I Put a Spell On You | Tablescape + DIY

Halloween is my daughter's favorite holiday, so we collaborated to create a festive table. She baked the cupcakes and I decorated the table. We have very different styles, so it was fun to meld them together for this spell-bounding theme. The final look was a mixture of yummy sweets, edible treats, and super simple crafty feats.

Yummy Sweets

The cupcakes are, without a doubt, the star of this show. They were lovingly made from scratch by my daughter who is also the family baker. The chocolate and vanilla confections were topped with a variety of icings and sprinkles that tasted just as good as they looked.

Edible Treats

It's not trick-or-treat, but eats-and-treats for this table. My goal was to offer a variety of edible options to appease even the pickiest of taste buds.

Witches Brooms
I have no idea how much energy it takes to cast a spell, but I'm sure it's more than enough to warrant a snack made up of peanut butter cups and pretzel sticks. This tasty treat fit well with the theme and was a cinch to create. Most of the effort went into unwrapping the individual chocolate candies. The last step was to use candy melts to "glue" the pretzel sticks on the cups to creat the broom handle. Done and done.

Marshmallow Ghost Pops
Soooo, this treat is not exactly edible; at least not the version that I made. I started with lollipop sticks to add more height variance to the table and topped them with jumbo marshmallows. I then used candy melts to add plastic googly eyes, which made it strictly decorative. The food coloring gel that I used to draw in the mouth can also be used to draw the eyes, making it safe for eating.

Skittles Mix
The Skittles were an easy and inexpensive way to add a filler to the table. I emptied the bag of Skittles in a bowl, removed the red and yellow ones. What remained were the purple, green, and orange ones. They were divided between two smaller, clear bowls for display. To make them more visible, the bowls were placed on black candlesticks to lift them off the table.

Popcorn
You can't have the sweet, without the salty, which is how popcorn got a spot on the table. The clear popcorn buckets are from Dollar Tree. Yes, they cost only $1 each. I filled them with a bagged popcorn, added some ribbon, and called it done. I placed one bucket on a riser to balance the height and color of the Marshmallow Ghost Pops on the opposite side of the table.

Veggie Sticks + Dip
A girl can't live on sweets alone...or something like that. Having a savory element on the table helped to neutralize the over abudnance of sweets. Any veggies will work, but I chose celery and orange peppers to match the theme colors. Add a dallop of dressing to the bottom of the serving dish -- I had Caeser dressing on hand so that’s what I used. Top with fresh, cut veggies to create single servings.