Halloween is coming up! If you’re getting the itch to make something kooky, spooky, or just a bit pumpkin-y, here’s a list of fifteen free Halloween crochet patterns for you!
Pygmy Puffs are Really Just Pompoms
It got cold the other day. Really, properly cold for the first time this fall. I was out shopping with Ivy, and in the transition from the car to the store there was enough time for the chilly wind to blow back her short little baby-hair while she spluttered and twisted her face and tried to hide from it.
She doesn’t have a hat, I realized. How ridiculous. We’ll have to fix this immediately.
While I was in the store I ran across some Lion Brand Heartland – it’s acrylic, but soft, with a nice heathered depth to the colors – and I picked some up. Here’s what I came up with.
The pink and purple made me think of Pygmy Puffs and I just rolled with it! I like it. It’s cute. But it’s a bit too big. When she tips her head back and behind her (you know, to see what’s on her head) it slides off. I tried it on my niece, though – she’s 18 months old – it fit just right. So I think I’ll have to make a smaller one for now.
Still – cute! Cute as can be! And guess what – I wrote up the pattern!
In fact, I wrote it up, resized it, and packaged it so if you are interested in making one of these hats for a newborn, baby, toddler, child or adult, you can purchase the pattern here!
A Harry Potter Birthday: Honeydukes
So, to conclude my long-winded series of posts about Charlie’s Harry Potter birthday party, we will be dealing with one of the most crucial elements: the food. Ask any kid who’s requested one and you’ll hear about Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. It’s inevitable. Here’s what we did.
Unlike Diagon Alley and Hogwarts, Honeydukes had a purple tablecloth to go along with its sign. We also used yellow tableware, to keep with the magical feel.
We made signs for all the food items – that’s half the fun, after all – using the free font Hogwarts Wizard.
We had Dragon Scales (chips) and Licorice Wands (Twizzlers in a tall, thin vase so they stood upright)…
a Forbidden Forest Fruit Tray so it wouldn’t ALL be junk food…
Double Chocolate Cauldron Cakes (chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and brown M&Ms on top, sprinkled with yellow decorating sugar “gold” and pipe cleaner handles) and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. [Sidenote here: they totally still sell Bertie Bott’s although they’ve renamed it Bean Boozled, but they are just massively, massively expensive for a party. Plus, I didn’t want gross jelly beans. Jelly Belly in general was just too expensive for me, but I found another brand just at Walmart called Gimbal’s that was much cheaper, but still had the wonderful variety of flavor that made eating them exciting for the kids.]
We also had Golden Snitch Donut Holes (I was going to do cake pops but decided to be realistic: just poke donut hole with a lollipop stick, dip in melted yellow candy melts, and skewer with wing-shapes cut from cardstock before the candy hardens. Easy and impressive!) and Butterbeer Candies. Any kind of butterscotch candy would do, I like these because of their plain yellow wrappers.
Finally, there were the Chocolate Frogs. I wish I had a better picture of these, but I don’t! We decided to make marshmallow filled ones, because we were using almond bark. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to each a solid chunk of almond bark…it’s not so good. There’s a tutorial here, we didn’t color the marshmallow creme green and I used a different mold than she did but they turned out SO AMAZINGLY! I loved them!
It was the first time I’d ever made molded chocolate, and it was SO easy and SO impressive and SO fun that I am dying to do some more. Maybe for Christmas, we’ll see.
Well! That was the party! It was a ton of work, but it was an absolute blast for us and for the kids, and what more can you ask than that?
Looking for more on the Harry Potter Party? Check out these links!
Harry Potter Party Invitations
Easy Owl Hand Puppets
How to Make Diagon Alley
Harry Potter Party – Hogwarts
Enjoy!