I'm Ready!

It was a busy week!  Halloween isn't a one day affair around here.  We had parties, trick-or-treating at Dads office, trick-or-treating the neighborhood, visiting family...I'm sure it's similar to what you were doing! 

I have to admit that I'm ready to take down the Halloween decor and start on the fall stuff.  My plan of attack starts in the morning.

-Laundry and Halloween bins-

Sounds entertaining right?!  I gotta so something responsible in the midst of all the fun!

Hopefully we can get the pretty fall leaves and pumpkins up. 

Good-bye doom and gloom!

My hubby will be so excited.  He really doesn't like Harry very much! 

Skeleton Shirts

My kiddos costumes are ready.

Miss C will be Fancy Nancy, my wonderful Mother-in-law made it for her for her birthday.

Mr. Z is the cutest little skeleton.

Although on trick or treat night he may have to be something else because it is threatening to be too cold!

I have been trying to decided what I should do.  I would love to coordinate everyone but it obviously didn't work this year.  So I decided Mr. and Mrs. Skeleton skeleton shirts would kind of work.  3 out of 4 isn't bad, right?

 I turned to my new Silhouette Machine and created these. 

I used white flocked heat transfer for the bones. 

Oh my goodness, I sat doing this for.ever.

I used some wonder under for the little red heart on my shirt. 

Ta DA!

You don't have to have a Silhouette Machine to do this.  It just makes cutting the shape a little easier.

Go Eat Worms

Need a simple Halloween Lunch Idea?

Eat Worms

Oh, yes.  The power of Raman Noodles.

They quickly transformed to worm soup.

We needed a quick and easy way to spice up our afternoon.  And I think this did the trick.

The harshest critics loved it!  They told everyone they could that they got to eat worms for lunch.

Add a little Vampires Blood (Kool Aid) to drink and you are set for a tasty treat.

Bon Appetit!

 

Next up

My next big thing?

~The Garage~

yikes!  We moved in about 3 months and the garage is still a resting place for all kinds of stuff.  The weather has been great and I thought I should tackle getting the garage up and running before it gets cold.  Or maybe even snows....I know it will happen, just not ready for it!

So far I have hung 2 strollers on the back wall, rolled 3 bikes around, moved tools around 4 different times, and tried to figure out the best placement of everything at least 5 times. 

I'll be back at it today.  I would love to figure out how to keep everything in their own organized areas.

Desk Redo

I just finished a project that I am very happy about!  I have never done anything like this and it worked!  Plus, I had fun and learned a lot on my way. 

My neighbor gave me this old desk. 

I figured I would give painting it a shot.  Really, what would I be out?

Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it before I sanded it up.  It was in pretty good shape.  It Had a few old stickers on it and it was missing some of the fancy trim on the bottom right.  So I ripped it all off.  Then I ripped off the trim on the left as well. 

While I was sitting down at it I noticed my legs hit the top.  My ultimate goal for this is to be able to use it as table for my sewing machine.  It wouldn't be very good if I couldn't move my legs!

So off came the trim there too.  I was sad to see this go but I don't feel like I had much choice.

This trim didn't come off so easily.  I ended up having to use a saw on it.  It was my first time using one!  Not to bad.  But I thought it looked a little plain after I took all the fun stuff away.

Off I went to buy some trim at Home Depot, which the nice guy cut for me.  Then used Gorilla glue and shoved it right into place with a little help from my hammer.

At this point I went in and had lunch.  Had to wait for the glue to dry and all.

I decided to go a little different and step out of my neutral zone.

I spray painted it Rust-Oleum Spa Blue.

Let that dry for awhile.  Then I put Minwax stain (Special Walnut) all over it.

It gave it a nice distressed look.  Plus it toned down the blue some so it wasn't so bright.

I am very surprised at how fast this stuff worked.

I thought I would be able to put some on and then rub it off.  Man, it didn't rub off very well.

I ended up grabbing a friend.  I brushed it on then she immediately rubbed it if off with a damp cloth.  Then I went back over it with a dry cloth.  It ended up okay.  I was a little worried during the process though!

I used the existing hardware.  Just spray painted it black.

I think it turned out fun!

For $15-the cost of Gorilla Glue, trim, 2 cans of paint- I got a fab new desk.

You can't beat that!


linked up to:
http://www.justagirlblog.com/

Witch in the House

We know she is here.

Somewhere...

Her boots are on the mantle, the mantle?  Yes.

Her hat is on the book shelf.

Her little black bird is on the lantern.

Her spell books are here too.

We spotted a poison red apple.

What are we to do?

shared with:  Tatertots and Jello

Finished and Decorated

Remember this little guy?  It was a while age, I just keep forgetting to show you the paint results.  I even put some Halloween Decor on him. 

Here he is now:

There is still a few things I think I want to do.  I want to do a cool glass etching to the top and maybe mod podge on some fabric to the bottom.  Just haven't found the right fabric yet.  Maybe I will look at paper?  Anyone tried that?

You need to see the top! 

Mom and I made a this new creepy crawly wreath.  I saw a similar one around blog land but don't remember where...  It was really easy and fast.  I am really liking projects like that!  We added the sign.  I think its fun, I seem to have a thing with spiders and Halloween.

This is how the room is turning out.  I like the table in there but now I need a lamp to go on it! 

Canning Grape Juice

We have a new-to-us house that has two big grape bushes in the back yard.  When we were signing papers for the house the owner brought us some yummy homemade grape juice.  I couldn't believe how fast my family drank it up!  I had this little crazy thought that kept coming back,

We should try it!!!

 So that's what we have been doing today!

The whole process looked scary.  But I am very pleased to say it wasn't bad at all.

Want the steps?

1. Have little hands make a mess help with the water; wash the grapes.
2.  Put the steam juicer all together with water in the bottom, grapes in the top, stems and all.
3. Boil and wait- about 60 mins. after you see steam.
4. Pour juice into warm bottles (put bottles in oven at 200 degrees) screw on caps that are warm.
5. Process in steam canner for 15 min.
6. Delight when the lids make their popping noise.
7. Have yummy, no sugar added, healthy for you, homemade juice!

It was really that simple.  I think it's crazy that my green grapes made pink juice...where does the pink come from? 

But you know what?  I will do it again!

Changing...

Our family took a little drive to see the fall colors today. It is fun to see the colors changing and ushering in a new season. I think I'm ready for fall. Ready to put away the summer clothes. I'm so glad we have Four seasons here!

Do you have any fun fall traditions?

We are getting excited to go to the pumpkin patch soon!

Spiders!

Can you have too many spiders for Halloween?  I don't think so!

This was a fun and super easy little craft.  I found it in the October, Family Fun Magazine.  If you haven't ever looked at Family Fun it has lots of fun ideas and projects in there.  And like I said, this one was very easy and inexpensive!

All you need is chenille bump pipe cleaners, sucition cups, pom-pom for the body, googly eyes, and some glue.  We used Fabric-tac so my kids could do it too.

Twist the pipe cleaners around the suction cup.  Glue the pom-pom to the top.  Glue eyes on.  Really Simple.

In less than 20 minutes, we now have 3 more little spiders running around our house!  Can't go wrong with that!



I love they way they turned out.  One bag of pipe cleaners made three.  I'm really tempted to make some more!

Linked to

Sawdust and Paperscraps

Tatertots and Jello

Spooky Mantle

I really do love Halloween.  I love being able to step out a little and do something different.  Laugh at the things that usually scare us...  Here is a taste of our mantle this year.

LOVE Halloween

Did you miss Harry?  He is our pet spider.  He has been "hang'in" around here for about 3 years now.  He is one of our favorite parts of Halloween.  The kids think Harry's cousins should come visit.  I'm thinking another 1 or 2 of these big guys could be fun... It's fun to hear what the kids say about Harry.  "Umm, will he get me?"  Nah- he only eats bad little girls and boys. :)

The witches shoes are my favorite.  I bought them last year and spent more than I normally do, but man, they were totally worth it!  The bird and cross bones are from Dollar Tree, candle sticks from DI, the gauze adds such a fun touch, it was from Shopko after Halloween for 90% off.  I'm so happy when I stumble on those deals!

I will show more fun spots later.  How is your Halloween Decor coming?

Linked to
Eighteen25