Happy Halloween & Dinner In A Pumpkin

Happy Halloween friends!

My little Rapunzel and my busy little bumble bee

What are you doing today? Do you have any Halloween traditions? We started our day with Jack -O-Lantern pancakes with special homemade syrup. Dinner on Halloween is big at our house! Every year since I was little we've had a family favorite recipe: Dinner In A Pumpkin. I'm hear to share it with you!


Dinner In A Pumpkin
Medium pumpkin cleaned out (save those seeds for homemade pumpkin seeds)
1 onion chopped
2 cans cream of chicken soup
3 cups of cooked rice
1 pound ground beef
2 Tablespoons oil
4 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons brown sugar


In skillet saute onions in oil until tender. Add ground beef, cook until done and drain if needed. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes. Put in pumpkin and place pumpkin top back on. Place pumpkin on a baking sheet or in a baking dish (if its in a baking dish add a little water so the dish won't burn). Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.


I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does! Have a happy and safe Halloween!

{2 x 4} Mummies

Hello friends! I had to add just one more Halloween project for this year :) I've seen different versions of mummies this year and decided to make my own. I wanted to use what I already had so here's what I came up with.

Here's what you'll need:

• Any scrap wood you have laying around. I used 2x4's left from when we tore down a wall in our kitchen last February.
• Scrap fabric. This was left over from curtains in the nursery. I cut the strips about 1 1/2 inches thick and as long as I could.
• Googly eyes
• Hot glue and glue gun

1. Wrap fabric vertically around wood and secure with a dab of glue at the end.
2. Wrap fabric horizontally around wood. Tie strips of fabric together to create the bows and knots.
3. Add googly eyes with hot glue.

And you're done! This project seriously took about 30 minutes from start to finish...and that's with kids doing projects at the same time...it was that easy! Enjoy!

*Linking up to these amazing parties!

Black and Silver Pumpkins

Remember last week I showed you my Halloween decor and said I wasn't finished? Well I gave those orange dollar store pumpkins a makeover. Here's what I did:

• Cut stem off the pumpkins
• Find a new stem to use (I used sticks found in my front yard)
• Spray paint pumpkins and stems silver and let them dry completely
• Polka Dot Pumpkin - using a glue stick lid press it onto the pumpkin just enough to make a circle outline. Paint each circle with craft paint. I didn't have any small brushes so I used a q-tip.
• Diamond Pumpkin - Draw diamonds on with a marker and then paint with craft paint and foam brush.
• Striped Pumpkin - Paint every other section of the pumpkins with craft paint and foam brush.
• Initial Pumpkin - Spray paint thumb tacks black. Once dry stick in pumpkin making your initial.
• Hot glue new stems in place and add ribbon.
• Easy easy easy! You're done! Enjoy!

Hand Print Pumpkins

Every year during General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all the girl's and kiddos in my husbands family get together to eat dinner and decorate pumpkins. My oldest daughter is now old enough to pretty much decorate her own pumpkin with some help with glue. Her first Halloween she was six months old and obviously wasn't old enough to decorate a pumpkin, but I still wanted to get her involved. That's when I came up with hand print pumpkins. Here's a picture of her in 2008.

Are you dying over that face? I know I'm her mom, but seriously how cute is she!

Here she is with her pumpkin she decorated this year.

This year my little one is 17 months old and couldn't decorate her own pumpkin so I decided to do both of my girls hand prints. It really is so easy and I wouldn't normally explain, except I have a trick to not make a mess with the glitter!

 

First trace hands onto pumpkin.

Glitter can be extremely messy and a pain in the butt to use. It gets everywhere and you can never get rid of it! So here's the trick to mess free glitter. Mix the glitter in your clear drying craft glue and apply to pumpkin or any other project.

Add rhinestones and ribbon and your done!

Enjoy!

Halloween Decor

Happy weekend friends! It's officially winter here in Utah! OK it's not that bad, but we went from 80 degrees and sunshine last week to 50 degrees, snow covered mountains, clouds and lots of rain this week! Besides hating to be cold I do love this time of year! I love scarves and boots, but most of all I love the holidays and decorating for them! And it gets better and better over the next couple of months! Holiday decorations are for me, but it's also for my kids to enjoy. For that reason I chose to go with a black, bright purple, orange and green color scheme when I started making items a couple years ago. This year I added the pieces on top of the piano. I had everything on hand to make it which is a huge plus. So here's my Halloween decor right now, but I've seen so many great things this year I may add more :)

I made the Halloween blocks a couple years ago...It's what started my color scheme :)

You can see my post about the {2x4} Pumpkins here. I've been meaning to post about the jar with the green balls in it. All items are from Dollar Tree. It's a vase and candle stick holder glued together. I wrapped styrofoam balls with green yarn and secured with a dab of craft glue as I was wrapping.

 For this display I covered books I had with scrapbook paper I already had. I used tulle and ribbon wreaths on the pottery and the pumpkins are from the dollar store.I still need to paint those and dress them up!

 Here's a picture of the tulle and ribbon wreath when it's hanging up. I originally made these to go somewhere else, but I needed them on the piano display. These were super easy! I used a foam wreath form from the dollar store and tulle and ribbon that I already had on hand. Wrap ribbon around wreath form to cover it completely. Then tie strips of tulle and ribbon alternating.

 Pumpkin lights tied up with ribbon line the railings.

Here's my Halloween Countdown wall hanging. I'm getting ready to fill it with Halloween treats, prizes and fun activities. We can't forget our pumpkin head. He giggles and says Halloween phrases. Super cheesy, but the kids LOVE it! Enjoy!

{2 x 4} Pumpkins

Well we are officially ready for Halloween at our house! I love this time of year and always get so excited pull out my decorations! I spent last week making new pieces to add to my decor and arranging it to the way I want it. I'll share those pictures sometime this week! But tonight I wanted to share a super easy cute project! I made these last year at a craft night with some friends. My super cute neighbor hosted it and came up with this pumpkin project.

Here's what you need:

• any kind of wood you want to use: 3 blocks for small pumpkin, 4 blocks for large (small pumpkin is 5 in tall, large is 7 in) The blocks do not need to be smooth. As you can see from the photo mine were very imperfect, but that's what I like so much about them!
• orange paint
• stain
• dowels for stem
• ribbon and wire

1. Paint wood blocks orange. You don't need to worry about painting the bottom or the sides that you won't be able to see. Make sure they are completely dry before adding stain.
2. Stain dowels and wood blocks with foam brush or paper towel. For the pumpkin blocks I painted the stain on and wiped off with a paper towel leaving most of it in the cracks and dents.
3. We used a nail gun to attach the blocks together. You could also use liquid nails. Just FYI hot glue will not work :)
4. Hot glue on stem.
5. Add ribbon.
6. Twist wire around a pen or pencil and hot glue end in the ribbon.

And you're done! Super easy and very inexpensive! Enjoy!

Halloween Countdown

I made this last year for my girls and it was a huge hit! It was a fun way to countdown to Halloween. I put little treats and fun little toys like a pumpkin flashlight, mummy suckers, stickers, spider rings, sparkly pens and pumpkin decorating kits. I need to get going on my shopping to stuff it for this year! Enjoy!

Here's how I made it:

• Decide how big you want it and how many pockets you want on it (mine has 15 pockets)
• Sew black cotton in a big rectangle. Don't forget to add the ribbon at the top for hanging. I also added ribbon along the bottom for decoration.
• Cut felt for pockets.
• Stitch felt pockets on around both sides and bottom leaving opening in the top. I used a decorative stitch to dress it up.
• Add embellishments to each pocket.
• Hang from a fun bright witches broom.
• Fill with treats and toys and enjoy!

Minnie Mouse Costume

Hi friends! Thanks for stopping by! If you haven't yet please follow me and leave a comment and let me know you were here. I appreciate all the support!

Now on to the good stuff! So are you excited for Halloween?! I know you probably haven't even been thinking about it but I've been wanting to share this project since I started this lil spot! It's almost August and that means just a couple months till Halloween! Hey if my summer is coming to an end (much to soon!) I need to have something to look forward to! Anyway, my cute little Deni loves loves loves Minnie Mouse! So last year when I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween it was no surprise when her answer was Minnie Mouse. Now I'm not into character clothing. My girls can wear all the character and princess pj's they want, but we don't own one princess or Dora t-shirt. It's just not my style. So when it came time to look for a Minnie Mouse costume I just wasn't impressed. $40 for a cheesy not very well made and only includes the little dress costume....so not for me! So I set out on making my own. It turned out so stinking cute! Of course that is 100% my opinion. :) I did it very similar to the girls dresses I made a few weeks ago and you can see that tutorial here. We used this adorable costume for Halloween last year and her birthday party a couple months ago.

Here's what I used:
4 yards red tulle
white pom poms
white boa
polka dot ribbon
elastic
craft glue
white gloves
black beanie (you never know what kind of weather we'll have in Utah on Halloween)

Here are the differences from the tutorial on the Summer Dress.

1. The measurements ended up being perfect to leave the tulle folded in half for the length by 4 yards for the width.
2. Attach white pom poms with craft glue. Make sure the glue only goes through the first layer of tulle.
3. Hand sew feather boa on seam where you've inserted the elastic. I also glued the edges of the boa to keep it from unravelling and leaving feathers all over my house.
4. Hand sew feather boa to top of white gloves.
5. Bows for shoes. Tie tulle in a bow and hot glue ribbon bow on top of it. I used twisty ties (you know the things on bread...that's what we call them) to attached them to her black shoes.

The Minnie Ears my daughter is wearing came from Disneyland (we went just a couple weeks before Halloween)

Halloween 2010



We added the beanie in this picture...it was so cold! You can also see the shoes really good in this one.

Deni also wanted a Minnie Mouse birthday party this year so this costume got double duty! We had a big mousketear adventure and I made each child their own Mickey/Minnie ears. It was super easy! Get headbands from the dollar store (mine came in a 4 pack) cut ear shapes from thick black foam. I purchased one piece for $1 and it made 8 headband ears. Hot glue ears to headband. For the Minnie ears I hot glued a bow on. They were a huge hit at the party and the left over ears are favorites in the dress up box. I'll be sharing a few more projects from the Minnie birthday party later this week or next. Have a fabulous day! Enjoy!

Our little family all sporting Minnie and Mickey ears at Deni's 3rd birthday.