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!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

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.

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

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!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff & Just Winging It &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

Hallowen symmetry blob monsters!

Here's a wonderfully simple painting project to kick off the fall season. 

 You make these like you make any other symmetry painting. Fold the paper in half. Claire used a sponge paintbrush to dab the paint on one half of the page. Then she folded the paper in half and rubbed the pages together.

 When the paint was dry, we sat down to decorate our blob monsters. Claire glued on as many googly eyes as she wanted to. Then she used a black marker to draw scary arms, legs and surprised mouths.

And there you have it. A fun, but super simple project to kick off a new season. I used some washi tape to hang them on our laundry room door so that Claire can admire her work all day long!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff & Love Bakes Good Cakes&  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

Fun Fall Crafts

Welcome back, blog friends. I didn't intended to take a month and half long hiatus from my blog, but between returning to work, and a fairly uninspired crafty summer, I didn't have much energy to blog. Not to worry though, fall is one of my favorite times of the year. We've already done three new projects this weekend! While I prepare those projects to post, I thought that I'd round up my favorites from previous years. Enjoy!

1. Handprint turkeys
2. Free printable of fall activities
3. Footprint fire trucks
4. Footprint flying witches
5. Halloween subway art
6. Best ever banana muffins
7. Leaf print hungry caterpillar print
8. Halloween bouquet
9. Halloween thumbprint art (see below)

water playdate fun!

 Recently, I've just gone back to working outside of the home. This is my first time back since I've had Simon (he's two now). I was so lucky to have so much time off with my kids. On one of my days off this week, I hosted a little playdate for Claire and Simon, with four of their friends. We have been having such lovely, hot weather lately (30 C = 86 F) that I decided to have a water playdate.

The kids had a lot of fun. The first activity was a tin foil river. I just put a long sheet of tin foil on the lawn. Then, I folded up the sides of it. I put a rock at the top and bottom of the river to keep the tin foil from blowing away. Then I put the hose at the top of the river, turned the water on, and the kids floated bottle caps down it. Again and again.

The next activity lasted the longest. For a while now I've been saving my dish soap bottles. (I asked my neighbours to save their bottles for me too.) I used a few Gatorade, and salad dressing bottles too.) The night before the playdate I filled all of the bottles with water. Then I added a few drops (2 or 3) of food colouring to each bottle. For the playdate, I brought all of the bottles outside, with a couple of mixing bowls and spoons, and the kids had a great time pouring, mixing, and stirring the water. They played with the coloured water for more than 30 minutes. Kids occupied for half an hour screams success to me!

 The last activity was a winner too. I picked up a couple of bags of toys from the Dollar Store, a bag each of zoo and farm animals. I filled two 9x13 pans with water and put them in the freezer. I spread the animals out in each pan once they were in the freezer. THAT'S IT! The next morning, the toys were nicely frozen in the ice. Just run the pans under water to loosen the ice. The kids sprayed water on the ice blocks to release the toys. It was pretty exciting for them.

 We finished off the playdate with peanut butter and jam sandwiches and chocolate vanilla pudding popsicles. Simon loved them! So does Claire actually, as she continues to eat all of the leftovers. It was so nice to plan this little playdate. It was the easiest one so far, since everything was ready to go the night before. Have you hosted any playdates this summer? I think an ice cream themed one is up next....

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

Simple Things Sunday

I just love this picture of Derek and Simon all snuggled up together. Simon had just finished eating some blueberry dessert, which you can clearly see all over his face. His knees are all scraped up because he runs so fast outside he doesn't always watch where he's going. It just captures the 'right now' moment for him.

And Claire is so hard to capture now. She runs the other way when she sees the camera, or she makes the most ridiculous faces! I was happy to capture this picture of her having fun on the swing. The kids are loving our summer weather.

Linking up with: Simple Things Sunday