a little halloween

this year for halloween we had a witch, princess jasmine, and “v” or a poodle skirt girl, depending on the venue/celebration.

it was quite wonderful to have merrill home this year for all the halloween fun, last year just wasn’t halloween without him!

we had a little early halloween fun at the family “trunk or treat”.  lynn and I both won prizes in the costume contest.  she was “v” that night, and I was a flapper girl, fulfilling all of merrill’s halloween dreams.

we carved pumpkins at the last minute.  don’t know how I forgot about those!!

life was a little hectic with the second hotel opening.  we spent a lot of our days and nights there getting it ready to open.  maybe that is how I forgot about the pumpkins.

halloween day I helped in the second grade, totally blew my budget on frosting for cookies, forget that I had to buy the cookies, napkins, and all the junk that is necessary for a child to frost a cookie.  that is what I get for putting that off till the last minute!

that night, we made the rounds.  the kids had fun, but didn’t stay out long.  I wonder if the day will ever come that they feel the need to stay out and go as far and as fast as possible to collect obscene amounts of candy. 

here’s a couple of cute and quick ideas for friends, neighbors, and teachers:

(click on the images for list of credits.)

now here’s to willpower and not eating my kids candy!

(whatever, you know I bought extra that I do not plan to hand out.)

that old black magic

so with a few things on my plate, I forgot that yesterday was monday, until I realized that today is tuesday. does that even make sense?

whelp, it does to me!

here is a layout created with dani mogstad’s newest kit, “that old black magic”.

(click on layout for full list of credits.)

when I saw it, I immediately thought of my childhood halloweens.  I called my mom to have her scan in old halloween pics of me and my brothers and email them to me.  it was so fun looking back!  it was even funner trying to figure which year each one was taken.

a spooky six pack.

no, not my abs.

(silly.)

this:

pretty fun, right?

similar to the bottles I did for valentines a few years ago (but not really the same..  those were empties.), these have homemade labels that are spooky enough, but more fun than spooky.

I cut paper strips from my patterned paper that measured 8 1/2 x 3 1/2, and distressed them, first with an emery board, and then with some black ink.  I taped those on the bottles and then popped a label from nancie rowe janitz, distressed in the same way, on top of the taped-on strip.  I punched 1 inch circles out of the same papers, distressed again (I kinda like it that way.), and popped those on the bottle caps with a glue dot.  to finish off the bottles, I tied ric-rac or twill around the neck, cause it was cute.  the cardboard container was flattened and used as a template to trace onto more patterened paper that was cut to sixe, distressed (see, like it!), and glued onto the cardboard container. 

for a full list of digital supplies used, click on the pic!

the bonus to this cute, fun, halloween project:  I got to drink ibc rootbeer and crème soda (my second fav drink of all time) for the next few days. :)

Halloween Happenings of 2011

This year proved to be just as chaotic (if not more so) than previous years.

Saturday, we realized that we needed to cram in a lot of fun, and fast!

We went out to a pumpkin patch, conveniently located near Lagoon (the girls have been loudly hoping and wishing all year long to go..) because, well, we didn’t have pumpkins.

We went on a search for just the right pumpkin for each girl.

(It wasn’t as easy as we thought, especially for Peyton.)

Then we spent the day at Lagoon.  We thought we were surprising them, but there wasn’t much surprise expressed.

It was such a fun day!  Peyton is finally tall enough to enjoy a lot of the rides.  She giggled more than I think she did at Disneyland, and that is surprising!  She loved the skyride, rode it twice in a row.  She also loved the Tidalwave.  The second time she rode it, she whispered to me, “This make my tummy feel a bit funny.”

Ashley also hit a new height that allowed her to ride more rides.  Colossus and Wicked are her two new favorites.  (They are a definite tie.)  We rode Colossus (walked-on tow in a row) and she wasn’t done!  The kid would have kept going.

Lynn also rode wicked for the first time and loved it.  She was a bit nervous, but she loved it.

We also enjoyed the family trunk-or-treat the weekend before Halloween, got a good jump-start on the sugar high. 

Pumpkin carving was a joy.

(Seeds are still drying out.)

And then there was the day of.

There is a smaller, “B” story if you will to the Halloween festivities of 2011.  I will call it “The  Great Costume Conundrum.”

Peyton started out the season with the plan to be Bo again.  I wasn’t complaining.  Lynn wanted to be a candy corn (or a bag of twizzlers, seems there is a candy theme constantly running through her head..  remember last year?) and it was great to re-use a costume.  And Ash, well, she is obsessed with Mulan lately..  so guess what she wanted to be?

Well, the genius mom that I am, while ordering Ashley’s Mulan costume online, I could get free shipping if I ordered one more item.  With the costumes all being on sale, I thought it would be really silly if I didn’t order Peyton a Pocahontas dress-up for her birthday and totally be ahead of the game for once.  So , I did.

Good thing, because as Peyton and I were going to procure the necessary items for Lynn’s candy corn costume, she reveals to me that she really wants to be Pocahontas for Halloween, and could I please make her a Pocahontas costume?

Haha!!  So ahead of the game.

So then, she was going to be Pocahontas.

“But Pocahontas doesn’t wear any shoes mom.”

THEN, I got out the great bin of costumes from Halloween’s past.  Lynn’s Old Navy dragon costume was lying in there, the perfect size for Peyton this year (not to mention super warm), and Peyton fell in love with it.

The girl wore the costume every day, it was the first thing she wanted to put on every day.

She was going to be a dragon.

Until this morning.

She watched Pocahontas, while wearing her dragon costume.

Then she was going to be Pocahontas, again.

Until it was time to go and run errands, and then she was going to be a dragon, again.

Silly kid.

(Doesn’t Lynn look so happy?)

Today, we went to the girls’ parade at school, where I discovered that Ash is student of the month in her class (again.), and she knew, but never told me.  After school, we went to the ward trunk-or-treat, then off to visit grandparents.  We only found a couple of those grandparents though!

The girls would tell you it was a successful night, they got their fair share of candy and a slightly later than usual bedtime.

back to our regularly scheduled life.

we just got back from a lovely and very fun-filled vacation.

we did disneyland.

it was awesome.

I think everyone who lives in this house, is a little homesick for all things disney.

but I now realize that this transition from vacation to real life is a lot harder than I thought.  it is also made more difficult when I realize that there are a few things that I neglected to do before we left..

like plug the latest product releases from jessica sprague. 

so, let’s rewind, pretend that it is last monday, and instead of getting ready to surprise the kiddos, pack all of their stuff, clean the house and all that junk, I will do what I am supposed to, and show you what I made:

first up I will show off jodie lee’s latest water color paper..

I saw this dreamy stuff and was transported to last fall, when we hiked the “u” near our house.  the colors were too perfect.

(click on layout for full credits.)

I have been dreaming up some hybrid projects to use this stuff on, print it off on linen look paper..  it would be lovely, I am sure.

then there was the big one.

I based ashley’s birthday party around this next one.

splendid fiins “trick or treat” practically yelled my name, winked, and then grinned at me.  it knew it fit the bill for our halloween themed birthday party.

invites:

(click on image for full list of credits.)

a little lesson learned, that I will share with you for free:

don’t put names (even though it is so fun, personal, not to mention stinking cute) on a first grader’s birthday invites.  you are better off to leave those babies blank, that way, your child doesn’t distribute them a child with a different name and thus, have a buttload of confusion on your hands when parents are calling you and asking if their child was really invited because their invite doesn’t have their name on it.  oh, an then you get to make more, because a few kiddos don’t get their invites due to the whole, “not give them to the right kid” issue.

we had a great time though..

we put together goodie bags with fun stuff from target’s dollar area, candy was a necessary addition, and I put together these little notebooks using splendid fiin’s “trick or treat” line.

they were pretty darn cute.

I added these little tags for ashley to sign, a little thank you to all her friends.

(splendid fiins again, and I used the font mtf “jotted”.)

In the way of decorations, I used my old felt ghosts..

some balloons (which all the right colors were sold out, should have anticipated that one..), and this banner that I threw together the day of.

(polka-dot paper from splendid fiins, some good old cardstock, ric-rack, and letters I cut out with my cricut + storybook cartridge.)

I employed the old dry ice + rootbeer in the plastic cauldron trick.

played “pin the eyebrow on frank”, ashley’s new boyfriend.  we made him out of foamcore, and vinyl.  his eyebrow was some black felt with double stick tape on the back.

this game was also a last minute add, but I saw it on a local tv program, and had to do it!

I took three kiddos inside, and wrapped them up with crepe paper, just like a mummy.  as I wrapped, I hid three cards with one letter on them, in different places in the wrapping.  as their teams unwrapped them, the found the cards, and the first team to spell their spooky word, won!

I used words like bat, boo, and cat.

(I got the idea from this fun mom blogger who has a ton of fun ideas.)

and what’s a party with out cake and ice cream?

I prepared cupcakes and frosting a head of time, portioned out the frosting in little disposable cups with a plastic knife, and put out candies for them to decorate with.

I found a genius idea for ice cream serving at a birthday party on pinterest, and I will be using that one again and again I tell you.

before your party, like an hour, you take your regular old cupcake liners, place them in your muffin tin, and scoop your ice cream into them.  pop the tin, with the portions of ice cream in it, back in your freezer and when it’s cake + ice cream time, bring them out, and give one portion to each child.  it was a breeze!

ash had a great party, and I must confess, it is the first birthday party I have ever thrown.  I will do it again.  it was so much fun, but next time, I might just request no gifts be brought.  I know, I am so mean, but we are seriously overrun here.

“pin”spiration.

so let me tell you how pinterest snagged me and hasn’t quite eased up.
a lot of my friends out there (you better know who you are..) have been talking all about it, saying how great it is, yadda yadda yadda.
knowing how I am, a rebel to all that is popular, I ignored it.  for a while.
you see, I had a routine for saving all those things that I found around the internet and blogs that I loved, and dreamed of making, that just wasn’t working out as well as it had been.
I began saving images in my picture file on my computer.  (good.)
my sister-in-law told me of a genius idea to put those things in their own folder on my computer, labeled, what else: “ideas”.  (better!)
but then there arose the issue of me not remembering exactly where I got the idea from.  (instructions are very important things at times.)  oh sure, I usually knew where I got the idea from, sometimes there was a watermark on the image, but to sift through hundreds of blog posts, sometimes months after I came across the idea, was a major time waster.
so I tried to save all the ideas I liked in my bookmarks folder.
until merrill made fun of me.
and really, before he mocked me, it really wasn’t working.  there were vague descriptors of what that bookmark was marking, no image, and the were forgotten.
enter pinterest.
I looked into it, and it made total sense.  it solved all of my problems in that, I could save the picture AND the link to where the idea was found.  no searching and pulling my hair out trying to find the original source!!
oh, but that is not all..
it does more!
I can sort all of my “pins” into neat little categories or boards (something that I am still trying to perfect).  so all my halloween stuff is on one board and christmas gets its own area.  photography ideas don’t mingle with recipes..  it’s order, not chaos anymore!!
I also love that I can follow people whose style I admire, people who have crazy ingenuity and creativity.
I am totally addicted.
(I have also found new blogs to stalk..)
so out of my love of pinning, and creating my own version of others ideas, I am officially coining the new word: “pinspiration”.
I saw this:
(click on image for source.)

and I LOVED it!!!
(it is so me, and a few others I know..)
I took the idea, tweaked it a bit, and came up with this:
(click on the image for full list of credits.)

I can see that this is going to be a long, beautiful relationship!

Halloweening.

We had a full weekend!

Trunk-or-Treat on Thursday..

No school on Friday.

Trick-or-Treating on Saturday.

Halloween on Sunday.

It was full and fun!

 

Lynn was a bag of Jelly beans..

(For more on that go here.)

 

Ash kept changing her mind until she went shopping with Grandma, which helped to seal the deal..  she was a queen.

And Peyton was “Bo” from Toy Story.

(More of this here as well.)

They were cute!

They had a blast despite the rain, and thank heavens, we aren’t totally buried by candy!

‘Tis the Season.

It is Halloween time at our house.  We have the fun side and then, well, you know..  the “other” side.

The side where creepy pranks are played on one another.  We try to scare each other, not in horrendous ways, just in playful ways. 

Lynn and Ashley like to hide around corners from each other (and me too) to see if they can get a scare out of their intended victim.  It is usually quite funny.  Merrill is always easy to get, me, not so much. I am too used to having smallish people being everywhere I go.  If Lynn gets Ash, there are usually tears, initially, then laughs follow.

Lynn tries to get me.

Tries.

Today, in between doing loads of laundry, I left the light on in the laundry room while I went to put a blanket away upstairs.  She thought she was so sly.  She went downstairs, and I heard her yell, “BOO!”  Immediately following that attempted scare, I heard her footsteps running up the stairs.  She was a little freaked out to be down there by herself.

We laughed when she found me at the top of the stairs laughing at her.

I think she scared herself more than she ever could scare me.

It’s getting scary around here!

Okay, not so much really.
But it is fun!
(I love decorating for Halloween.)
I have some of the good old stuff still hanging around, and some new creations to add to the mix…

As you can see, microfine glitter (in an assortment of colors) is my “go to” crafting item lately.
Hopefully I can get my porch together soon.  It’s just that my tomato cages are still being used by my tomato plants!
(Love those tomatoes..  keep coming, I will sacrifice my ghosts this year.)

Call me crazy..

But I am slightly excited for fall.
I know..  I know..  it’s still summertime, an I do not wish it away or wish for it to go by any faster than it already is, but Halloween is one of my favorites, and crafting for it is heavenly.
So I was excited to have these come together..  they have been sitting around since last fall…

I used a scrap wood post that has been sitting outside, getting nicely weathered and worn, mod podge, scrapbook paper, sand paper, the remnant of a white curtain rod from the girls room cut and then painted chocolate brown and then moss green and sanded, oh, and love.

And when you turn them around, they are all ready for Thanksgiving and fall fun!

I've been busy...

Editing pictures and creating more digital pages, all to get my free Shutterlfy book...
Ahhh..
Then I realized they can count as layouts too!!!
All digital this time. :)
Let's count:

13!
But copies of them for all the albums I need take me to...  38.

What does that put me at..  um...  DONE!!!