Host Halloween at home with @arangoirene

Our Halloween theme this year is black and white, with some accent colours - quite minimalistic. Ariana is wearing a lovely white swan costume by Dress up by Design and to make it fit the theme and match the festivities, we combined it with Mayoral black leggings and a turtleneck top. Her makeup imitated the look of the main character of Black Swan, the movie. I think she looks pretty cool!

Oliver wore an amazing dragon costume by Dress up by Design, and he also wore black Mayoral clothing to match the theme. I did his makeup trying to imitate scales on his face in both red and blue to match the colours of the dragon costume. I used a net from the supermarket - the ones you get filled with oranges or lemons -  to make the scale pattern on his face. He absolutely loved how he looked!

Once the costumes were sorted we started with pumpkin painting. This is my favourite activity to do with younger kids because its much safer than carving and a lot easier for them to do on their own. You will need:

- Pumpkins (any size)
- Your preferred paint colours (we used chalky white and black paint) 
- Paint brushes
- A container with water for the dirty brushes
- A cloth for cleaning hands 

Ariana and Oliver decided they wanted to make one pumpkin of each colour and one mixing both colours so they went for stripes. I simply marked the pumpkin lines with a permanent pen, dividing where the different colour lines would go and alternating black and white. They painted the pumpkins by themselves although it is messy, so make sure you cover your table with paper or oil cloth and preferably use a water-based paint as it washes off easily. 

We then let the pumpkins dry and then we finished decorating one of them with the "BOO!" message. You can also do dots of different colours on top once the base paint has dried or do more elaborate designs. This part is where you can get creative so go ahead and experiment! Once they dry, they are ready to place anywhere for decoration, but bear in mind the rain will ruin the designs, so preferably indoors or under cover.

Because one of Ariana’s favourite treats is meringues and the white colour matches our theme, we chose them as our treats. Meringues make amazing ghosts by just adding some eyes and making sure the shape vaguely resembles a ghost when you pipe them. So that was what we did after. We have included our delicious vegan recipe below.

- YOU WILL NEED - 
- ½ cup of aquafaba - this is the gooey liquid you get from canned chickpeas
   if you strain the liquid into a cup
- ½ cup icing sugar
- ½ tsp cream of tartar
- An electric whisk
- 1 x piping bag
- Confectionary eyes (these can be bought from most craft and baking shops) 
- Edible glue
 

- METHOD  - 
- Heat your oven to 90-100°C
- In a bowl, place the aquafaba and whisk it until it makes soft peaks. If you lift
   the whisk, the mixture should raise and almost stay up.
   Start adding the icing sugar a spoonful at a time and keep whisking until the
   peaks stand tall when you raise the whisk. The good thing about vegan
   meringues is that you cannot over mix the ingredients like with traditional
   meringues, so don’t be worried to keep mixing until you are sure.
- Once ready, transfer the mixture into the piping bag and start making the ghost
   shapes. I usually make one thicker and wider base and then I add a second
   smaller dollop on top of it to resemble the head.
- Once you have all your ghost shapes ready, put them in the oven and cook for
   1 hour.
- Let them cool down and add the confectionary eyes using the edible glue!

I hope you enjoy making these crafts with your children. Mine absolutely loved them and I am sure they will make me repeat them every year - at least I hope they do because I had lots of fun today- quality time with the kids, making awesome memories.

Follow Irene, Ariana & Oliver | Instagram