October 2008 – Dabbled

Halloween Contest Winners!

Dot — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:36:00 +0000

You’re getting multiple posts today, so if you missed it, check out the fabulous meaty mummy hand tutorial. And should I be able to, some pics from my progress on making Halloween Food will be posted later. But first off, the winners of the Halloween Contest!

First, I’d like to thank all who entered, and thank our Judges: Chica & Jo, Samae, Erin, and Colleen.
These ladies had a hard time judging all the great stuff! We had 38 wonderful entries… And it was REALLY close between a lot of these..

But judge they must, and here are our winners (click through to see the images larger):

1st place to the Woggegong Shark Costume by Jen Straw! She explains how she did it here… and here!

2nd place to Dave Gugel and his fabulous house transformation! Check out his site for more, and the behind the scenes look at how he changes his typical house into a scary victorian. (Dabbled interview HERE)

3rd Place to this adorable Day of the Dead Doll by Anya Kase! Love the great embroidery!

4th Place was a tie between:

These fabulous creepy cherubs from Vanessa at Gerbera Designs. She has a tutorial on how to make them, so check it out!

And…

This great Pin the Teeth On The Vampire game from Heather Sitarzewski… click over for instructions to make and play!

You should check out all the entries in the original post, but here’s some other “Honorable Mentions” our judges really liked, that didn’t quite make the top cut:

Halloween “Advent” Calendar by West 38th
Halloween Cuff by Tamdoll
The Halloween Wreath from CorgiPants
The Lantern How-to and Bat & Spider Pom Poms from PomPom Emporium
Witchy Pumpkin from Living Locurto
Crafting With Cat Hair’s Poison Lollypops

Get your nifty “I’m a Winner” buttons for the winners and the honorable mentions HERE, and will dole out the prizes asap. Winners, please email me @ dot-at-dabbled-dot-org.

Halloween Food – Yummy Mummy Hand (HOW TO)

Dot — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:31:00 +0000

I love my friends! At last week’s pumpkin party, my friend Chad asked what he could bring to my halloween party. I made a few suggestions, including some ideas I had around a mummy arm similar to my Bone Marrow last year. Well, he took those and improved upon them, and has graciously written up how he created his prototype for the party, this really fun Mummy Hand!

Click through for larger..

Thanks for sharing, Chad! And I can’t wait to taste the final product!

By the way, I will be posting the winners of the Halloween Contest later today!

Halloween Food – Chocolate Pretzel Creep Fingers

Dot — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:14:00 +0000

I’m throwing a Halloween Party Saturday night, so the next few days will be filled with me trying to get everything together. However, I didn’t want to neglect you, dear Dabblers, so I figured I’d let you in on some of the stuff I’m making!

I just finished up a batch of Sweet Sushi, and later I’ll be pulling these Creep Fingers together, along with my Peanut Butter Eyeball truffles. It’s easy, but I included instructions below:
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Creep Finger Sticks:

I came up with these (though I’m sure someone somewhere has made them before me!) when I decided I didn’t feel like baking Witches Finger cookies, but I already had blanched almonds on hand.

Large Pretzel sticks (I’m using Snyder’s Rods this year, but the ones pictured were smaller)
Chocolate Bark (white or chocolate) or chocolate chips of any sort.
Blanched whole almonds (one for each stick) (If you can’t find them blanched, just buy raw almonds, and boil for several minutes until the skins just pop off when you squeeze them. Pop off all the skins.)

Set up a drying rack before you start. Something to hold the sticks while the chocolate sets.
Then, melt chocolate in a double boiler or the microwave. Be careful not to over heat.
Dip several inches of the pretzel in the chocolate and affix an almond (or half an almond) at the tip for a fingernail while the chocolate is still wet.
Stand upright (at least half of the pretzel stick will not be chocolately) and let dry/cool.

For the container, you’ll just need a sleeve off an old shirt, and a glass that is the same size (slightly smaller) around as the end of the sleeve. Slide the sleeve around the glass and tack it there with hot glue if necessary.

Fill the glass with sticks, and enjoy!

Halloween Contest, Ends tonight!

Dot — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:04:00 +0000

Today is the last day to get your entries in for the Halloween Contest! We have some great entries thus far, but there is still room for more! You have until 11:00 pm Eastern US time.

If you’re entering, and you have pictures on flickr, don’t forget to add them to the Dabbled Pool.

A Reminder about our Sponsors and cool Prizes!!

Sponsors for this years Dabbled Halloween have been kind enough to donate an item for a prize in the contest. And they are quite nifty and generous!

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!

Halloween Feature – Wobbegong Shark Costume

Dot — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:33:00 +0000

Dabbler Jen Straw of Pittsburgh PA sent this in, and I love it! The Wobbegong shark was her son’s absolute favorite shark in the universe, so she designed and made this costume for him. Don’t know what a Wobbegong is? See the little pic of a real Wobbegong cruising the coral reefs of Australia. She explains how she did it below.

Jen Says: “I made it from some scrap fleece, and painted it with non-toxic tempera paints. Most of it was machine stitched, though the face part was hand stitched, and I included the plastic head frame from a child’s batting helmet for extra support (also stitched into place). I didn’t have a pattern (still don’t – I am sure that this will be a one-off costume!), so I worked from a drawing that my husband made for me.”

More Here..

Edit:
Jen won the Dabbled Halloween Contest with this one!

The Dark Detecting pumpkin

Dot — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:57:00 +0000

Handy hubby took inspiration from the always ultra cool Evil Mad Scientists to make their Dark Detecting Pumpkin. He has LEDs for eyes, and they come on when it gets dark.. How totally cool and geeky, no?

Other Dabbled references to the Evil Mad Scientist projects

Here are some pumpkin pics, and for instructions, go here..!

(I have no idea why that one pic is sideways… it doesn’t look that way on the original!)

Oh, and check out these cool pics of the Halloween Bubble Cocktails…

Illustration Friday – Repair

Dot — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:29:00 +0000

Trying a different style on the coloring today… Thoughts?

How to Repair a Broken Heart

Oh, and don’t miss the cool halloween cocktails I posted earlier today :)

Halloween Cocktails – Creepy Bubble Fun!

Dot — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:34:00 +0000

Last week I was sitting around trying to think of something different to do for halloween, and the idea came to me. Something that would look particularly creepy, and be unusual… Can you guess the secret ingredient? Ever had Bubble Tea? It’s made with large tapioca pearls, and has a really interesting look. I figured there’s no reason we couldn’t make some fun halloween drinks/shots/cocktails with the tapioca pearls. A trip to the local Whole Foods yeilded a bag of large pearls. So I tried some experiments (Note, the amount shown here is what I got from maybe 1/4 cup of uncooked pearls). First I made a test batch — following this recipe to cook the tapioca. You’re supposed to soak them in a sugar syrup, and I had on had some really bright blue drink mixer, which I figured would be perfect. Voila, bright blue translucent drink pearls with a slightly sweet flavor. Next I tried several other ‘soakers’ to see what I would get. I figured a red flavor would be nice, so I soaked some in grenadine. I also mixed some of the grenadine and the blue syrup to get a black/purple color. Someone suggested soaking in alcohol, so I tried green creme de menthe, black rum, jagermeister, and orange liqueur. (Click through to see them labeled on the flickr pic) Removed from the soaking liquids this morning… Note that (with the exception of the creme de menthe, the alcohol soaked pearls became smaller, harder, and opaque. The others are more transparent and jelly like. Interesting effects, you could obviously work with either result. Click through on the picture for a better view. The best thing about these is they can basically be added to any drink or shot where the flavors will work. They also don’t have a ton of taste, so they won’t mess up a drink. Add to a basic martini or cosmopolitan, for example. (I called this one my Caviar martini). Shooter ideas: #Frog Egg Shooter – Whitish opaque pearls (these were the orange liqueur ones) in a Midori shot #Fish Egg Shooter – Your favorite clear pink shooter with a mix of pink and white balls. #Or how about Grasshopper Eye Shooter (basic Grasshopper recipe with Green Creme de Menthe balls) #Blue berry-flavored balls in a Grand Marnier shot. The blue is my favorite — I think these would also be fabulous in a vodka tonic… Note: You could easily just make colored sugar syrups with food coloring and get any look you wanted. You could leave out the alcohol entirely for fun kids drinks too. I also love the idea of just making dishes of different colors of these and setting them out by the drink station, so people can add their own! Anyway, hope you enjoy this little addition to your halloween festivities. Tell your friends! More Halloween Cocktails More Halloween Food PS – I’ve written this up as an Instructable!

Some Pumpkins from the Pumpkin Carving Party

Dot — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:46:00 +0000

My dear friend Grieg traditionally has his Pumpkin Carving Party the weekend before my halloween party every year. It’s always a good time, and this year was no exception. It’s a great idea for a party– BYOP (Bring Your Own Pumpkin), tiki torches and a firepit for ambiance, tons of yummy food and beer, and an array of carving implements. I did a preview version of my new salmon dip for the party, and it was very well received, so I’ll post the recipe here later. Here are a few of the pumpkins that were carved this year…

A Good Time Was Had By All:

photo credit: grieg wehr

Fabulous Reverse Applique Eye T-shirts

Dot — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:08:00 +0000

Creative Kismet (who we featured earlier with her Monster Towel), has another fabulous design! She used a reverse applique technique to create these incredibly creative and fun “Eye” T-shirts. And they even have a requisite Eye on the back, too! She has full instructions on her blog, so check it out!

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Here’s lookin’ at you kid, originally uploaded by Creative Kismet.

PS: Another thing I’ve been meaning to link to – Samae at A Milf For All Seasons is one of the funniest mommy-blog true life writers I know… this one on basement renovation is particular fun!

All Halloween Here

More Halloween Features

Don’t forget…
a Dabbled Halloween Contest ends next Wednesday! Just a few more days…
All crafts, art, food Halloween related is eligible… And bloggers, if the winner finds us from your blog, you’ll win a prize too! Enter the contest or see the current entries HERE:

And Thanks to Tip Junkie for featuring some of my Halloween Food (Flayed Skin Cheeseball & Creepy Eyeball Apps and Desserts)