halloween is almost here!

I love finding wonderful new ways to celebrate and decorate for Halloween. These Monster brownies from Amanda's Cookin' are a wonderful new addition to our festivities. Click Amanda's blog for the link.

chalkboard paint

Is there nothing chalkboard paint can't do? From the marvelous The Crafts Dept. A chalkboard paint change-able banner.

heroes that do pumpkins

Gotta love Dollar Store Halloween supplies. Found these cute No-Carve Pumpkin decorations that my heroes had a great time with today.

a little last minute craft

so simple it might get overlooked.. the napkin ghost. Yes napkin ghosts are pretty much free and quite easy to do.. but does anyone think to do them anymore?? This year the kids and I did some to hang in corners around our house and all it takes is this: scrunch a plain white paper napkin into a ball, take a second napkin and cover the ball, tie a string around to keep it together and hang it up- the finishing touch is to add some eyes with a black marker. I love getting back to the basics like that! Oh, and if you happen to have a ceiling fan with a slow setting..that you can safely attach them to, it might mesmerize your kids like it did mine.

trick or treat

Ah yes, another Halloween post. I've been wondering what I would do with the kids if we were not going trick or treating on the 31st and I've found some fun things to do in the Capital. I'm sure you can find these sorts of things in any community but here's my Ottawa Link love for today-
as mentioned before:
Saunders Farm because its got one hell of a spooky wagon ride for those of us too old to trick or treat.
The Billings Estate because you can go ghost hunting there on Halloween.. that's just freaky spooky.
The Hazeldean Mall because it's a super fun and safe way for little ones to learn all about trick or treating inside without a monster snowsuit covering that costume!
Bayshore Shopping Centre for all of the same Mall reasons..
I'd love to add more to this list if anyone has some great Halloween traditions- bring em on!

my house is haunted

So this is probably my 1oth blog about Halloween but I just haven't said enough about it. We decorated today. Now, I know that when someone decorates for Halloween that usually means the front yard gets pretty spooky looking.. but not here, not this year.

The kids are still pretty young and we really like the little walk from Auntie Sheila's to Papa's house, so we don't trick-or-treat in our neighbourhood.

This is my big confession. We also don't give out candies in our neighbourhood. Eek! I totally suck. Here I am marching 2 kids out to get candy and I'm not giving back myself. I know I super suck, but I've come to justify it to myself and I'm going with this: I gave out candy faithfully for years before marriage and children and now that my husband and I want to see our little heroes go from door to door I'm not answering my door. I will no doubt be pushed aside by E & J one of these years.. told I'm uncool and that I can't keep up.. but for now I'm loving my little trick-or-treaters.

Now on to the decorating! We have spider webs and spiders, Dracula and skeletons, tome stones in plants and bones in corners, a witch on our stairway, ghosts by the windows and pumpkins and gourds on the mantel and dining room table. We even have little skeleton string lights wrapped around the pillars in the living room. I never before considered decorating for Halloween inside and I like it!

To get you thinking more about decorations here are some great blogs with great Halloween ideas!

4 Crazy Kings

Be Different Act Normal

Blonde Designs Blog

Funky Junk Interiors

This is all the link love I've got for today.. but I'll be back with more:)

saunders farm

Tomorrow I'm taking E to her first school Field trip. I know I'm more excited than she is but she's excited too. We're going to Saunders Farm. If you living in Canada's capital I recommend it. It's best for kids who are walking and tricky for those of us who still push strollers around where ever we go. Tomorrow it's just me and E. For more Saunders info click the link:)

robots

If you know anything about my superheroes you know we have many costumes here for Halloween, many. But J loves robots and that's a costume I don't have.. yet. Ahhhh... but now that I've seen this post over at the Filth Wizardry blog, I think J will have that robot costume sooner than I had thought!

Since J started to talk, it's mostly been about robots. He likes to take people on tours of his room so he can show everyone his robots. (Here are a few) He points at each and says very clearly 'another robot here - another robot here - another robot here' and if you are not captivated he will often add a 'lookit' and add in some more pointing.

I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees himself as a robot.

eewww! there is a spider in my soap!

I love to craft. I have at times been big into stained glass, pottery, painting and other things. What I love the most about crafting though is the magic of making something with my hands, that is both practical and beautiful- whatever that medium may be.

When kids came along, it became quite tricky to turn on my pottery wheel and stick my fingers in mud or turn the soldering iron on and melt metal onto glass. It became far easier to immerse myself in the every day hustle and bustle of taking care of and cleaning up after babies.

Now that the kids are old enough I need back in. I've been jonesing for some good craft and I'm gonna get me some. But it can't be just any craft. I'm not just going to Michaels and spending $40 on stuff that has no purpose and only takes 2 minutes.. I still crave those practical and beautiful things... so here's the toddler version of my Tiffany lamp.. here is my latest Halloween craft craving!

A big thanks to HGTV for giving me my next fix! Click the link for the tutorial.

Well it's been a while since we chatted and I've missed you. I've been looking forward to this and I have enough to write a few posts tonight!

I have been crafting again. I found these pumpkins at MarthaStewart.com and just had to try them myself. Martha even sells the glitter at Michaels to make it easy for me. They are turning out well and I'll photograph them when they are all complete although I think I will still like Martha's better.

halloween fun!

Doesn't this cake look great? It's the Hershey's Brownie Cemetery Cake. That's right.. the Halloween spirit has got me. Already I have made sure that the kids have each got several costumes to choose from and they are doing test runs in each of those costumes everyday. I am hoping one costume makes it to Halloween.

To add even more Halloween fun, us moms are going to throw a little Halloween party for the kiddies and that means I've got my mouse out ready to surf! When I found this website I was so excited I just had to get blogging to tell you about it! Hershey's Chocolate (bless them) have a spooky little website that is packed full of Halloween ideas and fun. (turn up the sound so you get the full effect on the intro) They seem to have it all from Interactive Colouring books, Pumpkin stencils, decorating downloads, recipes and party planning. There are many ideas here I need to file away for use in the next couple years!

pumpkins

I had planned to post about our local apple orchards before I ever got into Pumpkins.. but I came across a nifty Halloween craft at GoodHousekeeping that I wanted to share with you. Pumpkins decorated with ribbon. No messy carving! I have to try this!

As you can see we are ready for halloween. It feels a little like halloween is right around the corner too. School will be starting back in no time and the leaves will turn. I want to try and make the most of these last couple weeks of summer and we sure are going to cram as much fun in as possible. On top of birthdays and summer camps, family gatherings and the usual chaos, here are a couple craft ideas I'm hoping we can do in the following weeks.

-freeze our favourite bugs and creatures in ice and see how long that ice takes to melt at bathtime or in the pool.

-fill a serving tray with found nature objects and use this as our table center piece.

-create shapes from old finger painting pictures and frame.

I'll be updating soon with pictures of these crafts and more. Have yourselves a great weekend!

Check back soon to see how I'm progressing with my craft list:)