Halloween 2014: Zombie edition

This year, the girls weren't interested in Who-inspired costumes. Thus, our costume planning was nowhere near as intense as last year, which involved dozens of little purple balls that needed to be attached to a tutu.

My 4-year-old decided early on that she wanted to be a zombie, which I thought was pretty awesome. She doesn't watch zombie anything, but she knows that they look cool and often are decorated with blood.

Then...

She saw an Elsa dress at Target and said she wanted to be Elsa.

While I encourage my kids to be individuals, I still have to let them choose what they want instead of what I want. When they're babies and toddlers, sure, they look how I want them to look, but at some point, they begin to show their own personality and embrace their own likes and dislikes. This has been difficult for me because I was super uninterested in mainstream culture as a teen, and remain so to an extent today.

However, Willow, who has watched Disney's Frozen dozens of times, is fairly enamored of Arendelle, its inhabitants and the story presented in the film. She's not hog-wild about Frozen, but she definitely likes it. And that's fine. But when she saw that costume and declared that she wanted to be Elsa, I admit that a part of me was thinking, "Crap. Just like a million other little girls. DANG IT."

I definitely thought it, but I didn't say it. Because it's not my job to judge what she likes. So I agreed and let her think about it some more, and soon she developed a new idea. "Can I be an Elsa zombie?" she asked.

Sure. Sure you can.

I got a fancy Elsa dress through a friend and ordered a non-toxic makeup kit and we were set. And her big sister decided that she wanted to be a regular zombie and this was probably the easiest, least expensive Halloween ever, and it was still super awesome.

I also have to say that the makeup kit was great. I bought a 5-pack because they looked tiny and I didn't want to run out. And when I got the kit, I was afraid that they were still too tiny and they wouldn't work.

HOWEVER. I was pleased to find that a little bit goes a long way. We barely scratched the surface even after I decorated two whole faces. It also came with applicators and a tiny bar of soap, so yes, I would definitely recommend Elegant Minerals.

Adipose jack-o-lantern inspired by Doctor Who

Well hello cutie

Another Halloween, another chance to be creatively geeky once that amazing autumn holiday rolls around. This year, my girls are being a couple different types of zombies (instead of the DW-inspired characters they were last year), so I decided to apply my Doctor Who love to our newly purchased pumpkin — so new, in fact, that I had to run out and buy one yesterday for this project.

Disclaimer: I have never carved a pumpkin with anything other than a gigantic knife. So I entered into this exercise with ignorance and excitement, thinking I could knock it out in 15 minutes or so.

Before starting, I realized that our regular knives wouldn't do the trick. And I also realized that I didn't have a pumpkin. So we went out only to discover that the first store was out of pumpkins. Thankfully, the second was stocked with four or five good-sized specimens, and I selected a decent one with a smooth-ish surface and a new package of cheapo pumpkin carving tools.

I perused an awesome pumpkin carving template gallery I found on ThinkGeek's Blurgh! blog. As you will notice, there are tons and tons of nerdy options. I selected an Adipose baby from the episode titled Partners in Crime because it's one of my favorite episodes, they are adorable and the pattern looked fairly easy.



I was ready to get to work. That's actually a fib. First, I recruited my eldest to chop a hole in the top and scoop out the innards, some of which we later roasted and ate (sorry, pumpkin, but you were delicious). While he was working, I printed out my template and wondered how I was really going to do this.

Fortunately, the pumpkin carving kit came with this really neat little tool, and yes, I had to rely on my child to tell me that.

Cheapo pumpkin carving tool set

See that little orange thing on the left? Turns out it pokes holes in things, and is perfect for punching out the outline of your pattern onto the pumpkin itself. Once I got the template piece of paper on the pumpkin, I was suddenly aware of how many tiny holes I'd have to poke to get the outlines of my little guy's hands just so. And then of course I'd have to delicately cut away with the tiny saw...

I persevered. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination as my choppy outlines and still-visible holes attest to.

Telltale pin holes and wobbly eyes

Once I got done poking holes and carving my little Adipose baby, my hands were cramping up and a solid hour had passed. But I emerged victorious.

Happy Halloween.

I only burned myself a little bit putting this candle in

How to recycle old crayons

Just about every week, me and Willow go to the Remington Nature Center. In what she calls the "bug room," they have a bunch of rubbing plates nailed to a desk, paper and round crayons. Today, I asked how they made the crayons, and they said they bake them in an oven. I looked up how to do it, and it seemed easy, so we came home and made a half dozen.

Willow had, at one point, a small tote that contained the contents of an entire box of 96 Crayola crayons. This is a crapload of crayons. Over time, that number has understandably dwindled, with many going missing, quite a few getting trod on and snapped in half, and the others whittled down with use. We went through that tote and retrieved all the broken bits, and then I decided to break up perfectly good ones so we could have a solid six when we were done. The results were terrific. It was easy, and Willow then decided that we should do all of the rest of her crayons. My fingers are now purple and sore, but we have a ton of fun, "new" crayons.

Here is how we did it.

You will need:

• An oven, preheated to 275
• Crayola crayons
• Mini muffin tin
• A timer
• A refrigerator
• A towel

STEP ONE. Whether your crayons are broken or not, you will have to spend time peeling the paper off. This can be easy or it can be hard. It can also make you want to stab eyeballs (not that I felt like that, of course). I did surreptitiously chuck a few in the trash when I simply couldn't get them off, but even Willow was able to do most of the ones she selected.

PART TWO. Admire your unpeeled crayon pile. It is impressive, admire it!

STEP THREE. This part may be the most fun. Design your crayons. I discovered that three whole crayons will break up nicely and fit into one mini muffin spot. You want to make sure you fill each spot up as much as possible as the spaces between the bits disappear when they melt. You can put similar colors in each spot, or coordinating colors, or whatever-the-hell-you-want-to colors like Willow did in the upper right-hand spot. This makes it fun and visually appealing.

STEP FOUR. Bake those puppies. Ten minutes in the oven at 275 degrees was absolutely perfect for us. You might have to keep an eye on yours. But once they are melted, they are done.  

STEP FIVE. Let cool on the counter, on a cooling pad or something similar, for 20 to 25 minutes.

STEP SIX. Cool in refrigerator for around 15 minutes.

STEP SEVEN. Remove from the fridge, put the pan face down on a towel, and hope they pop right out. If they don't, you might have to encourage them a bit by smacking the back a few times.

STEP EIGHT. Admire your handiwork. And do it again, and again, and again, and again.

The fun thing about these is that there are tons of options. I think that a silicone baking pan would work better because you could pop them out easier, and they come in all sorts of fabulous shapes. You can experiment with different colors and combos. Don't use white, like I did the first time, unless you want your kid mad that the color doesn't show up in certain spots. Above all, have fun, and take care of your little fingers. I can barely type this. You're welcome.