Little Pirates Searching for Treasure at Daycare

Today was the parade at the boys' daycare.  Regular school was closed today, so Tyler got to participate in the Halloween festivities as well.  This was special because Tyler was in the hospital last Halloween and missed out on the parades and other fun.  I was with Ty, so I missed out on seeing Carter in his parade.  It always amazes me how important these things are to me.  Having kids can really open your eyes to what's important in life!

The boys dressed as pirates.  Carter wore the costume Tyler wore 2 years ago and Tyler wore a different pirate costume the was given to him as a gift.  Here they are this morning before daycare.  I'm sure the neighbors loved me yelling at the boys "pirates aren't afraid of wet grass!" at 7 am.

Here are some pictures from the parade.  They were soooo excited!

Then it was time for the party!  I didn't stay long since I had to get back to work, but here are a few shots.

Next up, the big day!  Stay tuned for more pictures!!!!

Kindergarten Storybook Parade

Tyler's school has a "Storybook Parade", where the kids dress like characters from their favorite books and march around the school.  I guess they do this in lieu of a Halloween Parade, to not offend those families that do not celebrate Halloween.  I had a lot of ideas for Tyler's costume, based on the books we read at bedtime.  But, the only one I could pull together quickly with things I could find in either Target of the Michaels and JoAnne's was "Thing One" from the book The Cat in the Hat. The pants, long sleeved turtleneck and gloves were from Target, the Thing One t-shirt was already in Tyler's closet and the "wig" (no it's not a pimp hat) was made from a foam hat that I painted blue and a blue feather boa that I hot glued in a coil around the hat.  So, it "semi-homemade", I'm like the Sandra Lee of quicky costumes!



Tyler was BEYOND excited to put on his costume this morning!  Here is at home waiting for the bus.

 
After I got him onto the bus, I got myself ready and then headed over the school to watch the parade.  One problem, torrential downpour!  They moved all the parents into the teensy cafeteria and let the kids parade around in there.  It was a little cramped and some of the parents were rude and made it difficult to get a good shot of your kid, but the kids looked so cute and so HAPPY.  These are some of the best things about being a parent, seeing your kids do the things that you remember fondly from your own childhood.

Could he be any cuter???  We've been having so much fun getting ready for Halloween this year.  Both kids have their Halloween parade at daycare tomorrow.  I think they will both be pirate, but am not positive yet.  Carer came home yesterday saying that he no longer wanted to be a pirate, he wanted to be Batman.  I can promise you he will not be Batman, but can I convince him to wear the pirate costume?  We shall see.  Bwaaa hah hah hah!!!

Handmade Halloween Decor - LOTS OF PHOTOS

I really got into making Halloween decorations this year.  I'm not one of those people that decorates for any holiday other than Christmas, but for some reason I really got into it.  It may be because I found a cute Halloween paper crafting line at Michaels, all for 50% off!  The line was made by Recollections, it was called Ravenhead Manor.  My first creation was a double sided pennant banner.  It says "BEWARE" on one side and "SPOOKY" on the other.

Here's the backside.

I used more of this line's paper, chipboard frames, transparencies and some miscellaneous ribbon, flowers and gems to make these framed scenes.

Again, using paper and embellishments from this line, I made a set of 4 wall hangings, using 6x6 artist canvases as the base.

Using some leftover paper from an American Crafts Halloween line from 2009, I made this "Happy Halloween" bat banner.  Cutting out those bats took the longest, otherwise it was a really simple project.

I also made Halloween cards using my scraps, but was too lazy to photograph them!

I had a great idea for a witches hat decorations, but that will need to wait until next year!  Now, I am trying to think of some Thanksgiving decor I can make.  Leave me a comment with any ideas you have, or if you know of any cute fall/thanksgiving themed scrapbook lines that are on the market right now.

Thanks for stopping by!!!!

October Scrapbook Circle Kit Creations

I finally finished making Halloween Decorations (I'll post some pics soon), so I dove right into the October kit from Scrapbook Circle. This kit was a great combination of artsy and cutesy, including papers from Glitz, October Afternoon and House of Three.

I had some school pictures of Tyler that I had been waiting to scrapbook, the Schoolhouse line from October Afternoon was perfect and the kit came with 3 different papers from this line.  Here are the pages I did using mostly these papers.

Notice the yellow border strip on the right side of the picture in the first layout and the red strip on the left side of the picture in the 2nd layout?  Those are Artisan Elements from Pink Paislee.  They also came with the October Scrapbook Circle kit.  The come "unfinished" and you can alter them with whatever medium you choose.  I used paint in both layouts.  You'll see a few other options in the layouts below.

The "trendy" papers in this kit were from Glitz and House of 3 (same company that designed my blog header).  I liked them because they did not have a specific "theme".  They are not the paper I would normally choose if I were out shopping, because I would have no clue what to use them for, but when they come shipped to your door along with a bunch of embellishments pre-coordinated just for me, using those papers gets alot easier!

Here is the first layout.  In this layout I gently rubbed a black inkpad across the Artisan Elements (see strip towards bottom of layout) and it really grunged it up.  Only the raised portions of the strip picked up the ink.  I also used the 7 Gypsies rubons that also came with this kit.  They are the black number/signs that you see in the upper left corner of the photo, in the bottom right corner of the layout and a few other random spots.  Again, this is an item I would have never purchased for myself, but LOVE how it looks!

Lastly, I scrapped some pics I had for a while of my sister and Byron, out doing one of their "outdoorsy" things.  The background paper is from House of 3 and has a design that will "resist" any altering you do to it.  I used a green and a blue glimmer mist, which colored the background of that paper but not the raised "relief" image.  Pretty cool, huh?  The Artisan Element strip at the bottom of the layout was altered using glimmer mist in an antique gold color.  The mist is a liquid so it settled into the lower portions of the design and left the raised portions uncolored.  Pretty cool.  Also, on this layout I sprayed a flower made out of newsprint with the same color glimmer mist and another flower (this one is made from fabric) with a yellow glimmer mist to pick up on the yellow in the Glitz paper.

Overall, I am happy with this kit and the layouts that I was able to create with it.  In fact, I have one more layout planned using the scraps from this kit ans possibly a few "teacher" cards using the scraps from the school-inspired line.  If you are looking for a kit club to join, I highly recommend Scrapbook Circle.  As of today, they still have a few October kits left and if you check out their blog for a sneak peek of the upcoming November kit.

Please leave me comment letting me know what you think about this kit and layouts and if you belong to any kit clubs!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkin with the boys on Sunday.  Well, I don't really carve it, Dan does.  We spread newspaper all over the dining room table and let the boys sit up there while Dan carves.

Carter decided he wanted to at the pumpkin guts because they "taste like apples."  Funny, Tyler ate the pumpkin guts when he was Carter's age! 

 

The finished pumpkin.  I know it is no great masterpiece, but the boys insisted on a "happy face".  Mommy wanted a scary face, but I get no say since I only man the camera!  So happy face it was.

Have you carved your pumpkin yet?  Leave me a message and let me know what kind of pumpkin you carved, better yet leave me a link to your pumpkin photo!