Angry Birds Pumpkin

Happy Halloween!!      (...almost)

Every year, the bank that I work at has a pumpkin carving contest.  I've never been good at carving pumpkins, so I always 'decorate' my pumpkins.  Last year I made my pumpkin into a mummy, and the year before that it was a witch, complete with hair and a hat.  This year I wanted to do something fun and unique, but I also wanted to do something that the kids would recognize so they would vote for my pumpkin. :)  And what kid doesn't love Angry Birds?!?  Heck, what adult doesn't love Angry Birds?!  So here's what I came up with!

What do you think?  I was originally going to do the red bird but I didn't have red paint.  I had plenty of green paint, so I went with the pig.  Then I saw the queen pig, and decided the crown would be the perfect addition!  Do you want to see how I made the eyes, nose, and crown?

Of course, I started by painting the pumpkin green.  I only did two coats, and it seemed to be enough.

Then I started making the accessories while the paint dried.  For the eyes, I cut two big circles out of white felt.  Then I hand stitched around the outside edge of the circle.

I finished the eye by pulling the two ends of thread together, putting a bit of stuffing in the pocket, and tying a knot with the thread. Then I just cut little circles from black felt to make the eyeballs.

Next is the snout. For this, I just cut the shape that I wanted out of felt, then cut strips of felt for the side of the nose.

I put the side and snout together, and hand stitched them together.  This would have been much easier if my sewing machine wasn't broken, but oh well! Last, I did the same as I did with the eyes, and stitched around the edge of the strips of felt that were attached to the snout.  Then I gathered the two pieces of thread together, put some stuffing in it, and tied a knot.  I cut two different sized ovals from black felt, and hot glued them to the front of the snout.

I did the same thing for the ears.  Cut out the shape, stitch two together, turn inside out, fill with stuffing, and glue black felt to the front.  Easy peasy! :)

The crown was really simple. I took a piece of felt, folded it in half, and cut the triangle shapes off the top.  Then I glued all the sides together, cut blue felt circles, and glued the gems and circles to the crown.  Then I just glued the sides of the crown together.

 The only thing I didn't show was the eyebrows, because all I did was cut the shapes out of black felt, and hot glued them to the pumpkin.  I used hot glue to attach the eyes, nose, and ears.  If kids will be touching it, you might want to use pins to attach them.  The glue holds ok, but if anyone pulls on it, the pieces will come right off.

 So there you have it!!  What do you think?  My kids absolutely loved it, and I had so much fun making it!  Thanks so much for reading!!
Juli

Halloween craft for the kiddos!!

On Sunday I promised that I would share a fun fall craft that I did with my kiddos, so here it is!

The last couple weeks, I've been racking my brain, trying to come up with something new and fun for Halloween.  I'm on a really tight budget, so I didn't want to spend any money on new decorations.  As you've seen in my past posts, HERE and HERE, I really like to reuse and recycle items and turn them into something fun.  So here's what we made.  Can you guess what they're made out of?

 So did you guess what they're made out of?  Well, wonder no longer! :)

I originally wanted to use empty toilet paper rolls, but when I came up with the idea, we didn't have any empty rolls.  So I looked around, and in my recycle pile were these containers.  We go through this 'juice' like crazy!  My husband is diabetic, so anything sugar free is a hit in our home.

So I took off the wrappers and cut all the containers in half, and went to town!  My two oldest kiddos LOVED helping with this!  I have to admit that I'm kind of a perfectionist, so sometimes it gave me hives to sit and watch them do these crafts! But we loved it, and the kids did an awesome job!  In fact, my kids were begging me to let them make more!   Here they are with their favorite ones! :)

 Well, this is definitely a craft we will be doing again!  And the best thing about these is that they actually fit on my itty-bitty mantle and didn't cost me a penny!  I can't think of a better decoration for my house than kid-made crafts!!  I love them!  We might just be making these into turkeys next month!! :)

Thanks for reading!

-Juli-

Fall Fun!!

Hey there!!  Can you believe we only have one week til Halloween?  This year has just flown by, and I'm starting to hyperventilate knowing that Christmas is just TWO short months away.  Yikes!!  But let's not think about that right now!!

Right now I want to focus on how much I LOVE fall!!  We have been having so much fun around here, and I thought I'd share what's been going on!!  

One thing we make time to do every year is to go to our local pumpkin patch.  The pumpkins are way overpriced, but the kids love the petting zoo, the hay rides, and picking out their very own pumpkins!

 So fun!  We've also kept busy with some fall crafting!  Do you remember when I made this wreath?

That started the fall season for me!!  I've even done some fall crafting with the kiddos!! I'll share the actual craft with you later this week, but we had some good old googly-eyed fun that had us all rolling!

 I also made my first apple pie of the season, which is really good for me considering I'm not a very good cook!!  I guess I can't take all the credit since my parents gave me the apples sliced and ready to go! But I put it in the oven, right? Doesn't that mean I get most of the credit?!

I've been so busy lately that I just barely got motivated to decorate my house for Halloween.  So, so sad...because I LOVE Halloween!!  I asked for your advice Here as to how I should decorate my doorway, but I still just ended up doing the same thing I always do!  

 I loved my fall wreath so much that I decided to leave it up for a while longer.  So all I did was buy a $2 bag of cobwebs and stretch them out across our entryway, just like I did last year.  We already had the spiders and bats, so we added those to the cobwebs and called it good!  It was super easy.  And even though it's the same thing I do every year, my kids get a kick out of it! They love how creepy our house looks.  Maybe next year I'll be more motivated to get new decorations, but for now, this works!

Did you decorate for Halloween?  Do you have your costumes ready?!

Well, stay tuned later this week for a fun Halloween craft to make with the kiddos!

Thanks for reading!

-Juli-

 

Decorating for Halloween

Hello there!!

Ok, so I know I already did a post about Halloween, but I'm having such a hard time deciding how to decorate this year!  So I need your help.  How are you decorating for Halloween?  Do you have any fun ideas for me?  Please please please comment and help me make up my mind!

So my first problem is my door/patio.  The last couple years I've done the same thing.  I stretch cobwebs all across the entryway and put spiders on it.  I have an ugly witch that I got from dollar tree that I hang on my door, and that's about it.  

Here's a way cuter version of what I normally do

 

I really like the fun, spooky feel it gives to my house, but maybe I should go with something cuter/classier?

Like this...

 

or this... 

 

What should I put on my door?  Look at this adorable wreath...

 

 I love this one too...

Or this one..... Oh, the possibilities are endless!!

 I just found this idea, that I think would be SO MUCH FUN!!!

 I MUST DO THIS!  How awesome is that?!!

You see why I can't make up my mind?!!  So many cute ideas!! Ahhhh!

So my next problem is how to decorate my mantel.  My main problem is that the ledge on my mantel isn't very big, maybe 2 1/2-3 inches deep.  I have a really hard time coming up with cute things that can sit on that tiny little ledge! :)  What do you think?  This...? With tiny hats?

or this...?

I could do a cute banner like this...

I could put little candles on the ledge like this...

 Hmmmm....I just don't know!!  If you read this post, please let me know what you think! My goal is to decorate by the end of this week, so I'll let you know next week what I decided to do!

Thanks for reading!!

Juli