Squeezing it all in...

The older I get, the faster time seems to move. I hate to sound cliche, but the last time I checked it was summer, then I blinked and it was Halloween. Even though I've been decorating for it, making Halloween crafts, and planning school parties it still really snuck up on me. This weekend we had to squeeze a whole lot of Halloween into one day.

Saturday was the Fall carnival at school. The boys went as Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper. They both already had the masks, received as gifts. We found Felix's Storm Trooper costume at Goodwill for $3. I just painted a black shirt for Fletcher's costume.

Macy went to the carnival as a rock star. She intended to be Hannah Montana, but the wig just wouldn't fit right. And, really, an African girl with a blond wig just gave me a weird vibe. I hate for her to think she needs to have blond hair to be pretty. Anyway... She wasn't very happy with the costume sans wig, so she decided to be Lava Girl instead. Photo coming since her costume is still drying. But it's cute. And crafty. Natch.

We borrowed Halloween books from the library and watched spooky movies on Netflix.

We picked and carved pumpkins. And lit them when the power went out. {Good timing!}

And we made caramel apples and toasted pumpkin seeds.

It was like one of those movies where the main character only has 24 hours to live, so he has to do everything he ever wanted to do before his time is up.

Happy Halloween!

The garden that never died...

Our first snow came a few weeks ago and I thought that would be the perfect time to give up on the garden. I stopped watering and unplugged the night time heater. We picked the last of the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce and thought that would be that.

Only the darn vegetables had another idea.

Last weekend we harvested more cabbage...

a boat load of radishes...

...red, green and hot peppers, various types of tomatoes, green beans and more. And Macy got a little lesson in seed saving, which we've tried for the first time this year.

I picked even more tomatoes and peppers yesterday before the foot of snow and 20 degree temps. I think that will officially be it for the season.

Apple Brunch Biscuits

It's the first snow day of the season! The kids had a half day at school today anyway, so I opted to play hookey and keep them home. The Apple Brunch Biscuits we had for breakfast were so good.

Next up: Homemade chili for lunch and a little cuddle time in front of the fire.

Our Wii Play: Motion party! #NintendoEnthused

Hooray! My baby computer is finally out of the hospital repair shop and I can get back to blogging. I feel like my left arm has been missing.

Last Sunday was our Wii Play: Motion party and as "Nintendo Brand Enthusiasts" Nintendo was kind enough to send our family some great goodies to play, eat and share at the party.

If you have a Wii, the Wii Play: Motion game is a must-have. And if you don't have a Wii, well, what are you waiting for? We (Wii) have had so much fun playing this with the kids -- and I may have challenged the mister to a late night rock skipping game after the kids went to bed one night. The kids love the Grappling Ghosts game, which they call Ghost Busters.

One of the 12 games on the disc is Cone (as in ice cream) Zone so what better food to have than build-your-own ice cream sundaes!

Remember this light fixture turned cake stand? It doubled (tripled?) as a veggie stand for the party. Mmmm ice cream and veggies. I'm a mom, what can I say.

A great time was had by all. Thanks Nintendo & Brand About Town!

If you're looking for a holiday gift for the little ones, this is a great idea that the whole family will love!

Upcycle: Juice can top into chore magnet.

It seems all the crafting I do these days can be traced back to Pinterest. With all of the fabulous ideas I see, I hardly have time to think of anything new. All I want to do is recreate the things I ogle there! Maybe "creativity" can be my New Year's resolution?

I recently saw some chore magnets on Pinterest that I thought were completely clever - and very necessary in my house. They were pinned from Etsy though and, being the cheap arse I am, I repinned them with a reminder to just make some myself.

One of the other things I saw and loved recently were stamped owl magnets made with the metal lids you find on frozen cans of juice. Check them out here on Grow Creative. So. Darn. Cute.

The two ideas collided in my head this week as my kids asked if I could make them new chore charts. (Ridiculous, I know. Who asks for chore charts!?)

In reality, their "chores" are really just normal things they need to do in the morning and before bed - get dressed, brush your teeth, lay out your clothes types of things. Frustrated with having to do about 99.9% of the real chores in our house, I decided to add a rotating weekly chore for each of them, which is what I put on these magnets. (And, before you call social services, "Clean the bathroom" just entails wiping wayward toothpaste off the sink, putting toothbrushes and toothpaste in the proper place, and putting any dirty clothes in the laundry pile. No scrubbing toilets or anything. I save that little gem for myself.)

So here's what we have. Admittedly, the laminated lists are not my proudest crafting moment, but they do in a pinch and the kids can mark their items off with a dry erase marker. Their real chore just says "weekly chore" since it changes from week to week.

With the new magnets, I just stick them onto the proper list.

These were so simple to make. It took me about 5 minutes, including the time it took to snap photos.

Just take your clean metal lids, print what you want them to say, cut it out and stick them on. I used photo splits to stick the paper to the lids. You don't even need to glue the magnet to the lid because it's metal!

Next I'm planning to make some up with others chores they can do to earn a little bit of money. I'm guessing there's a fine line between "chores" and "child labor"?

This project is linked to: Freestyle Friday |

Home-juiced tomatoes.

Hubby and I spent all morning juicing tomatoes using the fancy-schmancy Italian tomato press I won from Jovial Foods on Facebook last year. The sauce turned out great, but it was the biggest ordeal ev-er. I hate to talk smack about something I got for free, but I definitely would not recommend the Gulliver Tomato Press. Jovial, on the other hand, I do recommend. We love their einkorn pasta - and now I'll have some home made sauce to go with!

With the snow that we're getting today, our gardening might just be done for the season. It's been our most productive season yet.

Boo! Get Crafty for Halloween.

My favorite (only?) Halloween decoration from last year. I'm obviously in the Halloween spirit MUCH more this year! Thought I'd re-post for a little Friday inspiration.

As soon as the leaves start to turn yellow I put out the fall decorations. I love decorating with the seasons in general, but not necessarily with each holiday. Halloween, for one, usually gets passed over in favor of earth tones for fall. Maybe it's because I find so many of the Halloween decorations to be, ahem, not really my "aesthetic" as Tim Gunn would say.

This year I'm going to "make it work" (sorry - no more Project Runway puns) by designing my own little Halloween signage.

I found these letters at Hobby Lobby for $1.25 each (plus they were 30% off - score!). The Halloween-themed scrapbook paper was 2/$1 and the black paint was $0.89 at JoAnn Fabric. All pretty inexpensive supplies.

I started out by painting the backs and sides of the letters black - you could do orange, or any other coordinating color you'd like.

After the paint is dry, lay each letter face-down on the back side of your scrapbook paper. Trace them, then cut the letters out. You don't have to worry about trimming them to the perfect size at this point.

Cover the front of your letter with a thin coat of Mod Podge, then stick the scrapbook paper on. Smooth out any wrinkles and allow to sit for 15 minutes before adding a coat of Mod Podge on top of the paper. I find using one of the sponge brushes gives me the nicest finish. Let this sit for another 15 minutes then add a second top coat. Allow letters to dry overnight.



In the morning, you can clean up any uneven paper with an x-acto knife, then take a fine-grit sandpaper and run it along the edges until they're smooth.

Take the tiniest amount of black paint and your sponge brush and apply the paint to the corners to give the letters an antiqued look. This would also probably work with a black ink pad.

If you'd like to hang these on the wall, small picture hooks can be purchased from any hardware or craft store and added to the back of each letter.

Green Your Halloween: Thrift store decor

Since we seem to be going all-out with the Halloween decor this year, I decided to put up a spooky mantle display. Just about everything here is second hand...

Mirror: Bud's Warehouse several years ago
Candle sticks & holders: ARC & Goodwill
Glass apothecary jars: local thrift store
Candles: free from my mom's storage shed

The candle sticks and holders were all sorts of colors, so I spray painted them all black. The banner is made from pieces of fabric I found in the clearance bin at Walmart. (The colors are a little more vibrant in person.) Pumpkins are locally grown.

Upcycle: Light fixture into cake stand

10/11/2011 ~ Update: This post was featured over at Coastal Charm, a lovely blog about decorating and thrifting (two of my favorite things!). Be sure to check it out!

The people who built our house had some very questionable taste. This light fixture being one clue to that...

It had a glass globe that went in it at one point, to cover the bulbs. I know this because the same fixture was in almost every room throughout the house. Lovely. They were one of the first things to go when we started remodeling.

Over the summer we came across one of these black metal pieces as we were filling a roll off dumpster with construction debris. I happily threw it on top of the heap and went about my business, but the curly metal kept haunting my mind and I wondered what I could possibly do with it. I quickly spray painted it a nice cream color - because spray paint makes everything better - then sat it in a corner and stared at it for the next two months.

After looking through a zillion photos on Pinterest I finally decided that a cake stand or food stand was in its future. I'm still looking for a plate large enough to sit on top. (I try painted plywood, which did not work out at all.) Until I find the right plate though, I'm using round cake board, which is basically just white cardboard cut into a circle. It's what bakers put cakes on, or what your frozen pizza would come on when you take it out of the box. You can find them at Michaels in a package of 5 or 6 for about $5.

For Halloween, I used Tacky Glue and glued some Halloween themed ribbon around the edge of the cake board, then set it on top of the stand. I also picked up a pretty green, red and creme ribbon for Christmas already.

You can sit a cake, cupcakes, muffins or other pastries on top, or use it for other types of food as well. On a buffet table I think it would give nice elevation to some of your dishes. I'm also envisioning it with a round mirror on top, used as a display around Christmas - with candles maybe? So many ideas, so little time!

This post is linked to: House of Grace | Nifty Thrifty Tuesday | House of Hepworth | Strut Your Stuff Thursdays | Freestyle Friday

Bats in my belfry... {create your own!}

I never decorated for Halloween until I had kids and now I'm wondering -- WHY!? -- because it's so much fun! We got our bats up last night and I smile every time I look at them. Such an inexpensive way to create some spook for your home.

Just go to Google Images, search "bat template" and you'll come up with all different shapes and sizes. Cut your bats out of black card stock (aka: scrapbooking paper). I folded mine in half and only taped down one wing. Having the other wing free gives your display a 3-D feeling.

Enjoy!

This post is linked to: The Kurtz Corner | Sugar Bee Crafts | Whatever Goes Wednesday | Wicked Awesome Wednesday | Wow Us Wednesday | Wickedly Creative Halloween Ideas |

Finally Fall...

Although Fall is truly my favorite season, I also hate to see summer go - mostly because I'm a baby when it comes to cold weather. I promised myself that I wouldn't start decorating for, or posting about, Fall until October 1st and now the time is finally here! The Aspen trees around our neighborhood are brilliant. If you're in Colorado, you have to get up to see the leaves soon.

I know I've been MIA these last two weeks. We've had so much going on as a family. We took our older son out of 1st grade at his new school and moved him back to Kindergarten at his old school. It was truly the hardest thing I've had to do as a parent, but it's working out beautifully. He's feeling confident where he used to feel intimidated, happy where he used to hate school. Last year he rarely finished the assignments he was given in school and this year he's finishing on time, able to sit through the day without going nuts, and no longer feels anxious.

We received some news about M&F's birth family in Ethiopia last week that was shocking to say the least and left me feeling a little too "blah" to do much blogging. On the plus side, we also found out that they have an extended family member who is living here in the States. Incredible. (In a good way.)

Additionally, momma got some much-needed time away with a girls weekend in NYC! Just what I needed.

Now that things have calmed down here (not that our life is ever calm) I hope to be back to blogging more regularly. I just pulled out all of my Fall and Halloween decorations and am in the process of making some more. Hope to have lots of photos for you soon!