilities. I think, if you can sew a relatively straight line, you'll be in really good shape. Let's get started.


1. Cut the fabric twice the size of the bag that you want to make. For this bag, I fold the fabric up and sew the sides, so keep that in mind if you get a fabric that should be a particular direction.


2. Draw where you're going to sew. I drew a line with a fabric pencil about 3/8" from the side edge. Here's where it's a bit different tho. On the top, we're going to keep a small part of the line unsewn for the cinch string, so we need to draw it as such. I draw the line from the top to 1" down. Skip about 1/2" then continue drawing the line all the way down. Draw the same line on the other side (left and right, not front and back).



3. Sew the lines that you drew. No mystery here... we just need to sew this straight line (or as close to straight as we can get it... following the line you drew actually makes it easier to sew a straight line. yay!

4. Spread apart and press down the edge that you sewn together. It's time to bring the iron out. You just need to flatten out the top part. This isn't a necessary step, but I've learned from making an apron (I'll post that later) that it sure does help. (You also don't use nearly as many pins... which leads to less ouchies).



5. Fold down the top about an inch all the way around the bag. Iron this down as well... why not, the iron is hot, and you have it out... might as well. The bag should still be inside out at this point.



6. Sew all the way around the bag about 1/2" away from the top edge. Be careful not to sew the other side of the bag in.

7. Invert the bag so that the outside is now outside, and obviously the inside is now inside. The bag is now done... well, for the most part. It can't be a cinch bag without the cinch string, right? The best news, however, is that the sewing part is now done. phew. Here's how the top side edge should look like. It's also where we're going to stick the string.



8. Thread the strings thru the cinch bag holes. Here, I'm using a thick and chunky yarn for string and a bobby pin to do the threading. To make the cinch bag truly cinch, it should close when you pull both sides of the string... therefore, I threaded the first string thru the first side of the bag, then through the second side of the bag, then knot the ends together.   Do the same with the second string, only start with the second side of the bag.


Ta Da! You're done! Super simple... see?

My 2008 Pumpkin: Jack Skellington

Thought I'd do a quick post to show my pumpkin carving this year. :-)