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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween Tic-Tac-Toe FREE Printable!


Well it's almost Halloween and that means we're gearing up for class parties and making last minute (ugh!) costume changes around here - even though the weatherman has predicted a rain-out this year for trick-or-treating (double ugh!).

This super-cute FREE PRINTABLE is nothing more than a quick change to the clip art and the poem from the Valentine Tic-Tac-Toe Printable I made earlier this year.  But with both of the kiddos in new classes and (mostly) new classmates, I figured I could get away with it . . . and I love how it came out!


I'm no graphic artist.  I don't even play one on TV.  So this Boo-tiful board was created using nothing more than what was available to me on Microsoft Office.  But I have done all the figurin' for ya, so all you have to do is download it and print!  Like the other, these little treats print up four to a page using cardstock and cut lines are included so that once they are trimmed, they will slide right into Wilton's small cellophane treat bags.



In case you are wondering, two bags of Hershey Kisses made 17 treats, using 4 of each color in every bag.  I might have used 5 each last time because 4 isn't enough to cover all nine squares if needed, but I can't remember, so do witch-ever your pocketbook can afford!


Speaking of witches . . . I couldn't let them out the door this time without something cute across the top, so I used more of my mad Microsoft skills to make these cute little labels that I stuck to some Halloween patterned paper that was 70% off yesterday at Joann's.  Bonus!

I made witches for Sheep . . . .


 . . . and devils for my own little devil's classroom!

Which is what led to the costume change for Snacks, but he's too hard to resist, so it looks like mama will be busy today reconfiguring his cat costume into a dragon instead!


I hope everyone has a fun and safe night trick-or-treating and here's to hoping the weatherman is wrong!

Happy Halloween y'all!

Sharing this sassy project at some or all of these great parties: Under the Table and Dreaming, Totally Overflowing with Creativity, Three Mango Seeds, Classy Cutter, Serenity You, House of Hepworth, Skip to my Lou, LadyBug Blessings, Nap Time Creations, The Style Sisters, Polkadots on Pararde, Rae Gun Ramblings,Costal Charm, Not Just a Housewife, Domestically Speaking, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Sumos Sweet Stuff, The Gunny Sack, Gingersnap Crafts, Southern Lovely, Lil Luna, Someday Crafts, The NY Melrose Family, The DIY Dreamer, The Blackberry Vine, Homeworks, The Rustic Pig, Cornerstone Confessions, Kathe with an E, House on the Way, PJH Desgin, Glued to my Crafts, The Crafty Blog Stalker, Seven Alive, Made in a Day, Live Laugh and Love, A Creative Place, Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson, Home and Gardens, It Happens In a Blink, I Gotta Create, Domestic Super Hero, All Pretty Things, Katie's Nesting Spot, 52 Mantels, Truly Lovely, Twinkle in the Eye, Happy Hour Projects, Six Sisters Stuff, Tutus and Tea Parties, Mop It Up Monday, Saturday Show and Tell, Moonlight and Mason Jars, The Scoop, Wow Us Wednesdays, Take-A-Look Tuesday

Monday, October 28, 2013

Itty Bitty Baby Hat Tutorial


I was all set to fill you in on my class goody bag idea today, but over the weekend my Girl Scouts and some of their moms spent time working on our service project, and it was just too special not to share!

Last Spring, my co-leader and I asked the girls to brainstorm ideas for a service project that we could do with a portion of the money we raised for our troop through cookie sales.  We told them to look around our community, talk to their parents and teachers and come back with some suggestions.  They originally settled on fleece blankets for residents at one of the local nursing homes, but after surveying the price of fleece, we knew our money wouldn't make very many adult-sized blankets, so we thought about blankets for babies in the hospital instead.


We are very blessed to live in an area where the vast majority of babies in our local community are born into families who can more than adequately provide for their little ones, so the NICU staff felt that although the blankets would be appreciated by the families, they weren't really needed.

And that got me thinking back to a very special set of parents and babies I used to work with before having my second child - families who have experienced a fetal or early infant loss.  For five years, I worked side-by-side with these families, helping coordinate the largest clinical research trial in the country (and perhaps the world) investigating the causes of stillbirth.  As a clinical research coordinator for the Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network, I had a chance to work with so many amazing couples and families who were unbelievably courageous in the face of such terrible and unexpected loss.  I knew these families were much more likely to need the blankets and hats my girls could make.


In our local hospital, like most hospitals, the memory boxes, blankets and other mementos given to the parents after a stillbirth or early infant loss are provided solely through donations.  Frequently these donations come straight from the nursing staff who care for these families during and after loss, so I knew that whatever we could help with be appreciated by the staff as well as the families.

It was challenging to discuss such a sad reality with my girl scouts, but I found that the girls and their parents had such open minds and loving hearts for these families.  After talking with them I also learned that one of our scouts had a twin that did not survive.  Several of our other girls already knew something about the NICU and special care nurseries because they or their siblings had been patients there themselves and had heard the stories of their births from their families.  It was awesome to witness their understanding and simple acceptance of something I thought might be a very foreign and possibly frightening matter.

And I am proud to say that my troop of 3rd graders already has such a heart for service!  By the end of our discussion, the girls had decided that they wanted to make blankets AND hats AND memory boxes for these babies and their families, so I set about figuring out a way to make that happen.
This 'Itty Bitty Baby Hat Tutorial' is the result!

Supplies:
Patterned knit fabric
Fabric glue
Scissors

We chose knit fabric for its stretchiness and the fact that it doesn't ravel, so it wouldn't need to be sewn or have the edges finished in any way.  And after confirming with the Perinatal Bereavement Coordinator at our local hospital that the majority of their fetal and infant losses occur before 26 weeks in pregnancy, we decided on sizes for our hats, using small oranges and limes as guides.


  1. Cut a width of fabric approximately 11" long.  Our fabric was 45" wide, so we simply cut our fabric widths into thirds (15") for our larger hats.  Our smaller hats were about 7" wide and we cut the length into quarters (about 11" long).
  2. Fold your swatch of fabric in half with right sides together the long way, to keep the length at 15".  Turn back the top side slightly and run a thin bead of fabric glue along the edge.  Fold top side back, gluing right sides together and forming a tube with the fabric.  Allow to dry 2-3 hours or overnight.
  3. Once the glue has dried, fold your tube of fabric in half long way again, bringing the folded edge of the fabric to the inside edge of the glued seam.  it will be slightly offset.
  4. Cut a triangle of fabric from the top edge of the folded tube to form a point.  We started our cuts about 3-4" down on the length, but you may have to play with your fabric to figure out how much you need to take out to make a clean knot.  Some of our fabrics were stretchier than others, so we adjusted as went went along.
  5. Turn your cut fabric tube right side out.  Now you have two options for forming the top knot of the hat.  You can either open up your tube, bringing the seamed edge to the folded edge to form two points on the sides or you can simply unfold so that the point is in the middle, with the seamed edge on one side and the folded edge is on the other.
  6. If your are tying the two points together, bring them to the center and tie in a knot.  This forms tiny 'ears' at the end of the knot.  The bunny ears seemed to be easier for some of my girls to tie and the stretchiness of the fabric seemed to make a difference as well.  Bunny ears worked better on the less stretchy knits.  Use a simple, single knot on itself if you leave the points together.
  7. Adjust your knot so that it leaves as much fabric as possible below the knot.  This will make the hats more adjustable and able to fit a larger range of babies.
  8. Fold about 3" of fabric back under to the inside of the hat.
  9. Turn up a cuff on the outside.  Your cuff now should have the right side of the fabric showing.
  10. Make as many as you can and present them to your local community hospital too!
We made about 36 of the 'large' hats and 23 of the 'small' hats using about 3 yards of fabric. We made these 'itty bitty baby hats' for the tiniest of babies, but you could certainly add some length and width and use the tutorial to make simple hats and receiving blankets for full-term babies as well.  The fabric glue says its washable after 48 hours, but if I were making these as a shower gift, I would probably sew my seam instead.  Otherwise, the rest can be done the same way!


The girls also cut 18" square blankets from flannel (again because it doesn't ravel) and glued ribbon around the lids of 13 photo storage boxes to be used as memory boxes for these families.  The nurses typically bath and 'dress' the baby in a hat and blanket before presenting them to the parents, and these items will be placed in the memory box as a keepsake, along with pictures, footprints and other things, when the family leaves the hospital.

We will be putting everything together and plan on presenting it to the labor and delivery staff next month.  This has been a fun and rewarding service project already and I know it will mean even more to the girls when they present their handiwork to the hospital.  I am humbled by their compassion for families that hold a special place in my heart as well and honored to work with such a great group of girl scouts!

If you are interested in understanding more about stillbirth and infant loss and what you can do to help, visit First Candle, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and National Share.

Sharing this special project at some or all of these great parties: Under the Table and Dreaming, Totally Overflowing with Creativity, Three Mango Seeds, Classy Cutter, Serenity You, House of Hepworth, Skip to my Lou, LadyBug Blessings, Nap Time Creations, The Style Sisters, Polkadots on Pararde, Rae Gun Ramblings,Costal Charm, Not Just a Housewife, Domestically Speaking, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Sumos Sweet Stuff, The Gunny Sack, Gingersnap Crafts, Southern Lovely, Lil Luna, Someday Crafts, The NY Melrose Family, The DIY Dreamer, The Blackberry Vine, Homeworks, The Rustic Pig, Cornerstone Confessions, Kathe with an E, House on the Way, PJH Desgin, Glued to my Crafts, The Crafty Blog Stalker, Seven Alive, Made in a Day, Live Laugh and Love, A Creative Place, Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson, Home and Gardens, It Happens In a Blink, I Gotta Create, Domestic Super Hero, All Pretty Things, Katie's Nesting Spot, 52 Mantels, Truly Lovely, Twinkle in the Eye, Happy Hour Projects, Six Sisters Stuff, Tutus and Tea Parties, Mop It Up Monday, Saturday Show and Tell, Moonlight and Mason Jars, The Scoop, Wow Us Wednesdays, Take-A-Look Tuesday

Monday, October 14, 2013

Dryer Vent Pumpkins!


My BFF was in town this weekend and you know when she's around there's going to be some crafting going on!  She brought this totally fabulous project with her, courtesy of some of her crafty relatives (I just wanna make sure I am giving credit where credit is due here!) and we went to work making a peck of our own!


Yes, that's the burlap candy corn bunting Sheep and I made a couple of years ago.  If you're interested, you can get all the details here, but let's get back to pumpkins, shall we?

Here's what you will need:
Dryer vent
Wire cutters
Scissors
Glue gun and/or flexible wire
Stems
Spray paint
BLING!


Dryer vents come in different sizes, but the standard vent will make approximately 7 medium pumpkins.  Our medium pumpkins measure about 9" in diameter.  We cut our dryer vents every 32 rings, using scissors to slice through the aluminum and wire cutters to snip the wire form.  They are very Slinky-esque, so just imagine cutting a Slinky every so often and you've got the idea.

I wired some together, threading a fine gauge wire through a large needle (needs to have a large eye) and just whip stitching it closed around the wires on both ends.  My BFF preferred the glue gun method, and although I think it might have burned her fingerprints off, it did seem to go faster, so I switched to glue too.  But take your pick, it will work either way.


Once your glue is dry, they are ready to paint!  We started with a can of bright orange and a can of harvest orange, but we quickly decided to raid the paint shelf and did some other fun colors as well!  The bright orange seems more Halloween-y to me while the fall orange seems like it would work well all the way through to Christmas, but having both is even better!


I started out pretty simple on my decorations, and tried to stick to decorations that I already had in my craft room - but we both knew it wouldn't last!


What can I say?  I am a chronic over-embellisher!
But aren't they adorable?!?!
I am sooo happy with how they turned out!


Most of the bright orange I decided looked best with Halloween decorations.  By this time, my BFF was getting upset with her pumpkin decorating skills and it was threatening to start raining again,so she decided to leave me to it and go paint the rest in hopes that we could make a little moo-lah for the holidays!


Simple or deluxe, I think they look great!  And I must say they are even cuter in person!


And I am working on more this afternoon!  Leave me a note and tell me which one is your favorite. I'd love to hear from you!

Sharing this sassy project at some or all of these great parties: Under the Table and Dreaming, Totally Overflowing with Creativity, Three Mango Seeds, Classy Cutter, Serenity You, House of Hepworth, Skip to my Lou, LadyBug Blessings, Nap Time Creations, The Style Sisters, Polkadots on Pararde, Rae Gun Ramblings,Costal Charm, Not Just a Housewife, Domestically Speaking, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Sumos Sweet Stuff, The Gunny Sack, Gingersnap Crafts, Southern Lovely, Lil Luna, Someday Crafts, The NY Melrose Family, The DIY Dreamer, The Blackberry Vine, Homeworks, The Rustic Pig, Cornerstone Confessions, Kathe with an E, House on the Way, PJH Desgin, Glued to my Crafts, The Crafty Blog Stalker, Seven Alive, Made in a Day, Live Laugh and Love, A Creative Place, Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson, Home and Gardens, It Happens In a Blink, I Gotta Create, Domestic Super Hero, All Pretty Things, Katie's Nesting Spot, 52 Mantels, Truly Lovely, Twinkle in the Eye, Happy Hour Projects, Six Sisters Stuff, Tutus and Tea Parties, Mop It Up Monday, Saturday Show and Tell, Moonlight and Mason Jars, The Scoop, Wow Us Wednesdays, Take-A-Look Tuesday

If you enjoyed this pumpkin decorating idea, check out these other great Halloween idea posts!
 




Pumpkin Primpin'
Meet Mumpkin!

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Witch's Feet Teacher Treats




I came across these cute little feet on Pinterest here and just knew I would be making these for Halloween someday - 'witch' turned out to be sooner rather than later because our teacher appreciation gift rotation at Snack's school started this month and I swiped October for myself!

Of course I did make a few changes from the original.  Mainly because I was scrolling through the idea on my phone at the scrapbook store and couldn't get the link to the tutorial to load {Groan} so I had to get creative on some of the particulars - but they turned out really well I think!

And once you get the hang of it, these go together pretty quickly.  So here's what you'll need:


The boots were made from a piece of 4" x 12" black cardstock, so you can get three boots from a single sheet of scrapbook paper.  I made my own template for these by simply drawing a boot, cutting it out and then flipping it over so that it would be a single boot wrapped around my Oreos.  Afterwards, I discovered that the link that wouldn't load eventually takes you to a printable template, so I didn't include mine here.  But this is a simple shape, so you could certainly do this yourself too!

Once you have all of your boots cut, assembly is pretty simple too!


1.  Start with your cut out boot wrap.
2.  Wrap (don't fold) your boot so that the fronts come together and hold in place.
3.  Punch two holes in your boot where laces might normally go.  Make sure to punch them fairly deeply into the boot so the holes don't tear through when you thread the ribbon.
4.  Thread a 11-12" piece of ribbon through the bottom two holes, going from outside to inside.
5.  Cross ribbon over inside boot and pull out top tow holes to lace up the boot.
6.  Tie a loop in your ribbon on the outside.  Fill loop with tulle or more ribbon if desired (I did of course!)
7.  Once you have laced up your boot, glue the toe of your boot together.  You will now have a hole at the back of the boot to slide in your sleeve of Oreos.


FYI - One package of Halloween Oreos will make three Witch's Feet Teacher Treats - one row per boot, so you can plan accordingly.  I also recommend buying extra cookies so your children flying monkeys have some to eat while you assemble them!

I tied tags (made with the die-cut machine at the scrapbook store) to the tops of the sleeves of Oreos that simply said "You're Spook-tacular!"  These went out to 23 teachers last week (Whew!) and my teacher appreciation committee duty is DONE!

I already had ribbon in my craft stash, so I only needed to buy paper for the boots and tags.  The most expensive part of this craft is definitely the Oreos. They worked out to about $2.50 per boot and the teachers loved them!  What a great way to say Thank You to some great ladies at a truly great school!

Let me know if you have any questions when you try them, and . . .


Sharing this sassy sussie at some or all of these great parties: Under the Table and Dreaming, Totally Overflowing with Creativity, Three Mango Seeds, Classy Cutter, Serenity You, House of Hepworth, Skip to my Lou, LadyBug Blessings, Nap Time Creations, The Style Sisters, Polkadots on Pararde, Rae Gun Ramblings,Costal Charm, Not Just a Housewife, Domestically Speaking, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Sumos Sweet Stuff, The Gunny Sack, Gingersnap Crafts, Southern Lovely, Lil Luna, Someday Crafts, The NY Melrose Family, The DIY Dreamer, The Blackberry Vine, Homeworks, The Rustic Pig, Cornerstone Confessions, Kathe with an E, House on the Way, PJH Desgin, Glued to my Crafts, The Crafty Blog Stalker, Seven Alive, Made in a Day, Live Laugh and Love, A Creative Place, Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson, Home and Gardens, It Happens In a Blink, I Gotta Create, Domestic Super Hero, All Pretty Things, Katie's Nesting Spot, 52 Mantels, Truly Lovely, Twinkle in the Eye, Happy Hour Projects, Six Sisters Stuff, Tutus and Tea Parties, Mop It Up Monday, Saturday Show and Tell, Moonlight and Mason Jars, The Scoop, Wow Us Wednesdays, Take-A-Look Tuesday