Preparing for Halloween

This week we've been getting some additional bits and pieces ready for Halloween. Naturally we had to decorate a pumpkin. I didn't want to arm Naomi with pumpkin carving tools just yet :o))) and was looking for fun alternative ideas. We found these great 'Mr Potato Head' kits so that you can transform your pumpkin into a Vampire, Witch, Skeleton etc, etc... They are perfect for the little ones. The only tip - the grown up really needs to make the hole in the pumpkin first so that the wee ones can just assemble the pieces.  (I use a screw skewer that was made for corn on the cob).





Now we have a pumpkin head Vampire and, because it was so much fun, we returned to the store for a pumpkin head Skeleton! Naomi really loves her pumpkin heads. They are greeted in the morning with a kiss and a cuddle and the same again in the evening before bed. I think there may be tears when they need to 'go on holiday' after Halloween! ;o)

This little plush velvet pumpkin will hang around through Thanksgiving. It was a great find from our Glenwood Springs trip. (If you go to Glenwood Springs I recommend that you peruse through the art center near the hot springs pool - they have all kinds of goodies). I'd picked up the plushie pumpkin thinking I could make some myself... forgetting that there are only so many hours in a day :)



If you are interested in making these, there is a great tutorial below. Maybe after Halloween I'll be able to find some time to make these and use them as Thanksgiving table decorations



On a knitty front I've been working on a Polka Dot cardigan for Naomi with some bright self-striping yarn. We'd had some windy weather here in Colorado the other day and I thought that it might be a nice effect to photograph the cardigan in the colorful leaves that were strewn on our front lawn.

 

My little helper grabbed her camera too to see if she could get some good shots.



Anyway the leaf/photograph thing didn't really work out. So we had fun rolling down the slope of our front yarn in the crunchy leaves instead! Naomi just giggle and giggled!



Maybe I should just stick with the usual white background for pictures of my projects:

 

I've also been putting together some Halloween goodies bags for my nephews. The gift boxes are Martha Stewart favours packages that you assemble yourself. If I had my act together I would have made some goodie bags again this year. But these work just fine :) For my older nephew I found these mini bags of jelly beans. I think these mini bags are fantastic - just enough to satisfy a sweet tooth, but not too much. Plus being individually wrapped, I'll be able to put the rest in our big halloween basket for trick or treat night. My other nephew is a year younger than Naomi - candy wasn't going to work for him. I found these teeny tiny pots of play dough and used them in his goodie bag, selecting the most appropriate halloween colours of course :). I'll be making more of the play dough party favours for the kids at daycare. Makes a nice change from candy. And then any left will also go in our trick or treat basket.

 

Originally I was thinking of decorating the play dough pots to look like monsters. I'd seen this from 'the idea room' and this one from 'Meet the Dubiens' online and thought it was a fabulous idea! However the pots I picked up are teeny tiny... this idea would be better suited to the regular sized pots of playdough.

Hope you are enjoying the autumn and having fun with Halloween preparations,
Sam xxx