Nightmare Before Christmas Bark

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. 


I've been on the hunt for silicone molds with shapes from The Nightmare Before Christmas for years. I haven't had any luck finding them yet (seriously Disney, you're missing out on a huge money making opportunity there. get with it!) but I did come across these plastic molds of Jack and Oogie on Etsy.

I've been wanting to make some Nightmare Before Christmas bark for Halloween this year, so I thought I'd give these molds a try. I much prefer working with silicone because I've never had great luck with plastic, but figured what the heck. Let's melt some chocolate and see what happens. If you follow me on my Instagram Stories, you got a sneak peek over the weekend.

I'm going to be honest here and say that working with these hard molds was a complete pain in the ass. While they are super cute and would probably work better using them as a bath bomb or working with polymer clay, melting chocolate in them was no easy task.

Jack was a little easier because the mold isn't so detailed, but I did the 4 Oogies pictured here and called it quits. The Oogie Boogie mold is very detailed and getting the chocolate to settle into the cracks was a tedious job. I had to keep slapping the mold onto the counter to get the candy to settle and to get the air bubbles out.

Removing the candy after it had set was a whole other challenge. I kept snapping the tips off of Oogies head, then had to take a lighter to the candy to melt it down to reset the pieces back together. I was beyond frustrated after making just 4.

If this looks like a candy craft you'd like to try, I'd suggest just sticking with the Jack mold. While a bit difficult to remove from the plastic, it went a lot better than the Oogie candies did.

However, even with all of the effort I put into the chocolate molds, I did like the final candy bark results. For Jack Skellington, since he's The Pumpkin King, I cut some jelly pumpkins in half to add to the bark, then dusted it with purple sprinkles.

For the Oogie Boogie candy bark, I used sour gummy worms and purple and green jimmies.

I do think this is a fun candy for your Halloween party or to gift to any Nightmare Before Christmas fan. If you don't mind the work, these molds are a suitable filler until Disney gets with the program and starts to make NBC silicone molds for us foodie and crafting fans.

If you liked this recipe, be sure to Pin It on Pinterest!

Here is a list of the products that I used to make this candy bark. These are affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to shop through, but if you do, I make a small commission to help continue running this blog.

Wilton Black Candy Melts
Wilton White Candy Melts
Sour Orange Pumpkin Jellies
Halloween Colored Jimmies
Trolli Sour Gummy Worms 

Do you watch Nightmare Before Christmas around Halloween-time? 

 

Oogie Boogie Pudding Cups

Last year I wanted to make some Oogie Boogie treat cups out of chocolate. You know the little chocolate bowls that you can make using a balloon dipped in candy melts? Yeah, well that didn't go so well. Apparently I didn't let the candy cool enough because the balloon popped, spraying melted candy all over my kitchen. Even a year later I am still finding dots of chocolate in the weirdest places. Second attempt only worked a little better. The balloons held up, but the chocolate went on too thin and dried all cracked and ugly looking. At that point I said to hell with it and moved on to making those Halloween shaped peanut butter buckeyes that were such a hit last year.

For me, it just isn't Halloween until we incorporate a new Nightmare Before Christmas craft into the mix, and while I did the glowing Jack pumpkin last year, this year I wanted to try my hand again at an edible that wasn't going to make a mess or cause frustration. Instead of messing with chocolates and molds, I decided to pull out my crafting vinyl and cut out Oogie Boogie's face. I then stuck the cutouts onto some glasses and filled them with green pistachio pudding and called it a success.

If pistachio pudding isn't your thing, you could always tint vanilla with some green coloring. And, if you prefer Jack Skellington over mean old Oogie, you could fill the cups with vanilla pudding and plaster on Jack's face instead. Or, do them both for a fun party mix.

Since Oogie is filled with all kinds of nasty critters, you could even mix in some gummy candy worms and bugs for an extra fun treat!

Using my Silhouette Cameo, this was a 5 minute craft. You certainly don't need a cutting machine though since there is very little detail, you could cut these by hand fairly quickly. I picked up my vinyl sheets at Michael's for under $2 each.

Also, if you are planning a Halloween party, you could pass out some homemade burlap Jack Skellington treat bags.

I made these about 2 years ago using some black burlap sacks that I found in Target's $1 spot. I cut out Jack's face with some silver glitter heat transfer, ironed it on, then boom. Another craft done in under 5 minutes.

If you have a Gordman's close to you, they usually have Nightmare Before Christmas socks for under $2 a pair that make great treat bag fillers and 5 Below usually has NBC pencils, nail polish and stickers that are great party favors too. Your guests will be delighted and probably start singing "What's this? What's this? I can't believe my eyes! Oh, I want it, oh I want it, oh I want it for my own"... Happy Halloween!

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Have you ever failed at a Pinterest or Facebook inspired craft or recipe?

Shine Bright Like Jack Skellington

 *This post contains affiliate links.

 

 I've mentioned a time or two how much I hate carving pumpkins, so each year I pull out the paints and other mixed media and get my craft on. I was browsing Pinterest for a little inspiration this year and came across the new trend of using glow-in-the-dark paints on pumpkins and thought, YES! What a brilliant idea! So, off I ran to Hobby Lobby to pick up a bottle.

This 8 ounce bottle ran $7 on sale, but you could get it for $6 on a week they don't have them marked down and you use one of the 40% coupons. If you don't have a Hobby Lobby close by, you can get Glow-in-the-Dark Paint on Amazon.

If you know me, you know that I love all things Nightmare Before Christmas. Seriously, it looks like Tim Burton stops by and barfs up all things NBC all over my house each Halloween. I've been wanting to do a Jack Skellington pumpkin for the past few years, but honestly thought it was a bit too trendy. I mean, just look at Pinterest and Facebook and I'm sure at least one of your friends has turned their white pumpkins into good old Jack in recent years. But, once I had that glow paint in my hands, I knew how I could get my Jack pumpkin fix and be a little original. Allow me to present this year's painted pumpkin:

Glowing Jack!

What you need for this project:

1 white pumpkin
glow-in-the-dark paint
Jack Skellington face cut out of black vinyl (affiliate)
craft brush
(primer- optional, but highly encouraged!)

I would definitely suggest prepping your pumpkin with a coat of primer. I didn't use it and ended up using a lot more of the glow paint than necessary to get the entire pumpkin covered properly.

Apply a thin layer of the glow paint to the pumpkin. Allow to dry. Repeat as necessary until you test the pumpkin in the dark and are satisfied with the results. (I used 5-6 coats of glow paint, but I think if I would have used primer, it would have been good with 2.)

I cut Jack's face on my Silhouette cameo, but if you don't have one, you can also use a craft knife to cut out the shapes. Or, you can print his face onto paper and use scissors to cut out the shapes to use as a template, then paint on the face with black craft paint.

Now, place Jack under a bright light for a few seconds, turn off the lights, then sit back and enjoy your project!

Did you carve or paint your pumpkins this year?

Jack Skellington Halloween Tree

I bought this tree a few years back with the intentions of finding some really cool ornaments for it. After browsing online and at our local stores, I came to to conclusion that the Halloween ornaments that are currently sold suck! I really wanted some cool Nightmare Before Christmas ornaments, and the ones that I found were awesome, but they were just too big for my little tree.

So, I decided to make my own. I bought some small white bulbs from the Christmas section at Michael's, grabbed a black sharpie marker, and thus, Jack Skellington bulbs were born.

Add a few purple and black mini bulbs, and now I am happy with my spooky tree.

 

Do you like the Nightmare Before Christmas? Did you make any Halloween crafts this year?