Make it Monday: Homemade Bath Salts

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Make it Monday: No Sew Mermaid Costume

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Festive Friday: Halloween on a Dime

     Are you planning a Halloween party? Well, here is a list of inexpensive and creative ideas from Living on a Dime. Some of these can even be used for Halloween dress-up, like the face paint and fake blood.

     Additional ideas are in the Halloween on a Dime e-book. Hope you get some inspiration from all these ideas and throw a "killer" party!
     And to check out some of their other e-books, you can go here! They also have a new e-book, Homemade Christmas, at an introductory price of 99 cents through Octber 23!

Homemade Halloween Make-up Recipes and Games
by Tawra Kellam

The average American family spends over $100 per year on Halloween goodies. As your kids drag you through aisles full of ghosts and goblins, the scariest thing about Halloween is threatening to leave bite marks in your pocketbook. No wonder so many moms flee screaming from the store... It can be much less expensive and a lot more fun to devise your own chilling creations. Here are a few tips that you can use to stave off the greenback gremlins and exercise your creative muscle. It won't hurt a bit! These and other free frugal tips are available at www.LivingOnADime.com.

Face Paint

1 tsp. corn starch
1/2 tsp. water
1/2 tsp. cold cream
food coloring

Mix all ingredients together in an old muffin pan and you are ready to paint. This amount makes one color.

Fake Wound

1 Tbsp Vaseline
tissue
cocoa powder
2-3 drops red food coloring

Place Vaseline in a bowl. Add food coloring. Blend with a toothpick. Stir in a pinch of cocoa to make a darker blood color. Separate tissue. Using 1 layer, tear a 2x3 inch piece and place at wound site. Cover with petroleum jelly and mold into the shape of a wound. The center should be lower than the sides. Fill the center with the red petroleum jelly mixture. Sprinkle center with some cocoa. Sprinkle a little around the edges of the wound to make darker.

Fake Blood- Mix 2/3 cup white corn syrup, 1 tsp. red food coloring, 2-3 drops blue food coloring to darken and 1 squirt dish soap (helps blood to run well).

Abrasions -Dab brown, red and black eye shadow on area. Apply blood over area with cotton balls. Use comb to gently scratch area in one direction. Apply cocoa or dirt over wound with cotton balls.

Black Eye - Apply red and blue eye shadow to depressions around eyes.

Bruises - Rub red and blue shadow over bony area to simulate recent bruises. Blue and yellow eye shadow to create older bruises.

Look Old - Cover face with baby powder. Draw dark lines on your skin for wrinkles. Smooth edges to blend. Cover again with baby powder. Add baby powder to your hair to create gray hair.

Deviled Eyeballs - Make deviled eggs. Add a green olive with pimento in the center for an "eyeball".

Radioactive Juice- Mix equal parts Mountain Dew and blue Kool-Aid

Toxic Juice- Add some green food coloring to lemonade for a spooky color!

Brains- Scramble eggs with some green, yellow and blue food coloring

Bloody Eyeballs- Boil cherry tomatoes 30 seconds. Allow to cool; then peel skin.

Goblin Hand- Freeze green Kool-Aid in a rubber or latex glove, float in punch.

Use the tape from old cassettes or black yarn to make spider webs.

Use cotton balls stretched out for small spider webs.

Glass Jack-o-Lantern- Outline a pumpkin face on a spaghetti or pickle jar with black paint. The paint around the outside of it with orange paint. Place a candle inside for a jack-o-lantern.

Halloween Guess It Game

In this game, you challenge the participants to reach into mystery boxes filled with creepy things and try to guess what each item is. The person with the most correct answers wins the game. An example is if you want them to guess "grapes", you might try to confuse them by saying, "I think it's eyeballs..."

Cut a hole in the top of a shoe box or laundry box for each item to be used. Cover the box with black spray paint. Decorate each box with pumpkins or spiders for a more festive flavor. Place the following items inside, one per box. Be sure to place enough of each item so the guests can adequately "feel" the guts.

Eyeballs - grapes or peeled cherry tomatoes

Intestines- Cooked Spaghetti

Skin- oil a piece of plastic bag

Brains- scrambled eggs

Hair- an old clown wig

Bones- thoroughly washed chicken bones placed in some sand

Vomit-chunky salsa

Fingers-hot dogs cut into finger sized pieces

Teeth- corn nuts, pine nuts or popcorn

Have a Pumpkin Hunt

Hide mini pumpkins like you would Easter Eggs. Let the kids find and decorate them. For small children use glue sticks with construction paper cut-outs for decorations.

Edible Slime

Pour lime gelatin into a glass bowl. After it is partially set, add gummy worms. Chill until lightly set. Then serve slopped all over the plate.

Bloody Popcorn- Add red food color to melted butter and pour over popcorn.

Freeze gummy worms in ice cubes and add them to drinks. Cut gummy worms in half if needed.

Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are frugal living experts and the authors of the Dining On A Dime Cookbook. Dining On A Dime will help you save money on groceries and get out of debt by cooking quick and simple homemade meals. For free tips & recipes visit http://www.LivingOnADime.com , sign up for our free Living On A Dime Newsletter and learn to save more!

Make it Monday: Waterwall

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Festive Friday: Simple Paper Owls

     Check out these cute paper owls! All you need is a toilet paper tube, a few cupcake papers and some tape. And they make super-cute fall decorations! Read the rest of this post.

Make it Monday: DIY Sandbox!

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Make it Monday: Cereal Box File Tray

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Make it Monday: Homemade Playdough

 

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Make It Monday: Homemade Laundry Detergent

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Make it Monday: Homemade Bath Paint

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Inexpensive Ways To Decorate Easter Eggs

     Article from http://www.LivingOnADime.com

     OK, so the kids noticed on the calendar that Easter is approaching and they want to make a huge production of dying eggs. In the past, the little stickers you bought at the store sufficed, but now they want the real thing. Here are some old standards with a few new ideas for you from http://www.livingonadime.com/ .

     Before you decorate Easter eggs, cover the entire table with newspaper. Keep a huge roll of paper towels or rags handy for messes. Have each kid wear one of dad's old (now disposable) tee shirts. To make egg stands, cut toilet paper roll cores into one inch cylinders and use for egg stands. Decorate with stickers or paint.

     Decorating eggs: The traditional method.

Hard boil eggs. Fill several mugs with boiling water and add 1-2 tsp. vinegar. Place a few drops of desired food coloring in each mug. Place eggs in mugs for several minutes until the eggs reach the desired shades. Remove with a spoon. Place on a paper towel to dry. When dry, polish with a small amount of shortening on a paper towel. Buff until glossy.

     You can draw or write on the eggs with a light colored or white crayon before dipping. The drawing will remain white after the egg is dipped. To clean out the mugs, put a little bleach water in the cups and soak for a few minutes.

Glitter Eggs- Place 1 tablespoon each of glue and water in a cup. Stir the mixture and then paint the eggs with it. Sprinkle with glitter. This can also add sparkle to already dyed eggs!

Crepe Paper Eggs- Wet a white or dyed egg. Dab torn pieces of colored tissue paper or pieces of pretty colored napkins on the eggs. When the paper dries, the paper falls off and leaves the color behind on the egg.

Decoupaged Easter Eggs - Tear small pieces of wrapping paper, napkins, stickers, or clip art. Mix equal amounts of glue and water. Paint egg with glue mixture. Place paper on top and then cover with more glue mixture. Let dry.

Spotted Eggs- Place 1 tsp. of cooking oil in dye. Dip the egg. The oil will cause the dye to make an irregular pattern on the egg.

Waxed Eggs- Dip a portion of the eggs in melted paraffin or candle wax. Then dip them in the dye. Remove from dye. Dry and peel off the wax. The egg will be white on one half and colored on the other half. You can also dip in dye before waxing to get two colors.

Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper are frugal living experts and the authors of the Dining On A Dime Cookbook. Dining On A Dime will help you save money on groceries and get out of debt by cooking quick and simple homemade meals. For free tips & recipes visit http://www.LivingOnADime.com , sign up for our free Living On A Dime Newsletter and learn to save more!

My Butterfly Cake

     Well, our little princess turned two this weekend. She got spoiled, as usual. More toys she doesn't need, a few new outfits and more cake than a toddler should probably eat in one day. But what can you do? She is the birthday girl after all. :-)

so, since I've been feeling pretty lousy in general lately, and our family doesn't live in town, I didn't really plan a party or anything. I still wanted Kay-kay to have a cake, though. But I didn't really want to do anything complicated, so I finally decided on a butterfly cake, which I made out of a round cake and three cupcakes.

     First I cut the round cake in half and cut triangles out of the straight edges and also cut off the round edges, as shown in the picture below.

     Next I put three cupcakes in a vertical row in the middle of the cake board. Then I lined up what were the the rounded edges next to the cupcake body. So there you have the basic shape of the butterfly. Now all that's left is the icing.

     I chose the colors pink and purple. I iced the wings pink, then used an icing bag and tip to put on the purple and smoothed it out. I added cocoa to the icing to make brown for the eyes and lines of the body. I got some of the squiggly candles for the antennae, which was perfect, since Kay-kay was turning two and the butterfly needed two antennae. So that is how I made my butterfly cake. Not super fancy, but my two-year-old liked it, and that's what's important, right?

Coconut Bon bons and White Chocolate Pretzels

     This past week I've been working on all kinds of goodies, most of which have been given away (or eaten :-P). But I saved the best for last, since these are what we're taking with us to Florida. On Friday I made coconut bonbons and yesterday I made white chocolate covered pretzels and these are super-important holiday traditions for us. :-D Don't they look yummy, all ready to go? Put them in a nice little tin or colorful container and they make great, inexpensive gifts, too, and I don't know who doesn't love receiving them!

Coconut Bon Bons

     These are great for that chocolate craving. Yes, it had coconut in it, but even my dad, who hates coconut, got convinced to try one and said it was pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of coconut in general, but I love these (as does everyone who's tried them...). Here is the recipe if you would like to try it out. 

Mix together: 

     2 lbs of powdered sugar

     1/2 cup (1 stick) of melted butter

     1 can of sweetened condensed milk

     2 cups of shredded coconut (I actually just used 1 14 oz package) 

     This will make a sticky mixture and you will need to chill it (preferably overnight) before rolling it into little balls. Even after chilling, your hands will get sticky when handling it. Place the balls on cookie sheets covered with wax paper. I also put each batch in the freezer for a few minutes before dipping chocolate. I'm usually multi-tasking in the kitchen. 

     Melt a box (8 oz) of Baker's semi-sweet chocolate on low heat with a 1 x 1 1/2 inch square piece of parafin wax, cut up or shredded for better melting. Roll the coconut balls one by one in the melted chocolate, coating the whole thing with chocolate then return it to the wax paper. You can use a toothpick or a utensil made for dipping chocolates. You may find you need to add more chocolate if you find you are running out. If you need to thin the chocolate a little, add Crisco, 1 teaspoon at a time till you reach the desired consistency. Don't add to much or it will be too runny! When the chocolates are cooled and the chocolate has firmed up, they are ready to serve! 

White Chocolate Pretzels

     These are even easier to make than the coconut bon bons and are perfect for that salty-sweet combo you sometimes crave. 

     All you need to do is melt one or 2 packages of Baker's white chocolate and dip small pretzels into it and lay it on wax paper to cool. You can add a little parafin wax to it to make it dry harder, if you like. Just like with regular chocolate, use Crisco if you need to thin it up. And keep an eye on it, because it tends to scorch more quickly than the semi-sweet chocolate. But it is pretty simple to do. Try it out and let me know what you think. :-)

My First Diaper Cake

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