Open House this Saturday!!

Guess what....it's finally here! Open house for my studio is on Saturday, Dec. 7. Although I'm not completely finished (not sure if I ever will be), I am ready for y'all to visit! Saturday will be my first day open so you can come look around, have some snacks and shop or just visit & browse. My studio is located at 520 Thomas St., Scottsboro, AL 35768. If you are from out of town, after you leave here, you can visit Unclaimed Baggage just down the road from me. Below is a link to a map and you can get directions from there. When you turn on Thomas St. from Cedar Hill Drive, it will be the 3rd house on the left. If you turn off South St., after you pass High St., look for my studio on the left. It's painted green with a screened in porch, almost at the end of the street. Or if you still aren't sure how to get here, you can call, text or email me. After Saturday, I will be here most days, but just give me a call first to make sure I'll be here. If you will be making a trip just to visit my studio, be sure to call in advance so I can make plans to be here. Hope to see you Saturday!

Map: http://mapq.st/IoU5Qu

Contact Info: http://www.thecatspyjamas.com/contact.php

Party Planning

Our annual Halloween party is this weekend...I said I wasn't going to plan one so I could concentrate on my studio, but I couldn't resist! I tried to keep it simple, but today I'm going to Momma's to pick out a place for our haunted hayride. It won't be anything elaborate or too scary since we have several little ones. Just a little spooky (think glowing eyes and ghosts). Then I'll spend tomorrow making my food and cat ears and paws for my costume. I'm pretty excited about it now!

 

I haven't written about my kitties in a while. I think it's because moved my office to my studio and my camera stays over here. I used to always have it at home and take lots of pics, but now I use my phone and post a lot on instagram. all the kitties are doing well right now. I don't think I blogged about it, but we lost Mr. Spock earlier this year. He was 17 and we've had him with us most of his life, so it is hard to get used to not having him around. Now Strawberry is close to his age. He has all but 4 of his teeth pulled (not all at once..) and just recently he lost one (and I found it!!). So now he only has 3 teeth! Besides that he seems to be well and spends most of his time in my lap whenever I'm home. We have 3 others in the house. Sissy, Pumpkin (in the photo) and Hadley. Rusty is still in my studio and there are SEVEN that live outside. Luckily none have shown up to stay since we got Hadley a few years ago. There have been some that I took to the animal rescue and they found new homes. There were 2 stray tom cats that I wanted to get fixed, but I guess they moved on before I caught them. I even had the live trap out ready to catch them, but they haven't been back. Studio is so close to being ready to open. I have a few little things to get done outside and I've got my flower beds starting to get full. Mostly I need to get my stuff put away inside. It will be such a relief to finally be done. But that won't last long...we have to get back to remodeling our home after this is done!

 

 

Jack-be-Little

 

I love these little pumpkins! I always thought they were just for decorating, then one year I discovered you could eat them too. HOW FUN!

 

I just cut the tops off and clean out the seeds, there aren't many. (For a bonus, toss them in the compost and you might get a surprise next year. I usually get a few vines growing in my compost every year.)

 

Add some butter, a shake or two of salt, brown sugar, nuts and dried berries. My favorite to use are walnuts and cranberries. Put the top back on and bake about 45 minutes. They are the perfect single serve size. If you want to get really crazy, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream too!

 

Watch for these on sale after Halloween too...they will be really cheap and last a while.

 

The EASIEST Baked pumpkin

I was SO excited when I learned this trick....no need to cut open a pumpkin & get out all the seeds before baking! I just put a pie pumpkin in the oven and bake at about 350. I'm not sure how long, maybe an hour, but it will turn a dark orange like the photos when it's done and if you touch it, it will feel soft underneath the skin. Whatever you do, don't skip this step....be sure to let it cool before trying to cut it open! I tried right out of the oven once and it exploded. It went all over me (ouch), the walls, all over the floor. It was a huge mess.I lined my pan with aluminum foil too in case any leaks out. When it's done and COOL, you can scoop it out, mash it and use it in any recipe that calls for canned pumpkin. My favorite is to put a little butter, brown sugar and toasted walnuts on top with a pinch of salt, or sometimes just butter and salt. Pie pumpkins are my favorite pumpkins because they are a nice, round shape and they are cook to cook. I decorate with them, then bake them after Halloween. And if they are on sale, I pick up a few after Halloween.  They will last a good while in a cool place.

Halloween Party Ideas

 

Here are some pics from our party last year.....First are some monster cake balls. I just made some simple cake balls (bake cake, crumble, mix with icing, roll into balls), them iced them with bright colored icing. My favorites were the neon green ones! I used candy eyes I dound in the baking department and put the in little mini cupcake liners.

 

This platter has a mixture of bones and mummy pretzels. For the bones, I put a mini marshmallow on each end of a pretzel stick and dipped them in melted white chocolate. For the pretzel mummies, I drizzled melted white chocolate onto pretzels and added candy eyes before the chocolate cooled. The witch hand is something I found at Cracker Barrel on clearance one year!

 

 Closeup of our table--I drug out all my pumpkins, Orange & black Halloween serving dishes, etc. The skeleton head is one of my favorites, I use it to serve dip! I decorated with those black & orange wrapped peanut butter taffy candies. I put them in small ice cream dishes.

 

 

 This shelf held all our "fear factor" specimens. Everyone got to check everything out ahead of time and think about what they wanted to try.

 

These pics are making me excited about this year's party! Only a couple of weeks away, on October 19!!

 

 

Hocus Pocus!

Okay, I TRIED to blog everyday but failed on my second day! I started the blog but couldn't get my pics to upload, so I'm making up for it today. Last night we watched Cabin in the Woods and I made a pumpkin pie. The pie was yummy, the movie was just okay...

 

For our first night of celebrating Halloween, we watched one of my favorite movies, Hocus Pocus! I would love to recreate the costumes and go as one of the Sanderson Sisters one year, but I never plan ahead far enough. Besides, my nephew told me I need to quit dressing up like a witch every year, so I retired my hat for the last few years. Last year I was Bride of Frankenstein, the year before I was a scarecrow. I'm thinking this year I'll be a cat since I'm trying to scale back a little. My husband is playing music the night of our party, so I can't try to force him to dress up!! Last year he went as Napoleon Dynamite. We had an old mask with glasses and he had a "Vote for Pedro" t-shirt I found on clearance several years ago. I was already there when he came in and nobody knew who he was, including me, and I knew who he was dressing up like!

 

Every year we play "fear factor" at our party. Basically we just come up with food and name it gross stuff and make people eat it. We get everyone in a circle and draw a number for each person to see what they have to eat. Last year we changed it up and let each person choose what to eat and I think that was more fun because they all got to go check everything out. Even though I always tell them it's real food, some are really grossed out. My poor brother-in-law thought he'd be brave and play one year. His food was baby food (peas) and he looked pretty shocked when he tasted it. (Actually, I think he almost gagged!) To make it even worse, my sister had it on video and kept replaying it.... Another thing I did differently last year was make everything look like "specimens". I saw it on a blog somewhere, but can't remember where. I probably found it on pinterest! I took a few photos of our "specimens". I wish I'd taken pics of them all. I just saved up some old jars and painted the lids. On the computer I used an old typewriter font to make labels.  If you want to try this, just walk around your grocery store and use your imagination. Below are some of the things I made last year & what I really used. Some things didn't look like anything, but looked creepy, so I made them a "specimen of unknown origin" or something that sounds like it could come from a lab!

 

 

 

Teeth, unknown origin

 

I used water chestnuts and cut them into a vague tooth shape. I didn't get too detailed, just a rectangle and I left them in the juice from the can.

 

 

 

 

Stomach

These are artichoke hearts. I left them in the jar they came in, just painted the lid. I'm pretty sure there wasn't even a label on the jar.

 

 

 

Earthworms

I found a recipe online for earthworms using jello and some other stuff poured into a straw and chilled. I added some water and neon green food coloring to make them slimy and yucky. I wanted to fill the jar, but it was WAY too much work just for that little bit!

 

 

 

 

Eggs, origin unknown

pickled onions, also just removed the label & painted the lid, then added the label (plus they are pretty good to eat after the party!)

 

from Lake Expedition

In other words, I didn't know what this looked like. It's big pieces of onion slices boiled until transparent. I packed them pretty tightly and added the juice

 



unknown parasite, no. 4

I boiled some water and dropped eggs in strands into the boiling water to get this look. I added some chicken broth, I think, to get that cloudy look. I wanted it to look like it came from a lake  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sample from Roswell, NM

My favorite specimen!

I dropped beaten egg whites in tiny strands into boiling water, then put it into some clear water with neon green food coloring. Neon green food coloring was my friend last year!!

 

There are other things I didn't get pics of, or things we have done in the past. Here are a few ideas:

 

Gross colored baby food-- can be any kind of "fluids". We used peas as "zombie fluids"

Boiled cabbage can be anything unidentified, unspecified, etc. Add food coloring for different effects.

Bat's blood -- Karo syrup, red food color and grenadine, if you have it. It looks more realistic if it's thick & dark.

Dried fruit, like cranberries or blueberries can be some kind of bug or beetle

Lychee fruit -- I haven't been able to find any, but have seen people use them as eyeballs. If you can't find them, I have used a melon baller to make canned pears into balls, poke a hole in the middle and add a blueberry in the center. Drizzle a little of the "bat's blood" over them in a jar.

Red peaches -- one year I was cooking some for preserves and they really looked like some internal organ, so I stuck some in the freezer for our party!

Don't forget to check the candy section--they have all kinds of creepy candy around Halloween

And don't forget to have something not TOO yucky that the little ones will eat if there will be kids there.

Use your imagination--I would love to hear what you come up with!!

Countdown to Halloween...

Since I'm SO excited about fall and HALLOWEEN, I'm planning to blog of ideas, decorating projects, recipes, etc. for Fall or Halloween. Hope this gives you some ideas! I've been doing a Halloween party at my Mom's every year for a long time. But these pictures are of our first Halloween party at our house. It was in our basement and all the kids (and some grown ups) dressed up. I don't remember a whole lot about it, but I do remember my little brother was too scared of all the costumes, so he had to stay upstairs and I remember bobbing for apples. This was around 1979....looks like we drew some pictures on construction paper to decorate the walls.

Here's an easy fall recipe that I made last year. I just melted Kraft caramels to dip some granny smith apples in with a bamboo skewer as a handle. You could get creative with the handle--I've seen them done with sticks and that was really cute. You could add nuts, drizzle chocolate over them, add sprinkles, or what about some of those candy eyes? I like my caramel apples pretty plain though, it's one of my favorite fall treats and I just can't let myself pay $3 or $4 at the fair for one apple!!