I’m still amazed that it’s really October! The conversation at our house has pretty much turned to non-stop Halloween topics. Same for you? I keep warning the kids that Halloween is not a big deal in France (and that October 31st falls during a 2-week school break), but they can’t help themselves.
They are daydreaming about throwing a party for their friends. Bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving, maybe a spook house in the barn. Martha’s new book Handmade Holiday Crafts, came in the mail last Friday, so they’ve been taking turns bookmarking their favorite ideas from the Halloween section. Personally, I’m feeling drawn to the glittery projects (skulls, bones and pumpkins). I suppose I’m just looking for an excuse to get my glitter on.
Have you started making Halloween plans? Are you hosting a Halloween party this year?
UPDATE: The good people at Martha Stewart saw this post and want to offer 5 (autographed!) copies of Handmade Holiday Crafts to Design Mom Readers. So this post just turned into a giveaway. Woot! To enter, leave a comment below telling us about your favorite Halloween craft or tradition. The five winners will be announced on Wednesday.
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The winners are Kelly, Rik, M. Peterson, Heather and Janeannechovy. Thanks for playing!
We love pumpkins — picking them, carving them (the kids love the slimy insides!), and then roasting the seeds. Fun!
eeek! I’m unbelievably excited about Halloween. I started creating a really awesome Halloween playlist on Spotify last year, so I’m going to finish that off and play cool Halloween stuff in the shop.
We’ll each bring in hand-made treats and creative things, maybe inspired by your photos there :)
Can’t wait!
Hey! So fun, I JUST made those Jarolanterns this weekend! They are super cute! Perhaps Martha crafts will be a part of my halloween tradition? ha! XO
Halloween is my husband’s favorite holiday and while he LOVES the scariest of traditions, we both enjoy heading to the local pumpkin patch with our daughter. We all love sitting around eating corn, apple cinn doughnuts, taking the hayride tour and then picking a small pumpkin for her and a large one for us. All the while she gets to run around with other kids. While this may seem simple, she is our only child after 5 miscarriages, so for us the simplest things seem amazing!
Favorite Halloween tradition–homemade scones (the fried kind, not the English baked variety) with powdered sugar and mulled cider waiting after trick-or-treating!
We used to make lefse every Thanksgiving at my sister’s house. It looks like a tortilla but it’s made form potatoes. A very Norwegian holiday tradition!
My kids are so excited for Halloween this year. My 5 year old and I scoured Martha’s craft website for great ideas for Halloween. We have been cutting out lots of cats, bats, and mice to decorate the house with. I think decorating the house is going to become a tradition here.
Halloween is maybe my favorite holiday, although I don’t like the super scary stuff. My favorite tradition is watching Young Frankenstein after all the trick or treaters have gone to bed.
I’d have to say my favourite hallowe’en activity is still carving pumpkins! Fun to get all gooey and messy hollowing them out and the design ideas have improved so much over the last years (my fave is still the hedgehogs from an old edition of Martha a few years ago although it appeared in this year’s Halloween special as well!). So much work but they’re so darn cute!
i am challenged when it comes to making crafty decorations. i need help. the most ambitious i have ever been is to carve pumpkins. but, i am getting inspired!
Awesome. I love a good give-away! And I’m secretly dying to get my glitter on too!
Would love this book!!
My kids love to carve pumpkins every year…and of course gorging on candy.
Answering the door! That’s the best part…seeing all those adorable “creatures” and sending them on their way with a smile, safe wishes, and handfuls of candy!
With two little kids (one who will be celebrating his first Halloween) we are just starting to build traditions – but my favorite memory is visiting my grandma and great aunt in our costumes – it was always the first stop on the candy gathering adventure.
Oh how fun. Would love Martha’s new book!
jenn.barclay@gmail.com
Let the crafting begin! Yeah!
My young kids really enjoy making a jack-o-lantern by putting tape on a glass jar as the face and then painting over the whole jar orange. When the paint dries we peal off the tape and put a tea light in the jar.
I love to make “spooky trees” with branches spray painted black and to hang tea lights in them. It’s Halloween-y and classy too!
Carving pumpkins!
I promise I was going to leave a comment WAY before any mention of a giveaway. I love that you mentioned glittery projects. I am totally thinking the same. I have a bunch of MS glitter and now have a bunch of dollar store pumpkins & my mind is turning with glee.
Oh, and I think the Blair family should throw a great Halloween party and be the catalyst for making the holiday a big deal in France. I imagine with your creativity and influence you could make that happen. ;)
so many favorites from growing up — one that we love now with our kids is making “chocolate covered eyeballs” to give as treats…..and to eat some ourselves, of course :) mmmmm…..
we threw an adult halloween party in 2009 and had a blast! people went all out for costumes and i gave out prizes (wine bottles with diy halloween labels) you have me thinking about it again!
I just love watching all of the neighborhood kids in their costumes.
I love Halloween. I grew up outside of Chicago and I loved carving pumpkins into spooky faces. The best bit of course was that my mom always saved the pumpkin seeds and would roast them – can anything beat the joy of buttery, salty pumpkin seeds eaten in the company of the jack-o-lantern who provided the raw materials?
I now like in London, UK where the Halloween isn’t a big deal and my friends think roasting the seeds is rather odd behaviour.
Ooo fun! Would love to win, because I love everything Martha!!
Hands down pumpkin carving and then roasting and eating the seeds :)
Making my son’s lion costume and trick-or-treating with him are my favorites for this year! Taking him trick-or-treating with his cousin will become a tradition I believe :)
Awesome!
How fun! Just got my Halloween on over the weekend. Purchased a fat “French” pumpkin, a Red Warty Thing, and a white pumpkin. So cool. Soon I’ll add a witch, ghost, and some scary signs.
Would love a Martha book for seasonal decor.
Definitely pumpkin carving and enjoying all the costume creativity of my kids and their friends!
Love these great ideas! We have a pumpkin carving party every year and now I must go find some skulls to put under glass. :)
We decorate the house on the first day of Fall and then watch Icabod Crane and make home-made donuts.
Growing up, we always carved Bert and Ernie pumpkins!!! And this year I am going to do it with my little girls :)
Toasted pumpkin seeds with butter and salt! Homemade costumes…one year my brother and I were Raggedy Ann and Andy with real mopheads my mom had dyed red. I think we were 3 and 5.
Also loved dipping brilliantly colored maple leaves in molten paraffin to preserve them.
Don’t forget homemade caramel corn, the ultimate salty/sweet treat.
We get soooo many trick or treaters at our house! The kids love sitting on our decorated stoop on Halloween evening, passing out our treats and seeing the cool costumes!
Hi, Here in Portugal we don’t have Halloween tradition, but kids start to do it at school. They do masks and not much more than that.
my all time favorite halloween tradition is making my mom’s famous chili. it makes it’s debut every halloween, and is always gone within 5 seconds; no one can resist! her chili never fails to get me in the spirit for halloween.
I just love creating jack-o-lanterns with my 3 little ones. Every year they come up with some silly expression or new drawing they want to carve. And, each time we’ve been pregnant during the Halloween season, we carve a white pumpkin for the new baby. :)
Favorite craft would be pumpkin carving and roasting the seeds.
Carving pumpkins is our obvious tradition and roasting the seeds afterwards while trying to find the yummiest seasoning combination!
Traditions – handmade costumes, carving fun pumpkins, gingerbread haunted houses, decorating the house with handmade items.
…a hay ride, of course! And, home made family costumes that are as amazing to see as they are to assemble. Halloween is our favorite ho
My favorite thing is making cute costumes for my daughter. Last year I made the chicken costume from Martha Stewart. It was a huge hit!
I make homemade caramel apples and deliver them to friends. I look forward to it every year. YUM!
that’s so funny that you wrote about this as we just pulled out our martha halloween magazines to plan the 5 crafts we are going to make out of them! i want to do them all but i do have a job and kids! our traditions are pumpkins, 5 new crafts for decorating the house, decorated sugar cookies and we hand out the martha “witches broom” favours to our close friends. and i allow myself one bought decoration a year to add to my collection (with a $20 spending cap!) i saw this book the other day and pulled myself away desperately wanting to put it in my basket but didn’t for fear of going over budget…..wouldn’t it be grand if i won it instead? thanks for the chance!!!
How exciting! Our Halloween tradition is a warm bowl of homemade chili before trick-or-treating. We are getting the decorations out today — “Free Broom Rides” sign and pumpkin lights soon to festoon the front porch!
what? I’m going to die!
My favorite thing to do, since I move to the United States is carving the pumpkin! just love it!
We don really have Halloween pumpkins in Colombia. and now that I have my two boys is way more fun!
I love making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Yum!
My favorite halloween traditions include roasting pumpkin seeds (YUM!) after carving our pumpkins and making homemade costumes – that’s a craft in itself! Your childrens’ costumes are always amazing. Thanks for the inspiration! And what a fabulous giveaway!