latest creation

Back in November I searched for different homemade gift ideas for India’s school Holiday Gift Fair. I ended up with a ton of cool ideas for the school (some of which were used) and some major inspiration to have a homemade Christmas this year. Basically that meant we gave handmade gifts to our extended family. Some year we’ll only give handmade in our home too.
India decided we should make a doll. I was pretty skeptical but after a Google image search we found this tutorial. It actually looked do-able. I asked her to draw up a design and I would get the materials. I think she turned out beautifully.

We also made a few scarves using the old freezer paper technique. I read the tutorial later and realized they suggested using contact paper on the fleece. Ya, the freezer paper didn’t stay on once the kids began painting. Oh well.
India again came up with the patterns, which were inspired by the lollipop tree song. Ezra painted the green one (his very favorite color) and India painted the red scarf. These were given to a cousin and the kids’ teachers.

I had found this really cool necklace on this very cool blog, Pretty Ditty. I thought these would be perfect for a few of the girls.

There are a couple of other gifts that still need to make it out into the mail. I blame Lulu and their slow Christmas service. But I am still slacking and have a few more stitches to get through before I package everything up. Once they are received, I’ll share them here!

This year I found a really cool game, story dice, online here on etsy and here at The Small Object site. This was perfect for my second grader.

A thin Micron pen (what I used on these) will bleed a little but not as much as a thin Sharpie.
The Small Object set has a page to write the story down. I thought this was a great idea. They also put each picture on the top of the page with the word below to help with spelling. We can all use help with spelling.

Because we have nothing else to make (haha) I decided we should participate in this year’s Crafty Crow ornament exchange. If you have children who love to create, this blog is chock full of ideas and projects that little hands can do well.
This year’s theme was fairy tails… without any Disney look-a-likes (which I’m very relieved about). India and I worked on these Monday night. They originally were going to be the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretal, but the ‘houses’ looked more like bridges (“we should make a castle and this could be the draw bridge” as if!). The bridges quickly transformed into fences and our character became the fairy with leaf wings and glitter all over. She paints the glitter, don’t you know. That’s her job.
So here is one thing we have made this season that I can show you!

Here we are.  All Hallows Eve.  This is what we were for the night:

The “Other Mother” from Coraline. Last minute costume.  I freaked out a couple of kids (and Zach), but the rest I think didn’t know what the heck I was.

Spiderman… this was the day before Halloween for the school’s trick-or-treat.  He decided not to paint his face tonight, it itched too much.

India’s creation… Future Girl.

Baby bat.

Lanterns made for the JP lantern parade about 4 years ago.  We need to make more and try to weather proof them too.  I would love to have this to be our Halloween Tree (which is a great Ray Bradbury children’s novelette).

Who’d ever thought that the rumors were true? Ever since we’ve celebrated Halloween here in Denver we’ve heard that typically All Hallows Eve had snow. Trick-or-Treating was done in snow boots. Well, this year we have finally experienced a white Halloween. I think we will use the sled as transportation from house to house.
Last week Ezra convinced me that his teacher said he could wear his costume. So 5 minutes from when we’d be out the door we scrambled to get his costume on… and face painted… and picture taken before things got smudged. Once we arrived to school, he was the lone super hero. No costumes. I did have a memory of someone telling me he could wear his costume. The next day we headed to the library and guess what? Costumes! Yep, that’s who told me that. I need a calendar implant for my brain.  Do they make that??

Uncle Noah is here while Zach is in Australia.  Pumpkin carving was a blast for Ez.  India could do without all the slime and seeds.  Although she did try one of the salted pumpkin seeds I roasted last night.  She shied away from the sweet ones.  She’s not into cinnamon.  Ez called his pumpkin guts “My experiment” and was sad when he caught me sifting through the goo to get to the seeds.  I told him our compost could be his experiment now.  That we’ll add a few apple cores from lunch to it.  He accepted that.

Relishing the goo.

Zed is basically crawling.  He’s been pushing up for about a month now.  When I say up, I mean up.  Downward dog style.  If you don’t know what that looks like, then do some yoga- would ya?  Cute pjs from our friends, just in time for Halloween!

Pumpkin seeds and snow.  Everyone should try it.