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Printable Masks

Looking for a last-minute Halloween costume idea? Or pretty wall decorations for a child’s room? Photo props? Danielle of Kitschy Digitals wrote to me about her new line of printable masks. They are so cute!

Dress up your kid as a scarecrow (flannel shirt, overalls, hay coming from arms and legs) and use the  mask from the Wizard of Oz set (designed by Chelsea Ann Redinger) or try the sweet butterfly mask below (designed by Melody Miller) and whip up a pair of these wings. Done!

I don’t know how these holidays always sneak up on me and I am in awe of you organized folks out there who make Halloween costumes in August! This year my seven-year-old is dressing as Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter and my nine-year-old is going as a recycling bin. You might be able to tell that my girls have slightly different personalities. I decided not to make any of the Harry Potter attire because it is so easily available, but we are dyeing her hair red! For my older daughter’s costume, I cut the bottom out of a recycling bin and also cut arm holes, then we’ll attach paper and cans to it. The irony of this costume is that by destroying the recycling bin, it’s not very environmentally-friendly. But we are planning ways to re-use the bin and my daughter already made a coaster from the armhole plastic piece by gluing felt to the top.

You can see my kids’ costumes from last year here and read more about my costume advice here. My favorite costume that my older daughter wore is still the Violet Beauregarde as a blueberry from Willy Wonka. Loved that one. Good luck to everyone who will have late-night Halloween sewing to do!

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Quick Crafty Round-Up

Here’s a post that’s had me thinking a lot lately: 10 Great Ways to be an Unhappy Mom. This post led me to discover Beth Berry’s blog, Revolution from Home, which I find real and refreshing. I particularly like this post. A reminder to take the time to slow down, focus our energy on what’s really important and remember not to compare ourselves to the perceived perfection that we see online (which does not exist, I can assure you).

So, I’m giving you a round-up of project tutorials, none of which I am going to make! Ha. But I’m going to finish my final round of book edits today, get some photos taken and make a trip to the grocery store. Success! And if you have the time and feel inspired, go make something from these tutorials. There are so many creative and inspiring projects out there, but maybe you need to go do something more important. Like feed the kids.

Reading Pillow from Melissa Mortenson.

Boatneck Tutorial from Dana of Made.

Sewing Round-up on How about Orange.

Easy Watercolor Portraits from Grow Creative.

And some Halloween ideas:

50 Halloween Crafts (from my previous round-up).

Halloween Craft Round-Up from Hello Lucky!

25 Projects from Better Homes & Gardens.

Plus a round-up of my crafts over the years. Here’s another round-up of candy corn crafts, and still another round-up of projects.

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Costumes

Chaos. Halloween always turns into chaos for us and trying to get a photo of the girls as trick-or-treaters are starting to arrive is sure to be a bust. My house is a wreck, but I managed to get both kids into DIY costumes yesterday. I have my priorities.

Here we have Mary and her little (completely uncooperative) lamb. I made a little lamb costume for the dog, but he hated it and just continued to jump and twist around trying to bite it off. The dress is Burda 9702 and the staff is a coat hanger wrapped in quilt batting and stuffed into a fabric tube.

And my older daughter was a gumball machine. We saw the idea over on Dollar Store Crafts and made our own version using two plastic bowls, pom-poms, an embroidery hoop stuffed and covered with fabric for the top and aquarium tubing in the skirt. Parenting tip: when you have to make air holes for your child, you probably haven’t picked the best costume! We only let her wear the top for 10 minutes at a time, and there is also a vent in the bottom part with mesh for breathing — I tried it on and it’s hot, but breathable. (Just so you know that I am not a completely terrible parent.) She won Funniest Costume at our school carnival and was a big hit last night trick-or-treating, never mind the fact that she could barely see anything after dark.

This is the same kid who went as Violet Beauregarde a couple of years ago. I begged her to be a headless Barbie this year, but she wasn’t interested. Maybe next year. You can read my post about costume lessons learned from a couple of years ago here. I am so ready to move on from Halloween. Onward to the next holiday!

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Halloween Thumbprint Art

Here’s a quick and easy project that would be great for a class Halloween party — thumbprint art inspired by Ed Emberley. I’m looking forward to Cloud 9’s upcoming collection of Ed Emberley prints, which inspired me to buy a couple of drawing books for my kids. The pumpkins above were made by my six-year-old and I especially like the crying pumpkin! So sad.

I thought this would be a simple craft for our Halloween carnival this past weekend. We made bookmarks; and since the kids were all different ages, we put out different colored ink pads, made some samples and let them have at it in a pretty free form way. I think the key to getting younger kids to make decent-looking art for a project is to limit their choices. So with preschool kids, it would be a good idea to stick with pumpkin thumbprints and let them draw all kinds of different faces. Older kids can get more creative and make bats, monsters, spiders and witches.

My older daughter has spent hours over the past few weeks working on different kinds of thumbprint art from this book, as you can see below.

And on a different note, Chronicle Books is having a Halloween book sale! Use code HALLOWEEN at checkout for 30% off plus free ground shipping. Be sure to pick up a copy of 1, 2, 3 Sew! Get a head-start on your holiday shopping! The offer expires Monday.