As I said a few posts ago, there is something about Halloween that brings out my crafting impulses. Combine that with Pinterest, and it’s a dangerous combination.
The thing about Pinterest, however, is that things look SOOO much simpler than they really are. A few weeks ago, I came across a pin about melting down crayons, putting the melted wax into silicone letter ice trays and letting them dry. The person who pinned it before me mentioned how great of an activity this would be for parting gifts for a kid’s birthday party. “Yes!” I thought. That’s a great idea. And then I thought about it. Melting crayons? Not sure my Calphalon would forgive me for that. And then “simply” poor melted wax into ice cube trays? I know either I would end up in the emergency room with third degree burns, or I would end up with a floor full of melted wax. Yea, not gonna try that one even though the outcome really was cute.
But then I came across a few pins with homemade holiday bunting, and it all looked so adorable and so easy. And not only that, but it would give me an opportunity to work with felt, and I adore felt. So I figured I would go for it. And I did. I printed out letter stencils and cut out the word Halloween. Then I transferred it to felt, cut out the bunting triangles, and glued them on. Already my simple project had taken me over an hour. And then it came time to glue the string to the back. I figured hot glue would work best and so I went through two entire hot glue sticks gluing embroidery floss to the back of nine felt triangles. And then I realized that instead of spelling Halloween, I had spelled Neewollah. And so I had to cut all of the floss off and start again. My children may have learned a few new choice words during that incident.
Unfortunately, I didn’t even think to measure how long my wall was between my two windows, and so it turned out the bunting was way too long.
Despite all of that, I still like it, and I think I’ll end up doing some Thanksgiving and Valentines bunting when the time comes. It’s kind of addictive.
The thing I love about decorations for any holiday are the traditions they create. When I bring out our Christmas decorations, I think of the first apartment TJ and I had and how every square inch of it was covered in something decorative, and then how I spent that actual first Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the hospital with pneumonia. When I bring out our February decorations, I remember decking our third apartment out in Valentine’s Day hearts, and I know for a fact I will remember gluing all of these felt triangles together when I bring this bunting out years from now. Holiday decorations help us mark the years and remember who we were and where we were. And so that’s why no matter how many curse words it takes and how many fingers I have glued together, I will probably continue making more.
But to prove that Pinterest is not all evil, I have my new necklace. I’ve been ogling over birds nest necklaces for awhile now, and I was getting ready to order one for myself when I came across a Pinterest tutorial. I figured I would give it a shot, and I’m so glad I did because it’s one thing that turned out to be as easy as it sounded. And I really like the outcome. Originally I was going to do emeralds as two of the eggs for Magoo and Goosie’s birthdays, but I thought pearls would look better, and I don’t quite know which month yet number three will be born in, so I couldn’t do her birth stone. I like the pearl outcome.
I’ve also been on a hair bow kick. I think Magoo is set for Halloween hairbows for the next five years, and the Goose will be set up for when her hair gets long enough. Here are a few of them. I don’t have pictures of my newest (a ghost one,) but I will post those when I finish the spider one I’ve been planning on making.
And finally, I have a couple of Magoo’s Halloween projects. She painted this tree about a week ago. I love these little Michael’s painting projects. They are usually only about $2, and they are usually half off on top of that. And she just loves making them. This one took awhile, and she was meticulous about getting every square centimeter of the ornaments painted.
And of course, we did our big window painting. This is something I did as a kid, and I loved it. I remember how much fun it was to get to paint on such a large canvas, and I loved how smooth the paint brush felt brushing up against the window. (It’s weird the details we remember.) Magoo was kind of funny during this project. Ordinarily, she adds color and detail absolutely everywhere. With this, she was very conservative and careful. She is quite proud of it though. She shows me new aspects of it each day. And the Goose loves it as well. She runs over to it at least ten times a day saying “pu pu” which is one of her new favorite words. We had to wait to paint it until Goosie was asleep because she sat there sobbing, begging me to let her paint, but I knew from first hand experience that the second she touched that paint brush, it was going to go straight into her mouth, wet brush side first.
And now I am signing off for the weekend. We have all been sick over the last week, and TJ just came down with it today. I’m hoping a nice relaxing weekend will bring us all back to good health because I simply cannot handle another week of runny noses and coughs.
I hope you all enjoy your weekends!