Halloween wrap up: Mummy cookies and the costume

Last weekend was sort of a blur.  We had Ben's birthday party (small, but an affair nonetheless), pumpkin carving, baking, and trick or treating on the agenda.

I made these cookies to give to neighbors and family members on our trick or treating route.  If they are going to dump a mountain of sweets at my house to tempt me for the week after Halloween, I figure I can return the favor.

Materials:

• Nutter Butter cookies
• Almond bark or chocolate melts
• Reese's Pieces baking bits--the little guys

First, I dunked the Nutter Butters in the melted chocolate.  (I tinted mine a light orange, but I have also made these with a sort of sickly looking green and that looked good too.)

Then I added Reese's Pieces eyes, using a little bit of melted chocolate for glue.

 

I dragged lines of white chocolate across the coated cookies to mummify them

 

  

and let them set up on the counter for about half an hour before packaging.

I used my Foodsaver to heat seal the cello bags that became their new home and added these little labels I found a couple of months ago. (Hobby Lobby?  I can't remember, sorry.)

Once the treats were ready, we turned our attention to getting costumed up to go out.

A couple of months ago, Ben announced his intent to be a Despicable Me Minion for Halloween--a one-eyed Minion, to be specific.  One of these guys, from the movie:

I looked around for the costumes that were available online and they left a lot to be desired, IMO.  So I decided to make one for him.

Now, when I sew things, I don't follow patterns.  I wave them off like I don't need them.  But the truth is, I can't make sense of them.  If I try to use patterns, I get frustrated and cranky and sometimes end up balling up all of the materials and dumping them in the trash in a fit of rage.  My strategy is generally to buy about three times as much fabric as something is supposed to take and feel fortunate if I can pull it together on the second or third try.  The whole process is very touch and go and I don't ever really know until I'm done if it will work out.  So in the back of my mind, I was prepared to go out last minute and find some other costume if needed.

Here is what we ended up with--not professional quality, but it definitely did the trick.  People seemed to know what Ben was supposed to be (ok, my brother thought he was supposed to be some sort of doctor, but in my defense, I don't think he has seen the movie!) and he loved it.  We had a great evening--the weather was perfect and Ben got quite a stash of candy to share.