Easy Peasy Halloween Craft - Jack-O-Lanterns

The world shifted on its axis recently and my family has been the beneficiary of the effects!   Seriously.  Here it is October 3 and my Halloween decorations are up and I've even had time to do some Halloween crafts.

This little one was so quick and easy (and had my neighbors scratching their heads).  It was so easy, I just had to share it with you. 

You'll need: 
bigger empty plastic jar with lid (clean and no label)
orange paint (spray paint or craft paint)
brown or green paint
a straw
something to make the face:  vinyl, sharpies, paint

I had some empty plastic jars (mayonnaise and beef jerky treats) that I washed and removed the labels.  Took them outside and spray painted the inside of the jars orange.  (Seriously, I wish you could have seen my neighbors' faces when they saw me out on the front lawn painting plastic jars orange and surrounded by a bunch of little kids who were watching with tremendous intensity.  It was so funny.)

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah...  Painted the jars orange (we had orange spray paint...very weird)

and painted the lids brown.  Gave it a little more thought and came up with those "kid's cup" straws from restaurant kid's meals and painted them brown, too.  (The neighborhood kids were equally split between brown and green...I had brown on hand, so brown it was!)

Let everything dry and headed downstairs to get some pumpkin face vinyls via my Silhouette machine.  (Have I mentioned how much I love that machine?  It is so awesome...seriously awesome!)

 Once the paint was dry, we applied the faces.  Isn't my assistant cute? 

 Drilled holes in the lids and inserted the bendy straws and added some hot glue to keep them stable.  (Careful drilling the holes...one of the lids cracked when I drilled the hole.)

  Added our battery operated candle and we're ready for nighttime!

The kids can stick these in their windows and I don't have to worry about anything more than dead batteries.  Love it!

Autumn = Pumpkins and Pumpkins= Terrific Baked Goods

You know it and I know it. Autumn = pumpkins. The second we feel that first nip in the air, I'm ready to bake pumpkin-filled goodies. Last week I made these Harvest Pumpkin Brownies and this week I had the other half of the can of pumpkin to use. (Those big cans from Costco make me bake more stuff...I can't let the pumpkin go to waste!) Well, Jamie at My Baking Addiction came through for me with this awesome recipe for Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting.


These cookies are seriously good. (They are so good that I sent some to Superman's work even though it wasn't meeting day. Wasn't that kind of me?) There was nothing I didn't like about this recipe. They were fantastic. In fact, if you make the Harvest Pumpkin Brownies from last week, I urge you to use the Cream Cheese Frosting from this recipe. (I had some of the frosting from the brownie recipe left, too...you can see the difference in the pictures...the little cookies with sprinkles are with the first recipe (which, I think, was just "not quite right") and the cookies with luscious looking frosting are with the second recipe.) It is a much better cream cheese frosting recipe.

So, what are you waiting for? The air to get even colder? Go ahead an try these. Not only will you love the way they taste, you'll love the way they make your house smell!

Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing
from My Baking Addiction
Yield: 24 Cookies (Um, only if they're HUGE)

Ingredients
1 cup butter flavored shortening
1 cup unsalted butter; softened
2 cups white sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin (solid; not pie mix)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups all-purpose flour (I split mine: 2 cups all-purpose/2 cups whole-wheat)
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds (Optional: I've been adding this to some of my baked goods)

Directions
1. Cream shortening, butter, white sugar and pumpkin. Add eggs and mix well.

2. Sift together the baking soda, ground cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, salt and flour. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

3. Drop from spoon to cookie sheet. (In order to get only 24 cookies from this recipe, Jamie used a 1/4 cup scooper. As for me, I tried it both ways. I liked the smaller cookies used my medium scooper from Pampered Chef for those.) Bake 13-15 minutes (the smaller cookies take less time...look at them at 10 minutes) at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons butter, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (extract will also work)
2 tablespoons milk

Method
Mix the cream cheese with the butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract, and milk in a bowl. Heat in a microwave for 15 seconds. Drizzle spoonfuls over the cooled cookies and smooth with the back of a spoon or a spatula.

These cookies were awesome. Please remember the flax seed is my own addition and it isn't necessary. I've been adding some ground flax seed to my baked goods to get a bit more fiber into our diet. Obviously, you don't have to do the same. As I wrote above, I liked the smaller version of the cookies, so if you make smaller cookies, you'll get a lot more than 24 cookies out of this recipe. Also, the frosting doesn't harden, so you can't stack the cookies to store them.

Happy baking!