Halloween Cupcakes and Nails

Disney was holding a "Haunt Your Disney Side" contest this October to win a midnight party at the Haunted Mansion in Disney World, and a one-night stay in Cinderella Castle!  The categories for entry were costumes, decorations, desserts and pumpkin carvings.  My entry didn't win, but I had fun making it!  I chose Mickey and Minnie Halloween Cupcakes, and this is how it went!

I started with some cute Halloween cupcake wrappers from Michaels:

Of course they weren't the foil kind so the oil bled through and the designs weren't very clear anymore. At least they were fun for me to look at while I baked!

I bought all the candy for decorating at Fuzziwig's--Jellybeans, sour candy tape, mini M&Ms, candy bones, and much more that I tried for ears, noses and eyes… but the candy I listed is all I ended up using!  Oh, and this TINY CONE with marshmallow that was just TOO CUTE not to buy… and I used it as a witch hat, as you'll see below :)  (Do you like my Frankenstein nails?  I have more Disney-ish nails at the end of this post!)

Now, if this were my cupcake blog, I'd go through many more steps with pictures, but it's more about the finished product here on my Disney blog, so here's Mickey (pre-vampire):

Oreo ears, mini M&Ms glued with frosting to vanilla jellybeans, a black licorice jellybean for his nose, sour candy tape cut into a tongue shape, and frosting.  There is no frosting around his face because the chocolate cupcake itself was the perfect color!

And here's Minnie, much the same except for her chocolate-sprinkles eyelashes (and pre-witch)!

Here is a side-view of Minnie (with her witch hat on) just to show you how funny it looked when it wasn't at just the right angle!

It was meticulous work making their faces--I used an offset spatula and vanilla frosting dyed to just the right color (some yellow, a teensy bit of red), and spread it on in the face shape.  As you can see, each "mouse" was actually 3 cupcakes.  So I didn't make more than the two I needed for my photo submission!  I made some fun Halloween-y "background" cupcakes with what frosting and sprinkles I had left:

So here it is, my submission for the "Haunt Your Disney Side" contest!  Like I said, I didn't win, but it was fun making this, and now I can put it in my scrapbook :)  Mickey has 2 little white-frosting fangs, a candy bone as his vampire bow tie, and sour candy tape as his vampire-cape collar!  Minnie has a frosted and sprinkled cone as her witch hat, with sour candy tape as the ribbon! 

And, as I promised, here is a picture of the nails I did for Halloween: poison apple nails!  All using nail polish and a dotting tool!  Hope you had a happily haunting Halloween!

Haunted Mansion!

Bah! This ride was never my favorite, but I enjoyed it a lot more this time. Mostly because of the new additions!
First of all, I kept reading that it was based on mansions from the Hudson River Valley, which is where we live! Of course, I haven't seen many buildings like this.

Above are the headstones you first see as you enter. I just read in the updated Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World Planner by Susan & Simon Veness (a very excellent book!) that this was a new addition circa 2011! I knew it looked new! So now you have the option of getting on the ride, or walking through this interactive area in the graveyard and then getting on the ride.




Obviously I liked this one a lot since I took 3 pictures of it. Haha.

Then of course there are the old standards--the silly headstones! I took a picture of this one for my brother, David.



This one was cool--the headstone is a bathtub and bubbles overflow out of it!





Working at a bookstore, this one felt close to home. It's a stone bookcase with some books sticking out. When you push them in, others pop out! My coworker said it sounded just like re-sorting books at our store!


The ride was fun, and the songs were hauntingly jolly! My favorite part was the end, when they turn your "Doom-buggy" to face the mirror. This was a new addition for me--I'm used to a projection of a ghost sitting in the buggy with me. This time there was a ghost sitting on top of our buggy who reached down to our faces which became ghost-like. He then pulled them and it looked like our faces were stretching! Then they disappeared in a poof. It was thrilling :)

Here is the pet cemetery on the way out:


The dog on the left is holding keys, I wonder if it's the one from Pirates of the Caribbean? My favorite, though, is the one way in the back.


It's Mr. Toad! I'd never seen that before! I remember going on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride back when I was a kid (and it was kind of scary for me!) and a few years ago it was replaced by the Winnie the Pooh ride. I guess this is to remember him by!