Halloween 2012

For months well since last Halloween really Lily kept telling us she wanted to be a cat for this Halloween. This wasn’t surprising since she’s a cat most of the time and then a few months ago she changed her mind and all of the sudden she wanted to be a piggie. I asked her if she was sure and she swore she was. I came up with a plan for this piggie costume. I would buy her some pink and white striped leggings or tights and a pink shirt. I would make her a pink tutu and a set of piggie ears and tail. I found tutorials on Pinterest for the tutu. I bought 4 spools of pink and silver tulle and started making the tutu. It was adorable. Then Lily started telling me she wanted to be a lamb, I said fine, but it has to be a lamb with a pink tutu. Then she wanted to be a frog, fine as long as it’s a frog with a pink tutu. This went on for a few weeks. She came up with different animals and I said fine as long as you wear the tutu, over and over again. Then she settled on a witch and she was very serious about being a witch. I said fine as long as you wear the dang tutu. She was fine with it so we went on with our planning.

Waldo and I decided to decorate the front porch for the first time ever. Once this was decided I went crazy with planning. We picked up a few things here and there. I ended up buying a large number of pumpkins and glitter. I hadn’t planned on using them together but it worked out that way and it started a pattern. This year ended up being the year of glitter. I also found a wreath tutorial on Pinterest that I was really excited about and all in all I am so happy with how everything turned out.

Lily and I went to Hobby Lobby to get the green tulle and while we were there I noticed pink tulle right next to the green so I asked Lily her opinion and not surprising she choose the pink. Once she decided pink I went all out girly with it. I added eye shadow and glittered eye lashes. Instead of a bowtie I went with a flowery thing. And I glittered the heck out of her teeth. I loved her.

Halloween 2012

I found this little wooden halloween sign at Michael’s and tried to get Lily to paint/color it and she had no interest so one night on a whim I glittered it.

Halloween 2012

Lily and I painted/glitter glued/glittered all of our pumpkins and gourdes except the three that we planned to carve.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

I made 4 little ghosts and hung them outside. And the next day it rained like I’ve never seen it rain here before (probably I don’t pay a lot of attention unless we are going out) and I was shocked that only one ghost came off. What I was super unhappy about was all of the glitter that came off of the halloween sign and pumpkins. I guess using watered down school glue wasn’t the best idea for outdoor decorations. Luckily my spider pumpkin wasn’t outside yet, I would have screamed, I worked hard on that baby.

After the rain stopped Lily and I decorated a bunch of craft foam bats and I strung them on the porch. Then the wind picked up and I spent the rest of the week until Halloween trying to untangle them. I really liked the outcome, but it totally was a lesson learned. I have different plans for Christmas decorating. Oh and Waldo and I strung some Halloween lights on the porch too.

Halloween 2012

The weekend before Halloween we rolled up our sleeved and dug out some pumpkin guts. Lily hated that part. She stuck her hand in the first one and that was that, she wouldn’t put her hand inside a pumpkin again. I guess I didn’t upload any of the carving pictures. I carved Cookie Monster and Ernie, Waldo carved a bat and was planning on putting Bert on the Ernie pumpkin, but he’s been working lots of OT and ran out of time. After we were done carving I was admiring my Cookie Monster and decided that he needed a little something extra. So I glittered it and Waldo’s bat. Ernie was spared.

Halloween 2012

On Halloween day Waldo and I realized that Lily could carve a pumpkin with the little special knives so Lil and I sat down to get to work. She mostly designed it and we shared cutting duties.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Lil decided that he needed to be wearing glasses so the line between the eyes is for his glasses.

Halloween 2012

On Halloween day I like to take an obnoxious amount of pictures with Lily and our pumpkins. I did it last year and we love seeing the pictures come up on my rotating desktop.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

When I was planning Lil’s witch costume I had planned on buying a black shirt and putting silver sparkles on it. I was also going to spark up the black hat and broom. When I told Lily about this she put her foot down. She didn’t want to be a ‘fancy witch, she wants to be a mean witch’. I was so bummed and kept asking and she always answered the same way. In fact a few weeks before Halloween she started to refuse the tutu.

When I went crying to Waldo about this he said that he would prefer if the tutu was more halloween or witch colored, but I didn’t want to spend the money to make another tutu that she might not wear so I just kept hoping to wear her down. I didn’t go well.

When we went upstairs to get dressed to trick or treat I grabbed the tutu and she refused to put it on. I begged her to just put it on so I take some pictures and tried to explain that if she didn’t wear it she would just look like a kid wearing a black shirt and stripped tights. She agreed for pictures, but wasn’t happy about it.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

I love this next picture.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

When the first trick or treater came around the corner Lily had a melt down over the tutu.

Halloween 2012

While I was in the house helping her to remove the offending garment Waldo was talking to the Mom of the treater and found out that she was a black cat and was suppose to be wearing a pink feather boa but had the same meltdown about it. I felt a little better after that.

This is how Lil ended up treating.

Halloween 2012

Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot. I made the bag she’s holding. I’m so proud of myself.

With this new chattiness Lily has decided is a good thing for her, she had a lot more fun going door to door this year. She said trick or treat to every person and was very excited about her candy haul.

Halloween 2012

I was really happy with how our porch looked all at night and with how everything went over all.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

I’d say this was a very successful Halloween and Lil is already telling me what she wants to be for next year.

Pumpkin patch

This weekend we tossed on Lily’s 2012 Halloween t-shirt (I get her a new one every year) and headed to The Patch. It’s the same Pumpkin Patch that we went to last year. We really liked it and will probably keep going year after year for as long as we are here.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

I have a thing for white pumpkins so we found a couple that were the perfect size.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Pumpkin Patch 2012

On a side note this trip to the pumpkin patch was the first time I’ve used my real camera since July. I could hardly believe it when I was looking at the memory card. Only phone pictures since fricking July. I’ve got to remember to grab the real camera more often.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Pumpkin Patch 2012

This is my favorite picture from the Pumpkin Patch.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

We ended up coming home with the two white pumpkins for painting and one pretty good side orange one for carving.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

While we were paying for our pumpkins we went into their little store and saw Waldo’s brother’s honey for sale. It’s raw, unfiltered, local, yummy honey. This was the first time we’ve seen it for sale anywhere, it was pretty cool. I also bought one of their home grown loofa’s and came home and cut it in half because I thought it was too big. Huge mistake, now I have this tiny loofa that does nothing but annoy me because it’s hard to hold on too. Live and learn.

KatieBee honey on display at the pumpkin patch

We had such a nice time together, as is the norm. Now I can’t wait to carve pumpkins and put Lily in her witch’s costume and go trick or treating.

Easter 2012 ~ Just a bit late

I know that I’m late with this Easter post, but I don’t really care. If this actually gets published and doesn’t live the rest of the its existence in my drafts folder I will be one very happy woman.

Last year we had started out dying eggs for Easter, but very quickly we realized that red solo cups of dye are boring and spill very easily (I’m pretty sure I spilled two cups) so I tossed all of the colored vinegar water and changed tactics. I got out our painting supplies and we painted eggs. It worked out great so a tradition was born.  This year I wanted some pastel colors for the eggs and had a very hard time trying to find pastel paint. Finally I found some little pots of pastel-ish colors at Michaels and decided that they would have to be good enough.

The Saturday before Easter Waldo, Lily and I sat down and started painting eggs.  First I had Lil paint her 2012 wood egg.  This is a idea I stole from my friend Amy, I love it. This way I’ll have an egg for every year when she’s all grown up.

Painting easter eggs

Painting easter eggs

I love how every stoke of the paintbrush was very deliberate.

Painting easter eggs

After her wood egg was done we all got going with the regular hard-boiled eggs.

Painting easter eggs

Painting easter eggs

I love how the paint pots looked after a little painting.

Painting easter eggs

Painting easter eggs

Painting easter eggs

Painting easter eggs

Easter morning I hid the eggs in the front yard and Lily had a lot of fun searching for them. Once and halfway through she got cold so I put a sweater over her cute new outfit.

Easter 2012

Easter 2012

We don’t celebrate Easter other than to hide and seek eggs over and over and over and over again. For us it was the perfect day.

Sticky walls for Spring and Easter

I found the idea to use contact paper (sticky side out) on a table on Pinterest and Lily loved it. I have since tried it on the wall and Lily loves it even more.

I had thought at first to buy Lil some pattern blocks because I saw on some blog that her kids had fun with it, but keep putting off actually buying them. One day I decided to see if Lily would even like it and took some craft foam sheets that I had bought but didn’t really have a use for and cut it into different shapes. Lil went crazy for it.

Sticky wall

Since she like doing abstract shapes so much I thought I’d try using the craft foam to celebrate the seasons and holidays.

First up: Spring.

While Lil was downstairs playing with Waldo’s parents I started cutting foam sheets up into flowers and a sun and some clouds.  Lil walked in and saw the stack of foam sheets and went straight to the drawer where I keep my exacto knife (well covered so the sharp end isn’t a danger) grabbed it and the cutting board it came with and proclaimed I needed to make her more shapes.  First off I have to say that I didn’t know she even knew my knife was in the drawer of my craft dresser-thing and I’ve since moved it and secondly holy crap I guess she liked the sticky board even more than I though.

Spring sticky wall

I showed her what I had already made her and asked what else she needed. Lily decided that we needed some red and orange clouds, a tree (which I thought was an awesome idea and couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it), a bird (see ‘a tree’), a butterfly and a snowflake (from a pre-cut winter foam sheet set we had).

Spring sticky wall

The spring board was a huge hit and is still up on the wall.

*****

Second sticky board: Easter bunnies.

We aren’t religious people and do a very secular version of Christmas and Easter. It’s all about family, fun, crafts and being together. That’s just so you know why there are never any crosses in my art with Lily. 🙂

We stopped at Michaels last weekend so I could grab some pastel paint for our eggs. Let me just point out here that I found it very hard to get pastel paint anywhere, do you have a secret place you get it from? Anyway we were looking around and I grabbed some foam sheets cut like eggs and I figured I’d do another sticky wall with them or a mobile or something. I also grabbed a spring colored collection of foam sheets. The more I thought of the foam eggs the clearer a craft idea became. Of course in the end it only barely resembled the grand plan in my brain, but it was fun none the less.

Thursday I gave Lily the foam eggs and some puffy paint since she loved it so much last time and she went to town.

Decorating foam eggs for the sticky wall

I showed her how to make lines, she was one happy girl after that.

Decorating foam eggs for the sticky wall

I know she looks really bored, but I checked and she's just concentrating.

Decorating foam eggs for the sticky wall

Decorating foam eggs for the sticky wall

The green is just craft glue that I added some green dye to for fun.

Decorating foam eggs for the sticky wall

I wasn’t sure how long the huge globs of puffy paint was going to take to dry so I planned to do the rest of the sticky wall on Saturday instead of Friday.  I’m really glad I did, the largest globs weren’t dry till Saturday morning.

After I put Lily to bed Friday night I started getting everything ready for Saturday morning.  I put a new piece of contact paper up on a free space of wall (I’m running out of free wall space in the family room very quickly) and figured out how to make a very simple basket. I normally would let Lily put everything up on the sticky wall, but I wanted a few things “just so” on this particular wall so I did a few of the items.

Bunny sticky wall

I put a little easter grass in the basket and set to work on making my bunnies.  I honestly had no idea how I was going to make them when I started looking around the family room for inspiration.  I initially thought they’d be pretty small, but ended up using one of the foam eggs as a template for the belly portion so they are bigger than the eggs and that worked out just fine, thankfully.  After cutting two body portions out of craft foam I grabbed one of Lil’s tiny tea cups and used it to trace a circle for the head. I free-handed the ears and then decided that they needed some additional dimension and added a little almost round piece to the belly, a muzzle on the face and inner ear colors. I loved my little bunnies. I took them in and showed Waldo, who tried really hard to not roll his eyes too much.  I then decided they needed arms and legs and this was almost the end of my cute bunnies.  The arms and legs got very cartoonish and long and at first I hated it, but Lil ended up using only the arms and it worked out great. I know that I’m the only one that the arms and legs being weird would bother, but I worked hard on my little buddies bunnies and wanted perfection.

Bunnys for the sticky wall

I put the bunny parts together and just placed the eyes on the tray so Lil would be able to see what they were, but would be able to customize.  I shouldn’t have been surprised that she put them all together just about exactly how I had them laid out. I mean Mr. Potato Head has only one suitable configuration, oh well.  I stayed up very late to get my bunnies all finished and make sure everything was ready for when Lil woke up in the morning.  I find it funny that most Mom’s would stay up late on Saturday night to make it look like the Easter bunny had been busy with baskets and eggs for Easter. I stay up late Friday night so that Lil can do a fun easter craft instead.

Saturday morning bright and early Lil woke up and we started our day.  She didn’t disappoint me with her reaction to my bunny craft.  We spent a little time gluing the eyes on and then she got to work.

Bunny sticky wall

Bunny sticky wall

I love that she used poof balls for feet, unfortunately poof balls don't stick to contact paper very well.

The bunnies got moved around a bit before Lil was totally satisfied, but once she was it was all perfect.

Bunny sticky wall

Bunny sticky wall

I love making sticky walls for Lily with craft foam shapes and other items we find around the house and craft closet.  She has a lot of fun with it and learns along the way too.  Most of the time the foam sheets are repositionable, but sometimes they get totally stuck and you can’t move it without ripping.  Such is life I guess and we all move on.  I have a sticky wall idea that’s forming involving fish, I can’t wait to see how it works out.

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