Halloween. Scary Specimens.

I bought all the jars, glasses, and silver platter from the D.I. (the second hand store I mentioned earlier). The mossy stuff came from the Dollar Tree (it's a few bucks more at Michaels). We set this as our centerpiece on our table and try to eat around it. Putting everything on a platter makes it easier if you want to move it. I've seen people put masking tape and label the specimens in the glass jars as if they came from a science lab.


I challenged Carleton to fill three of the jars. He took the kids and picked up some cool looking stuff at the grocery store. I pulled the tops off these peppers-they look like dried worms or fingers to me.


Dried papayas.


Fire pineapples. They look like hearts.

Blood. Syrup with red food coloring. I let some run down inside the glass and it dried cool.


Dried apples with a cockroach (they come in pack at the dollar store).



Goopy Eyeballs.

The cup came from the dollar store. They had blood you could put on the window so I used one for this.


The glass with the scabs (top pic) was done with sticker scabs and I just put catchup inside. What ideas are doing for Halloween? I would love to hear from you.

Halloween. More Decorations.

My sister, Heidi, and I saw all the cool decorations on Martha Stewart's website so we got inspired and went shopping at Deseret Industries (a second hand store). She found an amazing candelabra and I found these cool candle holders for cheap. I got the glittered skull (they have it for a few bucks more at Michaels) and the doily for a buck at Dollar Tree. I got the black candles from Michaels in the Halloween section.

Halloween. Bloody Candles.



I got this idea from Martha Stewart. Check out her website for awesome Halloween ideas. I went to a second hand store and bought a bunch of glassware and candle holders that looked kind of creepy. Here's the breakdown of the bloody candles:

Candle Holders- $1 at Dollar Tree
White Tall Candles-50 Cents at Dollar Tree
Silver Platter-Cheap at a second hand store
Red Candles (to melt on the white candles)-3 for a buck at Dollar Tree



Here's how to do it:

1. We put aluminum foil over the candle holders and fit the tall white candles into the candle holders. This way the wax could drip onto the foil and not make a mess of my holders.


2. We melted a red candle right over the top of the white candle (the candle that is lit was just to provide the flame so I wouldn't use a lot of my tall white candles). Make sure the candle you are melting is red all the way through (some candles are red just on the outside-we had to make an extra trip to the store because we had that prob).


3. Here's the final product. Get a candle that is a very deep red. I bought some red candles but they didn't look as "bloody".

Halloween. Cupcakes.


I love Halloween!! Here are some cupcakes I made last year. I thought this could help you get your Halloween creative juices flowing.

The mummy was done with the frosting you get out of a can that has the changeable tops. I used the flat one. The eyes are red hot candies.



The legs for the one eyed monster and spider are licorice ropes. The tomb stone is a graham cracker and they spider eyes are the red hots again. I just made tiny spikes all over to make the spider look furry. The "dirt" for the worm is just black sprinkles.



The brain has two lines right down the middle and just squiggles on the sides. For the spiderweb, I made the straight lines first and then did connecting loops.



I had to throw in this cute pic of this sassy little witch. My sister did an awesome job on Maddy's makeup.

Place mats.

I made these place mats for Apollo last Christmas. I taped the pictures onto large card stock had them laminated (some thick stuff).

I cut these pics out of one of my old anatomy books from college.




I found these in a thin booklet of maps.




This was done with alphabet stamps. I cut pictures out. Apollo can point to the pics now and eventually he can point to the pics and know what letter they start with and eventually how to spell them.



While making these, I put Apollo in his high chair and let him make a mess. Anything to keep him busy while I could work on Christmas gifts.

Rings.

Sometimes before Carleton and I go out on our dates, we stop in at Barnes and Noble to look at the books. A lot of times, I hit the craft section. I found a jewelry book with a cool idea for a ring. So I've been inspired to make rings lately. Here's what I came up with the other day (I'll post the one I made from the book another day):

Here's how I did it:

Materials Needed:
6 small round beads
Tiny beads (the ones that are on the inside of the hand and not seen too much)
String (I used a black, stretchy one that I found in the jewelry section of Michaels)

1. Cut 2 pieces of the string and put three beads on each (the beads that will make up the main part of the ring that people see).

2. Put the tiny beads (the ones that will be on the inside of your hand) on one of the strings. You can change the length later if you need more or less tiny beads.


3. Tie a knot on each side of the main beads to make a circle.

4. Bring the small beads around the back and tie a knot (it will be over one of the knots you made for the main bead earlier).

This is how the back of the ring will look. I made a side knot, just so I wouldn't see the knot in the back (the middle inside of my finger) but since nobody really sees that part of the ring, you could knot it there and it would be easier to make overall (not that they're hard).

Here's the finished product:


Here's one I did with turquoise beads:





Every Friday I get together with friends and craft while the kids play with toys at our church nursery. We made some rings together. These are just fun stones and beads I had and we used clear stretchy string. My ring cut into my finger a little so I would suggest using some tiny clear beads to connect on the back and just knot the string in the back (the back being the middle inside of your finger that isn't seen).

Shapes.




I thought this would be a fun project for Apollo and I to work on together. After we made them, we practiced naming them. He did a great job (he probably remembers them from the decorations more than the shape-but it's a great start). This would be a great project for anyone who babysits or a fun gift for or to make with kids. Here's what we did:


1. For most of the shapes, I Googled the shapes (eg. I put triangle outline) I wanted and clicked on "see full image" and copied and pasted it to a word file. There I made it the size I wanted and printed them off. The shapes I did were circle, moon, star, square, parallelogram, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon, and heart. I might have gotten a little carried away. My high school chemistry students had to learn them so I figured might as well teach him while he's young.




2. Cut them out of the paper and trace onto shoe boxes (cereal boxes or anything hard would work). Cutting them out was kind of a bugger.



3. Spray paint. It took a few coats.




4.Decorate. We used the glue to stick the stuff on and I also poured glue all over the top of everything so it would stay on better.



This was a great project because:
-it didn't have to look perfect
-it held the little one's attention because we used so many things to decorate
-he could help out
-we could use odds and ends from stuff we already had

Thanks to everyone who leaves comments, sends me emails, or tells me they follow this blog. It motivates me to post more stuff we do or make.