Top 5 Easy No Bake Halloween Treats

 I love Halloween! It's a great excuse to eat sweets and have fun, when else do we get the chance to dress up?! Every year we get together with our closest friends and have a little afternoon Halloween party. It won't be quite the same this year as sadly one of our friends passed away earlier in the year, but we are determined to keep up the tradition and I know she would want us to too. However there is one slight problem, my oven has finally given up the ghost and I need some easy no bake Halloween treats for this years party. After scouring the nets here are my top 5 favourites so far:

Number 1 - Vampire Dentures

Fabulously easy toothy treats from The Girl Who Ate Everything. If you buy the chocolate chip cookies, there is absolutely no cooking involved.

All you need is:
Chocolate chip cookies
Red icing (frosting)
Mini marsh-mallows
Slithers of Almonds (for the fangs!)

Apparently they originally won 2nd place by Lori Fillmore in the Nestle 2010 Spooktacular Baking Contest. Thanks for sharing this fab recipe, I may even cheat more and buy ready made icing!







Number 2 Ghosty Bananas and pumpkin oranges. Thanks Inga Elizondo for this one. I thought I had better put a healthy one up near the top of the chart. This one is simplicity itself. Bananas with chocolate chips, and peeled satsumas with celery stalks.

Number 3 Finger Food
I nearly didn't pick this one but they are so gruesome I just had to. I wasn't going to pick them because a) I'm not over keen on frankfurters and b) my poor husband lost the ends of two fingers a few years ago and thought these were a bit near the knuckle! Ha ha no pun intended! All you need are frankfurters, ketchup and a little piece of onion for the nails.

Number 4 Cheese string brooms
Super cute cheese broom sticks. I couldn't find pretzel sticks here in the UK so used twiglets instead, taste yummy but produces stunted brooms, more like feather dusters really, but fun all the same. They are a little bit fiddly to tie with the chives, which is why I am using moms.popsugar.com  picture and not mine!

Number 5 Mini donut pretzel spiders
Another easy treat to assemble. I used the mini donuts from Tesco but any small ring donuts would do but they definitely work better with chocolate dipped ones. Once I had made one I left the children to make the others. We found it quite hard to get the smartest to stick but a tiny spot of icing holds them in place.













To see these and lots more no-bake Halloween treat ideas see my Pinterest board or to read more about why we enjoy Witches, Pumpkins and other Halloween Tat here

Nerines for Autumn colour - My Number 1 plant for October

Nerines for Autumn Colour

 

There is nothing like the Nerines for prolonging the colour well into the Autumn. The vibrancy and poise shown by the Nerines is that generally reserved for spring and summer performers.

 

The defiance these magnificent bulbs show holding back the ravishes of Autumn and Winter, as they display their great trumpet blooms. Sturdy upright stems these gorgeous plants from South Africa can pretty much cope with whatever the Autumn weather throws at it.

 

They benefit from being planted in a southerly position on good well draining soil, but mine thrive in a north west facing garden, and bring a welcome splash of colour, in an otherwise now sleepy bed. They quite like to be over crowded, I have got some growing in a well established pot of bamboo, the more they compete with each other for space, the better the show each year. I do feed the ones in the pot, mainly because the bamboo is such a greedy plant, but the flowers are no more or less impressive than those planted directly into the ground.

I do believe they are now available in whites and reds but I have the near native bubble-gum pink variety but I think I will try an add some white ones this year.

Repairing my tired and dry hands - E45 Hand Cream Product Review

This is my first product review through BzzAgent and so far so good I've been very impressed. I do a lot of gardening and we have lots of pets, so there is lots of hand washing going on, which can leave my hands dry and sore. I do use a regular hand cream which works well but often leaves my hands feeling greasy. I am intrigued to see how the E45 creams compare with my usual cream.

I have been using the E45 Intense Recovery hand cream for several days and already seen a noticeable difference. My Hands are definitely smoother, less dry and although a little early to tell my nails seem less flaky and prone to splitting. Quite a light cream, no over greasy residue.

I have also used the E45 Repair and protect overnight hand cream, which was light and readily absorbed into the skin. However for a fragrance free product definitely had a stronger smell than the E45 Intense Recovery cream


 

Gorgeous Glass Fridge Magnets

These simple fridge magnets make use of all those gorgeous gardening magazines and catalogues.

Such a simple idea using your favourite magazine images and floristry glass nuggets.

The optical properties of the glass nuggets naturally magnify the images behind, making eye-catching almost 3-D pictures. The glass nuggets I used were fractionally larger than a 5pence piece but you can get a range of cabochons and glass nuggets specifically for this sort of use from most good craft shops. I went for the floristry nuggets because I like the unique slightly irregular shapes but you may prefer something a little more symmetrical, I also had some in the cupboard!

1. Using a five pence piece I cut out the images from various magazines and comics.
2. Using watered down PVA or Modge Podge and a paint brush lightly paint the face of the image.
3. Place the glass nugget on the face of the image and push down firmly until the image changes from milky white to a clear picture, carefully squeezing out any air bubbles.
4. Wipe away any excess glue
5. When dry fix magnetic sheet cut to shape (again available from good craft shops).

I made these ones for a craft stall I had back in the summer.

 

For another craft idea using old seed catalogues and magazines see my post on making and Autumn Bounty Bowl

Super Easy Ginger Gread Biscuits

I can't claim any of the recognition for these super easy Gingerbread biscuits. I have tried lots of recipes over the years with varying amounts of success, many of which either didn't cook through properly, or the other extreme, they were  so hard that they would make your brain shake when you took a bite. With all my botched attempts it would be easy to give up, but the thing is I love gingerbread. If you get it right it is such a versatile recipe. More than any other biscuit recipe gingerbread is perfect for creating beautifully decorated morsels, which are as easy on the eye as they are on the palette. However my daughter and I made this batch so they aren't quite up to the harvest festival show, but for us they are very pretty. And for the recipe.......


I stole it from my daughters Brownie Guide manual. I was so happy that after many less than perfect trials with previous recipes, I thought I would share them you.  Great texture, fairly easy to roll out and just enough spice to give them a little kick. Well done to the Girl Guides!.... thank you

Ingredients for really easy gingerbread

100g Soft Margarine
100g Soft Dark Brown Sugar
2 Tablespoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon mixed spice
200g Self-raising flour
Coloured writing icing for decoration.

1. Beat together the margarine, sugar and syrup.
2. Stir in the dry ingredients to make a dough.
3. Knead very gently, then roll pout to 50mm thick.
4. Cut into desired shapes.
5. Bake at 180C or gas mark 4 for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown.
6. Leave to cool before having fun decorating them!

Thanks again to the Girl Guiding Association and their book Brownie Adventures
 

Poppy Field, Rag Rug Art

 

One of my favourite projects this year and one of my first rag rug attempts. Rag Rugging or hooking is one of the most therapeutic crafts I have had a go at. Incredibly simple, once you have mastered

just one or two techniques you can start to make some beautiful pieces. As you use mainly scraps of fabric it's a great way of recycling and it means it's one of the cheaper crafts you can take up. This picture was made from mainly old pillow cases and pyjamas, although I did by the ribbons for the poppy heads. I love poppies and my inspiration comes from a gorgeous field that never fails to perform each year with the most fabulous display, high up on the South Downs in West Sussex.

 

 If you would like to buy this wall hanging - view it on Etsy