Starbucks drink & barista costume for Amelie & Faith

This year, Amelie and her cousin, Faith, had a rather interesting idea for their Halloween costumes.

Amelie wanted to be a Starbucks drink.
Faith wanted to be a barista.

I was able to make a cup with white felt. 

To add some structure for the rim, I used 1/4" PVC tubing I bought from Home Depot.

Believe me, I wasn't the only one looking for costume ingredients that day.

I saw a lotta dads with their kids on the search for bits and pieces to make costumes.

I used iron on transfer paper to make the logos.

I even misspelled Amelie's name as many baristas tend to do!

For the hat, I used three yards of white tulle sewed onto a felt helmet type hat.

The straw is made with a cardboard tube from wrapping paper covered with green construction paper.

It is secured in place with a lot of hot glue.

Faith's barista costume was easy peasy!

I bought a green visor and apron on Amazon.com for under $10.

Again, I used iron on transfer paper to make the logos.

They look ready for their school's Halloween party, right?

I'll be spending this Halloween giving out candy to the kids in my building. 

I've never done it before! 

So I prepared and bought a big big bag of candy and proceeded to sort the poisonous from the nonpoisonous.

("Poisonous" = for Gina to consume) 

H A P P Y  H A L L O W E E N !

Peanut Butter Ice Cream.

I made peanut butter ice cream!
This is the recipe I used, however, I used 1 cup milk.
I had also bought a king size Reese's peanut butter cup when I was PMS-ing a few weeks ago. 
I never ate it so they were chopped up and stirred into the ice cream mixture.

It turned out delicious!

Wild blueberry scones.

Helen's mom picked these wild blueberries while on a hiking trip. 
"Give these to Gina," she told Helen, "She'll know what to do with them."

Eh... okay.

What to do... what to do...
I had bought clotted cream on a whim the other day.
Might as well make some wild blueberry scones!

I used Ina Garten's recipe as a basis.
They look pretty good!
I'm about ready for some tea.

Toy donuts for Clementine.

 For some reason, I was itching to make felt donuts.

There are so many cute ones on Pinterest!

So what do I do now that I've made half a dozen toy donuts?

I certainly can't keep them for myself so I'm giving them to a little someone across the pond who I'm sure will play with them well!

These were so fun to make.

Perhaps I'll move on to make other pastries?

Nah~ I have too many half finished projects to complete first.

Green Tea Ice Cream

Last year, I tried to make green tea ice cream. It didn't turn out that great because it was more icy, less creamy. This time, I tried to make the texture better and added dark chocolate bits. I used this green tea ice cream recipe, except added more heavy cream to get the texture more creamy and soft. Green tea is bitter so I also made brownies to accompany the ice cream.