Halloween and Other Stuff

Buzz & Woody

Buzz, Woody, & the Vampiress

The festivities at our house.  We have the best neighborhood for trick-or-treating.  We had about 250 to 300 kids, the most awesome haunted house across the street, a neighbor that has a full-out buffet, and decorated trailers heading up and down the street FULL of families & friends.  I'm tellin' ya, if your neighborhood isn't this much fun, head our way next year.  Our parents came in for the weekend and they said it was the most fun Halloween they have ever had!

Part of Jenna's teacher's gift...travel size tissue holders and personalized hand sanitizers.  Please keep Jenna's teacher in your prayers..she lost her father last week at the age of 57 to stage 4 prostate cancer.  She is such a wonderful woman and a fabulous teacher.  We love her dearly. 

Put your orders in early...I'll be sewing some Christmas tisse holders and pairing them up with some holiday decorated sanitizers.  I'll post them as soon as I get one done.

A proud member of the Daisy Scout Troop 1785...her handmade tie-dyed troop shirt.  She thinks she is sooo cool.  She came home last night hooting and hollering about working towards a Turkey Badge.  I can't help but giggle at her cuteness!

A last minute attempt at Daisy Scout snacks.  Mini waters, goldfish crackers, & individually wrapped brownies with...

personalized troop stickers.  The other mothers thought I was all fancy.  I had to admit that I only made them 'cause I had to cut the brownies so small...some little guy put his fingers in the cooked brownies.  I had to do something to make them look a little less pathetic!

We had the most fantastic weekend with our parents.  Today, we're celebrating our littlest guy's 2nd birthday.  How did my baby get to 2 already?!  He shares his birthday with our good friend's son, Colin.  We're going to CEC tonight to celebrate Colin's birthday and then on Saturday, Joel will host his County Fair birthday party.  I'll keep you posted on how that goes.  Thanks for stopping by...hope your Halloween was as spooktacular as ours!!!!

Halloween Germ Fighters

Need a quick, cute, inexpensive Halloween treat?! I made these last night for the kid's preschool teachers and director, but they would be cute for anyone. The new Target Up&Up brand of hand sanitizer has an orange pump...perfect for Halloween! I pulled off the front label, added a monogram and tied the top with lots of cutesy ribbon. Voila...fast & reasonable (a necessity when you need to do 7 gifts).
I packaged them in these little Dollar Tree favor boxes I had from forever ago and added a silly label made with, you guessed it, printable name badge labels from the Dollar Tree.
Gotta love the Dollar Tree!

What We've Been Up To...

HAPPY FALL Y'ALL!!!! Sorry I've been missing for a while. Since we've started back at preschool it feels like we're running all week long. Here's what's been keeping us so busy...
We had a double b-day party last weekend for some good friends. I made both the girls (4 & 2) Halloween pillowcase dresses and hairbows but my camera battery died right after taking this picture of the baking kit I made for Logan, the 4-year-old. I wish you could see the goodies in this basket, but we were running late (what's new). She had such a good time at Gabriel's cookie decorating party that I knew this was just the gift for her. I included a double sided spatula, topping spoon, cooling rack, measuring cups and spoons, cookie cutters, a squeeze bottle, and cookie sprinkles. I also included sugar cookie mix and powdered sugar with instrcutions how to make icing to put in her squeeze bottle. I made a cute "sweet treats" bag to hold these items. Oh, and I can't forget my favorite...a tub of store bought icing covered with scrapbook paper and a "Logan's Yummy Cookie Icing" label. We got a "thank you" yesterday and her mom said it was by far her favorite gift and that she insisted on using it the very next day!!! I love the way it turned out and I love that most of the items came from the Dollar store or the grocery store...how easy, right?!

Some new nap mats for a boy & girl cousin...

see how the pillow is attached to the mat now. The pillow and mat inserts are still removable, but it makes it much easier for traveling. I've sold about 9 nap mats so far and have 2 more special orders. Let me know if you need one!

Some little goodie bags for the teachers the second week of school. The boys were feeling quite sad when I dropped them off in their classrooms (you would think I was leaving them for the day, seriously, Gabe and I can see each other from my classroom door to his!), so I thought these little bags of fun binder clips and paper clips would be a nice "thank you" for the extra hugs and kisses. I clipped on a little tag with a fun play on words. The teachers really like them!

Jenna's Pre-K field trip to the park and pumpkin patch. I love this photo Jay took. Where did 5 years go? I can't believe how much she's grown!!!!

Proud owner of a precious little pumpkin!

The little (big) guy is standing up and taking over the household. I think his easy-going disposition was just a cover...he likes to get in every drawer, touch every outlet, play in every vent...you know, anything forbidden or dangerous. I have a feeling my life is about to get even more exhausting!

And here's my other little guy helping his daddy clean the hot tub. He loves to do everything himself right now...it's been quite a power struggle with him lately. One of the joys of having a 2 1/2 year old!

Well, I promise to stay a little more up-to-date. Remind me of this next month when I apologize for slacking again! Have a great weekend and enjoy this beautiful fall weather!!!

Pretty as a Picture

My girlfriend Julie's little girl, Lily June, celebrated her 2nd birthday today. I had this adorable photo of her from Gabriel's cookie decorating party that I just had to frame as part of her gift.

I found the cutest frame at the Dollar Store (yes, $1!...it looks like wood but it's made of plastic) and I thought it would be sweet if I hot glued a bow to it. Then it hit me this morning that I could make an actual hair bow that could be removed from the frame.

Look closely at the left hand corner of the frame. I hot glued a small piece of white grosgrain ribbon, leaving space in the middle to slide the alligator clip of the hairbow in and out. How cute and simple, right?! I have big plans for this project...watch out Dollar Store, here I come!

P.S. Notice the reusable shopping bag in the background? That was a TJMaxx purchase this week...2 pack, both with an initial ("L" for Lily June, of course), one large and one small, for $2.99. That's less than I would spend on 2 gift bags...and they're reusable and so cute!

Teacher Gifts

Our last day of preschool is next Tuesday and with us moving this weekend, I wanted to get the teachers summer gifts to them. I decided to make them little summer survival kits out of washclothes...I've done this before for baby showers and included nail scissors, travel baby shampoos, baby powder, etc. This time I included a travel size aloe, a tube of sunscreen, insect repellent wipes, tissues w/ flip-flops on them (too cute!) and spray hand sanitizer.
Everyone LOVED them...and I got to hear about all the fun summer places they were going and how they were going to put their gift to good use.

Wrapped up and ready to go.


Ms. Cheri's crayon name plaque.

One of Gabriel's teachers is taking the summer off (the kids go to preschool for 8 weeks in the summer, too), so we gave her the end of the year gift we made for her. I got the idea from another blog (it's actually featured on Tip Junkie, too) and despite the lack of time to find the shadow box frames the other woman used, I think it turned out really cute. The other teachers can't wait to get theirs in a couple of months!

Party Weekend

We have a weekend full of parties again and I haven't had any time to sew or be creative (house selling and hunting have been main priority). Here's the best I could do...still turned out cute, I think! My friend Kim's son Henry is turning 4 and I bought this bucket when I purchased the green one for his big brother's bean bag gift. What to fill it with, though? Well I found these great children's gardening items in the Dollar Spot at Target. The shovel and hoe are made of painted metal and I added a cute striped ribbon on the handle. I also purchased a pair of gloves, a mini sunflower greenhouse kit, a spray bottle (from the beauty travel section) and my most favorite...a "paint your own gnome" kit. All for a dollar a piece!!! I topped it all off with a bag of gummy worms. I packed the worms and gnome up in cellophane bags and made tags on the computer for them along with a tag for the bucket. Total price: $9.50 (not including ribbon and gift wrapping). How can you beat that?!

Wrapped up and ready to go. Hope he likes it.

Happy 4th Birthday Henry!!!

Gifts for the Birthday Boys

We had two birthday parties to go to yesterday, which gave me a chance to be crafty and fun with their presents: Toby (my sweet nephew by love, not blood) loves to draw...mostly on things he's not supposed to (sometimes I think he and Gabriel may be blood related), so I bought him this adorable Crayola bathtub art caddy. It's filled with bath tints, paints, and crayons. I also gave him a terry wash mitt that I appliqued with his initial to clean up his tub time art work.
All wrapped up and looking cutesy! Happy 3rd Birthday Toby...We Love You!!!

For our friend David's gift, I decided to make a bucket filled with bean bags (10 to be exact). The bean bags weren't hard to sew (come on, it's a square filled with beans), but they were a little time consuming to turn inside out and fill with the beans. Maybe I would have been a little more patient if I wasn't starting this project at 10 o'clock the night before the party.

I also made him some activity cards to give him some ideas of how to use his bean bags. I printed them on mailing labels and then attached the mailing labels to cardstock and cut them out with zig-zag scissors. I made the cards double-sided, punched a hole in the corners and tied them together with ribbon.

The bean bags in fun, funky patterns and colors.

The finished project...I love the way it turned out and will certainly make them again for gifts. Happy 5th Birthday David!!!

I made these generic "fill-in" gift labels a few months back and love having something quick on hand to use when wrapping.

Looking forward to the next birthday party and another opportunity to get creative!!!