Halloween 2012

 

This year for Halloween Miller decided to dress up as a knight and Harper dressed up as a dutch girl. Harper's costume belongs to her Grammie.  It was a costume she wore when she was a little girl.
 

The kids carved their pumpkins last Friday so they are looking a little shriveled.
 

 

She's just missing wooden shoes.  I think those would have made trick or treating more difficult though. 
 

Miller with one less tooth.
 

 

Miller has been way into The Lord of the Rings lately.  See the ring hanging on the necklace around his neck?

 

Miller has never really been into dress up, but he has been wearing this costume around.  It is so cute to see him get into character. 

 

The kids had a blast trick or treating with their friends.  It was another successful Halloween. Now I have to figure out what to do with the mountain of candy they brought home. 

 

Have a great weekend!!

Happy Halloween

I just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a Happy Halloween.  We had a crazy weekend so I was not organized enough to have anything planned for today.  I did want to share these cute clementines that I packed in the kids lunches today.  Aren't they cute?  I thought it was a good way to add something healthy, but still fun to their lunch. 

I hope everyone has a safe Halloween.  

Tips for a Green Halloween


With Halloween right around the corner, I thought I would revisit some tips for a Green Halloween. I wrote this post 2 years ago with some tips.  Greenhalloween.org also has tons of awesome information on their website.  I found these 10 tips, especially useful. 

Here are my tips:
1.  When choosing what to hand out to trick or treaters, think outside the box.  My kids love FruitaBu or fruit leather.   You could also hand out dried fuit, yogurt covered raisins, granola bars, or popcorn.  You don't have to hand out food.  Crayons, coins, stickers, and pretty rocks are all great options.

2. Make your own face paint.  This recipe is from Green Halloween too.
Ingredients:

• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1.5 tsp all-natural diaper rash cream
• 1-2 drops of natural/organic food coloring
• .5-1 tsp of water (dependi ng on desired consistency)

Instructions:   In a small bowl, mix cornstarch, diaper cream, and food coloring.  If necessary, add       water to achieve desired constistency.

3. Save your candy wrappers.  Reuse the candy wrappers to make flowers for barrettes or presents.  These bracelets would be a great craft to do with the kids.  Lil Blue Boo also posted 10 things you can do with candy wrappers last week.

4. It is a little too late to do it this year, but consider Reverse Trick or Treating for next year.  This is a good way to educate people regarding Fair Trade practices.  It is not too late to hand out Fair Trade chocolate. Endangered Species makes Fair Trade chocolate that is perfect for trick or treating. 

What tips do you have for a Green Halloween?

Halloween Sewing

I did not do too much sewing this week. I have been trying to get up early and workout instead of working out in the evening. So by the time the kids go to bed, I am ready for bed myself.

I did manage to do a little refashion for Harper. I usually hand down Harper's clothes to family or friends, but somehow these orange pants that were 2 sizes too small were still lingering in her dresser. I decided a little black and white ruffle would make them perfect for Halloween. They did not dress up at school so I wanted her to have something special to wear on Friday. I had just enough black and white fabric to make it work.

Nice pose, huh?

As you can see I did not have any orange thread so the white is very apparent, but I really did not want to buy anything for this little project. She didn't seem to mind. Of course, now I want to add a ruffle to all her pants.

Harper was Hannah Montana for Halloween. I made her a sparkly, sequin tank dress lined with a knit fabric to keep it from being itchy. I drafted the pattern from an existing dress. I was very proud of how it turned out. It actually fits her and is also comfortable. The only problem is the sequin dots are glued on so it is not very washable. It will have to be a dress up outfit. She was very anxious for me to finish the dress. She kept asking me when I was going to make it so it has been finished for a couple of weeks now.

It is kind of hard to see in this photo. Miller is a jokester. Can you tell that he really did not like wearing that mask?

This one is a little better.

I also made her headband, which you can't really see either. She loves the headband. She even wore it to school today.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone!!

Halloween 2010

Here are some random shots from some of our Halloween festivities this year.

Lucky Ladd Farm

These are the pumkins they picked out.

Pumpkin carving.

It turns out that these pumpkins were a little tough to carve. I think we will stick to regular pumpkins next year.

Miller's was really thick. We had to improvise.

Here is Miller at his school party. He is the giant looking kid on the right.

I will show you Harper's costume tomorrow. Since I made a portion of her costume, I am saving it for Crafty Tuesday. I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. I can't believe it is already November 1st.

Tips for a Green Halloween

Keeping Halloween "green" is no easy task. Cheap, plastic-y costumes are for sale everywhere. There are aisles of Halloween candy for sale at the grocery store. There are school parties and trick or treating. When you are trying to be healthy and environmentally friendly, it is a bit overwhelming. I am no expert, but here are some of the things I am going to try to do this year.

1. The costume. Make your own costume. You don't have to know how to sew to do this. Get creative and use stuff you already have around the house. If your house is like my house, we have tons of dress up clothes that can be transformed into Halloween costumes. If you aren't finding what you need at home, head to a thrift store. I know this is a hard one so no judging here if you opt to buy a costume. Just try to get something that you know they will wear again for dress-up or a costume that can be passed down to a sibling or friend. Also don't forget to check with friends anf family to see if they have anything that you can use.

2. Trick or Treating. These ChicoBags are really cute, but really you can use just about anything. When I was growing up we used a pillowcase. Have your kids decorate the pillowcase using washable markers. Last year Harper decorated an oatmeal container and used that for trick or treating.

3. Candy or treats. There are an endless number of options here. Greenhalloween.org is a great resource and will give you some great ideas for food and no-food items. My rules are buy organic, fair trade chocolate or candy that has no artifical coloring and no preservatives. The fewer ingredients listed the better. You can always buy non food items, but to me this ends up being junk I have to clean up later or throw away. I bought 2 bags of candy from Yummy Earth about a month ago when it was on sale at Whole Foods.

4. Dealing with the stash. So now you are home and have all this candy, now what? Have the kids dump out their loot on the floor. Go ahead and let them indulge a little. I believe everything is ok in moderation. We usually let them pick a couple of pieces of candy that they can eat right then. The rest is put away. We don't eat candy very often at my house so this is not a big deal yet. We just recently threw out the candy from Halloween last year. Once the kids are in bed you can go through the candy and weed out the stuff you don't want them to have. Save the rest for very special occasion treats. After a couple of weeks the stash can mysteriously disappear. At least that is what is going to happen at our house.

Anyone else have any green Halloween tips to share?