Defying Gravity

Just because I'm in a book club doesn't mean I have 100 cats or wear a moo-moo. Book clubs CAN be fun and I happen to LOVE mine and everyone in it! We are "Back of The Book" and there are 10 of us and we all come from different walks of life and different personalities but we all mesh SO well and I look forward to hanging out with these gals once a month! Each meeting, we gather at one of our members house to eat, drink, talk a little gossip and a lot of laughter, oh and we talk about the previous months' book! Having said that, since I <3 Halloween, Wicked, and of course book club~ I wanted to host October's book club when we read......wait for it.....WICKED duh!

There's nothing more I love than a good "themed party"! And thanks to Pinterest, it made my "themed party" much easier! So, I took pictures of my materials, what I did, and how I did it. I really wanted to go ALLLL out...yellow brick road, full decorations all over my house and the whole nine yards but didn't have the time to dedicate to transforming my house into "Oz". Regardless...everyone dressed in "costume" (didn't have to be Wicked related) and we had a BLAST!

So, while this "decor" is not my typical decor style, I just had to put it up because it looked so WICKED! teehee

**Sidenote: The 3D hat on the witch scares Chris everytime he walks out the front door. I think I may leave it up till Halloween. <insert evil laugh here>

The only thing I was SURE of, was that I wanted to make these cupcakes for dessert!! Anyone that knows me knows I love to make cupcakes but I've not gotten to the point where I'm using "fondant" for cakes or decorating cupcakes...This tidbit will be useful in a second. I started with my cupcake batter. I wanted to make it a little more festive so good coloring it was!!

I also realized that I am NO true cupcake queen since I only have a cupcake baking dish that holds 6. Oh well. While one batch was cooking, I could be decorating the other batch! Ready for the oven...excuse me looking a mess after a long workday but I had to provide proof that I baked them myself!

While they were baking I decided to start on the "Wicked witch's legs" to be sticking out of the cake. I wanted to make them my own and as easy as possible so I got Licorice Twizzlers for the legs (blechhh I hate licorice). For the witch hat I got York Peppermint Patties and Hershey's Kisses, I used cupcake icing to stick the kiss to the patty to make the hat!

***CONFESSION***

As you know, I confessed to not using fondant. But, there was no candy I could think of that I could use to form the "ruby red slippers" for my cupcakes...So....yeah...I sure did.....I had to warn everyone

 DO NOT TO EAT THE SLIPPERS!

Non-edible slippers...but time to make the legs anyway!

Now, the first leg was done and a hundred more to go. Ok, so only 16. I did 8 wicked witch-cakes for my small party!

Ready for the final product?

To make the book club extra "Halloweenie" I wanted to make "Trick or Treat" bags for my friends along with "Special Goblets" to take home as a souvenir and a thank you for dressing in costume! We also had "Melted Witch Punch" :)

Once I got my book club stuff squared away, it was time to start working on my costume!! Since I was the hostess, I thought what better person to be than "Elphaba" (The Wicked Witch)! So, I got my entire costume from my mother's closet. It consisted of a long sleeved velvet floor length gown (she doesn't wear anymore) with a separate cape, a pair of black gloves with feathers around the wrist and the longest fake black fingernails you've ever seen glued to the fingers. The hat is the only thing that I bought and it was $2 at Walmart and the "hair" was attached to the hat! Oh, I lied, I bought a "witch kit" that consisted of a witch nose and chin. It was hard to get it to stay on but it just brought the entire costume together. My sister, Destanee, joined book club this month and she dressed as "Glinda" (The Good Witch)! 

Here are the rest of my book club buddies and their costumes!

Megan (Miss Mario), Sarah (Justin Bieber), Ashlie (Sookie Stackhouse), Sue (The Skipper), Kellie (Lurline~ Queen of the Fairies from Wicked), Me (Elphaba), Destanee (Glinda), Erin (Miss Martini), Tee (The Book Fairy)