Block-O-Lantern

A few years ago my mom went to a Super Saturday for her ward. They did these glass block crafts and painted snowmen on them. Well one of them cracked when they drilled the hole so they gave it to my mom for free! Probably because she always spent the most. Seriously, we would be down there all day and not even finish everything. So frustrating! Haha

Anywho, so my mom gave me this glass block. Now I always had in my mind to do what they did and paint a snowman, but while going through our Halloween decorations I found a strand of orange lights and then I got to thinking... I'll make it into a Jack-O-Lantern! So here are the steps to make your very own Block-O-Lantern!

What you need:
A glass block. You can buy them at Home Depot, or even Michaels sells them with the hole already cut.
A drill
Tissue paper
black cardstock
Mod Podge (Click to make your own)
A strand of lights

First you will need to drill the hole if you bought it at Home Depot. I didn't have to do this step so I can't help you out. Just be careful so you don't crack it. Then stick your strand of lights inside.

Here is what it will look like... 

Origianlly I was just going to paint the face on, but I'm no artist and I really didn't have the right tools. Plus the wire of the lights are black so you could really see them and it looked horrible. (Sorry no pic)

Instead I decided to mod podge some tissue paper on to hide the wiring. I used white because it is what I had on hand. If I could do it again or when I make my mom one I would do orange tissue paper. That way when it is off it would still be orange. Also, maybe you could just do white lights and it'd still be orange. 

This is what it should look like. I just did a single layer, but you could do more if you wanted. 

 I cut out his face out of black blingy/ shiny scrapbook paper. You could really use whatever you have. Then mod podge it over the tissue paper.

And now lit up! I love it. I think it turned out so cute. Cost me nothing and took me like 20 minutes to make. The hardest part was cutting out the face. I used white tissue paper with orange lights. I'm thinking if you did orange paper than you could just use plain lights. That way too when it's turned off it will still be orange.

Let us know what you think, and feel free to email us your attempt at your own Block-O-Lantern!

~CJ

Halloween Countdown

The first Halloween post of the year!!! Halloween is coming and maybe your kids are excited already. My little bug is too young to feel the excitement of loads of candy approaching! To help kids know how much longer until they can indulge in chocolate goodness, I've made a Halloween countdown. Here is a Gibson original!

I'm so excited with how it turned out and I love that I came up with the idea all by myself. I even figured out how to print in a circle and everything. Here is a basic list of what you will need to make your very own Halloween countdown!

Orange paper (apparently some cardstock is too thick to print on so be careful)
Black paper
Stove burner cover (can buy them in a 2 pack at Dollartree I used the smaller one.)
Black Paint
Ribbon
Magnet sheet
Hot glue gun
Mod Podge (click to learn how to make your own) 

Sorry, I didn't take pictures along the way

First thing to do is paint your stove burner cover black. At first I just painted the edges, but it helps the paper stick if you paint the whole thing. It took 2 coats.


While that is drying you can print out your Days until candy paper. Confession, I made this a few years ago. I will work on getting a template up here.

Or you can make your own. In openoffice use the Fontwork gallery and type in what you want it to say, then change the shape to a circle. And mess with it until it's what you want it to be. Sorry I can't have it be easier for you!

Ok so print it out on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of orange paper. Then trace the paper around the burn cover. Then cut. It helped to cut a little smaller than the actual cover.

Once the paint is dry you can mod podge the orange onto the cover. Here is where you may want to make changes. My ink smeared a little bit. I'm not sure if there is anything you can do to make it not smear. So you may want to just glue it on or something? Or maybe just do mod podge behind the paper and not on top. It's up to you. Or as you can see in the picture it's not that noticeable.

Next you can cut out your numbers from the orange paper. I don't have a fancy cricut machine so I just went to my local scrapbook store and used their die cuts. I did 1 1/2 inch numbers 0-9 and did 1-4 twice so you could make 11, 22 etc. (I only did #4 twice because it was on the same die cut. I don't see me ever counting out more than 31 days, but who knows.)

Next cut your black paper into squares. I cut them into 1 1/2 x 2 inch squares. Then glue your numbers to your black squares.

Cut your magnets and stick to the back of your black squares. 

 Then bunch a knot  around your main ribbon with multiple ribbons. There is a trick where you only tie one ribbon and just lay the others inside the knot.Hopefully I can explain it.

Lay out one ribbon down and lay the others on top of it. Then tie the bottom ribbon around your main ribbon.

 It will look something like this except around your main ribbon...

Like this.

Then when that is done hot glue your ribbon to the back of the cover. The cool thing about this is all the extra numbers stick to the back of the cover. I would suggest storing in a ziplock bag when storing over the year.

There you have it, your very own countdown!

 

Email pictures, I'd love to see how yours turns out!

~CJ

Painting Pumpkins

What is Halloween without pumpkins? Traditionally it's carving pumpkins, but with a toddler I wanted something that would involve him. How about Painting Pumpkins???

My little bug loved it! He had so much fun! It took him about 30 minutes and he didn't want to stop there.

This was a fun way to include him this Halloween  His pumpkin sits outside our front door and he admires it anytime we go outside.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Spooky 7 layer bean dip

Ok so I love this time of year! It's not my favorite, but it means my favorite is getting close! Every October my family and 2 other families we've known since before I was born get together and have a black and orange dinner. What is this you might ask? It is so much fun! All the food is black and orange. Ex. black olives, baby carrots, Doritos  Whatever people want to bring. The main course is dinner in a pumpkin. I'll do a post on that later. We also always have orange jello with those plastic spider rings in them. So much fun. The last few years we've tried stepping out of the box. This is what I came up with last year.

If you have never made a 7 layer bean dip before start! They are so easy and always a big hit. My usual bean dip is this (Layer in order)

Refried beans
Sour cream
Guacamole
Cheese
tomatoes
green onion
olives

For this Halloween one I focused more on the halloween colored food showing; green guacamole, orange cheese, and black olives. I also ended with an extra layer of sour cream to make the web. I just put sour cream in a zip top bag and cut the end. It was pretty simple to do. I LOVE my little spider made out or an olive!

It was a huge hit! I'm trying to brainstorm ideas for something fun for this year, it's Sunday!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

~CJ

Partying with:

Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach costumes

To kick start fall posts I thought I'd start with our Halloween Costumes from last year. We were Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach.

I like trying to avoid store bought costumes. It is so much fun to throw together yourself and sometimes cheaper. Here is how we made them. Goodwill was our friend:)

Mario: We found a pair of NEW overalls at Goodwood for $1.50! Also the red shirt. The hat is an Elmo hat we bought at a kid resell store. We made the buttons on the overalls out of yellow felt, we just taped them on and they stayed pretty well. The "M" symbol on his hat is made from felt. My husband just drew it and cut it out. The mustache was drawn on with eye liner. I think we ended up buying costume make up for Halloween, this picture was taken at a Neighborhood carnival a few days before the 31st.

Luigi- Basically the same as Mario. We found the overalls at Savers and a green dress shirt and hat at Goodwill. For his 'stache we used felt and taped it on with double sided tape. It stayed on ok. It did come off a few times. It got pretty sweaty...

Princess Peach- The dress was my PROM dress from High School. It didn't quite fit still hence the jacket (It's not zipped up all the way) also the sleeves aren't very modest. The pendant on the chest was made with felt as well as the crown. You also can't see it in this picture, but I had blue felt earrings taped to my ears.

Treat bucket- I loved this and everyone thought it was the perfect touch! I just found a square box and covered it with yellow construction paper. I then drew out a question mark on white paper, cut and glued. I attached a handle from ribbon.

Everyone loved our costumes! It was a great First Halloween for Ryder! How do you think we did?

Photo courtesy of geeksugar.com

Something fun to consider. Ryder was only 10 months old for Halloween, obviously too young for candy (But he wanted it!). We saved all of his candy and used it in the favors for his Birthday Party 2 months later.

Want more Fall/ Halloween ideas,  follow me! I have a few different projects lined up:)

~CJ