Happy Halloween!

Last year, I shared with you how much Halloween is a source of conflict for me. (You can read about here.)   In a world where childhood obesity is on the rise, where we're learning more and more how sugar negatively affects our bodies, I find it difficult to be a supplier of candy to children.  I don't have conflicts about it being Satan's day or whatever (no disrespect to those of you who do)...no, all my conflicts come from the mass amounts of candy that are piled on top of already candy-holic children.  I just can't do it.  Honestly, I have warm memories of Halloween, both my own childhood recollections and remember my children adorably decked out as Power Rangers, princesses, mermaids, and Star Wars characters.  My house is still decorated for Halloween and I even had a Candy Corn-scented candle burning for this month (which I've completely used up...sigh...it was super cool!)  I'm not a Great Pumpkin Grinch, I swear! 

Buttercup was a LadyBug this year.

Still, I admit to a great sense of relief that Buttercup has reached the ripe old age of 12 and really doesn't want to trick-or-treat anymore.  The issue is made so much easier when you don't have your own child chomping at the bit to go door-to-door in search of the next sugar hit.   Each year, she seems to be invited to at least one Halloween party, so she can pretend to be something/someone else for a few hours and my mother's guilt is assuaged...she still has a "fun" childhood.  (Phew!)

Pretty cute, isn't she?

As for giving out candy,  this is the third year we won't be doing it.  Instead, this is the 3rd Annual Celebration of Dress-Up for Halloween.  Yes, once again this year, we will be putting on our finery and heading out to a real restaurant and enjoying a meal together.  In fact, this year our little tradition has grown and will include some friends of ours who decided it was a pretty good idea.




What a difference a year makes!!!

So, stay safe and have fun and enjoy whatever you all are doing.  It's all good, you know?   Oh, and if you do get some candy, I'd really like a Snickers Bar. 

Easy Peasy Halloween Craft - Jack-O-Lanterns

The world shifted on its axis recently and my family has been the beneficiary of the effects!   Seriously.  Here it is October 3 and my Halloween decorations are up and I've even had time to do some Halloween crafts.

This little one was so quick and easy (and had my neighbors scratching their heads).  It was so easy, I just had to share it with you. 

You'll need: 
bigger empty plastic jar with lid (clean and no label)
orange paint (spray paint or craft paint)
brown or green paint
a straw
something to make the face:  vinyl, sharpies, paint

I had some empty plastic jars (mayonnaise and beef jerky treats) that I washed and removed the labels.  Took them outside and spray painted the inside of the jars orange.  (Seriously, I wish you could have seen my neighbors' faces when they saw me out on the front lawn painting plastic jars orange and surrounded by a bunch of little kids who were watching with tremendous intensity.  It was so funny.)

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah...  Painted the jars orange (we had orange spray paint...very weird)

and painted the lids brown.  Gave it a little more thought and came up with those "kid's cup" straws from restaurant kid's meals and painted them brown, too.  (The neighborhood kids were equally split between brown and green...I had brown on hand, so brown it was!)

Let everything dry and headed downstairs to get some pumpkin face vinyls via my Silhouette machine.  (Have I mentioned how much I love that machine?  It is so awesome...seriously awesome!)

 Once the paint was dry, we applied the faces.  Isn't my assistant cute? 

 Drilled holes in the lids and inserted the bendy straws and added some hot glue to keep them stable.  (Careful drilling the holes...one of the lids cracked when I drilled the hole.)

  Added our battery operated candle and we're ready for nighttime!

The kids can stick these in their windows and I don't have to worry about anything more than dead batteries.  Love it!

Monday Musings - Deliberately Delayed 'til Wednesday!

Okay, so I've been thinking about this for a while, but I didn't want to be a Halloween downer.  A Great Pumpkin naysayer.  A "Grinch" out of time.  Still, I've just got to talk about it.

I find that I can't "do" Halloween anymore.  No, seriously.  I love getting the kids all "costumed up", decorating the house with pumpkins and kitties and not-scary ghosties, but when it comes to trick-or-treating (or the oh-so-silly harvest festivals), I hit a full-stop.  My conscience kicks in and screams "this is wrong".  No, not for religious reasons.

For basic values reasons...

I find that I can't, in good conscience, hand out tons of candy to kids when I think it is so terribly bad for them.  Day in and day out we are bombarded with information about and images of obese or overweight children.   How can I possibly be celebrating them by handing them fistfuls of candy (or encouraging others to do so)? 

I've thought a lot about this.  Really.  I've talked to others about this and a few things become clear:  When we were kids (back when the dinosaurs had recently given up control of the earth and Thomas Edison was close to inventing the lightbulb), candy was not a daily treat.  No.  In fact, I think Halloween and Easter were the "candy" holidays.  Oh, you might have gotten a little bit in your Christmas stocking or a little Valentine's treat, but that was it.  Teachers didn't hand it out for behaving (don't get me started) and moms didn't keep it at home for us.  Nope.  For the average kid, candy was a "once in a blue moon" treat, which is why trick-or-treating was so amazing.  Candy...lots of it...over-flowing...we had stars in our eyes.  We also knew we wouldn't being seeing candy again for a while.

Fast forward a number of years (okay, a lot of years) and candy is ubiquitous.  Teachers hand candy out to students for all kinds of things.  Parents think nothing of the little bag of M&Ms or whatever on a daily basis.  Candy is everywhere, all the time.  And our children are suffering.  A lot.

So, for me, I just can't do it.  I can't give out candy. 

This year, we did our 2nd Annual "Dress-up" for Halloween and I took the kids out for a fancy-ish dinner in their finery and then we went to a movie.  They loved it.  Buttercup spent two weeks putting the finishing touches on her outfit, I pinky-promised to wear a dress (and did), and Valiant wore dress clothes, too (no tie...it was supposed to be fun!).  Even Charming joined us for the evening.  I got us home far past the time last trick-or-treater would have been ringing my doorbell (not answering on Halloween makes me feel horrible).  I know it is not perfect, but I think we're going to fine tune this new "tradition" and make it a keeper.  It works for us.  (I know it would be more difficult if my children were younger...costumes are just so fun and I don't know how I'd explain why we didn't dress-up...maybe we'd begin hosting a party for families...I just don't know.)

So, what about you?  How do you reconcile it all?  Or do you think I'm making much ado about nothing?  Tell me, what do you think?

Halloween Craftiness

If you're anything like me, you've done a lot of crafts that haven't really turned out well, for whatever reason.  Maybe the execution was poor, maybe the muse didn't show up at your house, or maybe it just wasn't meant to be, but whatever, I think we've all done crafty stuff that doesn't turn out well.

Well, I'm happy to share with you a craft that was a) super easy and b) turned out really, really well.  You won't need a Cricut or a Silhouette or any of those other machines that help people create crafty goodness.  (I don't have any of those nifty machines, so my craftiness has to be done by hand.)

You need a 4 x 4 porcelain tile, a printer, some scissors, some Modge Podge, and a wire hanger.  (You can spray paint your tile, too.  I did a few that were spray painted black, but adds a step you don't need to do unless you really want to.)

First, do a quick search for cute/attractive seasonal clip art.  I found mine at Halloween Clipart.com. Print out a few that you like and cut them out.  (See, now we've used the printer and the scissors!)

 Lay out your tile and use the Modge Podge to glue your image to the tile.  (Use something flat to get any air bubbles out from under the paper.)  Allow that to dry a half hour or so, then put a coat of Modge Podge over the entire front of the tile.  Allow to dry.  (Tile and Modge Podge used!  Notice that I painted the tile in this one.)

Take your wire hanger and head to the garage.  Cut a length of wire (about ten inches) and, using pliers, bend it into the shape of a tile holder.  (Finally, the wire hanger!)

Place your beautiful tile on your super cool tile holder and behold the results of your nifty Halloween craftiness.

Admit it!  It turned out well, didn't it?  I'll admit that I like simple holiday/seasonal decorations.  This 4" tile is right up my alley.  Not too cutesy and not at all gruesome; by picking my own clip art images, I was able to pick images that worked for me.  (Notice that they're aren't jack-o-lanterns or skeletons or scarecrows?  Those just aren't my thing.)    I love it when the result matches my imagination!

Awesome Surprises via the USPS

My terrific sister, LoveAphid, sent us all an early Halloween gift package. (She said she sent it early so we'd be able to enjoy it the entire Halloween season. Truly, I think she sent it early so I'd have to start decorating earlier than normal. It worked!) Two of the things she sent (for me - yay!) were these cool cat ornaments. My problem was what to do with them. I'd seen those cool spooky trees, but I've never bought one. Solution? "Hey, Superman, can we (that would mean you) get a tree branch and paint it black and then cut out a base for it so I can hang these awesome Halloween ornaments my little sister sent me?" As always, Superman was up for the challenge. So, what do you think?


I think it turned out so well, I'm already begging for a silvery tree branch for some small white and silver Christmas ornaments. Wouldn't that be terrific?... "Hey, Superman! Where are you going? Wait, come back...I need a favor..."

P.S. Thanks again, LA, I do so heart them!