Haunted Graham Cracker Houses

Now don't get me wrong. We love ALL kinds of graham cracker houses in our family. Grahams +  frosting + candy is an all around winning combination, but these Haunted Graham Cracker Houses are especially fun and a great tribute to the season of tricks and treats. Chocolate Grahams and marshmallow ghosts make these tiny haunted houses both spooky and sweet. 

Mel's Kitchen Cafe has great graham cracker house assembly instructions here. Hot tip: burnt sugar "glue" is the BEST!

Tombstone Trophy Tutorial

I found these great tombstones in Bullseye's Playground at Target and immediately thought that they would make great (and easy) trophy's for the Annual Halloween Party and Chili Cook-off at my church. It's a really fun event - especially for children - with a costume contest, "trunk-or-treating" (trick-or-treating to various decorated car trunks), a pumpkin carving contest and a chili cook-off. Lots of opportunities to win a trophy! 

Last year, a friend and I made the awards together - and had a lot of fun doing it - but they were very labor-intensive. Since my bestie moved away, I came up with this far simpler idea that can be made in one evening! So, let's gather up some supplies and get crafting.

You'll need: tombstone figures (or another figure with a flat back), Halloween scrapbook paper (I used a 6 x 6 paper pad), foam brush, Mod Podge or glue (I used Mod Podge Matte), scissors, craft knife, chalkboard paper stickers, white Sakura jelly-roll pen. You may also want wax paper or a paper plate to protect your crafting surface and a cutting board or mat to go under your project when you're trimming with a craft knife.

Flip your paper over to the wrong side and trace around the tombstone. Cut it out just inside the line.

Using a paintbrush or foam brush, spread Mod Podge on the wrong side of the paper and the back of the tombstone. Stick them together, smoothing out any wrinkles or bubbles. 

Allow to dry for 10-15 minutes.

Place the tombstone on a cutting board and carefully trim any overhanging paper with a craft knife.

Fill out your chalkboard paper stickers and stick them to your trophy. 

Admire your work! 

"Home and Family" Party

There's something really wonderful about someone who marches to the beat of their own drummer and invites others to join in on the fun. That pretty much sums up Abby and her birthday party philosophy and I have to say that it's been pretty successful. Standard ratios of invites to attendees don't apply and her unique parties generally have a great turnout. Her friends are game for whatever the birthday girl wants to do and this year was no different!

Abby loves to watch Hallmark movies and she especially likes the Hallmark Channel's morning show, "Home & Family." So, for her birthday this year I planned the party to mirror the show format, complete with all of her favorite segments: crafts, pet adoption, health & beauty, gardening, fashion and baking. Here's how we pulled it off.

CRAFT SEGMENT

Upon arrival, her guests decorated gift bags as the "Home and Family" played in the background. It was the perfect sneak peek of what to expect for the next couple of hours. 

PET ADOPTION SEGMENT

Adopting a furry - or not so furry - friend is a big decision. To make it easier, Abby wrote "profiles" to help each Beanie Boo find their perfect forever home. We easily cleared this shelter.

 HEALTH & BEAUTY SEGMENT

For the health and beauty, the girls created sugar scrubs from granulated sugar, coconut oil, vanilla bean and vanilla extract. Then they jarred the scrubs and embellished them with fabric and ribbon.

 Pretty fabric rounds and coordinating ribbons made the scrubs positively gift-able.

GARDENING SEGMENT

Using succulent cuttings from Grandma's garden, a variety of stones and glass marbles, moss and cactus mix potting soil, the girls made these beautiful terrariums.

 FASHION SEGMENT

Keeping the fashion segment fun, the girls had a timed toilet paper fashion challenge. Using only rolls of toilet paper, they raced to complete their dresses before the time ran out.

 BAKING

Using store bought puff pastry sheets as a starting point, these cheese straws were impressive but easy to make and serve.

The party flew by so quickly. I can't wait to see what Abby comes up with next year!

Halloween 2017

Happy Halloween from a Pineapple, a Garden Gnome and the Coca-Cola Polar Bear! Every Halloween, the kids choose their own costumes and this year - for the first time ever - I ended up making all three. So, I thought I'd share how each one came together.

Abby really loves pineapples (and has the pineapple backpack to prove it) so I wasn't too surprised by her choice. Oliver thought the gnome costumes we came across online were funny and that was that.  He really got into the character and was making funny faces and shifty-eyes during his school's costume parade - hilarious! I'm pretty sure Evelyn's costume was inspired by her beloved bunny costume that she wore in preschool so I made her polar bear in a similar style. I think my sister-in-law, Julie, suggested the Coca-Cola aspect and Evelyn was smitten.

Oliver is wearing a red wool felt hat based off of an old (out of print) toddler pattern, Simplicity 2527. I enlarged and lengthened the pattern and lined it in a red broadcloth. Because white, child-sized gnome beards were surprisingly hard to find, I made this one out of faux fur and a thin elastic band. His shirt is purchased and I made his pants (essentially pajama pants with a faux fly) out of a brushed cotton herringbone from JOANN. The pants are tucked into a pair of navy Kamik Stomp rain boots.

To create Abby's "Pineapple Dress" I returned to a beloved pattern, Oliver + S' Playtime Dress (previously made here), and used Robert Kaufman's 21 Wale Corduroy Citrus to make it bright and sunny. The pineapple "crown" is made out of 2 colors of green craft foam, a cropped toilet paper roll, a green satin covered headband and hot glue. I cut three sizes of leaves and hot glued them to the toilet paper roll before glueing it all to the headband. Easy-peasy! Green striped tights and gold converse complete her costume.

Evelyn's snuggly polar bear costume starts with the Cozy Winter Hood from Oliver + S Little Things To Sew in white faux fur from JOANN. The fully-lined faux fur dress is a bubble hem play on the A-line First Day Dress from MADE. After failing to find a child-sized Coca-Cola scarf for Evelyn, I made my own. Her scarf is a six inch wide strip of red fleece, fringed on both ends. I carefully traced and cut the logo out of white knit and fused it to the scarf. Red striped tights and red Kamik rain boots complete her costume.

Cutest trick or treating crew! They were such good sports about putting on their costumes again over Thanksgiving break so that the wonderful Jessica could get photos of their costumes for me (outside of parties and costume parades). Love them so much I just might do it all again next year! 😉

Photography by Jessica Peterson

Once Upon an October

Trying on Oliver's Garden Gnome hat for fit. I cracked myself up and *may* have sent this pic to more than a couple of people.

I love October. I planned for October in August and September. I still felt like this 👆 in the thick of it. It was altogether too busy. This year was a war between things I needed to do to and things I wanted to do. I should have given up on at least half of the things I wanted to do, sticking to the "should do"s, but that idea seemed so depressing that I trudged on anyways. Yes, clean underwear and meals and schoolwork and kids' sporting events and church service are important, but the "should do"s tend to be pretty thankless and not very fulfilling in the short-term. 

So, I said yes to all the Halloween costumes, sewing, parties, crafting and playdate-hosting. Please let my kids remember at least some of the things that I'm most proud of that came out of October and forget a few of the pizza nights and the time-and-a-half that I cried. They LOVED their costumes this year so that should help!

The Halloween quilt that I started in September, fueled by a great Jo-Ann sale that filled me with quilting aspirations. I don't really know how to quilt and was surprised when I got to the step in my beginner pattern that said "quilt as desired." Glad I could phone a friend about that bombshell. If I knew that, I probably wouldn't have needed a beginner pattern. Oh well, hoping to finish by next year!

Spooky orbs for a craft exchange. I like to think they were a little cuter in person. Tutorial here.

Wendy's Annual Witches' Tea! I have really fun friends.

A grown-up Halloween Party sans kiddos! Nick went as Luigi and I was a Strawberry.

Darn you Pinterest for making me think that these crazy trophies were a party essential! My friend, Terra, and I created these for our church's Trunk-or-Treat Halloween Party. I think the adults liked the awards about as much as the kids. Really great tutorial (as in we pretty faithfully followed it with great results) on Make It & Love It and her inspiration on UCreate.