Reusing Milk Containers for Halloween Fun: Part 2

I've been meaning to get this post out for a while now. We've been super busy and I wanted to have Jon write this post because he's the one that made it with the boys but it's looking like he won't have any time until after Halloween. Jon saw this cool decoration hanging from someone's porch in his mom's neighborhood quite a number of years ago when our boys were more like our girls' ages. He figured out how to make it just by looking at it and I'm hoping that the same will be true of anyone seeing this post who would also like to make it. All you need are 3 (or maybe 4?) clean, plastic gallon milk jugs, an exacto knife, some craft wire, a hole punch, and a black sharpie (actually, when he made this in the past he didn't use a marker, he just cut out the face, so it's up to you).

So, first, make a face on an upside down jug. Shule made this little guy's mug and darkened it in a few times with the sharpie.


Next, take the second jug and draw the lines for the rib cage to use as a guide for cutting it out with the exacto knife. Here are a couple of different views:

Then, cut the top of the third jug off with most of the handle still attached and cut off the neck (or spout or whatever you call it), like in the picture below:


Now, attach that piece, which will serve as the skeleton's groin, to the rib cage by overlapping the two handles and fastening them together with the wire, as seen below:


Attach the neck to the body with wire:


Draw and cut out the leg, foot, arm, and hand bones with the remaining jug like so:

Use the paper punch to make holes for the wire to connect the bones together:



Voila! An extremely inexpensive, environmentally friendly, little guy to spook the trick-or-treaters. This one is on the smallish side, kind of child-like. You could easily make it more adult looking by lengthening the groin with a full jug instead of just the top of one.

Happy Haunting!

Reusing Milk Containers for Halloween Fun: Part 1

On a good milk consuming day our family can easily go through 2 gallons of milk. So we always have these plastic milk containers ready to be recycled or reused. Our first project was inspired by one of my favorite blogs that I follow: Filth Wizardry. The blogger is the mother of two small girls and is super creative and crafty, she also happens to be a complete stranger to me but I love the stuff she does. She posted a lot of great ideas for Halloween crafts but this is the one we chose. Sally calls it Pumpkin Pam. (I thought Jack O' Lantern Jill would be cute, but Sally didn't go for that one).

Here's what you need:

• a clean plastic milk container
• orange craft paint
  
• black electrical tape to cut out shapes for eyes, nose, & mouth
• decorations for the top- we used ribbon (Sally wanted hers to have a bow), green pipe cleaner, and some cool leaf garland I had lying around, Filth Wizard used some green tissue paper, pipe cleaner, and some nice fake leaves- you can use what ever floats your boat :)
• items not shown: scissors, paintbrushes, and exacto knife
  

Sally had a blast painting it orange; it was a nice easy paint job for a preschooler.

After it was dry, I cut shapes for the eyes, nose, and mouth out of the electrical tape and let her put them on.

Jon cut out part of the back behind the handle with an exacto knife so it can be filled with candy while trick-or-treating or be used as a decoration with a flashlight lighting it up.

I made a little twisty vine out of the pipe cleaner to put on the "stem" but Sally said, "How I do that?" So, I let her make her own. Sometimes I forget how much she's capable of doing now.

Here it is with a mini flashlight- it'd probably look cooler with a different type of light, but I wouldn't suggest using a candle- unless you like the smell of burning plastic ;)


Sally's loving her new Pumpkin Pam
(thanks to Aunt Tammy for the awesome new pajamas!)

Fever Forts

Here's Shule's fort- basically his blanket hung down
from the top bunk- but still nice and cozy.

Well, we had great plans for fall break but you know how it goes with "the best laid plans..." We were going to go to the zoo, the art museum, the park every day, and then camping with friends tonight and tomorrow night, then the pumpkin patch on Saturday.

Let me update first a little bit. The girls had little colds last week that resulted in canceled play dates, then Shazer got sick in the middle of the week resulting in school absences but everyone was feeling better when we headed down to Tucson last weekend to see Tammy, who was in town for Austin's cousin, Billy's, wedding (I was too busy having fun to remember to take pictures so I'll post some later when Tammy sends me some of hers).

We had a really good time with my sister. She totally spoiled the kids. Each kid got their favorite colored plastic trick-or-treating bucket full of Halloween candy, spider rings, spooky t-shirts, rubber spiders, skull cups, coloring books- these things were overflowing with Halloween goodies. She even set up an amazing treasure hunt for the older kids and then took us all to see Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs in 3D- her treat! It was a great movie and a lot of fun- Sally sat pretty well most of the time and Jon had stayed at my parents to nap with Sophie, so it was nice not to have to worry about keeping her happy. When the kids went to bed Friday night Tammy taught us big kids to play a fun card game called Doughnut, that's when my Dad informed us that he was feeling sick but continued to play until he and Tammy had sufficiently whooped Jon, Frankie, and me.

While Tammy and Austin were at the wedding, my kids continued to get spoiled by my mom who'd bought the Monsters vs. Aliens movie for them to watch. She also let Sally help bake cookies (which resulted in some super yummy butterscotch/cinnamon/oatmeal cookies in spite of Sally having dumped almost an entire bottle of cinnamon in the batter when my mom wasn't looking). My mom also brought out surprises for the girls: a new Sleeping Beauty dress and crown for Sally to play dress up in and two matching fancy dresses for both girls to wear for Christmas. The matching dresses were really more for me, even though the girls do enjoy dressing up ;)

On Saturday evening, before heading out of town, we went over to Anne & Wolfgang's for dinner and had a nice visit with them, Gill, and Linda. Anne gave the boys Einstein bobble heads that she had brought back from her Smithsonian summer internship, and she had a cool floor puzzle for Sally and Sophie.

By the time we got home late Saturday night, kids were completely exhausted and when we woke up Sunday morning we were all starting to feel sick. I had a bad ear ache and sinus pressure until Wednesday, but my throat is still hurting and I have some general achiness. Right now, Sally is feeling the worst of it with watery eyes, runny nose, and fever. Shazer cried last night when we told him we couldn't go camping and that he couldn't go with his friend on his own because we're all too sick. He tried to deny his sickness through boughts of coughing and sneezing, poor kid :( We're crossing our fingers that everyone will feel well enough to go to the pumpkin patch this Saturday night when Jon will be playing again with the cover band, Rock the Doghouse, at Schnepf Farms... but we're not holding our breath.

The kids are feeling pretty cooped up. Sally keeps asking to go to the park and every time someone opens the front door to take the trash out or get the mail, Sophie makes a break for it. I'm feeling really bad for them, and thanks to my mom's paranoid call about the H1N1 virus, I'm feeling a bit worried too. Here are some pictures of the "fever forts" the boys made for the girls to help them have a little fun while they're sick.

Shazer built his fort in the living room and it has been the more novel and therefore popular fort.

Poor thing.

School Supplies Giveaway

I'm totally digging the blog giveaways lately, even though I haven't been lucky enough to actually win one, I'm still loving the possibility. Here's a cool one that my friend, Aubrey turned me on to for free school supplies. I love the beginning of the school year and shopping for school supplies; all the brightly colored folders, markers, and crayons, fresh erasers, and clean paper evoke excitement for all the potential learning and activities that are about to take place. My boys are total art fanatics so art supplies (like markers, pencils, paper) are the favorite around our house, but my personal favorite is the binder- they're great for organizing all that art work, plus other stuff like addresses, memorabilia, and church stuff! Good luck!

Hankering for Halloween

I bought these shirts at Old Navy for a dollar each after Halloween last year. At the time, the sizes made sense but looked so big I couldn't imagine the girls fitting them. It's amazing how much children can grow in just one year!

Mercer Mayer's Little Critter story time at the Changing Hands Bookstore. She wasn't as comfortable with this big guy as she was with the Curious George but at least she didn't run away screaming.

Sally has been immensely enjoying the library's weekly story time for preschoolers. It's being held at a recreation center while the children's section of the Tempe library is undergoing a lofty transformation. We're excited to see the new library but it probably won't be finished until after Christmas. Ms. Jessie is fabulous with the kids, the above picture was taken during a friend finding activity- each child was given half a picture and had to find the child who had the other half. Sally was pretty shy about the whole experience. The pictures below are from the arts and crafts activity after all the reading, singing, and dancing. It has much more of a preschool feel than just a story time.

Finally, below is a video of Sally's Halloween dress rehearsal and the "trick" we've been teaching her to go along with her costume. Sophie will be one of Sally's lost sheep; we're trying to teach her to say "baa" as her trick, but I'm not sure that we'll be able to pull that one off. Shazer will be going trick-or-treating as Link, a character from Nintendo's Legend of Zelda. For his trick, he's learning a tune from the game on an ocarina (a primitive flute type of instrument made from clay, which Jon's Uncle Bill gave him many years ago). Shule wants to be some type of explorer/archeologist but refuses to actually go as Indiana Jones- we're not sure what his trick will be- maybe he can give facts about dinosaurs or something.

I am very much looking forward to getting a break from the usual Sunday responsibilities and receiving some major spiritual edification this weekend. My awesome sister turned me on to a wonderful Conference Activity Packet for kids available at LDSResources.net. It's pretty lengthy but check it out and take what will work for your family. My kids are looking forward to playing the bingo game with M&Ms and coloring the ties of the prophet and 12. Have a wonderful weekend!