Last-Minute Recipes for Halloween Cupcakes

Irwin Weiner ASID - We know you're scrambling to find a few easy-to-make goodies for your upcoming Halloween party this weekend, or in a few days when Halloween hits us in the middle of the week. (Don't you just hate it when that happens?) In the following video, you'll see how to make Tombstone or Graveyard Brownies.

This recipe comes from YouTuber Sara Parker, whose 31 Days of Halloween videos include many wonderful ideas for costumes and parties and decor and recipes to help celebrate the spooky side of our holiday. Here's her Tombstone Brownies recipe.

WHAT YOU NEED

Powder sugar
Green food coloring
Brownie, Ding Dongs, or Chocolate Sponge Cake
Grahahm Cracker or Shortbread Biscuit
Chocolate letters
Nutella
Plastic skeleton

HOW TO DO IT

1. Mix Sugar Powder and "Green" food coloring with a tiny bit of water or use green frosting/icing.
2. Use brownie or ding dongs or choclate cake as the base.
3. Use Graham Cracker or Shortbread Biscuit as tombstone, make edges a bit rounder.
4. Cut a gap for the tombstone in the brownie. Place the tombstone.
5. Write something on the tombstone e.g. name of the person you invited. I used premade chocolate letters and used nutella to glue them on. You can use a sugar powder to write on it, too.
6. Add the green sugar powder mix as grass. Let it dry.
7. Make a hole for your skeleton and place it in there. Leave some dirt around it. I cut off the legs of the plastic skeleton.
8. Enjoy!

In the next recipe, YouTuber and cupcake lover Tammy, alias Yoyomax12, gives us her take on a Broken Glass Cupcake. Watch the video, and then afterwards you'll see how she found this recipe and the process.

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Latest Contemporary Art Displayed at FIAC, Paris

Irwin Weiner ASID - While we were in Paris the weekend of FIAC, the International Contemporary Art Fair, we weren't keen to stand in long ticketholder lines at the Grand Palais and queue up to see an infinite number of art spaces. (A lame excuse; we probably were too late to get tickets.) Instead, we saw other exhibitions nearby, took in an art and design fair just outside FIAC - more on that in a future post, and saw an inflatable Stonehenge that we thought was a kiddie amusement feature (nope; even though everyone was bouncing around inside it, we learned later that it was an outdoor FIAC art installation). In today's featured video, you'll see some of the latest contemporary artwork. I'm not astounded, I must be honest.

There are "room installations" (a treehouse built in a corner gallery space, a disheveled bathroom scene), contemporary works in acrylic, photography (close-up on a body part or industrial and architectural), playful use of objects-as-art (car wash brushes, decaying grand pianos, faceted mirrors turning), and many works in neon and mixed media showing English language words and sayings (done to death; hopefully the trend is over with).

My favorite artwork in the video was a lenticular or video framed canvas (I couldn't tell which) of a man juggling; supremely clever and mesmerizing. The winner of FIAC 2012, however, was the sculpture shown in the top photo, a reclining tombstone figure called Diving Man by Daniel Dewar and Gregory Gicquel. Does this herald the death of contemporary art? (It really is a sculpture privately commissioned for a cemetery.) You be the judge.

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Home Decor Tip: Introduce Yourself to New Artists

Philippe Lardy, Life Forms, 2012Irwin Weiner ASID - You shouldn't be afraid to make new art friends! They won't bite. They come in peace. And they can add fresh oomph and much-needed juice into your home decor. I often say that interior design is not about turning your home into a museum. Just because you've already hung things on the wall doesn't mean they have to stay there forever (even museums change it up every so often).

Philippe Lardy, Oscillations 5 and 6, 2011

We just got back on Monday night from a week in Paris and was introduced to the work of an American illustrator Philippe Lardy whose works of fine art are represented by Galerie Menus Plaisirs. We admired the graphic forms and confidence in his work, but the point is to go out to galleries, look at online resources (even inexpensive ones that offer fine art like 20x200), and find something new for your walls. And you can always switch artwork back or move one or more items to walls in other rooms. Go wild. (Click on artwork for more information.)

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Great Idea for Recycling Plastic Dinnerware!

Irwin Weiner ASID - Don't you love it when people make something creative and clever? I thanked my lucky stars when I came across the following video featuring the collaboration between recycling artist Sayaka Ganz and kinetic sculptor Jim Merz.

These two creative and clever souls who recycled plastic dinnerware and created kinetic light sculptures, entitled Luminariales 2.

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