Printable: Owl favor boxes

So I fell in love with these owl favor boxes last year from Paper Crave, but I couldn't think of a reason to use them. But aren't they such a fun, tactile favor box? I just think they are brilliant and I LOVE THEM. I used them at the buddy's Preschool Halloween party this year.

I won't lie. They weren't fast. A lot of hand cutting-but I did have a couple large hole punches that sped up the process a bit. I went looking for a large scallop cutter-but the only ones I could find had additional holes/embellishments in them. weirdoooos. Why can't there just be simple scallop cutter that's not little? Why?

 Anyway. . . aren't they cute? I almost named them they were so cute. Now they are gone, alas. I may go make some more.

enjoy!

Simple Halloween Favors

Our first Halloween party was Saturday, so I was sewing and hot gluing like a crazy woman last week finishing our costumes. The day of the party came around and I hadn't even gotten to party favors.  So I needed something fast. I pulled out the extra fabric from our costumes (didn't haven enough of my shiny green darn it). This is what I did: (sorry no pictures, remember that need it fast part)

*cut out some 6 by 8 inch squares.
*I folded them in half-right sides together (fat way not skinny)
*sewed up two of the edges leaving one side open
*Filled them with candy
*changed the colors on some toppers I had hanging around from last year
*printed them out and hole punched them (a 2 inch to cut them out -and a bitty one for a little hole at the top)
*strung them on a string and tied the tops shut.

Should I admit I did all the assembling in the car on the way to the party? Good thing it was a little ways :)

Anyway, if you need some party favors fast, here are the toppers I used. I know it's not Freebie Friday, but looking at the rest of the week, I'd say there's a pretty slim chance I'll get to it Friday-so enjoy today!!


Get the Free Halloween Toppers Printable here.

enjoy! Yeah, I should wait to post our costumes .. . .but I'm just so excited they're done, I couldn't resist ;)

Freebie Friday: Happy HOOlloween Cards

About 2 days before Halloween last year I needed some Halloween cards and designed these in an hour or so. I thought they were fun and simple, but it was so close to Halloween I didn't have a chance to share them. I don't think the owls are "in" as much as they were last year. But they are still festive and cute, right? Anyway, print on letter size white cardstock and cut in half to make two cards-then fold them in half.

Get the free printable cards here.

Enjoy!

monster making

Saturday is our first Halloween party. We have a few this year, and I'm so excited because I have been planning our costumes for months now. Yup, I'm still sewing them. Yesterday I was working on the neon green velour pants for the hunny (yes, my mother tells me he's amazing because he's willing to go along with my hairbrained costumes). I didn't really have enough fabric left to make them, but thought, heck, I'll just make them a little skinnier than I planned and they'll fit, right? WRONG. Rather, they fit me great. But I'm 5'1" and the hunny is 6'1" and I could barely get them around my thighs . . . . well, we had a really good belly laugh when he got home from work and he tried them on (after I ripped out the seam through the thighs). Oh man, if only he would have let me take a picture! So, we tried them on his arms and other than being a little baggy around his wrists, they fit perfectly! Good thing we need sleeves too huh! So the adventures continue . . . I'm making all our costumes except the Buddy's. His I just didn't think I could find the right fabric for it . . . But other than a few minor details the sweeties purple costume is done. Hopefully I'll be done with mine and the hunny's by Saturday!

Sunshine Wreath

I have to credit the little buddy with this creation. It's true. He came upstairs yesterday with a bunch of broken sticks in his hand and said "he need to build somethin'" Immediatley I remembered seeing this wreath on Delia Creates last year. I loved it, but between all the rain we'd been getting and a 1 month old, I wasn't trekking out to gather sticks.

But this year it was fun. We went on a "stick hunt" and found a bunch of sticks, and scraped a lot of dead bark off and then sat on the sun soaked back steps to start making our "sun."

That lovely sun soon turned into an oven and then the buddy lost interest helping, and ran off to play in the yard, and of course I ran out of sticks and had to persuade the buddy to go on another stick hunt. Back at the porch I heard the sweetie crying--awake from her morning nap. Several glue sticks later, I had the sticks all glued on, and the sticks the sweetie had stepped on glued back on. We went inside for lunch.

I finally went and checked Delia's blog to see how she'd done her wreath-obviously mine was a bit different, but I decided I didn't want it to be a Halloween one as much as a festival fall one. So I added rosettes instead of painting it black. I've never been able to master the rosette before. Every attempt (like 2) have always ended in failure. It's true. But my sister had given me the cutest rosette clip for the little sweetie and so I called her and she walked me through it (here is her online tutorial). Being able to ask her my questions rather than trying to follow a tutorial helped this time. Anyway, I clipped off some little orange twiggy things from some garland I have and wala, I'm so excited about how it turned out! The little buddy told me this morning "I really like your sun! What are we going to put in the middle?" I told him we could put his face :) He didn't think that was a good idea.

Moral of story:
1.  Don't sit in the hot early autumn sun to glue your branches on (the glue doesn't really set well).
2.  Do it when the kids are in bed if at all possible (except the stick hunt of course).
3.  Have an awesome sister to walk you through the tutorial.

*UPDATE: After lots of comments and requests on and off the blog, I've decided to sale some already made wreaths. They are fairly simple to make (although the rosettes are a little tricky) but time consuming. From gathering to finished product takes 4-5 hours. So I've priced them accordingly. If you would like to purchase rather than make one, you can find them at my other etsy shop:

55CanaryDrive. 

Thanks for all your kind words!

Freebie Friday: My Bones are Ready for Halloween!

Okay, so I KNOW this is a tad early. But my neighbor had a pumpkin on her porch this morning and I've been thinking about pulling out my Halloween decorations for a week now, and I just can't resist anymore!  (I even bought my son's costume on ebay tonight  . . . eek I'm excited.) I may skip back to fall and harvesting and all that fun stuff eventually, but for now it's a Halloween freebie.

Simply print on cardstock and cut down to 8x10. 


Get the Dem Bones Poster here.

 

enjoy!

Halloween Crafts: Last Installment (probably)

Alrighty, here are a few more fun Halloween crafts the buddy and I have been up to.

SPIDER HANDS:

These were a lot of fun, but quick. His favorite part was probably the googly eyes. He LOVES googly eyes.

I found the idea at blessedmommyblessedwife. You can find her fun idea here.  

PIPE CLEANER SPIDERS:
We can't get enough of the spiders. This one would have been better if I hadn't used the hot glue gun. They're weren't too many things the buddy could do because most of it involved the hot glue gun. Next time we  will just be patient and wait for normal glue to dry :) He has had a blast playing with them after we were done though. This one I didn't use a tutorial for, I just made it up as we went. 
 

Q-TIP SKELETONS

The buddy had the most fun drawing the face with markers on this one. And surprisingly he didn't want to use googly eyes (must have known skeletons don't have eyes!) This time we used elmers glue! Find the fun link to do this at Andiland here.

what are you going to be on Halloween Night?

Here are the costumes in the works. Any guesses? I still have a little black skirt to sew up.

Unfortunately the hunny and I aren't feeling the creative juices ourselves. So for the now the plan is not to dress up. Sad I know. 

glittered frames

I LOVE silhouettes, and what better way to showcase them for Halloween, or Thanksgiving than with glittered frames? I pulled out a couple of old ugly frames. . . a little spray adhesive . . . a little fine glitter . . . a couple silhouettes. . . wala. Fairly quick, simple but a great little pop! I think I'll swap them out for some turkey appropriate silhouettes after Halloween. *One note about spray adhesive. Move the frame to a new paper before putting the glitter on-otherwise it will stick to all the glue on your newspaper . . .

paper pumpkins

Inspired by the paper pumpkins at delia creates' the buddy and I tried it out. We didn't do marble painting though-I didn't want to wait for it to dry. We just used scrapbooking paper instead. The little buddy LOVES cutting with my paper cutter so it worked out well. Instead of pipe cleaners, we used a little piece of a stick and some green foam which we glued to the top of the brad. (that way we can unfold them and store them for next year). Another fun and quick Halloween activity for the little buddy. He was so excited to put it on a shelf. We'll really know if it was a success if he tells daddy about it when he gets home.

FF- Halloween Games

I'd planned to do candy bar wrappers today. But they were boring. And, really, whose going to spend the time to cover all their candy bars with little Halloween sentiments? I wouldn't. So I bagged it and moved on. Hopefully these are more fun-they were more fun to make that's for sure. So here are four little Halloween activities for varying age levels.

Print them out, cut the page into fourths and you've got four little 4.25" x 5.5" activities. I tried them on the little buddy, he's almost 3 1/2, to see how much he could do:


the first one was pretty easy for him once he knew what to do



the second one he struggled figuring out the differences on the first two rows-not obvious enough-but he picked the "pumpkin" out of the skeletons very quickly. By the fourth row I'd lost his attention span, obviously.



the third activity was beyond him, as I suspected it would be. He had fun coloring it though!


I didn't even attempt the fourth one, the maze. I knew he wouldn't get how to do it, much less be able to figure it out. Maybe in a few years. In the mean time I'll have the hunny take a gander at it! Well, enjoy!



As a little side note update: google groups, which is currently hosting all my freebie friday downloads, has decided to stop hosting documents. This is the last one I will post through google groups. But I WILL still have a freebie friday.

All of this to simply say, the freebie friday's up through this one will still be available until the beginning of February. After that, all downloads previous to October 16 2010 will no longer be available for download.

construction paper

I think October requires ATLEAST one halloween craft with construction paper doesn't it? The little buddy had a lot of fun putting together the faces while I cut out pumpkins as fast as I could just to keep up with him. (next time cut the pumpkins out in advance).

Best parts about these:

simple & easy

fun

teach position of eyes nose & mouth

good tool for teaching shapes

try it!

FF- Candy Corn Halloween Invite

Whats better than candy corn at Halloween? A candy corn themed party! (with a little chocolate thrown in of course:) Use this candy corn themed invite to get the party started!

Invitations are printable on a letter size sheet (I'd recommend cardstock). Invitations measure 5x7 with 2 per page. Enjoy!

FF- Candy Corn Cupcake Toppers

And the Halloween Candy Corn Cupcake Toppers have arrived. Not planning on making cupcakes for Halloween? That's okay. There are so many fun things to do with them! Here are a few ideas:

tags
stickers
scrapbooking or card embellishments
mini garland
turn them into a matching or go-fish game
buttons as seen on Whatever Dee Dee Wants.

As always they print on a letter size sheet. Three designs, twelve cupcake toppers on a page each approximately 2 inches across. Get your free Halloween Candy Corn Cupcake Toppers here.

If you have any other great ideas for using your cupcake toppers please share!

*If you're looking for more fun Halloween Cupcake Toppers, check out my shop. Mention candy corn in the notes to seller box and get a 20% discount through the end of October.

enjoy!

halloween toppers

I've got some Halloween Cupcake Toppers up in the shop. Go check them out. They would be fun as gift tags and stickers too . . .

* and if you're holding out for free ones . . . yes, I'll have candy corn themed toppers on October 1st here :)