Halloween Luminaries

*this is a repost from last year, timed just right for some weekend Halloween projects!

I love a good craft.

I do.

Sadly, this one didn't involve hot glue, but it did involve painting which is really my favorite.

We have a surplus of mason jars this year because the past 3 years, I've canned oogles of veggies and fruit harvested from our garden. But this year we're in a new home and all we managed was some containers with tomatoes and peppers. So, I have TONS of empty and sad jars.

Nothing a little paint and a tea light can't fix!

Supplies: clean pint and quart mason jars, sponge brushes, acrylic paints

 Tripp helped paint one, but shhh! Don't tell him I repainted it!

Basically, all ya do is brush on 1 coat of your paint and allow to fully dry. You can certainly do another for more coverage, but I did not. I let these dry overnight and then, painted the faces on the next morning.

Et Voila!

Add a tea light and you're all set!

Won't these look so festive all lit up on my sidewalk Halloween night?

Cute, Cheap and Easy. My favorite qualities in crafting!

Naturally Dyed Eggs

This was a fun little experiment.

In years past, we've tried our hand at dying eggs with natural ingredients, but never to this full extent. Plus, for a few years we had several Auracana hens and they laid blue and green eggs. No need for much dying ;)

I wanted to try and dye a rainbow of eggs.

I found this cool chart that has all the colors and natural ingredients that will yield such results.

We used grape juice, turmeric, red cabbage, beets, red onion skins, spinach and canned cherries.

The results were not what we expected, but they were all so unique and beautiful! 

Tripp has eaten a LOT of them so I'm not even sure if I have one of each in my pics!

We prepped our ingredients, added enough water to cover the eggs and added 1 TB each of white vinegar and salt. After boiling for about 30 minutes, we put in the eggs to dye. After about 30 minutes, we'd check the color and leave them in longer if we wanted a deeper color. Some I left in overnight.

clockwise: eggs soaking in beet and red cabbage dye, gorgeous red cabbage prepped, beets ready to boil, checking the color of the eggs in the turmeric

stirring his brew

Clockwise from the top: lavender-grey from canned cherries, gorgeous blue from the red cabbage, pinkish from the beets, brilliant yellow from turmeric, and speckled eggplant purple from grape juice

Tripp had a lot of fun with this whole project. 

He liked trying to guess what color each ingredient would produce.

He was really surprise that the red cabbage made blue eggs when the dye was a brilliant shade of purple.

All in all, this was fun and something I look forward to doing again.

Happy dying, y'all!

Keeping 'Em Busy

Felt Mardi Gras Masks

Today's agenda is focused on 1 thing:

 Mardi Gras!

-Make Masks

-Homemade King Cake

-Soaking beans for tomorrow's red beans & rice

The masks turned out so cute and the boys really had fun making them.

Well, Tripp had fun making a mask.

Charlie had fun eating a marker, dumping our supplies out and then, picking them back up to start the cycle all over again.

Notice the marker mouth?

Deciding which treasures to decorate his mask

Meticulously picking out his sequins

Charlie's contribution

Finished!

Checking himself out in the mirror :)

the Mardi Gras monster!

Charlie has yet to let me put his on him, but I will get a pic when he does!

Laissez les bons temps roule, y'all!

Lil' Cookie Monsters

Boo. It's cold and rainy and it was icy earlier.

On top of being stuck inside again, the weather is not very appealing to taking the boys to the Dudy Gras Parade and Red Beans & Rice Cookoff today.

Kind of disappointing...

So, we've kept busy inside.

Tripp wanted to work on his "sewing"

We roasted hot dogs (uncured, ;) of course) in the fireplace for lunch.

Then, we were entertained by the 2 lovely men from Lowe's trying to install our new fridge.

Such a treat!

Will is working to meet a deadline for his Capstone project, so in an effort to keep the boys out of his office, I decided to bake some cookies.

I'm not sure what they enjoyed more...

the making of or the eating of the oatmeal crispies.

Now, I have some red beans & rice of our own going all that's missing is mardi gras beads from the parade.

Despite the yucky, weather, it was a tasty day around the Sanders' home.

The Makings of a Fairy House

My little diva of niece is turning 3.

So, what could be better than a Fairy House?!?!

I've been wanting to make Tripp a Gnome house for a while now, but never have gotten around to it.

A birthday party for Cadence gives  me a deadline, however. 

So, she gets her fairy house.

We made it using all materials we had or found around the house and yard.

It turned out pretty darn cool, if I say so myself.

Ha, ha! The Flower Fairy has a rubber band wrapped around her face.

Oops.

Poor thing.

Tripp and Will worked hard making the house while I whipped up these 2 little fairies.

Tripp decided he wanted to give Cadence one of his gnomes as well.

He's such a caring and sharing little dude.

Up next was adding a little fairy decor and terrain.

Will has really rubbed off on Tripp.

He totally landscaped this fairyville.

I wanted to use the coffee grounds a little more because it was a cheaper means than the fake modeling grass that Will uses for making models for class.

So, I told Tripp we were going to give the fairies a dirt floor in their house and mulch them a front pathway.

He then proceeded to inform me that they needed a mulched pathway to their table and around their campfire. 

The tree also needed mulch around it.

His other prized landscape-architect inspired contribution was the rock garden.

He took out his special bag of rocks and picked exactly which ones he wanted for the fairies' rock garden.

These were all his ideas, too. 

We're not one to trample his creativity with our own ideas.

The house o'fairies really turned out better than I could've imagined.

We had such a blast making it and it cost us basically $0.

All that was left was a test run...

Every Fairy House needs a large dump truck ;)

Boys!

Homemade Wrapping Paper

Being gone for a week right before and everyone sharing a tummy bug the week of Christmas, the holiday crafts were slim pickings this year. 

It's cool though.

We did have time for my favorite one.

Making our own wrapping paper!

I love this for many reasons.

It's cheap, ahem, frugal,

homemade,

 with love

by my cute kids, 

and it's one of a kind!

 Christine timed her visit just right to help out.

Tripp enlisted her skills to paint a Clifford on the paper.

 Life is now complete for this swiper child of mine after dumping and swiping an entire bottle of glitter.

 In use :)

Each year the wrapping paper gets better and better.