Monday, October 29, 2012

Halloween party!


We hosted a little Halloween party here this afternoon. I planned almost everything from ideas that I had seen on Pinterest.

I made banana chocolate chip muffins and used these cupcakes toppers that I had picked up last year from Winners. (Made by Wilton) Want the recipe? I used my Best Banana Muffins Ever recipe found here.

I love these stickers that Claire and I stuck to the bottom of these Hershey's Kisses. Is anyone else excited that they changed the formula for the kisses? I think they are delicious now! I found the printable here.


I baked sugar cookies on popsicle sticks and decorated them to look (sort of like) mummies. These were a big hit with the kids, I mean come on, cookies on sticks?! That's where it's at.


I put a bit of floral foam in the bottom of these containers that I picked up at Dollarama to hold the cookies.


 Sticking with the mummy theme, I wrapped up a few juice packs using white electrical tape and googly eyes. I also decorated cookies that had been cut with a gingerbread cookie cutter to look like mummies. I used M&M's for the eyes.

 One of my favorite things that I made was this banner. I used my cricut to make it. I cut 5" circles out of black cardstock, and then cut all of the letters on white paper, using my Opposites Attract cartridge.


I've seen a few variations of this on Pinterest. I didn't want to have to cut everything by hand, so I cut the only shapes that I could find on Cricut cartridges. Luckily, my friend Sylvia, had a few cartridges that I could borrow.  I taped all of the black paper to some fishing line and hung them up between the two posts.


 A while ago, I placed another order from Bargain Balloons. I went in on an order with a friend so that we could split the flat shipping rate. I just love the selection of balloons, and you cannot beat their prices. (That is not an affiliate link. Bargain Balloons don't know who I am, I just love their site!)



  My last bit from the party was another printable that I found on Pinterest. (Seriously, where did I come up with ideas before Pinterest?) The tags say "A bit of light for Halloween night." I found this printable here.


Claire was dressed up like a horse. (Lucky find this summer while my sister and I were yardsaling!)

Simon was dressed up as Super Simon, cute kid by day, and superhero by night!

Monday, October 8, 2012

spider thumbprints


We made a lot of Halloween thumbprint crafts last year, but this one is a little different than those ones. Obviously, we started with a piece of cardstock, and Claire stamped her thumb a few times. Once the paint was dry, she drew eight (ish) legs on the spiders and added small googly eyes. Then I cut some of my bakers twine to act as the sipder's webby stuff. I stapled the twine at the top of the page, and secured it at the top of the spider with a small spot of glue. I cut out a purple piece of cardstock, and then a slightly smaller piece of orange paper for the flag. Claire wrote the word 'eek' on the paper, and I used double sided tape to attach it to the finished product. These would make really cute Halloween cards.



Monday, October 1, 2012

toilet paper stamped pumpkins

 This was one of Claire's favorite crafts. Simon enjoyed it too. He loved stamping the pumpkins on the paper, but not as much as he loved painting his little hands and smearing them all over the paper!

Save your next toilet paper roll, because that's what you'll need to stamp the pumpkins! When I first saw Michelle's post about using a toilet roll to stamp hearts, I thought that it was a great idea. The paper rolls are so easy for the kids to hold and use. Simon is 2, and he was able to stamp these with no problem. I gave the kids a couple of sheets of white paper and had them stamp lots of orange circles on the paper. (I just poured some orange paint on a piece of tin foil.) Once all of the stamped circles are dry, have a child draw the stems on the pumpkins. 

Materials needed:
paper (I used cardstock)
orange paint
green & black crayon/marker
googly eyes
orange tissue paper
orange sparkly paint (or glitter if you like cleaning up the glitter mess)

Of course, the best part of my list above is that you can just use what you have on hand. No tissue paper? Don't make those pumpkins.

For the sparkly paint pumpkin, I mixed some white glitter paint with the orange paint. I had planned to use glitter, but then I remembered how much I hate cleaning up glitter messes. This was perfect, Claire loved the glittery paint. 

For the tissue paper pumpkin, I cut out squares of tissue paper for Claire. No need to be exact cutting these, just cut them 1inch-ish by 1 inch-ish. Claire crumpled them into balls, and then glued them on her pumpkins. 

For the last two pumpkins, Claire drew the faces on the pumpkins. On some of the pumpkins she glued on googly eyes, and the others she drew triangle eyes. She had a great time drawing scary, happy and surprised faces. 



How's that for a festive Halloween craft? Break out the toilet paper rolls, and show me what you've made with them!