Rice Krispie Treat Pumpkins

We made these for my son's preschool Halloween treat.

Ingredients Needed
6 cups rice krispies
6 Tbsp butter (NOT 3 like the box says)
40 regular sized marshmallows
red and yellow food coloring
mini tootsie rolls (midgets)

Melt 6 Tbsp butter in a non-stick pan over low heat. (Note - Use 6 tbsp instead of the 3 called for on the box because they will yield much softer treats that won't turn into bricks when cooled.) Add in marshmallows and stir until melted. Add a few drops of yellow food coloring and 1-2 drops red food coloring to turn the marshmallows into the desired orange color. (We didn't use very much because I didn't need mine to be crazy bright orange).

 Remove the pan from heat and quickly add in the 6 cups of rice krispies. (It pays to pre-measure these in a separate bowl so you can add them to the pan all at once.)  Stir quickly to mix all the marshmallow and krispies together.
Press a heaping mound into a mini muffin tin. Press a tootsie roll halfway into the mound. Let cool for a few minutes. Then carefully remove the krispie treat and slightly reshape the bottom into a rounded pumpkin shape. Let cool completely on wax paper.

 If you are feeling ambitious, I've seen some pipe green frosting leaves.  I didn't do this because we packaged them up in individual little plastic bags and the frosting would have smeared all over.

Halloween T-shirts

My daughter is invited to a birthday party on Saturday and she was asked to wear "Halloween colors" or clothes. Looking in her closet, I realized she didn't have anything orange or black or remotely "Halloweeny".  I didn't want to spend a lot on the cute, but pricey Halloween shirts  on Etsy. My sewing machine is on the fritz, so I that took sewing out of the equation. I decided to do a quick iron-on pumpkin on an orange T-shirt. Super easy. Super quick. Super cheap. 
I found kid-sized orange T-shirts at Jo-Ann Fabrics (and on sale too!) I purchased 1/4 yard of orange striped fabric and used brown and green scraps of fabric that I already had.  I pre-washed them to prevent shrinking issues when the shirt is washed.
I then ironed wonder-under onto the fabric, and cut out a pumpkin shape with stem and a leaf.  Following the wonder-under instructions, I ironed the pumpkin onto the T-shirt and voila!
I thought the pumpkin potentially looked too girly for my boys, so I used some black fabric and wonder-under to make them jack-o-lantern shirts.

Felt Design-a-jack-o-lantern

Materials needed
orange felt
black felt
white felt
scrap of brown felt
sewing machine or hot glue

Cut out a pumpkin shape in orange felt. Sew or hot glue it to a rectangle of black felt. Cut out a brown felt stem and sew or hot glue it on the pumpkin. Cut out eye, nose, and mouth shapes from black and white felt. The felt pieces stick right to the felt pumpkin. The kids can then design all kind of jack-o-lantern faces. You can either hang up the pumpkin or set it out on the table for play.

Jack-o-Lantern bagels

Color cream cheese orange with yellow and red food coloring. Then add pretzel sticks to make a jack-o-lantern face.

Color cream cheese orange with yellow and red food coloring. Then add a pretzel stick  for the stem and raisins for the face.

Super easy and super fun!

Pumpkin and Bat bagels

Mini bagel with orange cream cheese (dyed with red and yellow food coloring), raisin features and a pretzel stick stem

And for the non-raisin eaters, a mini bagel with orange cream cheese and pretzel stick features and stem

And for the non-cream cheese eaters, a mini bagel with nutella and goldfish cracker eyes

Oreo Pretzel Spiders

Supplies Needed

Double Stuff Oreos (the pretsel sticks fit best in the double stuff)

Frosting (homemade or pre-packaged, preferably from a small tube)

mini chocolate chips

pretzel sticks

small ziploc bag 

1. Carefully twist the top off the oreo and press the pretzel sticks into the filling. Put a dab of frosting on top and stick the top of the oreo back on. (The frosting works like glue at keeping the oreo top on.  Put frosting in a small ziploc bag. Snip a small hole in the corner and squeeze out 2 dots on top of the oreo for the eyeballs. Press a mini chocolate chip in each circle.  

Halloween Haunted Cardboard House