Pumpkin!

Ever wondered how to make pumpkin puree?
No?
Tough, because I'm going to tell you.

First, you take a pumpkin (insert gasp).
Remember the tiny butternut pumpkin I was super proud of? Well, he's going to be my victim for this demonstration.

Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F).
Cut the pumpkin in half, and scoop out its guts the gooey and stringy stuff.
(Only three tiny seeds in my tiny pumpkin)

Now put your pumpkin halves cut side down onto a baking tray. (You can omit the parchment paper)

Bake until the skin is wrinkly. Now stab the pumpkin! If it still moves, put it back in the oven. If the knife goes in easily, it's ready.

Let the pumpkin cool. Then flay that poor sucker. You should be able to easily pull off the skin.

Use either an immersion blender or food processor to make the puree. And now you're done! If you're not using the puree any time soon, just pour it into a zip lock bag and freeze.

Tip: You can put the pumpkin puree onto some cheesecloth and squeeze out the excess water. I never do though /shrug

Thank you, my dear tiny pumpkin, you were delicious!

It's Halloween-lo-ween, everybody!

Well...not quite yet.
But I'm currently working on our Halloween props!

My sister wants to be a vampire on the beach for this year's Halloween (I will hopefully be a pumpkin person in a vintage bathing suit), so we decided to adapt our props to a beach theme.
I'm working on a witch doctor, who will be dancing on a sand grave, and thought I'd show you how I made the Tiki mask.
Hopefully someone will find this little tutorial useful and make lots and lots of masks 8D

You will need:
a (thin) insulation foam sheet
a Stanley knife (or any other knife that will cut through foam)
a pencil
(wood/white) glue
acrylic paints
a brush

Start by cutting out the shape you want the mask to have. It doesn't need to be perfect, since you will be cutting into the edges anyway.
Take your pencil, and draw 3, or more, straight lines. This will make the mask look like it's made of boards of wood instead of one whole piece. Remember to press down with your pencil, so it will leave an impression. Make these lines especially thick.
Now draw lines and squiggles all over the mask, but remember to always stop at the straight lines, since that's where the 'board' would end.
Decide where you want the eyes to be, and cut them out. Then cut out eyebrows, a nose, lips and teeth, if you want.
Distress your 'wood' a bit, by cutting into the edges, especially where your 'boards' meet. You can also take any object (I used the blunt side of a knife) and hit your foam with it. Yes, you will be a foam abuser, but it will be worth it.
Before you glue the features on, try the glue on a piece of scrap foam, to see if the glue melts the foam. I used wood glue, which takes ages to dry, but keeps the foam intact.

After the glue has dried, take your acrylic paint and give your mask a base coat. It doesn't matter if the surface doesn't look perfect, just try to get the paint into all those grooves.

 After the paint has dried, take a light brown acrylic, and paint the mask. Try painting big spaces with only a little colour, and try not to get all the paint into the lines. Also, when you paint, use long brush strokes, starting from the top, going down (or vice versa).

You can stop at the previous step, or you can add some colour, like I did. Just do it like you did with the brown paint, a tiny bit of colour for a big space.

And that would be my first tutorial! Yay!
Hoped it helped!