1. Peter Pan and the Lost Boys | 2. Where the Wild Things Are | 3. Harry Potter
4. The Royal Family | 5. A Christmas Story | 6. The Wizard of Oz
7. Kiss | 8. Napoleon Dynamite
Whether you’re a household of two or your clan is in the double digits, we’ve collected some ideas to make your Halloween a family affair! Click on the links above to check out these clever costumes from around the web.
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be more present in the moment so that I can fully experience each day. Sometimes time seems to fly by and I don’t want to miss a second of it. This year, to better capture some of the highlights, I’ve created a “Happy Things” jar. When something happens that makes me smile, I’m going to write it down so that when 2014 has come to pass, I can look back at the memories and treasure them always.
Materials: A decorative glass jar (we got ours at Marshall’s for $3.99!), colorful paper, a marker or pen, scissors, and my free “Happy Things | 2014” printable!
Directions:
1. Download the Happy Things free printable and print!
2. Cut out the circular printable and attach to the jar. We used double stick tape so we can easily re-use the jar for something else, but you could also print the printable on adhesive label paper.
3. Cut squares out of colorful paper to make your jar look extra happy! We used a paper cutter and made 3.5″ x 3.5″ squares our of scrapbook paper.
4. Using a marker or pen, write happy things on pieces of paper, fold up, and place in your jar.
Let your kids write their own memories if they can, or ask them what their favorite part of the week was! Their answers, milestones, and cute phrases will make perfect memories for the Happy Things jar.
Click here or on the image below to download your own “Happy Things | 2014” label!
This memory jar is perfect for the whole family. Open the jar at the end of the year and reminisce over all of the wonderful times you all had together!
If you make your own memory jar, please send us a picture or a link! We’d absolutely love to see it. Enjoy!
***UPDATE***
Each year we hear more requests for an updated Happy Things Printable and we are here to deliver! Click below to download the newest printables!
We’ve seen this craft floating around Pinterest so we thought we’d give it a try! This is a super simple project for you and your kids to enjoy! Put on some Christmas music and try not to eat all the m&ms.
Materials: Ice cream cones, white icing, green food coloring, m&ms, red and green sprinkles, coconut, marshmallows, and any other treats you’d like to add!
Directions:
1. Mix 10-20 drops of green food coloring into the white icing until you get the shade of green you like (we used about 10).
2. Using a knife, spread the green icing on each of the ice cream cones and set down on a plate in the arrangement you like (this part is the messiest, so do this for your youngest kids!).
3. Add candies to decorate!
4. Spread coconut around the base of the trees to look like snow.
Tada! Now you have a tasty winter forest that goes great with a neighborhood of gingerbread houses!
P.S. You probably don’t want to eat these after they’ve been sitting out, but maybe Santa’s reindeer might be interested in them…
1. Sled | 2. Snowflake | 3. Christmas Characters | 4. Reindeer | 5. Snowman | 6. Christmas Tree
How cute are these ornaments? All you need for these fun holiday crafts for kids are some Popsicle sticks, paint, glue, and a little imagination! Click on the sources above for full tutorials on each ornament.
Happy crafting!
Happy first day of November! As we gear up for Thanksgiving, we wanted to share some of our favorite table settings!
1. Jenny Hobick | 2. Confetti Pop | 3. Daily Candy | 4. Scout Blog | 5. Nyla Free Designs
We’re so excited to pull together our own table setting and celebrate the holidays with our loved ones. We will be posting different elements from our Thanksgiving table as we create them, so check back soon to see what we’ve come up with!
P.S. Check out our Thanksgiving Table Setting here!
This week we made our very own memory game using family pictures! Pinhole Press makes a beautiful set of customized memory game pieces that make for a great gift! This, of course, inspired us to make our own! It’s a little time consuming, but overall it was a fun project that turned out looking great. The kids love it, and get really excited when they flip over the pieces to reveal pictures of themselves!
We’ve even attached some free PDFs of Vicky Barone’s signature chevron design in three colors so you can print your own! Scroll down and click on the color you like to download it. There are six squares per page so make sure you print four pages!
Materials:
– 24 unfinished wood squares (we ordered ours from here and got them in 3×3 inch)
– Fine grain sandpaper
– Mod Podge
– Foam paint brush
– 12 pictures, printed twice (ours are about 2.75×2.75 inches)
– 24 pieces of patterned paper (Download a free PDF at the bottom! You can also use scrapbook paper or even just paint the back of each square. Just make sure you make them all the same!)
What to do:
– Sand the edges of each of the wood pieces and round the corners. They’re unfinished so they can have a lot of splinters and sharp corners.
– Paint a thin layer of Mod Podge on one side of a square and press on a picture. Let dry.
– Seal the picture using another thin layer of Mod Podge on top. Let dry.
– Once completely dry, repeat with the flip side of the wood square.
Click on the squares below to open the free PDFs in your favorite color!
Happy Father’s Day!
I wanted to share what we made for our very special Dad!
This family hand print collage is all over Pinterest, but I thought I’d put my own spin on it and include a paw print with our hand prints because Cooper Dog is definitely part of our family too.
I traced everyone’s hands (and took pictures of the baby’s and the dog’s as they were uncooperative, but still love their dad!) and scanned them onto my computer. Then I used Adobe Illustrator to create our very own Family Hand Print Collage. I used colors in the blue family because it will go great with our very nautical-inspired bedroom (navy and white) however, this would also work using a variety of bright colors too! If you don’t have access to Illustrator, you could also trace the hands using your favorite scrap book paper.
This is a great gift idea for any holiday!
Happy Father’s Day to all of those wonderful dads out there. We hope you enjoy your day!
Today is Cooper’s 7th Birthday!! We started off the day doing his most favorite activity – playing frisbee in the backyard!
Then we took him on a car ride and walked a local trail around a nice lake. Now he’s snoozing on the couch. He should be resting up because we have more celebrating to do tonight! We baked him a dog-friendly birthday cake and he LOVES to unwrap presents! He’s usually quite the helper when it comes to presents for everyone else so today he can thoroughly enjoy gifts just for him!
For those of you looking for great dog-friendly cake recipe, here’s the one we used from allrecipes.com:
While it doesn’t sound all that appealing to me, I’m sure Cooper will love it! We topped it with peanut butter for frosting and added a little decoration. We’re making real cupcakes so the kids can celebrate with him!
We love you with all of our hearts, Cooper Dog! xoxo
P.S. Check out the “pup”sicle recipe Cooper loves!