SoCal Girl's Halloween 2014

As stated before, Halloween is one of my favoritest holidays. I love every aspect of it (except for the spiders and clowns, of course) from the costumes to the candy to the haunted houses/corn mazes. I know I've already blogged about Halloween Horror Nights, Halloween Harvest Festival, and random Halloween-y recipes, but I wanted to share my costumes for this year (yes, there was more than one) and pictures from all the crazy fun costume parties and costume-related work events we've had this month.

I think the best part was I didn't have to buy anything. The vampire costume was from my and M's middle school/high school days. The gypsy costume was a combination of various eclectic dance pieces and/or Indian jewelry. And the flapper costume is actually a black work-outfit and the headband and feather boa were purchased at Jo-Ann's last year.

The creativity involved with creating costumes is the best part. My costumes were super simple this year and not super creative, but so many of my friends and coworkers came up with some amazing ideas and did a great job bringing them to life. The attention to detail, the hours dedicated to make-up, and the originality of the ideas was insane and amazing. Can't wait to see what next year brings!

SoCal Girl Goes to the Halloween Harvest Festival

Two of my friends and I decided to go checkout the Halloween Harvest Festival at a nearby community college since none of us had ever been in a corn maze before and really wanted to experience the terror of being lost in the darkness, surrounded by nothing but corn rows (okay, that's kind of a lie - I wanted to experience the terror but didn't want to do it alone so I made them come with me).



Anyways, as I was looking for scary corn row mazes in Southern California (we don't exactly have a ton of farms lying around in LA so I was surprised we even had one), I came across this one at Pierce College, which was close enough and had great reviews. We went around 7:00 pm and ended up staying till 11:30, mostly because we were having so much fun but also because we may or may not have gotten lost in the corn maze for a while.







                             

The Halloween Harvest Festival at Pierce College has three different "scary" attractions and a regular old gigantic corn maze. We got the 3-Haunt Attraction Pass, which gave us access to Creatures of the Corn, The Factory of Nightmares, and Insane Reaction, and then bought a separate ticket just for the giant corn maze.

"Creatures of the Corn" was a mini corn-maze-themed attraction, where you walk through a path pre-carved through the corn rows while scary things jump out at you and follow you, cackling endlessly in your ear. For the last leg of the maze, we were chased out by a maniac with an electric chain saw, so that was fun.

Then we did the Factory of Nightmares, which was by far the scariest. At one point, you're surrounded by a thick fog and can't see anything, let alone the exit or anyone about to jump out at you. Last was Insane Reaction, which was essentially a maze inside of a mental asylum with mental patients out to get you.

We decided to take a short break before entering the giant corn maze and checked out the rest of the festival. There were a ton of kid-friendly activities and lots of pumpkins and hay stacks everywhere. Live music was playing in a corner and kids were running rampant, clutching frozen lemonades and hot dogs. We decided to get some funnel cake, and it was beyond delicious!

Around 10:00 pm, we headed into the corn maze, and were given a map, showing the 10 different points we were meant to reach and tick off. Within a few minutes of entering, we were completely surrounded by corn stalks on all sides and couldn't tell one direction from another. It was insanely cool and so much fun!

(The Map)

The Halloween Harvest Festival at Pierce College was so much fun and such a cool experience. I definitely want to go back again next year, and kidnap a little niece or nephew off mine to take along!

Recipe: Death by Chocolate & Creepy Crawler Cupcakes

So for the first of my fall food/dessert posts I chose to make Death by Chocolate and Creepy Crawler cupcakes. In all honestly, these cupcakes are super easy because I cheated all the away around. I bought boxed triple chocolate fudge cupcake mix, dark chocolate frosting, chocolate sprinkles and Twizzlers. Since I already had some left over candy eyes from my Minion cupcakes, I was all set to go. Just as an FYI, both cupcakes involve the same cupcake batter and frosting, the only difference is decorations. The end result turned out to be temptation in cupcake form. 

Death by Chocolate and Creepy Crawler Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

-1 box chocolate cake mix

-1 can of dark chocolate frosting (homemade frosting is even better)

-Chocolate sprinkles

-Snickers

-Red or Black Twizzlers

-Candy eyes

1.) Bake cupcakes according to the instructions on the box.

2.) For the "Creepy Crawler" cupcakes, frost the cupcakes after they have cooled completely. Sprinkle the top with chocolate sprinkles until completely covered. Put a dab of chocolate frosting on the back of each candy eye and stick it into place. Last, but not least, use a toothpick or wooden skewer to poke six holes (3/side) on your cupcake and gently insert the Twizzlers.

3.) For the "Death by Chocolate" cupcakes, grab a bunch of fun-size Snicker bars and cut each bar into 4-5 pieces. Give each cupcake a nice, thick layer of frosting, and then randomly arrange the snickers pieces on the top.







4.) Fill a ziplock baggie with 2 heaping tbsps of dark chocolate frosting, carefully cut off the tip, and pipe random designs over the Snickers. Easy as pie, and they look absolutely sinful.

                         

Enjoy!