Halloween, IDMommy Style

 Happy Halloween!!! Here's some random Halloween fun going on in the IDMommy's house today...

Sammy as Clifford

 Sammy wanted to be Clifford, and since I found I could buy a like-new costume on ebay for less than I could buy the material, I didn't make his.  But, I did make the little yellow tag that says "Clifford" as it really needed that!  I just used two pieces of yellow felt sandwiched together and sewn on the edges, then wrote the letters with black fabric paint.

 Toby loves Curious George, so I had fun dressing him as the Man in the Yellow Hat!  I got a new witch hat at the thrift store, spray painted it yellow, and added a band around it with some black vinyl I had in my studio.  The boots, pants, shirt and belt were also from the thrift store.  I had to take a couple trips to find yellow pants but found some!  I did have to make them shorter and smaller around the waist though as they were too big.  For his belt (which you can't see here) I just got an adult sized black belt, cut it shorter, and punched new holes in it to fit him.  The yellow shirt had a couple blue stripes sewn across it, which I removed with a seam ripper.

 Here's a close-up of the little bit of sewing I did on the shirt.  I just made a fake collar on the front and a little tie, an then glued some black felt polka dots on it.  It came out okay!  I couldn't find a yellow tie anywhere so this worked.  I just cut the shapes, folded the edges in and ironed them, then sew the edges and voila! Faked dress shirt and tie!

We did our pumpkins this morning so I'll have to share pics of those too...

Sammy isn't too interested in getting dirty so I scraped the insides loose and he helped scoop the guts out into a bowl. That was about the extent of his interest in pumpkin carving this year so I pretty much did all the work, which is fine, because I love carving pumpkins!

 

We saved a bowl full of seeds to roast later.  You can find a recipe on my Junk Mail Gems blog here, as well as instructions and recipes to turn your pumpkin into pie and bread after Halloween.

  

 If you're new to pumpkin carving, here are a few tips...

1) as shown above, don't just cut a circle, put a "V" shape somewhere around your circle.  This will help you line the lid up perfectly every time when you cover it.  Little trick I learned from my dad!  

2) Cut at an angle as shown above.  If you cut straight, your lid won't sit on top; it'll fall inside! 

3) Make sure you cut the hole big enough for your hand to get in, and more importantly, out of the pumpkin to clean it out!

So, Here's what I did this year...

Toby loves George, as we've established earlier, so I made him a George pumpkin! I was gonna just do a face, but found this image of George floating away on his kite on a Google image search and liked it.  I used some brown acrylic paint and a sharpie for the black.

 I can take NO credit for this great lantern design idea...I found it on Pinterest! The original link can be found here, on Country Living.  Such a fun idea.  I didn't use their templates but they are easy enough! I used a drill for the little holes and a permanent marker for the black.  Much simpler than they look.

And last but certainly not least, the semi-truck monster truck pumpkin!  Sammy is currently obsessed with monster trucks, and wanted a monster truck pumpkin.  We scrolled through images of monster trucks on the web and chose this one that looks like a big rig.  I think my new favorite pumpkin carving tool is my cordless drill!  I used it for all the round lights, and also for the corners of all the spots I cut out.  I used some paint pens for the color and the metallic silver, which worked great!

After a little pumpkin carving, fun with Play Doh, and playing in the yard, we had lunch.  I made some "super special cheesy Halloween toast"...

So, that's our day so far!  The boys are resting up now so they'll have lots of energy to go trick-or-treating with Daddy after supper!

Hope you and your family have a fun and safe Halloween!!

Making Tie Dye Shirts for Halloween!

Sammy and I had a blast making some Halloween tie dye shirts a week or so ago, using a kit I got at Michael's with my 40% off coupon.  They also had t-shirts for $2, but you could easily use any old white shirt or pick one up at a thrift store!

First I had to wash the shirts, with no fabric softener.  I pulled them out of the washing machine and, leaving them wet, we put rubber bands on them...

 One for Sammy, one for Toby, and one for Mommy!

Sammy got a kick out of the plastic gloves!

 The kit was super easy...just add water to the bottles which already had powdered dye in them, and shake!  Then apply with the bottle.  I was picturing myself having to mix up buckets of dye and do it out in the back yard, but this was nice, neat, and simple enough for this almost-4-yr-old to do with a little help!

Sammy applying the orange dye up to the rubber band

Finishing off the dye

I set them on a foil lined cookie sheet, with a piece of plastic wrap over them, for 8 hours or so.

 Then comes the fun part...opening them up and seeing how they turned out!  The instructions had some cute ideas for jack-o-lantern and spider web designs and we pretty much followed those closely.  I kindof made mine up as a spinoff of Sammy's pumpkin shirt, with 3 pumpkins...

 Then after you wash them and dry them you can add some designs with the fabric paint. The kit also came with a glow-in-the-dark paint but I just used this black:

Here are our 3 shirts all done!  Toby won't fit into his until at least next year, as the smallest shirt Michael's had was still too big for him.  But, I think I like his the best, with the spider web!

Fun Fall Projects: Egg Carton Pumpkins!

 Here's a little egg carton project you can do with your kids this fall!  I've been looking for egg carton crafts because I have quite a stash of them built up, and this one has been popping up all over Pinterest so I thought I'd give it a try!

Spray paint the bottom of an egg carton orange

Cut apart the sections

Cut off the bottoms of each egg section. Try to get them as flat as you can so they'll match up when you glue them later.

Poke a little hole in the middle of the tops of your pumpkin

I had these fake leaves around so I cut some of them off to put on our pumpkins

Put a dot of glue on the little hole you poked

Stick on your leaf! You could make a leave with fabric, paper, pipe cleaners, or whatever else, too! I also added a little piece of the wire stem from my fake leaves for a stem, which you could just use a stick or pipe cleaner for too.

Put some glue around the edges of one of the halves

Stick 'em together

Add a face! Sammy had fun coloring on these with a Sharpie.  You can also add google eyes!

ID Mommy Project: Baby Food Jar Jack-o-Lanterns

So today I was reaching for my blaze orange spray paint in preparation for a different pumpkin craft for the boys to do after nap.  Staring back at me on the same shelf was my stash of empty baby food jars, which have been screaming for re-use.   Then it hit me...hey, I could mask off some jack-o-lantern faces, paint them orange, peel off the tape, and set them over a battery powered candle....and voila! (Yeah, I know, I'm weird...these are the things that pop into my head!!)  Turns out they actually came out kinda cool!  So here it is!

 You'll need orange spray paint, masking or painter's tape, baby food jars (or any glass jar, really), and scissors or an X-acto knife.  Optional: Something to make leaves and/or a stem with

 Thoroughly clean and dry the baby food jars.  Then turn them upside down and make faces on them with masking tape.  I cut these shapes with scissors, which was a bit clumsy but worked.  (You could also put the tape on the jar first and cut the shapes right on the jar with an X-acto knife.)

 I made three of them today. Make sure to burnish the tape...rub them down so the edges are really stuck so the paint doesn't get underneath.

 Next, spray paint them orange.  Make sure they're upside down.  I did the faces on the upside down jars so there wouldn't be overspray inside the jars and the faces would stay clear.

 It may take a couple coats.  Once it's all dry, carefully peel off the tape.  I like to use the sharp point of my X-acto knife to grab the edge of the tape so I don't scratch the part I want painted.

 You could stop there if you want.  I found some old fake flowers and snipped a few leaves off and glued them on top.  I'd still like to add a stem of some sort but I'm not sure what to use yet.  Maybe a real stick?

Now just set them on top of a little battery powered candle!  Cuteness!! You could do these right side up too...just keep the lid on or tape off the opening while spray painting so you don't get paint on the inside.  (If you get paint inside, the cut-out faces won't be clear)

Fun Fall Project Tutorial: Marbled Leaves!

Okay, so a few days ago I had put Toby down for bed, and we had one hour of "Sammy time" before he too went to bed.  I proposed two options:

1) Watch his new Thomas movie (just got at a garage sale for $2) and eat the new "magic" blue popcorn (I got for free with coupons)

or

2) Do a craft project with Mommy.

To my surprise (and delight), he chose option #2!  So, I dove into my Pinterest list of things to make with the boys, and decided to try making these cool marbled fall leaves!

Here's how we did it...

First I found a scrap of white poster board in my office, and just used scissor to cut some random leaf shapes.  (If you don't want to freehand it, you could use real leaves as templates, or pull some leave illustrations off the web too)

Next I covered a plastic food container lid with shaving cream.  I used a knife to spread it like frosting so it would cover the whole lid.  I found I didn't really need this much, but it worked...

Next we took some of my acrylic paints and squirted them around the shaving cream.  I used a little bit of gold paint which added some nice sparkle...

 

 (Sammy is smiling big because the paint container farted! Aah, little boys...)

Now we took a wooden skewer and swirled the paint around in the shaving cream.  Fun for kids!!

 

Then, lay your leaf on the paint and gently press it down:

 

 Then carefully lift it up.  It looks pretty thick and goopy and you might think, hey, this doesn't look like the picture!!

 

Take a flat edge of a knife and scrape off the shaving cream:

 

 Voila!!

 

These turned out pretty cool I think for our first try!  These would be extra cool if done on both sides, sprinkled with a little glitter, then sprayed with some clear coat and strung together into a garland!

A Special Garage Sale Find: Mary's Craft Box

Today's "garage sale finds" post is not quite like any of my other posts bragging about my great deal, but more about the humbling experience of my special find!

I went out garage saling with the boys this morning, as I often do on Thursday mornings.  On our way back home we decided to stop at just ONE more sale, even though the car was pretty well packed with a large kids' picnic table I had just purchased, among other things.

This sale was full of all kinds of interesting things.  There was a huge 10 gallon tote full of little matchbox cars, and Sammy had a blast digging through them.  We took home as many monster trucks as his little hands could hold.

But the bargain that got me most excited was a huge Rubbermaid bin marked "Arts and Crafts."  The sticker on the box read "$5 for all."  Inside the bin were more smaller bins full of interesting items.  There was another bin next to it for the same price, so I figured I'd take this larger one, being the bargain hunter that I am.

Below is a photo of the bin and contents, AFTER I spent an hour sorting through every item, tossing out little scraps & dried up paints, pulling out all of the already finished crafts, and re-organizing.  There were beads, scissors, a glue gun, ribbon, pom poms, puff paints, wood pieces, you name it!

But the interesting story here was not in this great bargain I had, but the story behind it.  I told the woman at the sale that I'd take that big green bin full of craft supplies.  She said, "Oh, great! I had a little girl with Leukemia and that was all we could do to keep her busy!"  She followed me over to the bin and started piling on more plastic storage containers full of popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and other supplies.  "Here, take these too!  Your boys can have fun with these..."

I went home happy that I had scored such a great deal, but sad to think of another child who had to go through something as tough as Leukemia. Pulling a small bag of colored feathers out that still had the $5 price tag, the price I paid for this entire box, I thought to myself, I'd spend hundreds on craft supplies for my kid's too if they were battling cancer and it distracted them from that harsh reality for even a moment.

As I sorted through the items in the bin I couldn't help but think of Mary, the little girl who worked so hard on the dozens of finished ornaments, pins, earrings, and other items in the box.  I pulled out this little guide to the "Craft Show Extravaganza and Bake Sale" at Children's Hospital from November 2001:

I found some unopened packages of "Specially Hand Made By Mary" labels.

(If anyone out there named "Mary" would like these, let me know and I'll send them to you for free! I just couldn't toss or donate them!)

I couldn't help but think the whole time I sorted through these items about just how blessed we are to have two healthy boys.  How lucky I am to be stocking up on craft supplies to keep them busy when cooped up this winter...not because they are stuck in a hospital undergoing chemotherapy, but because their feet got cold and wet with snow that soaked their boots after building snowmen and sledding for so long.

I don't know if Mary won or lost her battle with Cancer...I couldn't bear to ask her mom.  But I sure hope she had one rockin' successful craft sale at table #42 in the Children's Hospital in November of 2001.  Her listing in the directory says "former patient," so that give me hope that she won her fight, and I hope it never returned!

I gently stacked most of the little crafts and ornaments in my charity donation bag, but decided to keep one ornament to hang on our Christmas tree.  This one I thought captured the hand made nature of Mary's crafts the best:

I plan to hang this ornament on our tree each year as a reminder of just how lucky we are to have healthy kids who are here in our home with us, making enormous messes every 5 seconds, dirtying tons of laundry from playing, and eating us out of house and home. Thank you, Mary, for this valuable reminder. How very blessed we are!!