A warning: I’m in Sandy the Hurricane’s line of fire, so I may be without my dear internet for a bit. Here’s one more Halloween idea to get you through. Fingers crossed we still get Halloween here in DC!

Another warning: From now until December at the end of my pregnancy (and beyond into baby days), you’ll be treated to a lot of repetition, as I’ll be getting in the kitchen less and less. Oh sure, I’ll have some new things sprinkled in this blog, such as new Christmas posts and lots of Christmas-collaboration-posts I nerdily prepared weeks ago. I’ll even have a couple of chocolate-y posts to share with you an exciting trip I’m (probably foolishly, but I couldn’t resist) taking a few weeks before the big baby day.  But there will be some archives and such in there, too. Because the time is a tickin’ when Baby Girl 2 will be here.

I’m feeling huge, by the way. Definite waddle mode. And I’m a little afraid of this kid’s strength because my entire belly shakes in awkward ways when she moves. It’s very eerie to watch.

And speaking of repetition… just in case you forgot about these and need a last minute Halloween cookie idea, remember I made these sparkly, dangling spider ornament cookies featured in the Fall Issue of Bird’s Magazine.

Read Bird’s Party Magazine online HERE. Purchase the paper copy HERE.

Find the spider ornament how-tos HERE on pps. 61-62.

And the Winter Issue is coming!! I’ll have more treats in there.

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But not here. I want to end any confusion from the start to be sure you all maximize your chances to win. You see, the IZZE facebook page is hosting a contest, the Hello Good contest. Snap a picture with your favorite bottle of IZZE (they of the delicious sparkling juices flavored naturally with no extra sugar and perfect for parties because the bottle is so pretty). Then upload said picture onto the IZZE facebook page to enter their contest for a chance to win a year’s supply of IZZE.

THEN, get more chances to win cool stuff over at my other gig, HERE at Edible Crafts. Cool stuff like another chance for a year’s supply of IZZE. And 100 bucks to shop at Target. Or a gift card to Whole Foods. After you upload your picture to IZZE and enter your contest, just leave me a comment at Edible Crafts HERE with a link to your entry and you’re entered. Confused? Just click HERE for all the info. 

Want to see what I did with my bottles of IZZE? I dressed them up in costumes for Halloween. You needn’t get this, um, overly involved with your bottles like I did. You can simply snap a picture anywhere with anyone or anything. But given it’s Halloween, these bottles were just craving costumes I think.

All the eyes you see I just cut out of construction paper and drew black dots, but a hole punch or eye stickers would have been easier. For the bats, I folded a piece of black construction paper, cut out one side of the wings at the fold, unfolded and used a glue stick to attach to the bottle. For the mummy, I cut strips of white cloth and attached to the bottle with a glue stick.

For the ghost, I draped a circle of white cloth over the bottle, securing to the cap with glue, and glued on the eyes. For the witch, I made the hat with construction paper and glued to the cap.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

Posts without sugar are rare for me, I know. And these so easily could have been turned into sugar-filled sweets, but I wanted to test out my “Bone Chillers” ice cube tray the traditional way first. Almost the traditional way. I added food coloring. And it worked. Although my fingers got a bit stained popping them out of the tray, they add an almost beautiful, if eerie, touch to a glass of water. Sparkling water would’ve been waaaaay better. No, vodka would’ve been waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than water. Next Halloween, when this baby in my belly is almost one and I can freely chug vodka. I got my little Halloween surprise in the mail in the form of a box filled with fun things. It had this ice cube tray from Fred and Friends, some creepy plastic eyeballs, glow-in-the-dark paint, a ceramic faucet to make a pumpkin keg, and pretty Fall notecards from Ruff House Art.

This box of Fall was the October Celebrate Crate. Find lots more inspiration HERE.

And learn more about getting your own monthly crate HERE.

To make these ice cubes, I just filled by skull and cross bones silicon ice cube tray with water. Then I added a couple drops of Americolor Soft Gel Paste into each cavity (I used Orange, Electric Purple and Electric Green), then stirred a bit with toothpicks. Pop them out into drinks. Preferably drinks more exciting than tap water. The food coloring will spread throughout the beverage in an oh so Halloween-like way.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

I’ve been very into cookie sticks of late. Which is a terribly odd sentence to type, I realize. I’ve always been into candy eyes for Hallowen. Stick some eyes on just about anything and it becomes an instant monster. And so the merging of cookie sticks and candy eyes was inevitable, at least in my mind if no other.

You don’t need any special cookie cutter to cut these out, and they are so simple to decorate. The beauty of monsters, too, is that you can just squeeze the icing around all over the place and it doesn’t matter. Errors can’t be seen on monsters. They just look purposeful and make your monster more interesting. And that’s what makes these ideal for kids to decorate, too.

And boy are they cute. That’s the other benefit of candy eyes. Eyes are so creepy, but candy eyes make stuff cute. I’m very aware of this eye anomaly, by the way.

how to make monster cookie sticks

you will need:*

cookie dough

royal icing

dough scraper or knife

food coloring

disposable decorating bags

couplers

rubber bands

size 3, 4 and 5 decorating tips

candy eyes

*Find the decorating bags, couplers, tips and candy eyes in the craft store. For food coloring, I suggest Americolor Soft Gel Pastes, available in specialty stores and online (Electric Green, Electric Purple, Bright White and Orange used here).   This is the dough scraper I use, HERE, from Sur la Table. You can also use a knife, but this tool makes cutting sticks super easy and consistent, especially with the handy ruler.

step one: make your cookie sticks

Prepare the cookie dough according to the recipe, chill for a couple hours, roll out 1/4-inch thick and use the dough scraper or knife to cut out sticks. My sticks are about 4 1/2 inches long by 1/2 inch wide. Place the sticks on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake according to the recipe. Let cool completely.

step two: prepare your royal icing

Prepare royal icing according to the recipe. Divide the icing and tint your preferred colors. I made white, purple, slime green and orange. Prepare decorating bags with couplers and tips, fill with icing and close tightly with rubber bands.

step three: decorate your cookies

Decorate your cookies however you like, with either a size 3, 4, or 5 tip, depending on your preference. For the mummies, I just piped back and forth to make stripes. For the green, fuzzy monsters, I piped close zig zags up and down the cookie. For the purple monsters, I just piped dots. And for the orange monsters, I piped curly cues. Press two eyes into the icing. Let the cookies dry well, preferably overnight, before handling and packaging. For basic cookie decorating instructions, click HERE.

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This whole piping chocolate on a stick thing is far from new on this blog. I’ve made chocolate and bones pops, chocolate spider pops,  and bat wings and spider legs for Oreo Cakesters. It’s one of the easiest treats to make, aside from decorating marshmallows. I had some leftover melted chocolate from another project (more on that soon), so I just dumped it in a decorating bag, snipped the end, grabbed some lollipop sticks and candy eyes and done and done.

And given the blob thing, you don’t even have to be precise with the piping part. Once the chocolate cools well enough to handle, kids can easily master these.

how to make monster chocolate pops

you will need:*

*Use any kind of chocolate you like, semi-sweet, milk, dark, vegan, whatever. Find the decorating bags, lollipop sticks and candy eyes in the craft store.

what to do:

Line a baking tray with wax paper and set aside. Fill a decorating bag with chocolate chips, about 1/2 full. Microwave at 70 percent power for 1 minute, then at 30 second intervals, massaging the chocolate chips periodically, until the chips are almost completely melted. Massage the chips in the bag until totally melted.  Snip 1/4 inch from the tip of the decorating bag. Pipe a dot on the wax paper, place the lollipop stick on the dot, then pipe a blob of chocolate on top. Add candy eyes. Once the tray is filled, refrigerate until set, an hour or two. TIP: close the bag with a rubber band after the chocolate is melted so it doesn’t ooze out the top.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!