Homemade Costumes

My mom used to make all of our costumes. We had the BEST costumes. It was either homemade or those horrible plastic shirts with a mask. I was very thankful for my homemade costumes. Store bought costumes are SO much better now but I still love a good homemade costume. Here are some that I've seen and loved from around the internet!

A perfect army man from Wild Ink Press

Scuba accessories from Real Simple

DIY Skeletons from Finley and Oliver

and airplane/pilot at Oh Happy Day

or a good old LEGO from Country Living

DIY Weatherproof Halloween Decorations

I'm over at Modern Parents Messy Kids today showing you how to make an easy outdoor Halloween garland. Weatherproof and homemade - awesome!

Glowing Eyes Halloween Craft

Have you ever had an idea you thought made you so smart and then discovered you weren't the first one to have that idea? That's what happened with these for me lol! I had been wanting to do these for a while and about a week ago I was flipping through a magazine at the store (Family Fun maybe?) and saw the same thing - of course executed cuter for a magazine. Oh well, not going to stop me from sharing it with you!

You'll need ping pong (table tennis) balls, LED tealights (the cheapest I found them was at Walmart 6 for $2.50 regular price or you could get a 12 pack at Michaels or Joan with your weekly coupon), a small knife for the parents, and whatever materials you'd like to decorate them with.

Start by cutting an "x" on the bottom of the ping pong and sticking the fake flame of the tealight through the x. This will let your child know right where to draw the eye.

Next just decorate! You could get creative and make eyebrows, eyelashes, a body etc but my boys just wanted eyes. And wanted none of them to match. Whatever floats their boat!

They loved finding places to stick them. Most were on the mantle.

Linking up with the Eighteen25 Halloween Link Up Party

Fall Crafts for the Younger Set

We have a craft to share tomorrow but I wanted to share some I've seen for younger kiddos too. 

First I think this Carve-a-pumpkin app is fun for all ages

Who doesn't love stepping in paint to make these ghost footprint plaques (or you could just do it on paper) from 2pawsdesigns

A Halloween sensory bin from Nuturing Naters

They could make their own blocky Frank, Ghost, Pumpkin, Bat from Roberts Crafts

Love this little felt Autumn tree (especially because we don't have them here) from rajovilla

Or these little felt mix and match pumpkins from Mer Mag

Do you have a Halloween/Fall craft or a favorite craft for younger kids?

Halloween Fun

Since we STILL haven't finished our Halloween projects (I should have never admitted we were working on them in the first place!) I thought I'd share some that caught my eye.

Scout Creative has made some fun Trick or Treat Monitor Monster paper printable toys! You can download your own on the hp site

Spinning gohts from Parents

Make a bat puppet from Made by Joel

and I can't help but share some LEGO Halloween fun

Spooky pops from Sugar Swings!

And I just love this picture from kennymatic on Flickr

Pacman Halloween Garland

The boys are getting the holiday itch thanks to stores and neighbors getting their decorations up! They were excited to make our own Halloween garland using this template from Minieco. We didn't use clear plastic behind the eyes just white paper.

And yes I realize I need to print pictures to put in my frames - maybe we should talke bets on how long it takes me ;) It's the first time that I've tried to decorate our very tiny little mantle thing give me a break lol!

We have a fun Halloween craft we're working on for you too (just haven't finished yet)!

So tell me that I'm not the only one with empty frames? Have you started holiday decorating yet? 

Slime Monsters

Start saving those baby food jars so you can make these awesome Slime Monsters by The 36th Avenue on Eighteen25 during their Spooktakular September

Click HERE to get the full how to

A fun project, gift, or party activity!

The slime how to is HERE. 

Summer Fun Jars

We have our list of Summer Bucket List activities but haven't displayed them all in a fun way yet. Now that we are getting settled in our new place we are all working together to come up with a way that will work best for us. Our schedule this summer is pretty much the same as last. So we have afternoons and evenings free to do all of our Buckett List items (along with the weekends of course!)

I love this visual display from Mer Mag though and wanted to share it!

I really love the visual reference even for kids who can read. I think it helps in the decision making process and the excitement to do the activity. These images were printed straight from Pinterest!

She gives downloads for the jars and more gorgeous photos on her blog.