Click through a gallery of creative Halloween decorations by Sunset readers, including these impressive carved pumpkin headstones by Jacquie Walton of Rio Del Mar, CA. See more of her designs and others from around the West. Have your own handmade Halloween project? Send us a photo!
Get the step-by-step to dozens more pumpkin designs, decorations, and Halloween parties on Sunset.com now.
By Sheila Schmitz, Sunset online editor
Our hats are off to Lori Graham of West Seattle, WA, for sharing this idea for a perfectly Halloweeny (and nicely green) patio planter:
"These are my pumpkin flower baskets," she writes. "Once I'm done enjoying them on the patio I plant the entire pumpkin in my flower bed. By springtime I have great compost, and depending on the flower/plant I use, it keeps growing!"
Have a great Halloween decorating photo of your own? Send it to us! And check back all month for more clever ideas from your fellow Sunsetters.
Readers Paul and Barbara Bludsworth have pulled their first sizzling-hot pizzas from their homemade backyard adobe oven they wrote about last week. Here's Barbara's latest report:
"Our first try a week ago was not a success, we did not build a big enough
fire...SO yesterday (Sunday) we built a big blazing fire!
"My husband tended the fire while I made the pizza dough and the bread dough,
I think he was really enjoying himself. It's almost like camping.
"After about 3 hours we removed the ash and remaining wood that was burning,
closed the chimney (with a can over the stove pipe) and put the door on. I
brought out the first pizza on the pizza peel...and slid it in...it only
took 2-3 minutes to cook! It was super fast.
"The crust came out nice and crispy and the insides were soft and
tender—perfect! The second pizza took a little bit longer to cook, it also
had more toppings (we did lose a few of the toppings due to not enough corn
meal on the pizza peel, so it didn't slide off as well as it should—live &
learn) As the oven cooled down a bit, I added two loaves of french bread.
They took about 20 minutes or so and came out great!
"Next time I will be better prepared: I will have a chicken to bake after the
bread. We are so pleased (and a bit amazed) that the thing really works so well!"
— Paul & Barbara, adobe oven builders :)
Reader Barbara Bludsworth of Woodland, CA, wrote today to let us know she and her husband Paul are nearly finished building their own version of the Sunset backyard adobe oven. The final coat of homemade adobe is curing now, and they hope to fire it up for summer pizzas soon.
Barbara writes:
"This idea was sparked by a friend that sent me a link to your site. He wanted to show me the plans to make the bee houses, as I was surfing the site I came across the adobe oven plans. Wowiee. I just knew I needed one of those!
"I shared the plan with my husband and he was all for it. Our main problem was we have loam soil...and did not know where to get adobe. After many hours of research and doing lots of the jar tests on soil, we came across "fire clay" at the local home improvement store. Since adobe is 70% sand and 30% clay, we figured why can't we make our own adobe? Doing the jar test with "our" homemade adobe came out perfect, so we figured what the heck, let’s go for it, we figure if it doesn't work, we can tear off the top part and start over. (I am so hoping that it works. lol)
"My husband had a weeks vacation so it was the perfect time to give it a go. We have lots of fun doing "projects" and this one was no different, it was messy and tiring but we are very happy with the results (so far). Click here for more photos.
"We did make a few changes to the original plans: We didn't want the oven door to be only 12" off the ground, that seemed like it would be to hard to use (we are not spring chickens anymore). So we added 2 extra courses of cinder blocks (with soil tamped inside all the cavities for added mass) and we only put adobe on the top part so we could add faux river rocks to the base. We are hoping it will all work and we will be eating yummy pizzas and breads very soon!"
RSS
