Holiday Neckerchief Slides

You know that you have posted too many pictures when Google tells you that you have exceeded your free storage allotment. Have no fear- I cheated and created another gmail account for myself and invited me to be an author. :) Now you too can know what this Cubmaster wore to Roundtable this month.

Isn't he cute. My mother-in-law gets the credit for him. A peanut glued on a leaf with a bit of pipe cleaner for the beak and some ric rac for the waddle. Add a couple of googly eyes and a bit of 1/2" PVC pipe and you are good to go. 

 

(the view from the back- in all honesty, he could be put on an alligator clip to make a bow, or anything else your heart desires)

Want to know what I am wearing next month?

I may add a little green bow if I remember to pick up some thin green ribbon.

 For added fun, I wrapped the PVC in ribbon. 

I would show you the spider and bat that I wore in October, but they are currently hiding in the abyss that I call my bedroom. If I find them, I shall share, but until then, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Snow Day

OK, honestly there is no real snow here. If there ever were, I am sure the city would shut down. Since we couldn't have the real deal - and Dad was off hiking with the scouts and left us unsupervised - we made snow men. We started by painting little bits of dowel leftover from a scout toolbox project. I thought about taking a picture of the kids painting, but thought it best not to leave a 2, 4, and 5 year-old alone in a room with paint while I went to find the camera. Occasionally I am smart like that.

After embellishing with felt and pom poms and paint and ribbon and anything else we felt like, we have a family of snowmen. Tiger did his mostly by himself (he asked for a little help making a Santa hat, and he dictated the bunny - to eat the carrot nose). Kitty picked out her colors and what she wanted. Monkey just painted her dowel and was happy to just play with the bucket of buttons. Mine is on the end; I like how the felt top hat turned out. Now to go clean the kitchen and be responsible...

Gobble Gobble

I think I am going through a turkey phase. That, or I am just hungry. Either way, I thought these little finger puppets were adorable when I saw them here and had to make my own. I changed a couple of things though- I used googly eyes on mine, and hot glued the turkey body to the turkey feathers instead of sewing them. Now to decide- do I give them to the kids to ruin, I mean play, with before Thanksgiving, use them as decor around the house, or put them on one of those cute kids' thanksgiving tablescapes that I keep seeing. 

A Royal Thank You

 These are the thank you cards that I sent out after my daughter's Cinderella birthday party. Originally I was going to make the cards a little more elaborate (i.e. actually have a background, like grass and sky) but in the interest of getting them done quickly, instead of passing them out six months after the fact (yes, I have done that), I just wrote the girl's name in the top left corner and passed them out like that. The Cinderella clip tutorial is here, the castle tutorial is here.

This is what Cinderella looked like in Kitty's hair. It is a little on the big side, but I have noticed that is ok these days.

Halloween Countdown Calender (still a work-in-progress)

I know, October is long over. I am a slacker like that (I have been cleaning instead of crafting lately. That and the usual round of illnesses that seem to pop up this time of year). In case you were wondering- this is how far I made it on my Halloween Countdown. (Insert sheepish grin)

 I still need to attach hooks to my board to hang the ghosts and goblins from.

 I actually painted this board twice. It is still not my favorite, but I was ready to be done with it. 

For next year, I just need to make about 24 more things to hang. I am getting closer. And who knows, maybe after sitting in storage till then I will decide I like it better.

Turkey Time!

Like him? I finally made a Thanksgiving craft.
The tutorial can be found here. My local Wal-Mart was sold out of the 5 gallon paint sticks, so I ended up just using a regular sized one. It seemed to work out fine. Other than the paint stick, I had the rest of the supplies lying around the house. I was in one of those moods where I wanted to create something. Since my house has felt a little barren since I took all of the Halloween decorations down I thought a turkey would be a nice addition.

Pioneer Children (ate lot's of Halloween Candy)

 A few months ago, a friend called and asked if I would sew a pioneer dress for their daughter- they had just been to Nauvoo and she wanted to be a Pioneer Girl for Halloween.

She picked out the fabric, and I sewed the dress, apron, bonnet, and bloomers (Simplicity 3725). With some of the leftover fabric I made a little rag doll.

I didn't have a pattern for the doll- I just took one that Kitty had and copied it the best I could. The little pioneer was adorable at the Ward Trunk-or-Treat

Halloween (actually)!

I made a few costume modifications. You'll notice Charlie Brown got a haircut so he would look more bald-ish, and Snoopy got a nose. We tried to give Snoopy a black nose the first time, but the eyeliner we had for that one was really cheap and smeared too much to put on a baby.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na BATMAN!

Every year it seems like I am rushing at the last minute to finish the Halloween costumes. This year, I swore, was going to be different. I was going to be finished well in advance so that I could enjoy the day at a nice leisurely pace. I need to stop swearing. This year I ended up being even further behind than usual (if possible). The drawback to finishing your kids' Halloween costumes as you are rushing out the door, is that it doesn't make for a very productive photo shoot. (The other drawback is that you forget things- like Catwoman's hood that was laying on the living room floor, instead of on her head for the Trunk-or-Treat). So please pardon the lack of professional photography- we were busy chasing superheros on Halloween. We also failed to get a family photo :(

Catwoman and Batman

Kitty as Catwoman, complete with Isis. I actually had most of her costume done ahead of time. She looks super cute with her Catwoman hood on as well. Batman's costume mostly materialized on Halloween day. The night before I whipped together his shirt, so by the time he left for school in the morning all he had to wear was a shirt and the mask which I made months ago. He added a different cape to wear to school, so while he was gone I sewed the pants, belt, gloves, boot covers, and cape. I actually have a hood for him, but he refuses to wear it. The black stocking cap was his idea.

Robin

Monkey made an adorable Robin. I had most of her costume made a week ago, and just had to make her cape and boots and mask. I couldn't find any more little kid gloves (the joys of living in an area where it is 87 degrees on Halloween night) so she went bare-fingered. Their trick-or-treat bags I was whipping out as we were running out the door.

 For this year's parental matching t-shirtness, we went as comic book pages. We thought they were fun, but I don't think many people noticed, or realized what they were. I was finishing them with only about 15 minutes to go before party time.

Hopefully I will be able to get better pictures when we go to get the family portrait done. Now I really need to clean my house. Let us just say that it looks like an explosion went off in a fabric store, and I need to go and sort through the rubble.

(a few more pics for you to enjoy)