I'm a liar

Haha, okay. I totally a abandoned this blog. I didn't mean to! It wasn't my intention. The holidays got the best of me and I forgot this blog existed. Now that I have a teething toddler on my hands, I can't promise I'll be any better. Although, I will try my best to post when I can. Please don't hate me. 

I haven't abandoned this blog!

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I'm sorry! I've been working on some projects that have taken longer than expected, but once I have a few things done, I will be able to tell you all about it! 

Ghost Toes!

After my failed salt dough pumpkins, I still wanted something Halloween-themed involving Peyton. I found some extra paint and stuck her foot on some paper. Voila lol. 

Salt Dough Pumpkin Imprints

I saw this idea on Pinterest, and I had to try it!!

Things You Will Need:

-salt dough (recipe below)

-acrylic paint

-small child, preferably your own

Salt Dough Recipe:

-1/2 cup salt

-1/2 cup flour

-1/4 cup water

 Knead until dough forms; you'll want it on the dry side. Add more flour if needed.

What We Did:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. I mixed up the dough and made two pumpkin-shaped blobs on a foil-lined baking sheet. Then, I stuck her foot in each pumpkin. 

Put in the oven and bake for 3 hours. 

(These didn't turn out well- the dough was too wet! I tried them again, but stuck her hands in them instead of her feet.)

Once they dried, I painted them with the acrylic paint. 

They look like ornaments instead of pumpkins; oh well! Haha, we had fun :)

Autumn Leaf Handprints

After going on a Pinteret frenzy for two days and occasionally going outside for some fresh air, I came up with an easy autumn craft I thought would be fun to do every year. 

What we used:

-leaves (autumn colors, but still flexible; don't use crunchy, brown ones)

-mod podge 

-non-toxic paint 

-scissors

Optional supplies:

-glitter

After walking my dog this morning, I noticed my neighbor has a big tree in his back yard with very pretty leaves.

Peyton and I knocked on his door and I asked if I could steal some of the leaves off of the tree. He said I was silly and I could have as many leaves as I wants. He even helped me reach the extra pretty ones on higher branches! 

Once I found the leaves I liked the best, I grabbed some mod podge and pasted the leaves to some paper. 

I wanted them to be as flat as possible, but I didn't want them to accidentally get glued to the pages of a book or anything, so I found the areas of the leaves that I wanted flatter, set tea light candles on them, and then set a notebook on top. 

After about 15 minutes, I took the notebooks and candles off, just to make sure they didn't get stuck. 

Choose a bunch of leaves. It's safe to assume they won't all be perfect and a few of them will get messed up. 

Once the paste dries, choose a paint color you think would look nice. I chose orange to stick with the autumn theme. 

Now, this was the tricky part for me. You might want another person to help you, depending on how old your child is. I did this by myself because I was trying to surprise people with these little gifts.  Take your non-toxic paint, choose either a hand or foot, and brush on a thin layer. Once the paint is on, gently press on the leaf. 

I chose Peyton's hand and she didn't really want to open her hand once I put paint on it! Her handprints kind of smudged all over the leaves haha. 

 

I outlined her handprints with a little bit of mod podge and added some glitter to highlight them. 

Then I painted a generous amount of mod podge on top of the leaves to seal in the glitter and to preserve the leaves. 

It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it made me happy. The next time I go to the craft store, I'm going to get one of those wire trees so that every year, we can add a new leaf to it. 

Twine Pumpkins

My mother in-law, Teri, called me the other day and said, "Come over. We're crafting."

Anyone who knows me knows I can't turn down something like that! When we got to her house, I saw we were going to be making twine/string pumpkins while the boys played with Peyton and watched football.

Here's what we used:

-Orange string (twine, yarn, whatever you prefer)

-balloons

-mod podge

-wax paper

-plastic (or paper) bowls

-plastic cups (solo cups)

-various decorations (lights, ribbon, Halloween ornaments, etc.)

-hot glue gun

Teri had taken the string from its original shape/wrapping and wrapped it into smaller balls, so we each had one, and had them sitting in a bowl of mod podge.

Then we blew up balloons to the size we wanted our pumpkins to be. I ended up having three; small, medium, and large. Baby, mommy, and daddy pumpkins. I know, I'm cheesy. Set some wax paper under the bowls and on the counter. If you're anything like us, you also might want to put wax paper on the floor and wear an apron...

Take the end of the yarn not in the glue and tie it around the end of your balloon. 

Get ready to get messy. Start wrapping the glue covered strong around your balloon. 

 

Wrap and wrap and wrap and wrap...

I started just spinning the balloon in my hands and letting the strings stick where they landed. There's no pattern to this. Go crazy.

Once you think there is enough string wrapped around your balloon, set it on a plastic cup over some wax paper to let it dry. This step take a few days and you'll want to occasionally rotate your pumpkins so they don't glue themselves to the cup. 

When they're completely dry, take a pin and poke the balloon. It'll make a funny crackling sound as it separates from the pumpkin form. (If the balloon gets stuck inside, cut a small hole in the bottom and fish it out.)

Even when dry  the pumpkins are very flexible, so you can push in the tops and bottoms to make them take on a more pumpkin-esque shape. 

Here's the tedious part: Lighting. 

On the smaller pumpkins, I found the biggest gaps between the strings on the bottom and fed a string of lights through it. 

 

On the larger pumpkin, I had cut a hole in the bottom because the balloon got stuck. 

I wanted the lights throughout the pumpkin and not just sitting at the bottom, so I looped the first light through string gaps at the top of each pumpkin:

Then I used thin wire and "went fishing" for more sections of the lights on various areas of the pumpkins. Peyton helped me test the lights: 

Once the lights were done, I took wired brown ribbon to form stems, green ribbon for the greenery, and used the hot glue gun to glue them to the pumpkins.

(We found green ribbon we liked that wasn't wired, but I made it wired. Take two pieces of ribbon and glue a thin piece of wire between them.)

Finally, add any other little decorations you like! I found a glittery spider! 

(The spider has a clip so I can use the pumpkins throughout autumn, not just Halloween.)

Tah-dah!

Finally Auntumn

When we woke up the other day, it was 45 degrees. For Florida, that's cold! We were all very excited, though. It meant autumn was officially here! Sweaters! Pumpkin spiced everything! Pants! 

(It has since warmed up considerably, but dangit we had fun that day)

I put my daughter, Peyton, in her little fur vest, we picked up Grandma Susie, and headed down to St. Augustine for a day outside. 

After walking around for a few minutes, we found a cute little garden cafe and grabbed some lunch. I had fried green tomatoes!

Peyton's favorite part of the day was people watching! 

St. Augustine definitely has some interesting folks to watch... We even saw a woman carrying a dog (who was wearing a hat...) in one of those expensive baby carriers you wear on your chest.