The One with the Shrunken Apple Heads/Pin the Hat on the Skeleton/Pumpkin Fireplace

Early on in Fox's party planning I knew I wanted to make shrunken apple heads (these are pics of some from the internet):

On my intinerary of events and things to do I had written down to make these shrunken heads 5 days before the party. On a whim today I googled instructions and found out they need at least two weeks to dry! Uh oh! The party is two weeks from last Saturday! Luckily (or unluckily?) it's super hot and dry here still so hopefully that'll speed the process along. I used the tutorial found HERE and doubled the batch.

Here's what you need:

- large bowl

- apples (the bigger the better cuz they'll shrink significantly)

- 4 tbsp salt

- 1 lemon

- potato/apple/carrot peeler

- knife or sharp object to carve

- bamboo skewers

Fill the bowl with eight cups of cold water. Add the salt and squeeze half of a lemon into it. Stir until most of the salt is dissolved.

Peel the apple. The stem can stay or go, whatever you want. I took 95% of mine off.

Carve eyes and a mouth into the peeled apple.

Let the apple soak in the solution for at least 10 minutes - up to an hour if you live in a humid area. Spin and turn the apple so it gets good coverage. The salt takes out moisture and the lemon keeps the color consistent.

The tutorial I used says to hang the apple from a string, but I don't know how to do that, so I pierced mine onto bamboo skewers. Hopefully it's effective!

I plan to spin, rotate, and turn them every morning.

Clean up the mess.

FYI - don't put the apples in the sunlight or they might rot. Don't put them in moist areas like the kitchen or laundry room or they won't dry. If they're still not dry in time, put them in an oven on the lowest heat setting (under 200 degrees) and bake them for 3-6 hours until they look the way you want them to.

We'll see how they turn out! Keep you posted!

Time for more show and tell :)

Last night I whipped up a game for the kiddos to play at Fox's party - Pin the Hat on the Skeleton:

Thanks to a good ol' Cricut machine that cut everything out for me so alls I had to do was glue and do a li'l embellishing!

Aaaand, last but certainly not least, I got pumpkins to decorate and I don't want to put them out on the porch because people will (and have in the past) smash them. I saw this picture on Pinterest awhile ago and fell in love:

So here is our version in our own apartment:

It's beginning to look a lot like HALLOWEEN!