I can’t believe Halloween is nearly here… Didn’t we just start the school year?! Miss G and I haven’t talked about brining something to share with her classmates this year {yet at least – I’m guessing this little tradition just dies off as the kids get older…?}, but we made these witch’s brew slime favours last year and they were such a huge hit!
Tag Archives: halloween
Witch’s Brew Play Dough Kit
Oh how I love putting together play dough kits! After years and years of them being one of our play staples {as well as our go-to homemade gift}, Miss G sort of moved onto really loving other types of play around the time Sam was born {#sadday}. Then when Sam was finally ready for it, we stuck with our taste-safe baby play dough and our go-to no-cook play dough for a long while before moving onto full-on play dough kits with loads of fun loose parts included, so it’s been a minute. Recently we’ve done a really awesome Little Blue Truck play dough kit {which I’ll be sure to share soon} as well as an autumn spice dough with whole spices, but this witch’s brew play dough kit is our newest kit and it’s been oh so much fun.
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To make it, I started out by making three separate batches of our go-to super squishy, no-cook play dough. This time around, I skipped the Kool-Aid and Frosting Creation packs and simply made unscented doughs in vibrant Halloween-inspired colours using my favourite Wilton gel colourings.
Then it was off to our Halloween bin downstairs to find some fun loose parts to add to our kit. Here’s what Sam and I found {all purchased at Dollarama in previous years}… Some small plastic rats, mini spiders, flies, and ants, some purple bats, and some monster googly eyes.
Of course a play dough kit means a GLIS divided container from Ikea, so we dug one of those out too. {Seriously one of my very favourite things to buy at Ikea. So much so that I always keep a few extras on hand for gifts and fun projects.}
Alright, so here’s how we organized our kit! Our freshly made play dough in one of the big spots {I’d first place this in a big zip-close bag if giving the kit as a gift or storing it for any amount of time as the containers aren’t air-tight}…
Our little creepy loose parts in the small slots in the front…
And some mini ‘cauldrons’ {aka apple sauce containers} and some play kitchen utensils for stirring the brew along the side.
We also tucked our rats in with the cauldrons and utensils as that’s where we had space.
Here’s the finished kit! Wouldn’t this make a lovely gift when paired with a copy of Room on the Broom? Especially for a kiddos with a birthday or party around Halloween? I also love the idea of making these and gifting them to your child’s preschool or Kindergarten class… I mean which teacher wouldn’t appreciate a ready-made sensory activity for her munchkins to enjoy??
The best thing about play dough kits like these? ANYTHING GOES.
Miss G opted to use one of the big cauldrons we use for Halloween goodies for her witches brew…
And Sam stacked his brew up nice and high and layered creepy crawlies in between.
When they were done, the kiddos removed the little bits and bobs from the play dough, sorted them back into the container {awesome sorting practice for kiddos Sam’s age}, and I popped the play dough into a zip-close bag before putting it back into our divided container and closing it up.
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Easy DIY No-Sew Parrot Costume
You know what I’m really good at? I’m really good at doing different kinds of creative projects and activities with the kids, photographing them, and then never ever getting around to sharing them here. Like REALLY good. I’ve got hundreds of projects photographed and waiting to be written up from years previous… There just aren’t enough hours in the day. {Sidenote: Can you believe that for the first 5 years of Miss G’s life, I published a blog post every nearly every single day?! SOOO crazy. Though most of those years were during a time when blogging meant sharing photos and words… There was no need to worry about SEO, pinnable images, amazon links, or getting people to your site via social media, so I guess it makes sense that I’m lucky to get a couple of post up a week nowadays.} Anyways, my goal is to make time to share some of those projects from years past and the first is this easy DIY no-sew parrot costume.
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I mean, how cute is this little parrot of mine?? This was actually Sam’s very first Halloween costume and because it’s actually a parrot cape, he was able to wear it while being worn in the Ergo, which I absolutely loved. I just popped him in the carrier and then put the hood on his head, flattened the cape out over the Ergo like you would a blanket, and loosely tied the ribbon around his little neck. It was perfect.
How did our littlest bubba become a parrot for Halloween? Well, it all started with this pirate princess costume for Miss G… Her first ever purchased costume. She fell in love with it while shopping at Costco and I’ve always said that I’ll make her costumes for as long as she’s happy to have me make them, so… As much as it sort of killed me to buy one after years of getting to make something from scratch, a store-bought costume it was.
And of course every little pirate princess needs a parrot, right? {One that was happy to let his mama make his costume, thankfully.}
Everything required for this little getup? An old red cape we had in our dress up station {though you can find these inexpensively on Amazon and even dollar stores sometimes}, cheap craft store felt, and a glue gun. Seriously, that’s it.
Don’t they make the sweetest little pair?
For a detailed parrot costume tutorial, pop over to CBC Parents and check out our Easy No-Sew DIY Parrot Costume post.
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5 Years, 6 Halloweens…
How this is even possible is beyond me, but here we are, 5 years and 6 Halloweens later…
2010 – Baby G the jack-o-lantern
2011 – Gracen the little blue owl
2012 – Miss G the brown fox
2013 – Super Girl Gracen
2014 – Gracen the mermaid
2015 – Wonder Woman Grae
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Mini Pumpkin People {An Invitation to Create}
Yesterday while visiting The Apple Barn out in Abbotsford, Miss G fell in love with the itty bitty pumpkins scattered throughout the u-pick pumpkin patch. While we’re planning a family trip to pick the pumpkins we’ll carve later in the month, she totally convinced me to buy a couple of mini ones by telling me all about her grand plans to decorate Rosealina and Harold {yes, she even had names for them} with some of the fun craft supplies we keep on our art cart. {I mean how can you say no really?}
Monster Slime Halloween Favours
This year Miss G was really torn between making spider web slime and monster slime Halloween favours for her preschool co-op friends, so we decided to both! I think they both turned out absolutely adorably, but I especially love the simple little faces Grae created for these tubs of monster slime.
Spider Web Slime Halloween Favours
Slime… It’s probably Miss G’s favourite thing to give to her friends when Halloween rolls around each year. I don’t blame her – it’s stretchy and gooey and just plain fun. In the past we’ve done mini mason jars of pink sparkly slime for her ballerina friends and little Franken-SLIME containers for the kiddos that live in our building, and this year we’ve decided on two new types of slime giveaways for her buddies – the first of which is these spider web slime halloween favours.
Paper Bag Princess Costume
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While Halloween may be over for most, today Miss G and I celebrated once again with the wonderful mamas and munchkins of our play school co-op. Now, while she very easily could have worn the mermaid costume I made just a couple of days back, I couldn’t help but make Grae another one… A paper bag princess costume based on one of my favourite Robert Munsch books, The Paper Bag Princess!
Homemade Mermaid Costume
While Miss G may have decided that she wanted to dress-up like a mermaid months ago, in true Jen fashion, I started the costume last night – the night before Halloween {like I did last year, and the year before that}. Honestly – I wanted to start it weeks ago, but I just didn’t have any clue how I was going to pull it off. I’d scoured the internet for clever ideas, but the combination of Miss G needing to be able to walk down flights upon flights of stairs while trick-or-treating and my not having a sewing machine really didn’t turn up any viable options.
5 Cute Non-Candy Halloween Treats
With Halloween just a couple of weeks away, Miss G and I have been talking a lot about what kinds of treats she wants to handout to her friends this year… Of course since she’s a sugar-free kid, we stick to sugar-free treats, which means we have to be a little more creative. This week, we’ve been having fun coming up with all sorts of cute non-candy Halloween treats and we figure that these five snacks would be perfect to share with classmates or friends. They’re all simple to make, they’re all healthy {or at least relatively healthy}, and in the words of Grae, they’re all ‘SOOO CUTE!’
Slime Monsters
As I was looking back at some of the fun things we did last October, I came across our Franken-SLIME Halloween favours. It’s been a long time since we whipped up a new batch of slime and we adore playing with it, so today was the day! While I did think about making green slime and adding some loose parts to stick with the Franken-slime theme, I changed my mind part way through and decided that we’d do several Halloween-ish colours of slime paired with googly eyes and foam parts in order to create slime monsters! …Oh my goodness, am I ever glad I did because Gracen just loved it.
Halloween Through the Years…
Ummm… How on Earth did this happen??
Homemade No Sew Supergirl Costume
Last year, Gracen knew exactly what she wanted to be for Halloween – a brown fox. She decided weeks in advance and never once wavered. This year she wasn’t quite as sure. In the beginning, she was fairly certain that she wanted to be a giraffe or a kangaroo, but eventually the ideas of a lion, hippo, and tiger got thrown into the mix too. I was a little bit worried about how I’d pull off one of those ideas sans sewing machine, so I was pretty relieved when she mentioned being a superhero. That I could do. I showed her a photo of PBK’s gorgeous amazing girl costume, and she was immediately sold (the tutu may have done it ☺). With that, I collected a few craft supplies (some felt, sparkly craft foam, ribbon, self-adhesive velcro, and elastic) and a few awesome and inexpensive pieces from our local H&M {a headband, a teeny purse, shoe wings, and a half price leotard with a tutu attached) and we were good to go. Thinking back to last year’s night before costume, I must enjoy working under pressure, because armed with my glue gun and a pair of scissors, I began working on Miss G’s Supergirl costume last night at 11 p.m. The good news is that because the project involved absolutely no sewing, I was done in 2 hours flat. Yay for that!
Halloween 2013
Today was seriously the most wonderful day… A perfect blend of fun activities and downtime, time at home and time out and about. Gracen had an absolute blast, and as we tucked her in tonight, her last words were, ‘Mama, will tomorrow be Halloween too?’ I wish, sweet darling.
Here is our day in photos…
Starting the day with spiderweb pancakes.
Funny Frankenstein Smoothie
I get such a kick out of making holidays special for Miss G… Perhaps a little too much so, but that doesn’t stop me. ☺ Late last night (okay, early this morning), long after I should have been in bed, I randomly decided to transform Miss G’s usual mason jar into a frankenstein cup.