Happy Halloween 2014!!

 I let the kids decorate their basement fort however they wanted with extra halloween decorations that we had on hand.  I made the new sign yesterday!

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I had fun decorating my 'chicken coop' Halloween style earlier this month as well.

Our front room:

 This bat chandelier thing was my project for the month that never really got down.  Pottery Barn Kids sold the inspiration version for $59.  I spent $6 on two embroidery hoops, painted them black and attached card stock bats with fishing line.  Getting the thing balanced and hung was tricky.  I also had black tulle to add to the top, but I'll have to do that for next year:)

We have a couple games for the night:

Chocolate eye ball spoon race!

Candy corn bean bag toss!

 All ready for the costume kiddos:

Lucky, Charm and I painted these signs on cardboard to put up in our front yard.  I stapled them to dowels.  I have to get our porch and front yard all decorated yet this afternoon!  

I hope you all have a great night and a fantastic weekend!!

Treat or Treasure?

Oh blog, how I've wanted to keep you more updated, but this is a busy season in our life, and unfortunately, when something has to take a side to real life, Sunshine On the Inside is the first to go. We have some catching up to do.  Perhaps this winter?:)

On the way home from school one day Charm said, "Instead of trick or treat, I want to say treat or treasure on Halloween."  I liked that idea and when I found out about the Teal Pumpkin Project and its aim to raise allergy awareness, I ran with the treat or treasure idea this year.

This pumpkin cut out will go on my door (because I waited too long to pull out the teal spray paint on a faux pumpkin:)):

This pumpkin image printed on teal-ish cardstock.

I made a little Oriental Trading Company order a couple weeks ago when shipping was free and there was a gift certificate incentive:

I purchased a set of pumpkin bags, a roll of pumpkin stickers, a couple packs of mini bubbles and some jumping spiders.  Lucky worked non stop to fill all of the bags until the bubbles ran out!  

The result is a basket full of Halloween treasures that will be fun for all kiddos!

And we will have a 'candy option' at our house too.  I used leftover spiders from the Teal Pumpkin Project and leftover kisses from Lucky's Candy Land birthday party to make these bags:

Truth be told, I saw the idea on Pinterest weeks ago, and was excited when I had everything I needed on hand today.  I just printed off the bag toppers that I created in Word and stapled them on to the leftover bags from Lucky's big party.

And *fingers crossed*, I hope to write again tomorrow with some new Halloween decorations that we made/purchased/enjoyed this year!

Christmas Castle

Lately, my stay at home mom brain has been swirling with thoughts of homemade Christmas presents for my kiddos.  I realized that I never posted about Charm's Christmas 2013 present from Lucky and me, and in the spirit of catching up (a la birthday party posts:)), here it is:

If it looks very similar to this castle, it's because it was my inspiration of sorts.  I found the unfinished castle at Michael's for $12 with a coupon, and I thought, I can paint that and save some money:).  It's funny now, because after buying action figures for the castle, I think I maybe saved $10, and painting it front, back and sides wasn't exactly a quick project.  Ah well.  I used acrylic paint and then sealed it with AFM Safecoat Acrylacq.

Lucky and I made this very homemade looking dragon puppet from scratch.  We didn't use a pattern or anything, we just went for it using fabric we had on hand already!  We thought Charm could use the puppet and castle together.

After we gifted the castle and puppet to Charm, we had him draw up some shields to put on the front door like a coat of arms.  I made a couple too.  We laminated the shields and attached them with some velcro stick dots, so they can be changed out.

Even though, this gift wasn't a big 'money saver', it still is a keeper!  Charm plays with it often, and we all love knowing we made it together.

Now, it's time to see about crafting presents for three kids this year!  I'm thinking about giving them all the same thing, but we will see if my mind changes in the next couple months.  Crazy to think that Christmas is only 2 1/2 months away.  This year has flown!

Have a wonderful weekend!