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Thursday, October 4, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 4

Are you ready for a fun and practical craft that you can actually use, instead of something that will just take space and will probably get throw away!

Get ready for the Foot Ghost Fridge Magnet Clip!



This one did not cost me anything because I already had everything, but if you bought everything it will run you just about $5.50 to make a bunch of ghosts, with lots of left over supplies!!

You will need:

White, orange, and brown felt - (Hobby Lobby $0.25 a peice - I already had some)
Googly Eyes - (Dollar Store - Again I had some)
Marker, Crayon, Pen, Colored Pencil, whatever you have that you can write with
Clothes pin (Dollar Store - you can get a package at the Dollar Store)
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun - or Elmers Glue
Magnet - (Dollar Store - Already had some)

If you don't have everything above, look around your house and improvise. I thought I had orange felt for the pumpkin and I could not find it anywhere, so I used an orange and white gingham scrapbook paper instead!

Directions:
1. Trace the child’s foot onto the felt, and cut it out. Only trace the tips of the toes, do not draw lines defining the individual toe (this will be the body of the ghost).

2. Cut out a pumpkin and stem out of the felt and glue them together, you can write anything creative on pumpkin, like "BOO" or "Thing 1 - 2012" or "Happy Halloween - Thing 2". Okay, so those are not creative, but you get the idea.
3. Glue on 2 googly eyes on the heel of the foot.


4. Glue the pumpkin to the front ghosts, below the face, kinda in the stomach region, like the ghost is holding the cute pumpkin.


5. Glue the magnet to the back of the clothespin and then the Clothespin to the back of the ghost. 



Throw it up on the refrigerator, and there you have, it a sweet memory of your little ones foot, in 2012, in a cute, creative, usable way!

 
 Stay tuned for tomorrow!!! We are going to make Ghostly Grub!!!

You can do it if AshHas!!

Yummy No Bake Cookies

I don't know what it is about this time of year, but it makes me want to make lots of treats! If you ask the hubster he will say I am the worst cook ever, which is not completely false, I mean I have burnt Macaroni and Cheese! 

Be warned, I have no culinary education, and never taken classes, I am going to teach myself! So if any of you cooks out there read this and see something I did wrong, POINT IT OUT, but please be nice! ;)

Point is, I hope to change that with this blog. I want to post recipes, and try them, so I can improve my cooking abilities! Who knows maybe in 2013 I will be crowned "Chef of the Year"! (Is there even such a thing?!)


Today I made No Bake Cookies, you would think since they are called NO BAKE I would not be able to screw them up... ya, your WRONG! I managed to mess them up! BUT in the process I learned a lesson... "'When making No Bake Cookies, you cannot try to multi task". I did, and ended up making the cookies taste burnt! However this is my Moms recipe and they are supposed to be so yummy, so I am going to tell you the recipe anyway and just tell you where I think I messed up!

Ingredients:
2 cups Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
1/4 cup Cocoa
1/2 cup Butter
1 cup Peanut Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla
4 cups Oats

Directions:
1. On medium heat, combine sugar, milk and cocoa in a large saucepan and stir until it boils.
2. Once boiling, stir for 1 min.
3. Add butter and peanut butter, and stir until melted.
4. Add vanilla and oats.
5. Stir until the oats are nicely coated.
6. Drop oats by the tablespoon on wax paper.
7. Allow the cookies to set for a bit to set up. 

Refrigerate to set them up faster.  I like to store mine in the refrigerator.


So where the heck could one manage to mess this up!? Step 2 and 3 is where I think it happened. I think I let it boil for too long on too high of heat and it burnt them... So, make sure you keep the heat at MEDIUM and only let it boil for 1 min before moving on to the next step! Another thing I would recommend... Have the butter and peanut butter ready before you start step 2, so all you have to do is throw them in.

Try them out and let me know what you think?! What things have you managed to mess up while cooking? 

Don't forget to follow me so you can keep up with this madness! Thanks!!!


 You can do it if AshHas!!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 3

I found out that the follow me option was not on the blog so even if you wanted to follow along with me it would not be very easy to do so. But I am happy to report the function is now up and you can find it here on the left side of the page! Be sure to enter your email address and follow along. I am going to be posting some of my fun Halloween and Fall decoration ideas soon and you do not want to miss it!

So you may be wondering how we went from day one to day three... remember that we spent 2 days working on the spiders since we got a late start. So I didn't post a day 2. So here we are on day 3... Hand Print Bats!

The idea came from here, but here is my take.



This one will cost me a grand total of $0.00 to make 4 bats, I know, cheap right (my 2 nieces were here tonight so they played along)! However, if you need to purchase everything to make this it will cost $5.00 and you can either make LOTS of bats, or have lots of stuff left over for another project!

You will need:



Black Construction Paper - (Dollar Store - I already had it)
White Crayon or pencil - (You can get these at the Dollar Store also, they are not the best there, but for this project it doesn't matter - I already had it)
Goggly Eyes - (Dollar Store - I already had it, and you should too if you make the spider on day one!)
Brads - (I already had them, but they were not black so I painted the tops. Honestly I don't know if you can get these at the Dollar Store, or how much they are if you cannot.)
Glitter and glue or just glitter glue- (Dollar Store - I already had it)

I did most of the set up (cutting, painting- you will see, and organizing) before I brought the kids in... They tend to have a short attention span, and even shorter when they are all together, so I figured they would be board while I cut everything out. If you have older kids they can do their own cutting, but being that my kiddos are only 2 and 3, I figured I would do it. 

Directions:

1. Trace each of the kids hands (both hands).



2. Cut out the hands, a circle (for the head, about one and a half inch circle is good enough - I used the bottom of a cup for a pattern), 2 smaller triangles (for the ears), and a bat body.


3. Glue the head on the top of the body, and the ears to the top of the head. Glue the 2 goggly eyes on, where they should be.



4. Take the brads and punch them through the sides of the body and the base of one of the hands and fasten them on the back. (I only had colored scrapbook brads, so I took a bit of black paint and painted just the top of the brad... money saving tip!)



5. Draw a line of glue to make the mouth and pour glitter on it. If you are using glitter glue, simply draw a face on. 



6. I like to write the kids name, year (2012), and age on the back and then keep it. So when they are big I can reminisce.

See, easy, fun and memorable!

What are some fun things you still have from when you were little?

Come back tomorrow, because we are making Foot Ghost, fridge magnet clips. Thats a mouth load, but it is fun AND practical!

You can do it, if AshHas!



Tuesday, October 2, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 1

We finished the styrofoam spiders today, they are cute and fun to make! 

Here is the final product!!

I am basically going to repeat what I put on the first day, but this time I will add pictures! 

If you have to buy everything to make this spider, it costs about $4.50 to make 2 spiders, and you will have supplies left over for another project. I paid $1.87 to make 2!!

You will need:

  1. Styrofoam Balls, one large one small (Dollar Store - They have a package that has a few different sizes, enough to make two spiders, perfect for thing one* and thing two**)
  2. Black Paint (I have found Wal-Mart to be the cheapest for paint, they have $0.54 acrylic paint, but I already had some)
  3. Black Pipe Cleaner (Bought these at Hobby Lobby for $0.87 for a package, but you can get them anywhere for less then a dollar)
  4. Googly Eyes (I already had - But you can get them at the Dollar Store)
  5. Toothpick (I already had)

Directions: 
1. Paint the Styrofoam balls black and let them dry. You need one small styrofoam ball for the head of the spider and a large one for the body. 

2. Once dry, connect the head and the body using the toothpick.

3. Cut 6, 3 inch pieces of black pipe cleaner. Bend each one to form a "Z" shape.
 
4. Poke 3 of pipe cleaners on to each side of the body to make legs. Once they are attached you may need to recut, bend, etc to make the spider stand up by itself.

5. Cut 2, 1 inch pieces of pipe cleaner, and bend one end to make a circle, for the antennas.  Poke them in to the top of the head and add the eyes. 

And there you have it, one cute spider to add to your Halloween decor (never thought you could have cute and spider in the same sentence, did you?)!!

Did you make a spider? How did it turn out? What things did you do different? I can't wait to hear how your spider project turned out!

Tomorrow we are going to make handprint bats! Another fun, easy project for the kiddos! See you tomorrow, to see how they turned out!

You can do it, if AshHas!!

Dont forget to follow me!!

*Thing one - My sweet little girl KayLee, she is 3!
**Thing two - My OTHER sweet little girl Kacie, she is 2!

I call them Thing One and Thing Two, because much like the Thing one and Thing Two in Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat, they are a tornado, but so cute at the same time! I hope this does not offend anyone that I call my children "Things", but it is not meant in any harsh or degrading way. Just a term of endearment that works for me and my family!

31 Days of Halloween

Hello Blog World!!! I have been wanting to start a blog to keep track of all of the fun projects I have been doing, and I just have not gotten around to doing it. I guess that is what happens in this crazy thing we call "Life".

However, now that it is officially October I am starting an advent calendar type thing. Each day until Halloween I will be doing something fun with the kiddos, Halloween related (incase you were not sure, hehe), sounds fun right! So I decided that this is the perfect time to start the blog and let anyone who wants to, follow along!

I need to add, I totally STOLE this idea from my favorite sister, she doesn't even know I am doing this!!! Love you sis!!

Side note: Dont mind the not so cute/ creative blog layout/ design, it is 12:30 in the morning and I don't really feel like tinkering with it. I promise, if you follow along, you will see improvements... hopefully!!

Anyway, on to the reason for this post!!! I am going to post the first weeks worth of projects now, Pictures/links of where I got the idea, and instructions for how I am going to do the project. Then once the project is complete, I will post my pictures of what we did, and any updates to the instructions.

READY..... SET..... GO!!!!!!!

Day one - October 1st - Styrofoam Spider - Totally my idea! I am sure someone somewhere has already thought this up and probably has a better way of doing it, but I don't care. I didn't see it and I came up with this idea all by myself! That makes me happy because I can copy someones idea so easy, but coming up with my own idea does not usually happen! This is how I know I am an up and coming DIYer.

If you have to buy everything to make this spider, it costs about $4.50 to make 2 spiders, and you will have supplies left over for another project. I paid $1.87 to make 2!!

You will need:

Styrofoam Balls, one large one small (Dollar Store - They have a package that has a few different sizes, enough to make two spiders, perfect for thing one* and thing two**!)
Black Paint (I have found Wal-Mart to be the cheapest for paint, they have $0.54 acrylic paint, but I already had some)
Black Pipe Cleaner (Bought these at Hobby Lobby for $0.87 for a package, but you can get them anywhere for less then a dollar)
Googly Eyes (I already had - But you can get them at the Dollar Store)
Toothpick (I already had)

Directions: 
1. Paint the Styrofoam balls black and let them dry. You need one small styrofoam ball for the head of the spider and a large one for the body. 

2. Once dry, connect the head and the body using the toothpick.

3. Glue the googly eyes on the head.

4. Poke 3 pipe cleaners on to each side of the body to make legs. You may need to bend and/or cut the pipe cleaners to make the spider stand on its own, and look proportionate. 

Day two - October 2nd - Finish Styrofoam Spider -  We didn't start this project until it was almost bedtime, so we only had time to paint the styrofoam balls, so we will finish them on day 2!

Day three - October 3rd - Make Hand Print Bats - Found this idea here


This one will cost me a grand total of $0.00 to make 4 bats! I know, cheap right! However, if you need to purchase everything to make this it will cost $5.00 and you can either make LOTS of bats, or have lots of stuff left over for another project!

You will need:
Black Construction Paper - (Dollar Store - I already had it)
White Crayon or pencil - (You can get these at the Dollar Store also, they are not the best there, but for this project it doesn't matter - I already had it)
Goggly Eyes - (Dollar Store - I already had it, and you should too if you make the spider on day one!)
Brads - (I already had them, but they were not black so I painted the tops. Honestly I don't know if you can get these at the Dollar Store, or how much they are if you cannot.)
Glitter - (Dollar Store - I already had it)

Click here for directions.

Day Four - October 4th - Foot Ghost Fridge Magnet Clips - I saw a picture of it here, but the link did not take you anywhere so I made it up.


This one did not cost me anything either because I already had everything, but if you bought everything it will run you just about $5.50 to make a bunch of ghosts, with lots of left over supplies!!

You will need:
White, orange, and brown felt - (Hobby Lobby $0.25 a peice - I already had some)
Googly Eyes - (Dollar Store - Again I had some)
Permanent Marker (you can get one of these anywhere. usually around $1 for a single pen)
Clothes pin (Dollar Store - you can get a package at the Dollar Store)
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun - or Elmers Glue
Magnet - (Dollar Store - Already had some)

Directions:
1. Trace the child’s foot onto the felt, and cut it out. Only trace the tips of the toes, do not draw lines defining the individual toe (this will be the body of the ghost).

2. Glue on 2 googly eyes at the heal of the foot, and draw on a small mouth just below the eyes.

3. Cut out a pumpkin and stem out of the felt and glue them together, you can write anything creative on pumpkin, like "BOO" or "Thing 1 - 2012" or "Happy Halloween - Thing 2". Okay, so those are not creative, but you get the idea.

4. Glue the pumpkin to the front ghosts, below the face, kinda in the stomach region, like the ghost is holding the cute pumpkin.

5. Glue the magnet to the back of the clothespin and then the Clothespin to the back of the ghost. 


And there you have, it a sweet memory of your little ones foot, in 2012, in a cute, creative way!

Day Five - October 5th - Make White Chocolate Popcorn - Found the recipe here.


I have not bought the stuff for it yet, so I don't know how much it will cost... stay tuned!

Day Six - October 6th - Rowley's Red Barn - This is in Santaquin, Utah. Never been there before, but it looks fun!! Check out their website here.

So that is it for this week, stay tuned for updates as well as what we have planned for next week!!


Dont forget to follow me!!!

You can do it, if AshHas!


*Thing one - My sweet little girl KayLee, she is 3!
**Thing two - My OTHER sweet little girl Kacie, she is 2!

I call them Thing One and Thing Two, because much like the Thing one and Thing Two in Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat, they are a tornado, but so cute at the same time! I hope this does not offend anyone that I call my children "Things", but it is not meant in any harsh or degrading way. Just a term of endearment that works for me and my family!