Halloween Treat Bags- 2

Since there's still a couple of weeks until Halloween, there's still some time to think about creating some handmade treat bags for your little trick or treaters! This year I was determined to make mine from materials that I already had on hand. No more buying stuff! So, that meant some rummaging through my craft room and closet, and a trip to the bookshelf. What I decided on was a can't-get-any-simpler design that used only 2 materials and one technique! 

Trick-or-Treat bags

Materials needed:

book pages from an older(ish) book 

black scrapbook paper 

sewing machine

*party favors or candy

a quick how to: 

- carefully remove pages from the text book. The advantage to using a vintage book is that the binding and glue will also be equally as old and the pages tend to slip out easily, plus I love the yellowing of the pages-it lends that old eerie feel to the treat bags.

- create the bat wings by first making a stencil of the size you would like the wings to be. Then trace your stencil onto the black scrapbook paper and cut out wings. 

- decide on how large you would like each bag to be. To make the large bags, I used 2 sheet of book paper and sewed them together to form a pocket/bag. To make a small bag, I simply folded one sheet of paper in half and sewed the outside edges together to form the bag. *Don't forget to sew the wings into place! 

Now you get to decide what treats to fill the bags with! 

I had alot of party favors left over from Halloween's past. So, the kids and I sorted through our stash and made 2 groups, 1 group of favors for the large bags and 1 group for the small bags. 

The larger bags were filled with tattoos, paper airplanes, pencils, game books, erasers, random plastic Halloween toys, rings and paper bat confetti. 

The smaller treat bags were filled with bracelets, rings, stickers, and little packages of candy corn - that was Chase's contribution, apparently candy corn is a must have for the 4 year old crowd. I should probably also mention that the candy corn is not left over from past Halloween's, but rather an impulse purchase by said 4 yr. old at the grocery store this week. 

Once you've filled each bag fold the tops over and staple close.  I have to admit that I really do enjoy seeing them all neatly lined up in my urn and I know I'll miss seeing them sitting out on the table come November 1st, but it's a double win for being able to use up the Halloween favor stash and for repurposing an old book!

Well, that really is all there is to it - I told you id would be super simple! You're only a couple of steps away from creating a whole bunch of these cute handmade treat bags for Halloween this year! 

Happy crafting this weekend! 

a pretty, I mean spooky, Halloween

Halloween has officially arrived at our home! I worked on and off for about a week to get the front yard decorated. I'm guessing it took me so long because this is the first holiday in the new house and it took some extra time to arrange and rearrange everything.... and this yard is much smaller than our previous home so getting everything to look just right has been a rather daunting task. 

In keeping with tradition, we chose a theme for costumes and decor and then last week we (as in Alaina) changed our minds about doing an Alice in Wonderland theme and have decided we will all dress as vampires this year. (She's really been into the Monster High stuff.) That also meant that all of the decor ideas I had to match the Alice theme, no longer applied. No Cheshire cat in the tree, no colorful flowers lining the walkway, no heart and playing card garland and no pink flamingos. I'll have to save those ideas for maybe next year. Instead, we're going with a little more dramatic decor in keeping with the whole vampire theme. I've brought out some really inexpensive silver platters, silver vases, used lots of gold and silver glitter to make things look less spooky and more glam and those pink plastic flamingos well I found a new use for them!

A little black spray paint, a very steady hand and some sparkly glitter turned those tacky pink flamingos into some very leggy undead birds! I painted 2 of them and let them hang out in one of the graveyards, I think they're a nice touch even if people don't recognize them right away. :) 

 

Well, I had resolved not to do any more decorating today but I just thought of a fun Halloween craft for the kids so we're off to pick up some paint and extra paint brushes at the store. I'm thinking some big Halloween flowers to decorate the rest of the bushes might be a good way to spend a Saturday evening! 

a little of alot

The end of summer (the kids staying home part of summer, not the actual summer) kind of came up out of nowhere. There was back to school shopping, meetings, back to school nights, Dr. apts., more back to school shopping, and then there were all the things that I wanted to do with the kids before they got too busy with the new school year. Plus, I hadn't finished my summer reading book-list and there was a bunch of scrapbooking type projects to start. I needed to prioritize, which meant cutting back on things that I felt take up time that I always seem to be limited on. Blogging, I have a love-hate relationship with my blog. Sometimes it can be fun, sometimes I get almost resentful because I feel like it's eating up time I could be spending doing something else, and sometimes I just forget that it's even here. Love-hate at it's best. 

Then, I woke up today, peeked outside to see low grey clouds blanketing the mountains behind the house, the light tink-tink-tink of rain on the tiled roof above, and I thought: today is the day. Funny how the onset of a cloudy-drizzly day can make a hectic schedule seem to slow down to a much needed relaxed pace. 

So, here I sit... rambling about a few things I've done recently. The most recent is my color post with Crate paper. Colors that border slightly on Summer and a little on Fall. I have all these ideas floating about for Autumn color combinations but I have to be patient and wait! 

 I'm not sure how I ended up being so lucky but these friends came to spend last weekend with us. It's the second time in almost 2 months that we've gotten a chance to spend time with them both! (Jessica somehow convinced Jeff, or Jeffy as my kids like to call him, to drive up to my mom's house while we were there in July) and now she's done it again and they drove down to our little house in the desert last week. How does she do it??!! The last time they visited us in AZ I made up a welcome basket to greet them. This time I decided to forgo the idea of the basket and instead create a welcome jar! I tied this idea into my It's a Wrap post for Crate, there's more photos and details over on the Crate blog. Jessica had hinted that she'd really like a travel kit with the main colors of coral & grey ~ I have such subtle friends. ;) So, off I went to gather all sorts of small embellishments, some new, some found and alot handmade! It's probably one of my most favorite projects that I've put together, I love giving things away, but the idea of filling a jar with little things that I knew she would treasure was the best!

Jessica and I spent the entire weekend gabbing on about upcoming events and collaborations we want to do again, playing in my craft room, digging through my massive collection of fabric, hunting for treasures at a local antique store and cooking up a storm. I haven't cooked so much in a very long time - thank goodness I like to prepare and plan out my menus ahead of time! They sure come in handy when you've been out and about all day. Jessica and Jeff departed on Tuesday after the kids were off to school. The house seemed strangely quiet and empty, I missed them both as soon as they left. I'm truly thankful for how the internet brings people together like - Jessica and I (we met through Flickr, 5 or 6 years ago.) I only wished we lived closer together or at least in the same state! 

Because it's blazing hot outside still, sometimes food looses it's appeal and we end up making smoothies for breakfast, snacks, desserts. I think the kids and I have combined every possible fruit and yogurt together! I love honey-dew mixed with anything, Alaina likes peaches and berries together and Chase, my simple little guy, opts for just strawberries. We make a dessert smoothie of bananas, frozen chocolate yogurt, marshmallow fluff and ice of course.... it's amazing and I don't even particularly like bananas! ;)

I've acquired a few new instruments over the summer, with more on the way this month. Pretty

  soon I may be able to open up my very own instrument museum! jk.... sorta. Lastly just some random photos, they were too pretty not to share, as soon as our heat breaks, another month or 2, I'm taking the kids to the botanical gardens - it will be good to get outside after hibernating all summer long. One of the downfalls of life in the desert - our summers that last up to 5 months. After the 3 week vacation this summer, I'm almost convinced that I'd like to live in California again. Jessica tried for 4 days to convince Peter to move us closer to her, so her and I could be neighbors.... I think it sounds like a fantastic idea! 

Well friends, I need to prep the house tonight before the next set of guests find their way here tomorrow evening. Here's to great friends, being creative, and little kids that make life fun! Good night! 

color challenge & travel pages

My color challenges are back on track over on the Crate blog! I took off the month of July with them, due to all of the CHA excitement and the release of 3 new collections. But now it's August and the commotion has settled enough that the blog has returned to it's regularly scheduled events! If you have time and  like the color-combination I've put together this month come on over and join in! I give away a collection of products every month to the winner of my color challenge! Pretty enticing right? 

I've broke ground on filling up my travel journal! Here's the first couple of pages and a journaling entry.

In other news, I spend last week tracking down a few things my sister requested we send her asap. It's amazing the amount of stuff we take for granted because it's readily available to us. Alaina and I made a care package and Dana at the last minute asked us to find her a fan because the base that she's currently at, in the South, doesn't have air-conditioning. So, being the good sister I  am, I somehow managed to make a fan fit along side everything else we were sending her and I certainly took advantage of the Post Offices' motto of 'if it fits', it ships.' 

I love care packages. Dana use to send me the most elaborate boxes stuffed full of fun random little things while I was living in Hawaii. Now it's my turn to return the favor. I can't wait until Christmas, I've been keeping a mental list of items to purchase and send her. :)

This is the last weekend before the kids go back to school! The summer went by fast, at least I think so, and  now the kids are anxious to see their new teachers and reunite with their friends. I think one last family outing is in order for Monday and then back to school nights, Parents Day, and the first 2 days of school take up the rest of next week.  Welcome back all too busy school schedules! 

paper and photos and Crate

I'm around I promise. Just busy trying to get back into the swing of things on the home front which is taking longer than usual this time! I'm currently preparing a post for Crate Paper set to publish in the am, so I'll be back to update this place some time tomorrow. In the mean time check out Crate's blog tomorrow for my Color Combination challenge - it's oh-so summery this month!