The days of knocking on the doors of strangers and begging for sweets are over, so now what can you do to celebrate this Halloween?  Whether you were the princess, the zombie or the classic sheet-ghost back when you went trick-or-treating, you can give your home and dinner table that Hallows Eve flair with fun crafts, snacks and treats.  Here are some ideas to make this Halloween a hauntingly memorable day.

Craft

Bat-O-Lantern Pumpkins

http://familyfun.go.com

Materials

• Black acrylic paint
• Ornamental (miniature) pumpkins
• Black and white craft foam
• Wings, ears & eyes template
• Hole punch
• Glue dots
• Black duct tape
• Toothpicks
• Wooden skewers

Instructions

1. Paint pumpkins with black acrylic paint on a newspaper covered surface and allow them to completely dry.
2. Draw and cut out two identical eyes from white craft foam.  Use a hole punch to make pupils. Put glue dots on the backs of the eyes to attach them.
3. Cut a matching pair of ears and wings from black craft foam, wings about 6 inches long.
4. Tape a toothpick to the back of each ear, leaving about one and a half inches of the toothpick exposed, and inserting it into the top of the pumpkin.
5. To attach the wings, tape a skewer to the back of each, leaving two inches exposed, and push it in where you want the wings.

Snack

Mummy Pizzas

http://familyfun.go.com

Ingredients

• 4 English muffins
• 8 tablespoons pizza sauce
• 16 Black olive slices
• 16 small circular slices of scallion or red or green pepper
• 8 Cheese sticks or slices

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Smear a tablespoon of pizza sauce onto each English muffin half.  Muffin may be toasted or plain.
3. Use olive slices for eyes with a bit of green onion or red or green pepper in the middle for the pupils.
4. Pull apart a cheese stick and layer the strips across the muffin to simulate the mummy’s wrappings.
5. Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the muffin is toasted and warm.

This recipe makes 8 mummy pizzas.

Treat

Graveyard Cake

http://www.countryliving.com

Ingredients/Materials

• 4-6 Pepperidge Farm’s Milano and Bordeaux cookies
• 1 can of chocolate frosting
• 1 chocolate cake (either self-baked or pre-purchased)
• ½ a package of chocolate wafer cookies (crushed)
• 1 package of Rademaker chocolate sticks (A nice alternative is chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks.)
• 3-4 Small plastic skeletons

Instructions

1. Once you have either baked or purchased a chocolate cake, frost it heavily with chocolate frosting so that the cake is completely hidden.
2. Choose points on the surface of the cake where you would like the graves to be and put mounds of crushed chocolate wafer cookies at those points for dirt.
3. Decorate the Pepperidge Farm’s cookies with either “X”’s or “RIP” signs with frosting and stick into the cake at the head of each “dirt mound.”
4. Stick parts of the plastic skeletons coming out of the crushed wafer cookie dirt for spooky zombies.
5. Around the cake place chocolate sticks or chocolate-dipped pretzels at varying heights for a graveyard fence.

This recipe easily serves 12 . . . but only if you share.