A tutorial on this making this Cinderella Pumpkin is at Resurrection Fern. Cute!

Martha, of course

Paper Pumpkins from Hostess with the Mostest

Crafting with Cat Hair — Halloween Tea Set

Tooth Earrings! via Craft

Halloween Bottle Brush Trees spotted on Whip Up. Here’s the original with the tutorial.

From Make: Instructable: Cast your face in plaster… This has definite decoration possibilities!

For Karen: Yes! It’s a Bacon Tiara. via Craft

From the Instructables Blog: Instructables on Halloween Costumes – Wow!

Pom Pom Pumpkins – Tutorial Tuesday on Indie Fixx

oh, and if you missed it, check out the interview with Hello Naomi, the latest in the Interviews series.

Get your halloween buttons here, including I WAS FEATURED if you’re featured as part of the halloween series.

Related: All Halloween Topics

Enter the Halloween Contest:

Your cake designs are wonderful — so creative and excellently crafted! How did you get started? How long have you been doing it?

:D thanks!!! I have always loved baking and making cupcakes but I got into decorating them early last year when I did a beginners cake decorating course. That taught me how to work with fondant and a few basic things that allowed me to figure out how to make what the things I want to.

Without giving away trade secrets, can you tell us anything about your ingredients or techniques?

Umm well I guess this is a big secret to give away but it is important, I use an Australian brand of rolled fondant “orchard” it is really good for two reasons, it has a really soft texture/ look and also it tastes really good. A lot of people tell me that they don’t like the taste of fondant and so I guess you should try a few brands to find one that tastes nice and is good to work with.

Is this what you do with your life, or do you have a “day job” as well?

No its not, I would really love to have a shop and I am working on starting a business but sometimes when I spend sooo long making my stuff I wonder if I will ever be able to make money from it! So at the moment my “day job” is that I’m a computer engineering PhD student. I get paid to program robots to play soccer and its pretty fun :D. [ed- gets paid to program soccer robots? how cool is that!]

Do you have other creative outlets?

Umm no I haven’t got time! I would love to do a million creative things but at the moment cupcakes are my only release of creativity.

You’ve done some really fun stuff, like the Pac Man designed cupcakes. Where does your inspiration come from? Do you classify yourself as a geek?

Haha umm no I don’t class myself as a geek… maybe more of a nerd..?! But being a computer engineer I do have alot of geeky and nerdy guy friends so after a while of making them pink cupcakes with rainbows and flowers I thought I should make them something a bit more suited so that’s when I thought of video game themed, robots, lego etc.

What are your favorite things to surf to on the web?

Cupcakes of course! When ever I can I’m looking up cakes, cupcakes, cake decorating supplies etc.

How much would it cost if I wanted you to ship a way cool birthday cake from Australia!?!!?

Umm that’s a good question…A lot of people ask me but I’m not in business yet so I haven’t really looked into it, a few cake shops in Australia do it so it cant be too expensive… I think?!

Thanks for the great info! Love your work…

Previous Dabbled interviews, including Cory Godbey, Shannon Riffe, Diana Evans, & Diane Gilleland

(click though, the lines look funky shrunk down like this)

Oh, and check out all the neato Halloween stuff I’m doing on dabbled this month!

and…

A Dabbled original… well, my friend Erka created it for our party a few years ago, and i have no idea where she got the idea. Anyways, it’s a perenial favorite — disgusting and yummy!

NEW! Directions done as an Instructable, with new eyeball tips!

Basically, you’ll need a face mold. Mine is from the art store. A halloween mask might work as well if you covered the eye holes. Line the inside of the mold with plastic wrap. Cover the inside of the mold completely with proscuitto. Shread it into small pieces first, as large swathes look cool, but are really hard to eat. Then mix up a cheese ball mixture. I think ours has been different every year, but google is your friend. You’ll need probably a double recipe, depending on the size of your mold. Ours usually has shredded cheddar and cream cheese, and something for a spicy kick. Press your cheese ball mixture into the mold, and chill. Remove from mold onto a plate, add eyes using sliced olives. (This idea for making the pupil/iris from the Evil Mad Scientists might be a nice idea as well). Surround the face with crackers or pita chips, and Enjoy~!

Easy Peasy to make and an impressive presentation!

More Halloween Food:
– Eyeballs, both sweet and savory
– Creepy Cakes

The lovely ladies at They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara have some of the creepiest cakes ever. This Thorax Cavity Cake really ‘takes the cake’! The rib cage is white chocolate, and each of the organs is a goo filled yummy cake–all different gourmet flavors. Full instructions on how to make this ultimate in “gross your dinner guests out” halloween cakes can be found on their site. Also, even if you’re not into “gruesome” as a theme, their techniques can be used on various sorts of cakes. I found several useful tips.

I actually think i like it better without the blood:

Also, check out the Zombie Cake (the second page has some great white chocolate covered cherry eyeballs with instructions, on our previous eyeball theme); and for the less cooking inclined, check out some nice pumpkin carving ideas!

Thanks to:
Inspired by yesterday’s Eyeball Soup cake, Heather recommended a link to this site!

Get your halloween buttons here, including I WAS FEATURED if you’re featured as part of the halloween series.

Related: All Halloween Topics

Enter the Halloween Contest:

(click through for bigger)

They all have attributes, like hobbies and operating systems… but i need some creative people to help me out with what they should be. See what I have now at their individual flickr pages: hipster, geek, Joss.

I think they’d look pretty cool on a tshirt themselves..

As part of the Halloween Food series, we have delicious eyeballs for you here, the sweet and the savory, so read on…

Mozzerella Eyeballs

Note: this recipe has been updated and is EVEN BETTER NOW!

Always looking for yummy Halloween edibles, I created these last year as a easy to prepare and yummy party food. They are simply fresh mozzarella balls, that I bought pre-marinated. Pupil/iris is whole pimento stuffed green olives, sliced and stuck on with a toothpick (Ow! My Eye!).

The Evil Mad Scientists have a more refined version, that I love, and I may modify mine to use some of their tips. All the steps to make these are here. I love how they use two different olives to make the more rounded iris/pupil.

Now on to sweet:
Brown Eye’d Truffles:

These are extremely popular and yummy, we’ve done them the past few years. The inside is a peanut butter truffle, dipped not quite to the top in white chocolate (or white candy bark). The pupil is an upside down mini chocolate chip. You can also add red veins with decorator gel, but I like the simplicity of it without. For a creepier touch, add green paste food coloring to the truffle mix.

I didn’t originate the recipe, but I have no idea of the source – I’ve seen it around the internet in several places. Since there’s no point in retyping what can be easily googled, here’s a good recipe and write up of how to make them. You can either dip them and place on parchment paper to dry, or directly into mini muffin cups.

Hope you enjoy these inspirations for your Halloween gatherings!

Here’s some other eyeball related yummys via flickr:

From flickr user schmish: Eyeball Soup Cake. Just Wow!

From flickr user overduebook, “they are really simple to make. Start with a lychee fruit in a can. After they are well drained fill them with strawberry jam/jelly and top with a blueberry. ”

-My friend’s photography portfolio site: Grieg Wehr Photography

In other news, a photo I took at Dragon*con has been Boing Boing’ed!. So if you got here via Boing Boing, welcome, and if you like artsy, craftsy, geeky stuff, check out the place!

Bottlecap Pincushions: Love these Eyeballs!

Flickr user verybigjen has some fabulous ones – all different kinds, but the eyeballs are a fave of mine, particularly for halloween!-, and a nifty photo tutorial to make them yourself – or you can buy them in her blog/store, which also has lots of neat stuff.

Get your halloween buttons here, including I WAS FEATURED if you’re featured as part of the halloween series.

Enter the Halloween Contest:

Some Art Fabric
Some Art Fabric is a really neat online fabric store. They have a really fun selection of fabric, and it’s way cool to support your fellow crafters than go buy your fabric at one of those big corporate stores. Colleen’s blog – Some Art Fabric Talk shows, like any true “Dabbler”, she’s into all types of crafts. Some great stuff, including tutorials. She’s also one of the winners of the Summer Doldrums contest, with her clever Insect Window treatment, made out of pages from old books.
Some Art Fabric is donating a Chic Or Treat Charm Pack – by Moda. A neat selection of different coordinating halloween themed fabrics, perfect for crafting, sewing or quilting projects! What a neat prize!

Erin K Creations
The lovely and talented Erin has generously offered up this nifty little halloween zip purse. Handmade by Erin herself and perfectly on the halloween theme…
Erin’s blog is full of fun projects she has done(like this cool halloween bat quilt!) and she’s so creative with fabric, I’m impressed. Check our her etsy store too, I’m loving the ‘snarky girl’ doll. Love all the recycled fabrics used in her creations, too. Thanks, Erin!

Chica and Jo
Love these chicks, a newly discovered favorite of mine. Their site is full of fun projects: Everything from How to throw a Bridal Shower to step by step instructions to make your own spooky chandelier for halloween, their site has all kinds of good stuff to make your life easier and more interesting!
For the contest, Chica and Jo are donated a photo cube kit, to make your own magic folding photocube! What a clever idea… I may just have to order a kit myself!

Dabbled
. And lastly, an additional prize from Dabbled. A custom full color graphic for your next party invitation, including personalized text (like your child’s name). Choose from a variety of subjects, like robots, monkeys, monsters, and more. (If you don’t want it for an invitation, and just want the customized graphic, that’s fine too).

Please take a minute to click over to visit our nifty sponsors, and check out their great stuff!

Now get to work on those contest entries!

…Spread the word, because if the winner found the contest via you/your blog, you’ll win a prize too! Get your Halloween button here!

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