Halloween Highlights! COSTUMES!

So as I have mentioned over the last few days I want to share my Halloween ideas from this year and from past years and I am going to share them right up until Monday to give any stragglers a few ideas!

I love dressing up for Halloween!

Its so much fun pretending and wearing a fun costume!

(I'm not one for the scary costumes)

So here are a few of the costumes that we have done over the last few years!

Delaney's First Halloween she had two costumes...

 We had this store bought banana costume, I got it the previous year for $2 on clearance! It was a bit too small though so she wore it for the day and  for the evening...

I turned her into Winnie the pooh....

I just put her into a pair of Yellow Sleepers, yellow scratch mitts, a Winnie the Pooh hat and I cut down a red diaper shirt. Super easy and I had it all on hand!

and here we are with her! You can't really see in this picture but I was a lady bug, I made my costume by sewing a red t-shirt in a circle, adding red ribbon straps, and spots from a black t-shirt. I did it in one hour or so on my sewing machine, and Robyn was the GRILL SERGEANT!  He picked up this t-shirt at wal-mart I think and wore camouflage pants, he then clipped BBQ  tools like a spatula and a pair of thongs to his belt.

For Delaney's second Halloween I had just started working a new job and didn't have the time to make a costume (I know it's no excuse...)

But she was the cutest monkey I ever saw! (there are no pictures of us on Halloween because we didn't really dress up... I wore a red sweater and devil ears... it was sad!)

Last year was another store bought costume for Delaney

She was Minnie Mouse and she LOVED it!

Daddy dressed as a biker, Mohawk and all... his costume was jeans, a t-shirt from the Sturgis motorcycle show and a bandana (that he didn't wear...) and I was a sheriff, Jeans a black shirt, and a sheriff star which was also part of my night time costume for a party I help Best Friend throw...

Hubby was a Jail bird and I was a cop!

I semi-made my costume...

I took an old powder blue suit owned by my step-dad (from back when powder blue suits were cool) and adjusted the vest to fit (sadly the pants fit like a glove... ) I made some other changes fun when I altered it to! I sewed a collar and darts in the front so that it had a fitted look. 

What are you dressing as this year? Do you have a favorite costume from a past year? Share them in the comments!

Photo Friday! Pumpkin Carving!

This Photo Friday is extraordinarily wordy! and may seem more like a how to post but really its a combination of the two! 

One of my favorite things about Halloween is Pumpkin carving! 

It's not something we did frequently when I was a kid but I love it! 

There is something just plain fun about gutting a gourd and slapping a picture on there that well lets face it really doesn't belong on there! 

We had a hard time finding a good pumpkin this year, it was slim pickings and not because we went looking too late.... (that was what happened to us last year...) this year all the pumpkins in our area are kinda... well they all sucked! We had a fairly chilly summer and so the pumpkin crop really suffered but we did find one that wasn't that bad... it is almost flat on one side, and is a little oddly shaped but it served our purpose...

WARNING: the photos in this post are a bit on the blurry side... I am not great at taking photos in the dark with my little point and click it seems...

So first I have to show you our last pumpkin first!

Last year we did Minnie Mouse! 

Here she is just completed

And here she is all lit up! 

This Year I got a bit more ambitious... 

Tangled's Rapunzel!

I couldn't find a stencil that I liked so I kinda made my own.... I printed this picture and traced over the picture to make it look how I wanted it with a sharpie

(its an early illustration of Rapunzel from Disney studios)

then I put it on our pumpkin with painters tape and used it as you would any stencil...

 (I used a push pin to outline the pattern and then I just started to cut right into her!)

The key to making a pumpkin stencil is that the lines can't be too close to one another or touch, you want to cut on those lines so try not to make them too thin or too thick... 

I'm pretty proud of my little Rapunzel pumpkin... (and as I'm sure you can tell already Delaney decides what goes on the pumpkin, next year I guess we will need two, a Delaney pumpkin and a Max pumpkin!)

I had to add this video I found on You tube to this post! 

This guy has the best Halloween light shows!

This one is done with the traditional Jack'o'lantern faces singing the song from 

The Nightmare Before Christmas! 

AMAZING!

Happy Friday and Happy Pumpkin Carving!

Halloween highlights! Halloween Party!

Last year I planned and help host a Halloween party with Best Friend!

We had so much fun, baking and decorating and getting all dressed up and of course I forgot to take pictures... so what your seeing here are her pictures... 

Yep here is our Halloween party as stolen from Best Friend!

 all the food ready to go!

 Some of our decorations! 

We added spider webs to everything, and I framed up pictures of skeletons to mix in with the regular pictures on display.

 I got the table cloth at the Dollarstore (knowing it would likely get ruined)

 I made these labels for each of the items on the table, like "Mummy's shortbread" for the cookies, "Vampire Vomit" for the cheese dip "Bat Bites" for for the chocolate cupcakes and "Zombie Brains" for the chip dip

 for the sides of the glass bowls we mixed red food coloring and light corn syrup and then drizzled it down the outsides of the bowls to make it look like blood dripping down them!

Not to mention their great pumpkin... Best Friends Hubby (then fiance) carved it with the Auto-bots symbol from the Transformers... needless to say it was the talk of the party! (yep were all nerds)

Do you host a Halloween party? What are your favorite things to do and make for your party? I'd love some new ideas for this year if you'd like to share in the comments!

Tell The Truth Thursday! I get distracted easily!

I am one of those people who are easily distracted....

I love so many things and I do so many things that I some times get wrapped up in  them and I forget about everything else....

I have been doing some work this week for a friend who owns a small business and I have to say that working has given me a great sense of purpose. It made me feel (crazy at times.... ) productive! And while crafting makes me feel productive this was a providing for my family productive! (I forgot what that felt like!) 

I loved working so much but what I loved more was that I did it from home, I didn't have to get someone to watch the kids and I didn't feel like my family and home were being forgotten.... (Maybe that's the wrong word, forgotten but that's how it felt when I worked outside of the home before)

I have also been very distracted by Halloween! 

I love Halloween! 

After Christmas its my favorite holiday!

I have been busy doing all the usual Halloween fun with my family, picking out our pumpkin (which wasn't easy but more on that tomorrow), choosing costumes, carving our pumpkin and decorating our apartment (which for Delaney was the highlight!) 

So for the next few days I am going to be showing off some of my favorite things I've done for Halloween this year and from previous years too, everything from costumes, pumpkins, parties and food! Plus I'm going post Make It Monday a bit early! I'm going to post it on Sunday so that if your planning a busy night of trick or treating you can make it ahead of time and save yourself a bit of time on Halloween night!

I hope that you have all been having a great Halloween week!

Aand how can I end a Halloween post without a Halloween song!