Runs on Coffee and Cream

Flannel shirts are a staple for fall, right? Especially oversized and super soft ones! I purchased one from Cakeworthy back in the spring and it is THE BEST. And now they've released an incredible line up of Halloween-inspired clothing, including flannels.

Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, The Haunted Mansion, and SO MUCH more!

Look at this Haunted Mansion Glow dress!

The entire collection is huge so I'm only sharing a handful of my favourites. Definitely check out Cakeworthy's entire Halloween line. 

Yes, I know it's still August, but I'm already in the fall and Halloween mood. The weather has cooled a bit, Pumpkin Spice Lattes arrive this week at Starbucks, and Homesense is full of fall decor. I can feel my body relaxing as I slowly turn into my cozy basic self. 

Costumes are slowly arriving in stores and Halloween t-shirts and pajamas are popping up too. There are some really cute shirts available for the whole family - from subtle prints to large graphics. 

Before winter is 'officially' here and we get caught up in Christmas, I thought I'd share a bit about our fall. It was a whirlwind full of colds, adjusting to a school routine, a wedding and all things pumpkin!

Fall is upon us! Pumpkin everything is everywhere and Halloween decorations are popping up. I recently received an email from Davids Tea about their new collection and I'm in LOVE. 

Emma is obsessed with books. We started a library for her before she was even born and we've added a ton of books since. Within her collection of books, we've acquired some seasonal books. One of her absolute favourites is a Halloween flip book - Halloween is Here! So I thought it might be great to share some book recommendations in case other parents are looking for some non-candy Halloween gift ideas.

Halloween weekend was fun since we had a costume party to attend. We're so bad coming up with costume ideas. We always have been. Our problem is we don't like spending a ton of money and we also don't have a lot of free time to make or come up with cheaper ideas. But after some brainstorming we both came up with some fairly easy costumes.

After realizing I could wear my own glasses with a Where's Waldo costume, I went on a hunt for a striped shirt. Surprisingly I found one quickly and on sale. So that was me done. Adam decided to be Ash (from Evil Dead) without the chainsaw hand. Though I insisted he find a Boomstick which we found at a dollar store. I'm happy with how easily our costumes came together. They weren't super original or completely authentic, but I think they're pretty darn good considering how much time and money we spent on them.



Our yearly Halloween tradition is to carve pumpkins which we did Sunday night after watching the original Halloween movie. Adam picked a super complicated design but it was worth it. Bowser looks amazing. Mine is a little more basic considering I needed some help with the carving and used my left hand when I could.


I'm a little sad the fall season is over here. Leaves are gone from the trees, pumpkin decorations are on clearance, and the chance of snow is high. But that also means I'm allowed to embrace the Christmas season fully.... so I apologize in advance if you follow me on any social media. Be prepared for Christmas everything!

xo Jen

Happy Halloween!

Instead of spacing out my Halloween baking this month I ended up cramming it all in last week. My carpal tunnel has flared up horribly over the last month and it's become depressing. I have things I want to bake and decorate but the idea of waking up every hour at night because of my throbbing hand discourages me. I try to baby it at home since I know work and sewing takes a toll on my wrist and hand.

So I did all my baking last week when I had Adam around. He became my muscle to help me mix dough and break apart candy bark. This means I now have a refrigerator and freezer full of goodies. It's a good thing we had company up this past weekend and a party to attend to share some of our treats.

Every year Adam requests these molded sugar cookies. The recipe calls for almond extract and it makes the cookies really good.

We made cake mix cookies and rolled them in coloured sugar for a Halloween party we were going to. It gave me a reason to pull out my edible eyeball decorations to make them Monster Cookies.

Of course I had to make a chocolate candy bark. I needed a reason to buy a mix of Halloween candies at Bulk Barn.

Did you make any fun Halloween treats this year? I plan on loading up my lunch box with some of these today since I will be spending Halloween evening at work.

xo Jen

It's the weekend before Halloween! Time for pumpkins, mini candy bars, and dressing up!

To celebrate this holiday, I put together some of my favourite Halloween things right now:


Clockwise from top left:
1. Spell on Wheels - a new comic book series that just sounds absolutely fantastic. It's described as "Supernatural meets Buffy and The Craft".
2. Dark Night Leggings - I think this pattern from Sweet Legs is gorgeous and would be perfect to wear with a witch costume and then with every dress I own.
3. Haunted Castle Mug - Davids Tea released a great Halloween collection this year and I'm so loving the Haunted Castle mug and travel mug.
4. Current Mood: Halloween Pullover - As usual Look Human has some fun Halloween-inspired designs which are perfect for this time of year. I would definitely wear this sweater throughout October.

What tops your favourite Halloween things now?
xo Jen

October is easily one of my favourite months out of the year. It means fall is in full-swing, the weather has cooled off, the trees are gorgeous colours, and two great holidays are during the month: Thanksgiving and Halloween.

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I'm realizing the next major holiday (Christmas... shhhh...) is starting to creep into stores and in my mind. But I really, really want to enjoy October before getting into the next holiday. To do this I'm making a small to do list to get outside and enjoy all the best things about October.

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October To Do List:

• make all the pumpkin goodies (cookies, cake, loaves)
• go for a few walks; walks downtown, along the boardwalk, and a hike in the conservation area
• eat pumpkin pie and drink pumpkin spice lattes all month long
• carve pumpkins
• watch horror movies to get in the Halloween spirit
• have a bonfire

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Why Logan's tongue is sticking out a bit is beyond me. But it's cute.


My Halloween kitties! They were pretty interested in the pumpkins.


On Friday, IGGPPC hosted a 24 hour Halloween party so I made and shared a DIY Halloween Candy Bark recipe on the site. You can check it out here.


While handing out candy Halloween evening, I made sure to play some Animal Crossing New Leaf so I could scare people and collect candy in my town. It was fun and I absolutely love how the game incorporates holidays into town events.

Happy Halloween! I don't have much planned for Halloween. I'll be handing out candy to trick or treaters this evening while I watch Hocus Pocus and play Animal Crossing. Fun, right? Then I have a date with Adam, some horror movies, and leftover Halloween candy later tonight. I'm actually looking forward to my Halloween night.

Now, if I was feeling the motivation to dress up tonight or even to find an everyday cosplay look, Ms Marvel aka Kamala Khan would be one of my top picks to dress up as.

Halloween is around the corner and I'm getting into the Halloween mood! Between TV shows, video games, movies, and activities, Halloween is everywhere.

I know it's a day late, but Happy Halloween! I hope you had a great day. It was an interesting day here because we had our first snowfall of the season. I woke up early to be at work for 6 a.m. yesterday morning and there was already quite a bit of snow accumulation but it just kept snowing. By the time I got home from work me and Adam had to shovel our driveway and walkway so children could get to our front door. 

So Halloween is only a couple days away. I'm pretty excited to watch some Halloween movies, hand out candy to the neighbourhood kids, and eat some treats myself. This year we won't be going to a party but that doesn't mean I haven't been eyeing up Halloween recipes and decorations online. Also, I really want a spiderweb dress! It'd be the perfect hostess dress at a Halloween dinner or for an intimate, small party at a house.

If I were to host a Halloween party, these are a few things I'd like to include...

Halloween is 3 weeks away! I can't say I personally have much planned. But, there is a lot going on over at IGGPPC. We have a 4 day Halloween party planned! There's contests, movie watch-a-longs, party food tutorials, scavenger hunts and more. I'm pretty excited for this.

Back in August when we had Summer Camp, I was also balancing getting ready for Fan Expo so I was swamped. But this time, I'll be able to enjoy more of the activities we have planned. I should hopefully be participating in another bake-a-long and hosting the Beetlejuice movie watch-a-long!


Round 18 will be opening on October 15th this month which also has a Halloween theme. This would be a fun round to sign up for a pen pal since there's so many Halloween goodies out there you could include in your parcel.

During the week leading up to Halloween we made a point of buying some Halloween candies, watched some horror movies, and carved a pumpkin. I made up a quick batch of lemon cookies with black sugar sprinkles that week as well. Halloween day and night was really gloomy here. It rained all day and the fog was thick. On the weekend we did attend a Halloween party which was last minute because of changes in our work schedules. We came up with some quick and easy costumes. Overall, I'd say our first Halloween in Sudbury was a success!

Treats





Our pumpkin




Our costumes




I clearly based my costume on Logan... and Adam was Rick Grimes minus the beard and gun.


Did you have a fun Halloween?
xo Jen

A while back I bought a bunch of Halloween and Autumn themed sprinkles to use in my baking. So when I decided to bake some mint chocolate chip cookies, I figured I'd add some sprinkles to spruce them up and make them more holiday-appropriate. I'm so in love with the Monster sprinkles! The colours work perfectly together and definitely give the cookies a Halloween-look to them.





Last weekend was my Nan's 70th birthday so we had a big party for her and I made up some double chocolate cupcakes for the party. The chocolate buttercream turned out so perfectly! I have quite a bit of leftovers so I'll be using it in a recipe next week. I had some basic colourful quins in my sprinkle collection that I decided to use and I think they were the perfect choice with the chocolate cupcakes.




It seems crazy that it's November already and my mind is already turning to Christmas baking now... peppermint flavour, shortbread cookies, gingerbread...

I feel very inspired lately with baking. I'm finding amazing recipes everywhere and I have the urge to try them all! Just this week alone, I've received magazines with cupcakes and other goodies in them that I MUST try!

Caramel gingerbread cupcakes and mini mocha cheesecakes... *drool*



Have you baked anything super yummy lately?
xo Jen